In the Shadow of Angels (21 page)

When he turned again to walk up the hill, he saw Beth standing at the top. The moon was just behind her head and it looked like the vision of a halo from a prayer candle. If it would only have been a bit brighter out so that he could make out her features, she would have looked positively angelic. He took in the vision for a moment before something in the car behind ignited with a roar and forced him to start moving quickly.

To Beth, watching from the top of the hill, the vision was the opposite: Devin was a dark silhouette against the flame. When whatever it was in the car ignited, it shot flames out of the windows, with the top stopping the flames from going straight up. The flames extended upwards from the windows in a red plume on either side of him, looking for all the world like a pair of fiery wings extending from the dark silhouette, like an angel but made from fire and darkness. Or, more aptly, like a fiery demon walking out of the depths of hell. It seemed only fitting after all they had been through tonight.

Devin made it to Beth quickly with the fire pushing him along. He stopped when he reached her and put his arms around her. She hugged him back, struggling hard to try to keep her emotions suppressed. It was almost over now.

Together, they stood and watched the car burn for several more minutes. It was oddly tranquil. They would have stayed longer if not for the flames and smoke so high in the air. They needed to be back to their driveway and out of sight before the fire trucks arrived. They got into the Sunfire and started the drive back to the house.

Neither of them spoke for most of the drive. They were nearly back to their driveway when Beth turned to Devin and said, “I fucked Dr. Stephens. Or … He fucked me … Or … I don’t know. Brent found out, and when I told him the story, he said that it sounded like rape.”

“I know,” Devin responded.

“How do you know?”

“You went from talking about him like he was a saint to calling him a bastard and a weasel all of a sudden. Then you stopped going to see him on your own. The last time we were in couple’s counseling, you didn’t say a word. Even without any of that, I think everyone in the room tonight knew about it when you walked in tonight and shot daggers at him with your eyes.”

“There were pictures. Brent had them.”

So that explained why Brent was so insistent that the other ones weren’t important. He was trying to spare his feelings.

“What happened to the pictures?”

“He gave me the memory card and I smashed it with a rock. That is part of what took so long to get back to you with Jezebel.”

Devin nodded. Then he sighed. If she was going to get it all on the table, he needed to as well.

“When we were at The Place, Jez gave me a blowjob. I tried to stop her. I didn’t want her to, but she practically forced me. That was why I was moving her body: She had my cum all over her. They would have thought I killed her.”

Beth nodded, staying true to her commitment not to have any emotion until this was all over with.

Devin sighed again. He needed to get it
all
on the table. “She also said she was pregnant with my baby.”

Beth smile despite the situation. He must have known that this would crush her, but he didn’t know that she already knew. If he was willing to tell her this, he would tell her anything.

“I know that, too,” Beth said, “but if I hadn’t confronted her at The Place, none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have been so desperate to seduce you and you wouldn’t have had to move the body.”

Devin wondered how she knew, but it didn’t matter. “No, I think it would have happened anyway. She wouldn’t have made me go to The Place if she wasn’t planning it out all along.” Devin paused to collect his thoughts. “But let’s just put that all behind us, okay?”

“Once the sun comes up, I promise I’ll never mention her or Dr. Stephens again.”

“Me too,” He responded, “and no more lies … or secrets.” He turned to kiss her on the cheek. 

Beth saw the kiss coming and turned to meet his lips with hers. She threw her arms around him and pulled him toward her, despite her insistence that she was done with emotion for the night and oblivious to the fact that the car was still travelling down the road at nearly forty miles per hour. Devin could barely see the road out of his left eye as he returned the most passionate kiss they shared since their wedding night. He steered the car to toward the shoulder with his left hand, while his right hand began pulling Beth’s blouse up over her head. The car came to a crooked stop only a hundred yards from the safety of their driveway. The driver’s side rear wheel wasn’t even across the fog line. Devin didn’t care. He threw the car into park, shut off the lights and joined Beth in the passenger seat.

Everything else could wait.

Brent was working the edger along the sides of the foundation for the gazebo while Jimmy was using a magnesium float to smooth the surface. They both saw the headlights coming down the driveway, but neither of them reacted to them. It was most likely Devin and Beth coming back from getting rid of Jezebel, though it could also have been the police coming to question them. Either way, stopping what they were doing now would be pointless; Dr. Stephens’ car was still sitting out front. If it
were
the police, they would check the freshly poured concrete for his body when they found his abandoned car in front of the house. Maybe not now, but they would come back with a warrant eventually.

