Fallen Angel (Hqn) (22 page)

“Okay.”

“My dad will have a picture tomorrow, of the little girl who went missing. The one we think might be you. Will you look at it? You don’t have to do anything but look. You can have Ruth there with you, if you want. If she’s not available tomorrow we’ll wait until she is.”

“Yes, I’ll look at it. And I’d like for Ruth to be there, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t.”

“Truly, Declan?”

“Yeah. I’m working through that.”

“That’s good. Your father deserves to be happy.”

“Ruth makes him happy,” he admitted. “I know. I know how important it is. You make me understand that, Angel.”

“I meant what I said, Declan. About you being my family. Do you know how important that is to me?”

“I’m beginning to.”

He stroked her hair from her eyes, and in his was everything she needed to know. Strength. Support. Love.

She wasn’t certain she wanted to know about some family of strangers, but she also understood she needed to find out who she was. Who she’d been. Because then she would truly be free to move forward, to who she wanted to be.

* * *

A
NGEL
WAS
EXCITED
TO
BE
GOING
to Oran’s house. She was looking forward to seeing him. But she was nervous about what else she might see.

She loved his house the moment they pulled into the gravel drive. It was homey-looking, surrounded by roses in full bloom. Declan led her to the door.

“You okay?” he asked her, keeping an arm around her waist.

“Yes. This is just a little scary. Strange. As if there are all of these possibilities suddenly. And it might be good, or it might be frightening, or it might be nothing at all, which is perhaps the scariest part.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he told her.

“No, I do. Not only for me, Declan, but for you, too.”

“What? I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

“No, it’s not that. But I think we can only have a life together after I get past this. And I want that, Declan.”

She looked up at him. His brows were drawn together in concern, but there was love shining in his gaze. It made her heart trip in her chest in a way nothing else ever had.

“So do I, baby.”

“Then let’s do this. Let us see if today will tell me who I am.”

He nodded, knocked on the door. Ruth answered a moment later, her face wreathed in smiles. She took Angel from Declan’s arm and pulled her in, hugging her close.

“Angel, I’m so glad you’re here. And, Declan, thank you for coming.” She released Angel and pulled Declan into her arms for a brief hug. “It’s been too long since there were young people in this house. Just us old folks tottering around in here.”

“Speak for yourself, woman,” Oran joked, coming up to hug Angel. He stepped back and patted Declan on the shoulder in the way she’d come to know men did with each other. “Come on in. Have you guys eaten? Can I get you something to drink?”

“We had dinner, thanks, Dad.”

“Angel, a cup of tea?” Ruth offered.

“Yes, please.”

“Peppermint with honey, yes?”

“Yes.” She smiled to Ruth and they all moved into the kitchen.

It was a cozy room, made warmer by the wood cabinets, the big, worn table, the ceramic bowl of fruit on the counter. It felt like a home. She was glad Declan had grown up in this beautiful house.

She sat at the table, Declan right next to her, keeping his hand on the back of her chair. Ruth made tea and Oran opened bottles of beer for himself and Declan before sitting down.

“So…” Oran began. “Angel, Declan’s told you what we’ve found?”

“He told me there’s a photograph of a missing girl who disappeared around the same time I did. He told me her family was from Norway, that she was taken from the Yosemite Park. We looked at these places on a map.”

“Does any of that ring a bell with you?” Ruth asked her.

“I was telling Declan last night about a memory I’ve had recently. About being in the woods. About…my family. At least, I think they were my family. No, I’m sure of it.” Ruth nodded, waiting for her to go on, as she often did. Angel stopped to sip her tea; it was warm and sweet on her tongue. Comforting. “Maybe I should look at this picture before I say more. Is that all right?” She looked to Ruth, then to Oran.

“Of course.” Ruth smiled and covered her hand in hers.

“Whatever you want, Angel,” Oran assured her.

Behind her, Declan’s arm slid from the chair to her shoulders. And suddenly she wanted to cry. Not because of her nervousness about the picture and what it might mean, but because she was so overwhelmed by this sense of family. Solidity. She understood how much she’d missed in her emotionally sterile life with The Grandmother.

