Avenging Angels (The Seraphim Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

“Can I help you?” he spoke into the intercom. Unlike Jack, the visitor had not impeded Gideon’s progress. He had maintained his search through the security feeds in the LTZ, although he had enlarged the display to monitor the front door camera feed.

“Mr. Evans?” she asked with a warm smile. “My name is Gabriella. I am a trauma counselor on the military base. I have been asked by Colonel Jacobs to visit Evangeline and see how she’s been doing since the accident. May I come in, please?”

Jack forced himself to take a deep breath. The disruption irritated him, but he believed that was no excuse to show disrespect to anyone. He tried to smooth the edges out of his voice.

“I’m sorry, but my wife isn’t here right now. Maybe you can try to catch her on base tomorrow,” he said.

The Angel’s smile never faltered. “I’m also here to speak with you, Mr. Evans,” she replied. “You will also have been impacted by the accident your wife was involved in. I would very much like to speak with you about how the accident has affected you and your home life.”

Jack was in no mood to talk to a counselor. Finding his wife was his first priority, and he did not see any way that a therapy session would help in his panicked state.

“I’m sorry, but now is really not a good time,” he said, frustrated. “Just try to get a hold of Evangeline tomorrow, okay?”

The Angel donned another loving smile. “Please, Mr. Evans,” she said with a persuasive, singsong voice. “May I come in for just five minutes? I’d like to introduce myself professionally, and I’d appreciate if I could share my contact information with you. Intercoms can be so impersonal.” Her smile never wavered.  Jack thought that Angels were so good they bordered on annoying.

He huffed a sigh of resignation, which broadcast over the intercom and resonated in the hall outside his door. “Alright, I’ll be there in just a moment,” he grumbled.  

Jack had grown up enjoying the simple, hard-working life of a farm boy. As an adult, he could still hear his mother’s gentle rebuke for polite behavior, just as she had when he was a child. She would have been ashamed of him, dismissing an innocent soul who was trying to offer aid to him and his wife. After all, the Angel only wished for a few minutes of his time.

He waved his hand at the displays hovering over his desktop, shrinking them to small icons that danced above the surface of his desk like leaves on the wind. He spun around in his chair and turned to Gideon.

“Keep looking for signs of Evangeline, Gideon. I’ll be right back,” he gestured, jerking his thumb toward the door. “I have to go get rid of a nosy neighbor.” Gideon nodded and then returned his attention back to the security feeds swimming around him.

Jack touched the digital interface on his head and opened his eyes in his study. He massaged the bridge of his nose to dispel the headache that had developed from spending more than a few hours interfaced to his lab. He was not as accustomed to the extra sensory input like Evangeline.

He removed the interface from off of his head, folded it up, and placed it in his pocket out of habit. He stood up, stretching up to the ceiling, and then down to his toes. His mind had never stopped searching for his wife, but his body had been still and stationery for hours.

He felt a touch of satisfaction as he made the Angel wait a few more seconds. His mother would not have been happy about that, but he was in no hurry to get to the door. He loathed walking away from Gideon and the search for Evangeline.

He walked out of his office and headed toward the front door. He opened it to find Gabriella standing in the alcove. Her smile brightened at his arrival, as if he was a long, lost friend. She reached out and offered her hand. Jack took it, sighing as he went along with formalities. He had never been able to be rude to an Angel in person. It would be like being cruel to a small child. The child might have cried, but an Angel would have continued expressing love and kindness.

“Come on in,” Jack said, his irritation melting into fatigue. Stepping to the side, he gestured for Gabriella to come through the door. She crossed the threshold with a solemn bow of her head and turned into the front room as Jack closed the door and followed behind her. She stood in the center of the room, glancing around, her eyes taking in every piece of art, book, and furniture.

“Please have a seat,” he said, indicating the chair behind her as he sat himself down on the sofa. Gabriella did not move a muscle. She remained standing, immobile, beaming down at Jack.

“I understand you are a busy man, Mr. Evans,” she said. Gabriella’s voice was soft but direct. “I’m only here as a resource if you or your wife are in need of someone to talk to, confidentially of course, about the accident. Or about whatever you may wish to discuss.”

Before Jack could respond, Gabriella continued. “How long have you and your wife lived here, Mr. Evans?” she asked with polite interest while she continued looking around. Jack’s irritation flared again.

“So much for getting to the point,” He mumbled to himself. Feeling awkward sitting on the sofa while she stood in the center of the room, Jack heaved himself up and followed her gaze at the various personal items they possessed.

“We moved in right after we got married.” He glanced at their wedding album resting on an end table. “I guess it’s been about two and a half years or so.” Gabriella turned her attention to Jack and gave him a happy smile. Jack’s manners took over and he could not help but smile back. “Yeah, we moved into this unit right after we returned from our honeymoon,” he volunteered.

