Free Mann 01 - Where Angels Rest by Kate Brady Page B

methods couldn’t be condoned. When Justin was convicted, she went after Huggins—publicly and with a vengeance. Police didn’t listen, but everyone else did. Eventually, Huggins’s neighbors shunned him, contractors fired him, and his own pastor asked him to leave the church for the sake of the congregation. His wife’s classes in sculpture emptied of what few pupils she had left. Sixteen months after Justin’s trial had ended, John and Maggie Huggins moved to Raleigh, North Carolina, to try to start over.
    Erin Sims followed. Within weeks, she had papered the city with posters declaring him a sexual predator, drug dealer, and murderer; gotten herself interviewed on TV; and published an editorial in the paper. For John and Maggie, life in Raleigh never got off the ground. Sims found herself at the hard end of a slander suit and a restraining order but neither fazed her. For the next ten years, while Justin lost one appeal after another, she hired private investigators and hounded police departments, but no one took her seriously. In the margin of one report, Nick found a note scrawled from one cop to another:
JD—don’t waste your time. A loose screw.
    Loose screw or not, Erin Sims earned a doctorate during those ten years, becoming a victims’ advocate for the Dade County court system. She had a reputation there as a pit bull, but continued to work on Justin’s case on the side.
    Nick switched to the file Valeria had tagged for him. It was from the Florida Attorney General’s office: a citation of a court-ordered stay of execution and a request for Nick to confirm the identity of one Jack Calloway.
    He tipped his chair onto two legs, closing his eyes on an ache that swelled in his brain. Jack was a town leader,a prominent businessman, and a loyal churchgoer. His work to renovate the rundown Hilltop property into an historic bed-and-breakfast had been a boon to the area, and between the inn and his wife’s artwork, Hopewell had become somewhat of a tourist trap. Margaret Calloway was a little bit famous. She taught art classes, hosted sculpting
Elderhostels
, and mined her own clay right here at Weaver’s. Nick knew she’d been featured in at least one trade magazine and had a handful of pieces in museums. With the help of her nephew, Rodney—whom she and Jack had raised from childhood—and a couple of employees, they kept Hilltop House in peak condition. And if Jack and Margaret had come to Hopewell to escape something from the past, well, Nick could hardly blame them.
    He’d done it, too.
    Until now. Now, there was some media-hungry rabble-rouser from Miami handing Nick the very things he’d gone two thousand miles to avoid. Murder, drugs, illicit affairs, rumors. Christ, he didn’t want Hopewell to face that kind of shit, but by now the whole town had probably heard the accusations against Jack. The local media were probably having a field day.
    His hands fisted and he looked at Erin Sims. No one knew better than Nick what destructive sensationalism could do to a man. No one had worked harder than he to create a refuge from that sort of destruction.
    And no one—no matter how pretty and sad-eyed—was gonna come into his haven and fuck it up.

CHAPTER
9
    W HAT A FUCK-UP .
    The Angelmaker slid into the front entrance of Hilltop House, inched the door shut, and held still for the space of several seconds. Listened.
    The inn was asleep. No one to notice the truck missing, no one to question being out so late.
    Except the angels.
They keep watch. They see the truth.
    Fucking angels. Always watching. Well, not anymore. Not all of them, anyway. The first seven had been neutralized. They were harmless now—deaf, dumb, and blind. After twelve years, only three angels remained. Rebecca, the eighth, was next. Soon she’d join the others.
    But she was being difficult. Bitch.
    Tonight’s failure rolled in on a wave of anger. Rebecca had been inches from pulling up to the truck, seconds from falling into the trap