Where Angels Fear to Tread Read online

  It was a strange fact that many physically or mentally challenged humans seemed to possess a unique gift of sight, as if their disabilities in the natural world somehow made them more sensitive to the unnatural. Very often they were able to glimpse the other side, and those who lived just beyond the veil.

  This little boy could see Remy for what he truly was.

  Angel.

  And he seemed to like what he saw.

  Taking advantage of the sudden calm, the boy’s parents hustled him by, his gaze tracking Remy as they passed.

  Remy smiled, then turned to the reception window.

  “May I help you?” a receptionist asked, sliding back a glass pane and looking at him with unblinking, laser beam eyes.

  “Good morning,” he said, flipping open his wallet and showing her his identification. “My name is Remy Chandler. I’m a private investigator working a missing person’s case, and I was hoping to speak with Dr. Parsons.”

  The woman’s glasses hung on a chain around her neck, and she placed them on her face so she could scrutinize his license. “Missing person?” she asked.

  “Yes, a little girl, Zoe Saylor. I believe she is, or was, a patient of Dr. Parsons’.”

  The receptionist removed her glasses and gazed up at Remy. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chandler, but the laws of patient confidentiality won’t allow us to acknowledge that a child has or has not received care at this hospital.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that, but the child’s mother did call Dr. Parsons this morning. . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Chandler,” she said with a dismissive smile, handing back his identification. “Have a nice day.” Then she slid the window closed as she reached for the trilling phone.

  That was it; Remy was dismissed. It was as if he were suddenly invisible, and that gave him an idea.

  Remy stepped back, as if he planned to leave. Then, glancing around to be sure no one was watching, he willed himself unseen. It was an angelic talent that had proven quite useful over his many years, but it bothered him to use it. Anything that fed the power of the force he kept locked inside him was never a good thing.

  Remy walked past the reception desk toward a bank of elevators, where he found the hospital directory. Dr. Parsons’ office was on the first floor, so he headed down the corridor where he had seen the parents take their child, perusing the names over the doors until he found PARSONS.

  The door was ajar, and he peered inside to find a middle-aged African American man with graying hair sitting at his desk looking over a file. Willing himself visible, Remy tapped his knuckle upon the door.

  “Yes?” the man asked, looking over the top of a pair of bifocals balanced precariously on the tip of his nose.

  “Dr. Parsons, I’m Remy Chandler,” Remy began as he pushed open the door to stand fully in the doorway. “I’m a private investigator.” He pulled out his wallet again and showed the man his identification.

  “Mr. Chandler, you’ve already been told we can’t speak to you,” the man said with a hint of irritation.

  “I guess news travels fast around here,” Remy chuckled. “Look, I have only a couple of very simple questions. Your patient’s confidentiality won’t be affected, I promise. Besides, Zoe Saylor’s mother did call to give her permission for you to speak with me.”

  Parsons closed the file and stood. “A telephone call is not good enough, Mr. Chandler. We must have the parent’s permission in writing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a consultation.” He turned to one of three filing cabinets against the wall near his desk and stuffed the file into the second drawer.

  “I just need to know if Zoe’s father was acting strangely on the day you last saw her or if he said anything out of the ordinary to anyone on your staff. Please, Dr. Parsons, even the smallest piece of information could be helpful,” Remy begged.

  The doctor slammed the file drawer closed, then grasped Re-my’s arm by the elbow and guided him toward the door. “If you’d like, I can ask security to escort you out,” he said tightly.

  Not wanting to cause a scene, Remy simply thanked the doctor for his time and headed down the hall. As soon as he was certain the doctor wasn’t watching him, he willed himself invisible again and walked back to the office.

  Dr. Parsons had gone, so he quickly let himself inside and went directly to the file cabinets. Zoe’s file was in the top drawer of the last file cabinet. Pulling it out, he carried it to the doctor’s desk and began to thumb through the surprisingly thick file.

