Page 52 of Price of Angels

“…I’ll talk with the DA,” he was telling Jackie.

She nodded, wings of her red bob swinging against her face. Her expression was one of a trembling unhappiness; her skin looked drawn and too-pale. There was a certain dryness to her, the look of someone who’s done lots of crying and not enough rehydrating.

Ethan squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry until we know more,” he said with a gentle smile.

Jackie nodded again.

Then the attorney turned to them, the pleasing lines of his face drawn into the perfect expression of polite farewell. “Maggie, Ava.” He dipped his head in a little nod. “Always good to see you.”

“You too, Ethan,” Maggie said. “Be sure and come to the New Year’s party. We’ll have plenty of food.”

His mouth turned down in a graceful half-frown. “Maybe I will.” Though he’d never come to a single club function. “Afternoon, ladies,” and he swept around with one last shoulder-squeeze for Jackie and hit the front hall with a stride that suggested a casual confidence. He was an excellent attorney, and as Nell had often suggested, he looked excellent from behind in the tailored suit trousers he wore.

Ava smiled to herself, remembering the words.

And then her eyes fell on Jackie and the smile vanished.

“What’s wrong?” Maggie asked.

Jackie sighed, and glanced down at the toes of her pumps, brushing her hair back from her face. Her shoulders were thin and birdlike inside her blue work button-up, her hip bones narrow points at the tops of her slacks. She was skeletal these days.

“Nothing’s for sure yet, but there’s talk of transferring Collier to the federal pen.”

Maggie drew herself upright. “What for?”

Jackie’s breath trembled. She wouldn’t look at them. “Because he’s a member of an organized crime family…it’s all bogus. It’s just a way to remove him from Knoxville. The DA knows how much the club can still get done from the inside.”

“That’s stupid,” Maggie said. “Who has the room to worry about that shit? Don’t worry. Ethan will get it sorted.”

But Ava had no idea if that was true.

“Come on,” Maggie slid off her stool. “Let’s go get some lunch, huh?”

At Jackie’s unexcited nod, she frowned and said, “I bet Stella’s is too crowded anyway. We’ll hit Bell Bar.” She went to put an arm around her friend’s shoulders.

Bell Bar, and a stiff afternoon martini for the prison wife.

Michael couldn’t remember having a headache this bad. He couldn’t remember having a hangover ever. He had a strong constitution when it came to alcohol.

But he’d been nine the last time he’d contemplated something as horrible as Holly Jessup’s upbringing. His nine-year-old self had cried into his pillow. His thirty-eight-year-old self had upended a bottle of Crown, and now he was fumbling through his kitchen for the aspirin.

His house had belonged, before him, to a widow who’d left behind one child, a son, when she’d passed two years ago. The place had been full of furniture, appliances, the kitchen cabinets packed with delicate blue, white and yellow dishes. “Keep what you want and trash the rest,” the son had told Michael. “I don’t have any use for it and I don’t have time to sort through it all.”

The frilly furniture Michael had sent to Goodwill, keeping only the sturdy, basic pieces that he needed, mixing in the furniture he already had. The kitchen he’d left as is. He only used one plate and glass at a time, but there’d been something that had kept him from boxing it up. Some latent thought that he might have need of stainless flatware and colored china and little linen placemats. Some secret longing for a wife, perhaps.

He was digging through one of the upper cabinets, pushing aside blue juice glasses, when he remembered that he’d taken the aspirin into the bedroom last night.

He was so hungover.

The tidily made bed seemed to stretch forward as he entered the bedroom, the plush chocolate-colored quilt like a soft, welcoming hand, waiting to catch him.

But the comfort wasn’t appealing. Not this morning. He’d left coffee brewing in the kitchen and he shook out three aspirin from the bottle on the nightstand, going into the bathroom to scoop up a handful of water from the tap and swallow them down.

Thankfully, the old widow had shared something of his taste in bathrooms: utilitarian white everywhere, sink with plenty of storage beneath, medicine cabinet with mirror. He turned on the shower and pulled off last night’s rumpled, stale-smelling clothes while he waited for the water to heat up.

He happened to catch a glimpse of his reflection, as he pulled a towel from the cabinet and laid it on the counter. He almost didn’t recognize himself, the way his eyes were bright, almost feverish, gleaming with a strange light inside a face that was clenched tight with an active, vibrating tension. He looked wild, unpredictable, pulsing with energy.

Ghost was wrong. He didn’t need a break; this wasn’t the look of fatigue, overwork. This was purpose. This was, for the first time in a long time, something more than obedience. This was revenge. Revenge by proxy, but no less driving.

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