Free Angel Fire by Lisa Unger Page A

side of his wife, or did he leave because Marion wastoo cold, never satisfied? If her father hadn’t left them, would her mother be alive today? Lydia’s thoughts on this subject were a downward spiral, questions without answers on and on.
    Lost in thought, Lydia absently glanced into the rearview mirror and saw with fright her mother’s furrowed brow. She had slammed on the brakes and spun around in her seat, expecting to see a ghost, before she realized the brow she had seen in the mirror was her own.
    “Such an idiot,” she said aloud, letting out a sharp sigh. She rested her head against the steering wheel. The highway was empty. And her convertible black Mercedes Kompressor stood alone with miles of highway ahead of her and behind her, surrounded by desert and sky. In the distance a hawk called.
    Her mother would have said,
Lydia, you’re letting your imagination run away with you again. Get yourself on track. Here you are, sitting in the middle of a highway at a dead stop while that boy is waiting for you at the airport. You’re always getting distracted from the real world by these crazy fantasies
.
    And how right she would have been.
    She hit the gas. She was fifteen minutes late to pick up Jeffrey and the airport was still twenty minutes away. He was used to waiting for her. But now that she was focused on the present, anticipating the sight of him, she couldn’t drive fast enough. The distance seemed terribly long, suddenly, and way too short.
    By the time she had reached the airport, she’d convinced herself that Juno’s comment could have had significance to a thousand people. It was open to infinite interpretations. But the most disturbing possibility lingered, dwelling in the same place in her mind as the memory of her dream.

chapter nine
    W hen he saw her today she filled his senses. She had stood so close to him, yet had no idea he was there or how she affected him. He could smell her perfume, light and floral. He could hear the mellow, rhythmic cadence of her voice.
    Soft, vanilla flesh. How good it would feel under his hands, in his mouth. He had quivered as he imagined her beneath him, her neck and back arched in pleasure, grabbing at him with her fingernails, leaving red marks that bled ever so slightly. He had put his hand on his erection and began to release his desire, his breath sharp and hot.
    As he climaxed silently, he had imagined himself straddling her, covered in her blood, her lifeless eyes staring up at him, her mouth parted in a scream that never managed to escape her lips. He felt a flash of rage, of shame.
Don’t you judge me, bitch
. But then in the next second, he had to bite down hard on his tongue to keep from laughing; he hadn’t wanted to give himself away.
    But, of course, she had a larger purpose in his plan, in God’s plan. As much as he would like to have her in that way, it was not for him to decide. He must bend to the will of God. Her role in his plan was fated. It was so perfect, it could be nothing else but Divine intervention. How she had come to him, how she had appeared just weeks after he began reading her books. And how shehad come again so close to the culmination of his plans. It was pure poetry.
    The room was dark now except for the moon streaming in through the window and glinting off the metal table. He sat in the corner, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. This morning the ghost of his son had visited him. He had been just waking up when he heard his son’s sweet voice.
    “Daddy?”
    A halo of light glowed over the child’s strawberry-blond curls; he looked thin and pale but at peace and smiling. He wore baggy Baby Gap jeans and a crisp blue-and-white-striped T-shirt, odd attire for an angel.
    “Daddy, you’re so brave. God loves you.”
    He jumped up to take his son in his arms, smell his hair and little-boy skin so soft and sweet, to embrace that tiny little life again. But by the time he