  He found page after page of test results, therapy evaluations, and dated doctor’s notes, none of which proved helpful. But then in the back of the file, he found something familiar—childish drawings in crayon. Zoe certainly did like to draw.

  Remy flipped through the illustrations, searching for something, anything, he could consider a clue. And then he found it—a crude drawing of a brown-skinned man dressed in what seemed to be green scrubs. Above the figure, the name Frank was scrawled in a child’s hand.

  Frank was in quite a few of the later drawings as well, and in one, he was even in the car with Zoe and her father.

  Remy went back to the beginning of the file and began to search for any mention of Frank. He found it. Frank Downes was an occupational therapy assistant who had frequently worked with Zoe.

  Remy closed the file and returned it to the cabinet.

  He’d found his first good lead; now it was time to find Frank.

  Carl Saylor’s daughter was an angel.

  He glanced over at the little girl, sitting in the front passenger seat of his 2000 Chevy Cavalier as they drove south on I-95, on their way to . . .

  Where? Where were they going? He wasn’t entirely sure.

  Carl knew he shouldn’t have taken her, but it had felt right.

  He’d had to do it.

  Zoe stared straight ahead through the windshield. She was staring into the future; that was what Carl liked to believe.

  He reached across the seat and lovingly patted her bare leg.

  “How’s my girl?” he asked cheerfully.

  She’d been so quiet—even more than usual—since leaving the hospital. He thought she might be missing her mother, but who could tell?

  Who knew what was going on inside her pretty little head? If she wasn’t sitting and staring, she was drawing. He’d had to take away the paper and crayons or that would have been all she did. The doctors at Franciscan Children’s had said they should try to force her to interact with them, with the world around her, and not let her escape into her head, which was where she went when she drew.

  Now her hands lay limply on the seat at her side, fingers twitching, as if eager to hold crayons again.

  Carl remembered how he’d felt when he and Deryn had first realized there was something wrong with their little girl. At first there was disbelief, then sadness, and then came the anger—lots and lots of anger.

  It had been murder on their marriage; like salt eating away at a piece of metal. They’d been so good together, but with the baby being sick . . .

  He honestly believed that they were being punished; that a higher power had struck at them for the sins of their past, even though that sinful past had been so long before. But the offended higher power obviously hadn’t forgotten and had been waiting for the perfect time to illustrate its displeasure with their indiscretions.

  In the early days, Carl and Deryn had been strong. They’d thought nothing could hurt them, and that just showed how stupid they had really been.

  The forces they’d offended had found the one thing that could shake them to their core, striking at their pride and joy, their little girl, and marking her with this affliction.

  So Carl had made himself a promise. He would do anything to make his little girl well, even if it meant making amends with an angry higher power. He glanced at Zoe again; she hadn’t even reacted to his touch.

  Thy will be done.

  Remy eventually found Frank in the hospital’s cafeteria.

  He’d gone by the therapy department, this time posing as a friend of Frank’s, an
d learned that he was on his break.

  He grabbed a cup of coffee, which tasted as though it had been made with the finest dishwater, and then caught sight of a man wearing green scrubs. Could he be Frank? He was sitting by himself, reading from a pamphlet and sipping from a bottle of water.

  “Excuse me,” Remy said, leaning in to be heard over the clatter of the lunchroom. “Frank Downes?”

  Zoe had captured the man’s likeness pretty well, especially his protruding ears.

  The black man looked at him with cautious eyes. “Who wants to know?”

  “My name is Remy Chandler,” he said, pulling out a chair and flashing his identification. “I’m a private investigator, working a missing person’s case. I was hoping you could help me.”

  “I don’t know anybody who’s missing,” Frank said, screwing the cap back onto his water bottle.

  Remy had removed the plastic cover on his coffee, hoping that somehow that would make it taste better. It didn’t.

  “A little girl named Zoe Saylor, and her dad, Carl,” Remy said, sipping the foul fluid.

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I know them,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “Should I?”