Her innocence was disarming. It dawned on him why an Angel would be so well-suited for a position as a counselor. Most people could not help themselves from opening up to someone who listened without judging. Jack could sense that this brief introduction was going to be much longer than planned.

“Have you two been happy here?” she asked. Jack knew the short answer was yes, but he also knew the full answer would lead to more questions than he wanted to get into.

His anxiety over Evangeline’s abduction kept him focused on his short answer. “Of course,” he replied.

Gabriella continued to examine the room with patient observational skills. Jack suspected she was trying to ascertain what their environment might reveal about their lives together.

“What kind of relationship did Evangeline have with her parents?” she asked, averting her eyes. Jack’s attention was piqued at the sudden change to a taboo subject.

Jack’s mind swam with the hundreds of separate memories that comprised his understanding of Evangeline’s relationship with her parents.

Matthew and Elizabeth Chapel were dead.

That was the official story. They had left on a supposed research trip when Evangeline was quite young, and had gone missing. Later, exposed at traitors and terrorists, the government declared them dead after a raid on a suspected Dissident base of operations. The news programs were flooded with graphic images showing the bodies of the Chapels and their terrorist colleagues strewn about in the wreckage and debris following the attack.

Evangeline never believed the official story. There was something in all the reports and images that never felt right to her. She was convinced that her parents were still alive somewhere, but she did not like to talk about it. One night, after the worst nightmare Jack could remember, Evangeline finally confided in him.

She told him about the conversation with her father before her parents had left. She told Jack about her father’s letter and his instructions to denounce them in public for her own protection. She told him about the persecution and ridicule she endured for years afterwards. She even told him that, for a time, she had buried her feelings for her parents and hid the pain she blamed them for causing. She had hated them for leaving her to face her awful life alone.

It was not until years later, when she was responsible for the safety of others, that she came to understand that they did what they believed was right, even if she did not agree with it. In the end, they were her parents and for twelve years of her life, she knew they had loved and cherished her. She had come to accept that they believed leaving her behind was in her best interest.

Jack remembered the day when Evangeline confided in him her secret from the off-world mission to the secret lab, although she never showed him the note she had found from her father. She had made Jack promise that in the event that she died before seeing her parents again, he must take the clock and destroy it no questions asked. She told him it was because she could never bare children, and the clock was a symbol of a dead-end lineage, that she did not want it belonging to anyone else.

Jack knew there was more to her request than that, but he left it alone. It never did any good to pressure Evangeline into something she did not want to do. He never connected that the old clock and the letter had something to do with each other.

“Mr. Evans?”

Jack realized Gabriella had been staring at him.

“Where did you go just now?” she asked. Her inquisitive eyes bored into his.

“Sorry,” Jack answered as he tried to collect himself. He remembered that he needed to get Gabriella out of their home so he could continue his search. “I just get a little nervous when Evangeline’s out on a night patrol in the LTZ.” He tried to flash a charming smile, but his charming smile never came across as natural as he would have liked. Evangeline said she could always tell he was hiding something when he gave her one of those smiles. He hoped Gabriella would be easier to sway.

Gabriella’s body stiffened. Her hands, folded in front of her, separated and her posture became more erect. Her head pushed forward with interest instead of calm reserve.

“But, Mr. Evans,” she began with a sultry tone. “My records showed that Captain Evans is not on duty, which is why I tried to make my initial introductions in your home this evening. Why are you intentionally trying to deceive me?”

There was a new tenor in her voice and body language, but Jack could not put his finger it. He had never lied to an Angel before; there had never been a need to. Angels were always the epitome of politeness, never digging into a stranger’s personal matters. Jack was surprised that Gabriella caught his bluff, and even more surprised that she appeared unruffled, almost angry, about it. He took a half step back.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack spotted Gideon in the kitchen watching him and Gabriella, when the shrill sound of the teapot whistled through the room. Jack had not put the teapot on to boil, nor had he given Gideon the means to manipulate the physical world.

“Would you excuse me for a moment, Gabriella? I’m afraid I left the kettle on,” he said, and he retreated into the kitchen.

When he entered the kitchen, he found Addison standing in the middle of the floor in his pajamas. Jack was surprised to find him activated. He had turned off Addison’s program while he had been working on Gideon’s upgrades.

“Addison?” Jack whispered, kneeling down to his AI son’s eye level. “What are you doing on?” Jack could not remember if he had installed a self-activation protocol in either of his kids. He dismissed the thought because if he had programmed them with such a function, Tori would have appeared as well. She was, after all, a quintessential busybody.

“Daddy? Who’s Gideon?” Addison looked up, rubbing his sleepy eyes. “He woke me up to give you a message.” The boy let out a frog-mouthed yawn. Jack did not understand why Gideon would bother to activate Addison to deliver a message instead of waiting for him to return to the virtual workshop. He thought he understood his programs well enough and assumed they would interrupt his conversation if the situation were urgent. Unless, Jack considered, the message could not be delivered in front of Gabriella.