Page 82 of Price of Angels

Denise’s frown cut sharp lines at the corners of her mouth. “Don’t bother telling me. I can see your ring, for heaven’s sakes.” She gestured toward Ava’s left hand, where it hung at her side. “Good Lord, Ava, did you have to do exactly what your mother did? Is it some sort of sick game to the two of you? Seeing who can marry the absolute worst excuse for a husband.”

Mercy gathered a breath to say something and Ava squeezed his hand hard.No.

“I don’t want to argue on Christmas,” Ava said. “Mercy and I are married–”

“Can you believe this?” Denise turned away from Ava, toward her husband, throwing up her hands in supplication. “I mean, really, can you believe this? I guess I should have known. Why would I ever think she’d do anything different from what Maggie did?” She threw an awful glare toward Maggie. “You encouraged this, didn’t you? Yousupportedher in this.”

“Denise, honey…” Ava’s grandfather, Arthur, tried to lay a hand on his wife’s arm. He was the gentlest, meekest of men, and Denise had spent a lifetime bulldozing over everything he said.

Maggie drew herself up, chin lifting. “Ididsupport her. Mercy loves her.”

“Listen to yourself,” Denise said in a cold, high voice. Her anger was a controlled, wicked thing. “ ‘Mercy loves her.’Mercydoesn’t even have a real name. And he obviously can’t find his way to a barbershop.”

Maggie began to respond –

And Mercy said, “Ah man, you don’t like my hair?” He was wearing it loose today, and pulled a hand through it, studying the jagged ends with comical interest. Then he looked at Denise and fed her a long string of lilting, eloquent French.

Ava was too shocked to hide her sudden smile.

Everyone in the room was staring at him.

Mercy grinned hugely and stepped forward, hand extended toward Arthur. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced before. Felix Lécuyer, Mr. Lowe. Nice to meet you.” Turning from the handshake, he bowed to Denise. “And you, Mrs. Lowe. Ava’s been saying the best things about you.”

Ava winced.

Denise stared at Mercy with contemptuous surprise.

Arthur grinned.

Ghost said, “Can we all just start drinking already?”

Fourteen

“I want to stop somewhere first,” Holly said as she shut the passenger door with a metallic smack. The vast inside of the Chevelle retained the barest brush of warmth, leftover from the heat Michael had run during his errands. The windshield glass was a higher temperature than the air outside, and the snowflakes were dissolving around their fluffy edges as they landed.

Michael got situated behind the wheel, fit the key into the ignition and shot her a look she knew was disbelieving, just those faint tuck lines around his eyes and mouth. “Where?”

“It’s not far.”

He started the engine – familiar old animal growl of the Big Block turning over – but continued to stare at her.

Her throat tightened; light pressure of stress at her chest. Her eavesdropping had shattered the fragile happiness she’d clung to like so many tattered clouds. It was vapors, the brief joy of her time with Michael, because it wasn’t really hers. He was not her man. They were pretending, passing the time until he’d finished this favor for her, and she’d let this borrowed friendship of theirs distract her from the horrible truth that she’d gotten a girl killed.

“Hol.”

“There’s a house not far from yours. I’d like to stop there on the way, if we can.”

When she wouldn’t say anything else, he sighed and put the car in gear.

The roads were still plagued by traffic, and as the snow collected, tires melted it, smeared it wetly across the pavement, and the cold was freezing it again. There was already a faint slippery feeling as the Chevelle progressed outside the heart of the city, a missing friction that tensed Holly’s stomach.

Michael’s hand was relaxed on the wheel; he was confident and capable in these conditions, and Holly was glad he was the one driving.

“Up here,” she told him, when they reached the proper street. “Take a right.”

The house was white, a small grandmother cottage wedged closely between its neighbors, with a brick stoop and a small round window in the black door. Snow was blanketing its small yard, building in narrow ridges along the branches of the crepe myrtles. Holly had driven past it once before, but only once. Carly had invited her to come over one night, when her boyfriend was out of town. A girl’s night, she’d described it, and Holly had been sick with nerves, and chickened out at the last second.

“That’s the one,” she said, and Michael pulled to a halt along the curb.

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