  Remy shrugged. “I thought you might. Zoe drew an awful lot of pictures of you, and your name was in her therapy notes.”

  Frank smiled nervously, pushing back his chair as he stood.

  “Mister, I see a lot of kids here every day,” he said. “Lotta pictures too. Sorry I can’t be more help.”

  And that was that.

  Remy watched as Frank left the cafeteria; he knew full well the man knew more than he was sharing.

  Frank was hiding something. Now all Remy had to do was figure out what it was.

  There was a Starbucks not far from Franciscan Hospital for Children, and Remy took a brief respite from his detective duties to grab himself a decent cup of coffee.

  He sat in his car, the AC running against the August heat, while he sipped his coffee and mulled over his options. He figured Frank was probably his best, so he decided to wait until the therapy assistant’s shift ended, then follow him.

  He found a parking spot on the street where he could easily see the comings and goings of the hospital, then used the time in the car alone to check his messages. Deryn York had called twice. He thought about calling her back but decided he’d wait to see if his suspicions about Frank paid off. Instead, he called Ashley, his neighbor and Marlowe’s longtime dogsitter. He wasn’t sure how long he’d be out, and he knew Marlowe would be frantic if his supper was late. They were lucky to have Ashley. She was always willing to help out, treating Marlowe as if he were her own dog. But Remy also knew the teenager would be off to college soon, and then what would he do? Well, that was a worry for another time. For now, Ashley agreed to feed and walk Marlowe tonight, allowing Remy to settle in and wait for Frank.

  It was nearly four o’clock, and Remy was beginning to think he might have somehow missed Frank, when he caught sight of the man leaving the building, backpack slung over his shoulder. He was talking animatedly with a female coworker, who was clearly not interested in whatever Frank was saying. She nodded her head and tried to inch away, and finally, Frank pulled a flyer from his backpack and handed it to her. She took it, then quickly headed off toward the parking lot. Frank called something out to her, gave her a final wave, and turned toward the street.

  Remy waited a few moments, then got out of his car, following the therapy assistant on foot as he sauntered down Warren Street toward Cambridge. Thankfully, the streets in this area bustled with people, providing Remy with enough cover to remain unnoticed, without having to use his angelic power.

  He watched as Frank picked up his mail at the post office, then stopped to buy scratch tickets and a six-pack of Corona at a small Korean market. Finally he walked up the front steps of an apartment building on Saunders Street.

  Remy stopped in front of a building a few doors down and watched Frank fumble through his backpack for a set of keys. He felt a wave of disappointment wash over him. There certainly didn’t seem to be anything suspicious about this man’s actions; he worked, and went home. He’d probably microwave a frozen dinner and watch the news while he downed a few beers. Then he’d doze in his favorite chair until it was time to go to bed, before waking up in the morning to do it all over again.

  Sighing, Remy was just about to leave Frank to his night, when he caught sight of four men emerging from a black Range Rover parked across the street from Frank’s building.

  They headed straight toward Frank, quickly climbing the steps and coming up behind him just as he unlocked the door. Frank turned toward them, an expression of surprise, then fear, on his face as one of the men grabbed his elbow and pushed him through the door.

  This was what made Remy’s job interesting.

  Life was always tossing him curveballs, and he had no choice but to swing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Remy quickly climbed the steps to the front door of the apartment building. He peered through the glass, but the lobby was empty. Frank and his friends must have already gone to the therapy assistant’s apartment.

  On the wall to Remy’s left was an intercom system with a listing of the last names and apartment numbers of the building’s residents. F. Downes was in number 306.

  Remy ran his finger down the length of buzzers, pretty sure that at least one person would answer.

  “Yes?” a woman asked after a bit of squawking feedback.

  “UPS,” Remy said, lowering his voice.

  The front door buzzed as another voice asked who was there.