That’s over now.

She swallowed back her tears and nodded her head. “I’m ready.”

Oran nodded and pulled a color photograph from a folder he’d had sitting before him, slid it across the table toward her. She held her breath for a moment before she was able to look.

She laid her fingertips on the photograph, smoothing the edges beneath her hands, then slowly let her eyes focus on the image there.

It was a child, a small girl of four or five years. She had long, pale blond hair. It was lighter than hers was now—almost platinum—falling in waves around her shoulders. She had a round, cherubic face, a brilliant smile. And she had Angel’s own blue eyes.

My
eyes.

She was quiet, studying the picture, recognition hitting her like a blow to the chest.

This is me.

Yet she felt distanced somehow. It was as if this child was someone she’d known once, a long time ago. It hurt to see the innocence in her face. To know what she would endure.

“Angel?” Ruth asked, her voice softly prompting.

She let out a long breath, looked up at the expectant faces around her.

“It’s…this is me.”

“You’re sure?” Declan asked.

She nodded. “Oh, yes. I’m absolutely certain.”

She felt light-headed, as though the picture, the table, Declan and Ruth and Oran, were suddenly very far away.

“This is me,” she said again, maybe simply to get used to the idea. Her own voice sounded odd, tinny in her ears. But she had to tell them what she knew.

“I remember,” she said, her throat so tight it hurt to get the words out. “I know what happened to me.”

There was a hush around the table. She saw Declan’s hand squeeze her shoulder from the corner of her eye. Saw Ruth still holding on to her hand. Saw Oran lean across the table toward her. She couldn’t quite feel any of it, but she knew they were there. It helped.

She swallowed past the hard lump in her throat. “We are in the forest. On a trip away from home. There is a big green tent made of canvas. We each have our own sleeping bags, and mine is pink. The surface is…plasticky. Shiny. And I love it. My parents are there. My father and mother. Pappa and Mor. And my brother, Niklas. He’s small, smaller than me. He is three years old. He just had his birthday at home, before…before coming to this forest.

“We are walking in the forest and we come to a big field. Pappa has lunch in a knapsack on his back. The grass is so high I can barely see over it. Niklas is running through it. Laughing. I chase him.”

She stopped, her chest pulling tight. She wasn’t even certain what was going to come out of her mouth next.

“Then, Niklas is…gone. We can’t find him. Mor-mor asks me where he is but I don’t know. We all look. Pappa calls for him. His voice is loud. I try to find him. I run and I run. And Pappa is calling for me, too, but I have to find Niklas.

“At the edge of the field there is a woman. She is holding Niklas’s hand. He smiles when he sees me. I go to him. But when I try to take his hand the woman lets him go and grabs my hand. Hard. She’s pulling me away and I don’t want to go. But when I try to tell her she puts her hand over my mouth. I can’t breathe. I don’t know where Niklas is. Then, it is dark.”

She stopped, pulled in a deep breath. Her chest ached so badly she didn’t know how she was still breathing. Yet a part of her was still distant from everything, as though this memory belonged to another person.

“It’s okay, Angel,” Ruth soothed her.

And she knew it was. Because she was safe now. With Ruth. With Declan.

“Angel, do you know who the woman is?” Oran asked, keeping his voice low.

She nodded. “It is The Grandmother. She was old, even then.”

“Do you need to stop now?” Declan asked, his palm smoothing across her back, over and over, helping her to come back into her body, into the moment.

“I’m okay. I want to tell you.”

“What else do you remember?” Ruth asked gently.

“Everything is sort of…blurry after that. I think they probably kept me drugged for a long time. They taught me English.”

“Ah, I thought so,” Oran muttered.

“Thought what?” Angel asked.

“If the girl in this picture is you, Angel, then your native language would have been Norwegian. Your English is a little strange. Maybe because it wasn’t your first language. Maybe partly because of the way you were taught by the old woman.”

“Yes, that makes sense. Yes.”

“Were you always alone with this woman, The Grandmother?”

