Before There Were Angels (5 page)

“All right.”

“Liar!”
Belle laughed as we headed outside to the truck.

“Good bet
, though, that the twins weren’t listening to a word you were saying last night.”

The unloading was efficient and only took an hour this time.

“Thanks, boys, you were brilliant!” I said.

Zack held out his hand. “Hand it over.” And to his astonishment, I did.

“Smartass.”

*  *  *

Before we went to bed, I checked on George and gave him a gin and tonic top-up in case he had missed a round. He looked at me confused, almost as in, ‘I can’t take another one.” An Old English Sheepdog defeated by alcohol, now that was a first.

I climbed the stairs. As I reached the room I heard an echoing whisper. I haven’t a clue what it said but it was almost as if it was coming from inside my head. ‘Oh great, I am turning into a schizophrenic,’ I thought.
‘It’s about to tell me to kill someone.’

It didn’t.

I entered the bedroom in time to catch Belle hiding a large chef’s knife under her pillow.

“What?” I laughed.

“I feel safer.”

“It’s a good thing
San Francisco outlaws guns.”

“There is something really weird happening here and I feel more
comfortable if I have a knife close at hand.”

“What if you rub against it during the night?”

“I haven’t yet.”

“What do you mean you haven’t yet?”

“I always had a knife under my bed with Robert.”

“You did? You had ghosts there
in Arizona too?”

“I had this bed.”

I looked up and came nose-to-wood with a wide splatter of blood that had soaked into the grain.

“How many ghosts do you
think this house can hold?” I speculated.

“And then I also had Robert,” Belle continued down her own track. “He tried to kill me three times.”

“He did?”

“Didn’t
you see the scar on his arm?”

“No.”

“I did that,” she declared proudly, adding, “I should have killed the asshole when I had the chance. When I look back on that missed opportunity, I could kick myself.”

“Do you think I will ever sleep again?”

“You, Luke? Oh yeah, you’ll sleep just fine. You aren’t trying to kill me and I doubt you would notice a ghost if it dropped its sheet over your head.”

At which point the lights went out.

“Who did that?” I asked.

“Not me,” Belle replied.

“Oh great,” I said. ”Well, I’m not getting up to check on fuses now. You still have that knife, haven’t you?”

“Sure have,” she said rummaging under the pillow.

“Let’s hope the twins are lucky. Night.”

“Night, my love.
Hug me close.”

“I will.”

And I did.

Chapter 8

I woke up during the witching hour, two-to-three in the morning, and now the shadows were no longer friendly. Each one had a human shape, or at least an animal shape, and they all seemed poised to move.

I stared
hard at each one, trying to figure out what it really was – a dressing gown, my pants over a chair,
er … not sure what that is
. That’s the chest of drawers, and that great weight on our bed, snuffling in his drunken stupor, was George. Belle was asleep beside me, positioned for me to spoon her lovingly until she turned, and then she would spoon me.

Everything other than George was still. We had no clocks in the house.
A creak.
Old houses creak, don’t they?
Another creak.

I felt guilty about not checking on the boys when the electricity went out, so I got up and snuck as quietly as I could across our bedroom and through the door. Georg
e stirred but wasn’t interested. Belle continued with her constant breathing.

At the top of the stairs, I looked behind me.
Nothing. Along the landing towards the boys room. I wasn’t panicking but I was attentive to every shadow, every object, any movement. My own body was casting a shadow along the wall and across the enormous old mirror that was standing at an angle, waiting to be hung. You supposedly often see ghosts in mirrors, which is why the Irish cover them after someone dies, but the only ghost in this mirror was my own.

I turned the door knob of the boys’ room. They were both sleeping in the double bed, Stevie aligned head to toe, Zack at a contorted angle with his legs across Stevie’s.

I checked behind the door, and turned swiftly around to catch anything behind me.

Nothing.

I crept back down the landing, glancing into the empty room to my left with the door ajar, and eased my way into our bedroom.

A knife hit my throat and quivered there.
Shit.

I looked down the knife. It was Belle.

“What the fuck are you doing, Luke?” she hissed, withdrawing the knife.

“Making sure everything is OK, and that the boys are OK.”

“You scared me.” It was an accusation, it was an explanation.

“I’m sorry, darling. I woke up and I felt guilty for not checking on the boys earlier.”

“Come to bed.”

Belle slipped the knife back u
nder her pillow, kissed me, and turned away from me so that I could spoon her again.

I thought I heard something shuffle in the corner, but I had had enough excitement for one night. No need to know what it was.

*  *  *

“What the …?” Belle’s face was white and she was noticeably trembling.

“What is it?”

“Look.” She turned her computer screen to face me.

From: Mr.
oscar

To: Belle Parsons

Sent: Mon, Jun 18, 2012 3:27 pm

Subject: You can RUN but can never HIDE

Hello Belle
i am a professional hired killer You don't know me but I know you Because i am paid to kill you. 