  Ignoring it, Remy pushed through the door and headed up the stairs in the lobby. On the second-floor landing, a woman in a bathrobe asked him if he had seen a UPS man in the lobby, and Remy told her he was on the way up. He continued up himself, listening to the sounds of the building—his hearing was good, inhumanly so—a television tuned to a newscast, an animal snoring, a microwave announcing that dinner was ready. . . .

  There it is, he thought as he reached the third floor. The sounds of a struggle. And it was coming from number 306.

  Standing on the threadbare runner outside 306, Remy knocked on the door, and the sounds of violence inside came to a sudden stop.

  “Guys, it’s me,” Remy called, placing his mouth close to the door.

  He heard sounds of movement inside and placed his thumb over the peephole. “C’mon, let me in,” he said.

  The door opened a crack and Remy stared into the eyes of one of the intruders. “Who the fuck are you?” he snarled.

  “Is Frank home?” Remy asked with a smile.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” the man replied, getting ready to close the door.

  “Now, is that any way to answer the door?” Remy said as he slammed his shoulder into the door, pushing the man backward and forcing himself inside. “What if I were from Publishers Clearing House?”

  He quickly scanned the room.

  Frank was down, lying on his side in the middle of the tiny kitchen floor, two toppled dinette chairs near him. Blood stained the front of his green scrubs top, making it look dark and wet; more seeped onto the linoleum in a crimson pool beneath him.

  The four attackers were eerily silent, their eyes slack, void of emotion.

  Then the closest lunged at Remy with a snarl. He reacted in kind, putting everything he had into a punch. The man’s face snapped to the left and he stumbled to the side. Remy drove the heel of his shoe into the guy’s knee and was greeted with a wet snapping sound as the man screamed and crashed to the floor.

  Two headed for Remy next, one of them brandishing a bloodstained knife. Remy could feel his heart hammering in his chest, hot blood pumping through his veins, as the angelic nature trapped within him shrieked to be free.

  He dove to the right, grabbing one of the overturned chairs, using it to parry the knifeman’s thrusts. Remy lifted the chair and brought it down on the man’s outstretched arm. The knife clattered to the floor. He quickly kicked it away, then slammed the chair against
the side of the second attacker’s face.

  He turned to see that knifeman had found his blade and drove a knee into the man’s groin as he bent to pick it up. With a wheezing groan, the guy went down like a ton of bricks. But Remy was suddenly grabbed around the throat from behind—the man he’d hit with the chair had recovered.

  Remy struggled, and the two crashed through the kitchen into the small den. Their legs struck a cheap coffee table, shattering it as they tumbled to the floor against a worn leather couch. The shock of the impact loosened his attacker’s grip, and Remy managed to free himself, picking up a piece of the broken table and using it as a club. The man raised his arm to block the blows, then kicked Remy in the stomach, knocking him back into the kitchen.

  His true essence wailed, demanding to be unleashed.

  And he continued to ignore it, scrambling to stand as soon as he hit the floor.

  Three of the attackers were trying to escape and he lunged toward them, but something grabbed his ankle and he tripped, crashing to the floor. He rolled onto his back to find knifeman, a balding man with a fat, red face, still holding his ankle in a vise-like grip. Infuriated, Remy lashed out, kicking the man in the face and knocking him back, his head bouncing off the kitchen floor and rendering him unconscious.

  Remy jumped to his feet and spun toward the door, but the others were gone, the sounds of their feet on the stairs floating through the open door.

  He took a deep breath and went to Frank.

  The man was lying in a shivering ball on the floor, and at once Remy could see he was too late. The aura of death was wrapped around Frank like a comfy blanket.

  Remy knelt beside him, careful to avoid the still-spreading puddle of crimson.

  “You,” Frank slurred as Remy lifted his head, resting it in the crook of his arm.

  “It’s all right, Frank,” Remy said. “Relax. Everything is going to be fine.”

  Most would have thought he was lying to soothe the dying man, but it was true. Soon there would be no worries, no pain, as the powerful force that was Frank’s immortal soul returned to the source of all life in the universe.