She turned to Declan. His face was calm but she could see his eyes were dark with emotion, glittering in the warm light of the kitchen.

“I saw the others only during the rituals, but they were hooded then. People would sometimes come to The Grandmother’s house and I would be sent to the garden or to my room. I would hear them talk. And I could hear activity every day on the other side of the garden walls, but they were too tall for me to see over.”

Declan watched her talking, felt the tension in her shoulders beneath his hand. It was always hard for him to hear her talk about her life with the old woman. But now, with this photograph to remind him how young she’d been when she’d been taken, it was even rougher. That, and the blank expression on her face. It spooked him, to see her like this. And a terrible thought occurred to him.

“Angel, this is important.” He leaned closer, his heart hammering in his chest. “Were there other girls there? Girls like you?”

“There were others. I was never allowed to see them, speak to them. But I sometimes heard their voices over the wall. And there was at least one other before me who was meant to be The Gift. The Grandmother would sometimes rant about how badly she’d failed. She told me I must do better.”

“Jesus.” His gut went tight.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Dec?” Oran asked him.

“Yeah. That without Angel, they’ll need another girl. If they haven’t taken one already.”

“We have to try to find these people.”

“Angel,” Ruth asked, “do you have any idea where you were? Where they kept you all these years?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea how far they traveled to bring me to those cliffs. I was too full of drugs. It could have been minutes or days. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Ruth soothed.

“I’ll never get over what they did to you,” Declan said, the words slipping out. He touched her hair, as if he needed to reassure himself that she was safe now. “Christ, I’m sorry. That must sound selfish as hell. You were the one who went through it.”

“It’s okay to feel something when those we love have been through pain,” Ruth said.

“Yeah, son, don’t be so hard on yourself. Look, I’m going to make some calls, send a few emails. Now that we have a little more information I want to see where it’ll lead. And we have enough to make it clear that these people are a very real and current threat. That this needs to be looked into right away.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

The two men exchanged a look, and he could feel the love between them, even if they were both still a bit guarded. It was there, buried beneath the rubble of their history together. The rubble of his own bitterness. But he was trying to change that.

Meanwhile, there was work to do. Work they could do together. Finding out who had done this to Angel, who had taken her fucking life from her. Hopefully before those people did it to anyone else.

He looked at Angel. The blank expression had eased, but there was a line of worry between her brows, her mouth tight. Ruth had her hand, was murmuring to her. He knew she was in good hands with Ruth. But all he wanted was to get her out of there. To get her home. Into his bed, tucked safely away next to him.

“Angel, you look a little worn-out,” Ruth said. “Why don’t you two get going?”

Declan nodded his thanks, stood up and helped Angel from her chair. She still had a small limp, but it wasn’t that. He just couldn’t bear for her to be anyplace where he couldn’t touch her right now.

“Dad, call me if you find anything.”

“Of course. Angel, get some rest, honey.” Oran leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I know you’ll take good care of her, Dec.” His dad smiled at him.

“Always.”

He realized he did want to take care of her always. Forever. And he felt scared and relieved and a little foolish. He turned to help Angel on with her coat so his father wouldn’t see his face.

Just get her home. Get her alone.

Angel was quiet on the way home, forgoing her seat belt to snuggle up next to him, but he didn’t have the heart to say anything about it. He liked having her there. Liked that she came to him for that basic physical comfort.

A sleepy Liam greeted them when they got to the house. He got up from his favorite spot on the floor next to the desk, his stump of a tail wagging, then went right back as soon as he’d been petted.

“How are you doing?” he asked Angel as he helped her slip her coat from her shoulders.

“I’m all right. Tired. A little dazed.” She rubbed a hand across her forehead, then dropped it to her side. “I can’t even think right now about what this all might mean. It’s too much to take in.”

“Don’t then.” He rubbed her arms with his hands. Her skin was cool to the touch even through the sleeves of her dress. “Let me put you to bed. Just curl up and get warm.”

“Only if you’ll come with me, Declan. I don’t want to be alone now. Is that okay?”