Everything about you I have been told this is What I do for a living  There is only one way you can help yourself if you want to live again  That is why am WRITING you  Note: this do not involve the police or let any one know about this, If you do I have no choice but kill you Don t be surprise why am letting you know I want to help you if you will co-operate with me Contact my email if you want to live  But if you don't have respect 4 life, be prepare to dance to the music of the dead.

I am very sorry for you Belle, It is a pity that this is how your life is going to end as soon as you don't comply. As you can see there is no need for me introducing myself to you because I don't have any business with you, my duty as I am mailing you now is just to (KILL YOU ) and I have to do it as I have already been paid for that. 

Someone who knows you wants you Dead by all means, and the person has spent a lot of money on this, the person also came to me and told me that he wanted you dead and he provided us with your name, picture and other necessary information we needed about you. 

So I have sent my men to track you down in San Francisco and they have carried out the necessary investigation needed for the operation on you, and they have done that but I told them not to kill you that I will like to contact you and see if your life is Important to you or not. Since we have find out that you are innocent. 

I called my client back and asked her of your email address which I didn't tell her what I wanted to do with it and she gave it to me and I am using it to contact you now.  As I am writing to you now my men are monitoring you and they are telling me everything about you.  Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? As someone has paid us to kill you.

Get back to me with this Email address ([email protected]) immediately when you get this mail.  WARNING: DO NOT THINK OF CONTACTING THE POLICE OR EVEN TELLING ANYONE, OR ELSE  I WILL EXTEND IT TO YOUR FAMILY, IN CASE I NOTICE SOMETHINGFUNNY.

GOOD LUCK AS I AWAIT YOUR REPLY 

Lucky You You can RUN but can never HIDE

“Wow!”

“The bitch!”
Belle exploded, eyes wide.

“We don’t know it is her.”

“Of course it is her. Look at the capitalizations. That’s typical Rafaella. And it came on Monday. Rafaella always hits us on Mondays. She gets herself all worked up over the weekend. How many times have we had to take my laptop in to be cleared of viruses? How many times has she hacked into my AOL account? How many out-there lesbian sites has she signed me up for? How many people in my AOL address list has she sent porn to? Diseased vaginas and penises. A man being sodomized by a horse. This is definitely Rafaella.”

“But we still cannot prove it was her.”

“We can
know
it was her, though.”

“Yes, it almost certainly is her.”

“And all those things she says about us on her FB page. She is evil, Luke. Whatever did you see in her? Did you ever love her, and how could you love both her and me? Is she the love of your life?”

“You are the love of my life, Belle, you know that. As for the rest, it is hard to answer. I am guessing that this death threat did come from
Rafaella but it is very unlikely to be a real death threat. How would Rafaella know a contract killer?”

“She definitely wants to kill me, though, doesn’t she?”

“She would no doubt like you dead, yes, and me too, from the look of things.”

Belle laughed dismissively. “She doesn’t want you dead, she wants you back. Would you ever go back to her, Luke?”

“No, of course not.”

“Not even if I were dead?”

“Of course not. That is ridiculous.”

“So what are we going to do about this?”

“I can contact the Suffolk police. After all, we have had death threats before -“

“And I am going to renew my restraining order against her.”

*  *  *

The Suffolk police did indeed visit
Rafaella and reported back that she denied sending the threat and seemed perfectly sane and calm. Besides, she was hardly likely to kill Belle from 10,000 miles away.

Ah, leafy Britain and urban America
- we live in worlds more different than we know.

*  *  *

As I went upstairs after discussing the death threat with Belle, I was thinking that Rafaella would be laughing her head off. She had scared Belle senseless, while at the same time making her point that she could get to us as often as she wanted to in new and creative ways, and she had charmed the Suffolk police into believing that she was the injured party, being subjected to false, unkind and harassing complaints - a win-win situation for her, a veritable trifecta of stalking. Shaking my head, I considered, and not for the first time, how successful Rafaella would have been at business if she had only applied herself.

Entering the bathroom, I heard a laugh. The boys were at school and Belle had seemed very far from laughing when I had left her less than a minute ago. Besides, the laugh came from upstairs, close to my left ear. Or was it inside my head? Was I imagining laughter?

Whose laughter was it? I couldn’t place it. It could have been anybody’s. It was too close by to place accurately.

I turned on the taps in the bathtub
and swiveled around sharply to see if anyone was behind me, creeping up on me. No-one was there, or at least no-one that I could see.

My thoughts turned to work as I undressed. It was time to focus on something practical.

I crossed the mirror over the basin as I got into the bath and a shadow seemed to follow me; not my reflection, something flitting, chasing after me, running in front of me. No-one else was in the bathroom, so it must have been my reflection being exaggerated by an over-active mind.
The accounts. I must start doing the annual accounts this morning.

Chapter 9

I came back from buying some office stationery and heard far-off voices whooping and hollering, punctured by regular delighted laughs.

I climbed the stairs. “Zack, Stevie, where are you?”

“They’re in the attic,” Belle called up to me.

“In the attic?
Is it safe?”

“
Luke, you know it’s all been boarded over and redone. It’s a great area for them. It’s their den.”

“
I meant was it safe from ghosts?”