Once the car stopped, Devin and Beth walked out to where BrentandJimmy were working, unaware that the state of their hair and clothing gave away what they had been up to. BrentandJimmy pretended not to notice.

Devin was the one who asked the question that he and Beth were both thinking, “Is he under there?”

“Yeah,” Brent replied. “We were running out of places to stash bodies.” His attempt at humor fell a bit flat.

“What about his car?” Beth asked.

“Still a lot to do,” Brent answered. “We need to get the car out of here and get the cement mixer back to the home center. Plus we need to get the pictures of Dr. Stephens and Jezebel in the mail to the police.”

Devin froze at the last statement. He was the only one who knew he had destroyed the memory card. “Guys,” he said, “I burned that in the fire.”

“Well, shit,” Brent said, “that sucks.”

He thought it over for a moment, “I think the rest of the plan still stands, though.”

“What is the plan?” Devin asked.

Brent recounted the plan to leave the car somewhere with Dr. Stephens’ wallet still in it. To make it look like he had disappeared on purpose.

“That’s a really good plan,” Beth said. “We could leave the car in the parking garage at the airport. That would really bring it all together.”

“Yeah, with him being a doctor and his brother a judge … If anyone was going to be able to just disappear, it would be him.” Devin added.

“But the airport is over an hour away,” Beth said. “What time is it now?”

Devin looked at the clock on his phone. “It’s just after four. We should be able to get it there while it’s still dark. It might be light before we make it home, though.”

“What about the cement mixer?” Beth questioned.

“I’m just going to put it in my van and take it back in the morning,” Brent said. “You bought way too much concrete though and I don’t think my van has the suspension to carry it.”

“We can just stack it up in the shed,” Devin responded, “having some extra bags of Quikrete is the least of our concerns. If someone comes with a search warrant, they’ll know the slab is fresh anyway. Did you leave the gun in there?”

“No,” Brent answered, “I cleaned it, reloaded it and put it back in your night stand. Same thing as the concrete; if they come with a warrant, it’s not going to matter. Having something to ding a metal detector under the slab is more of a concern than them just randomly digging him up and checking your gun to see if it fired the bullets.”

“Well, if it all goes right, we will probably answer a few questions, but there won’t be any search warrants,” Devin said. “We need to come up with exactly what we are going to say happened between the time that Officer Reynolds left last night and now. Whatever the story is, we don’t deviate a bit, right?”

“I left a picture of Dr. Stephens on Digby’s TV screen,” Brent said, “that should help.”

“That is good,” Devin replied, “so we’ll stick to the story that Jimmy got too drunk and accidentally broke the kitchen window. We’ll say that Beth asked Dr. Stephens to come over to talk to me after I stayed out drinking with BrentandJimmy, but he left right after Officer Reynolds did. Then we can say he said he was going to go check up on Jezebel. If anyone asks about BrentandJimmy’s injuries, we can say they got too drunk and started swinging bats at each other.”

Everyone was nodding in agreement.

“But what about times?” Beth asked. “They’ll probably ask what time everything happened.”

“Go by what is on record,” Devin answered, “I got pulled over at eleven. Officer Reynolds was at the house at about twelve-forty-five.”

“And Dr. Stephens left about one,” Jimmy added. Then we all slept it off over here.”

“That’s just about perfect,” Devin said. “Now remember, we don’t deviate a single word, right?”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

“All that’s left is to drive Dr. Stephens’ car to the airport,” Devin said, “I guess I’ll do that. Who wants to follow me to bring me home?”

“I’ll go,” Beth offered. “I need a chance to clear my head anyway. But you two need to promise me that you won’t leave or go passing out until we get back, okay?”

“Yeah,” Devin added. “we need to make sure that no one stops by while we are at the airport or this whole thing falls apart.”

“You’ve got it,” Brent promised.

“Well, we better get rolling if we want to make it back before first light,” Devin said.

“
It’s go time
,” Jimmy said.

Devin and Beth got into the cars to drive to the airport. Devin drove the BMW in front of Beth’s Mini and though they were travelling on the interstate, they passed very few cars before they were very near the airport. The drive was refreshingly uneventful.

Once they were at the airport, Devin found a remote spot in the parking garage to leave the BMW. He borrowed some tissues from Beth’s car to wipe down the steering wheel, gear shift, turn signal and driver’s door handles, just in case. He didn’t concern himself with wiping down the rest of the car though. He and Beth were both seeing Dr. Stephens and it wouldn’t seem too far out of the ordinary if their prints were in the passenger seat. If Devin were a betting man, he would lay down money on many people having been in that passenger seat while Dr. Rapey drove them to his naked palace.

He picked Dr. Stephens’ wallet up from where he left it on the passenger seat and pulled the cash out of it. That seemed right. If you were going to disappear, you may want to leave behind your ID and your credit cards, but you would need to have cash on hand. Hopefully, it would seem believable that Dr. Stephens had a means to support himself without his plastic. It seemed a reasonable assumption, given someone of his ilk, but it did seem to be the weakest part of their plan. He wiped the wallet down before he put it back on the seat. Then he got out and closed the door.

Devin felt horribly guilty that he was nodding off on the way back to the house. Beth had been through every bit as much as he had tonight - considerably more, actually, having killed a guy and attempting to kill a girl - but she couldn’t rest yet. He did the best he could to keep his eyes open the whole way, but he knew he briefly lost that battle a couple of times.

When they arrived home, they found BrentandJimmy on the sofa watching cartoons. They kept their promise to stay awake, at least, but this was exactly the kind of immaturity that made Beth question why Devin still hung around with them. Although, after what they had all been through, she understood it in a way that can’t be explained. Some ties are just that deep. When she saw them on the couch, she walked up to them, put an arm around each of them and said, “I love you guys, but I’m going to get some sleep now. You’re welcome to use the guest bedrooms if you want.”

It is hard to say who was the most surprised by that. BrentandJimmy were speechless, but so was Devin. And honestly, Beth had no idea she was going to do it either.

“I might sleep for an hour or two,” Brent said, “but I need to get that mixer back to the home store at nine. Also, I need to get someone to look at my hand. The bones aren’t supposed to be crooked like this.” He held up his hand and, though they couldn’t see the bone for all the swelling, they took him at his word that it was broken.

Beth left the room and went upstairs to get some much-needed rest. Devin stayed behind with BrentandJimmy for a few minutes.

“I guess I don’t need to tell you that if you ever need anything,
anything,
you just say the word.” He said.

Jimmy nodded as Brent spoke, “We’ll talk about it on Monday when we come to build the rest of that gazebo.”

Devin laughed.

“No, seriously, we need to get that lumber put together before it warps any more than it already has. There was only one board out there true enough to make a decent screed.”

“Alright,” Devin agreed, “if you feel up to it, I’m game. Beth will love it.”

“We’ll be here,” Jimmy said.

“All right, well, I’m going to get some sleep, too. Like Beth said, you’re welcome to the guest bedrooms.” Devin said, as he started toward the stairs.

“Hold up, Devin,” Brent said, “come outside with me for a minute.”

Devin followed Brent out to a rosebush in front of the house. Brent picked up the plastic cases he stashed earlier.

“These are yours,” he said, “I don’t want anything more to do with them.”

Devin completely forgot about them with everything else that went on last night, but Brent was right. They were his responsibility. And a decision that he wasn’t going to make as exhausted as he was after all that happened and twenty-four hours without sleep.

“Now I’m going to go crash for an hour or two. If I can. My hand hurts like hell.”

“What about your leg? Beth said she thought it might be broken too.”

“Nah, there’s a bruise on it the size of a cantaloupe, but it’s not broken.”

“Alright. Well, try to get some sleep. If I wake up before you, I’ll make sure to get you up.”

Brent nodded and left Devin alone outside.

Devin took the files and walked into the back yard. He walked past the gazebo and gardening shed and into the trees beyond. He found a likely place to stash the files at the base of a big pine tree. This one was struck by lightning years ago, leaving the top of it black. It was easy to spot from a distance. He scooped away the needles and bark on the ground near the base of the tree.

He felt around at his pockets trying to find the one card he still had on him: Elliot Carvey. He added the card in at the front of one of the cases and closed it. It could all wait until later.

He put the files in the small clearing he dug out. He covered them up with what forest debris he could reach. They wouldn’t be here for long. Just until he had time to make his decision.

Devin walked back to the house and up the stairs. He joined Beth in bed, wrapped his arms around her and fell asleep. He slept like he hadn’t slept in years.