Free The Soul Catcher by Alex Kava Page A

as though she faced one more hill than she could possibly endure on this day of endless hills.
    “I can take her,” Maggie volunteered before realizing she might be the worst possible person to comfort the girl. But surely, bathroom duty was something she could handle.
    “Do you mind, Abigail? Would it be okay for Agent O’Dell to take you to the rest room?”
    “Agent O’Dell?” The little girl’s face scrunched up as she looked around, trying to find the person her grandmother was talking about. Then suddenly, she said, “Oh, you mean Maggie? Her name’s Maggie, Grandma.”
    “Yes, I’m sorry. I mean Maggie. Is it okay if you go with her?”
    But Abby had already taken Maggie’s hand. “We need to hurry,” she told her, without looking up and pulling Maggie in the direction she had seen Cunningham point.
    Maggie wondered if the four-year-old had any understanding of what had happened or why they were even at the cemetery. However, Maggie was simply relieved that her only task at the moment was to fight the wind and trek up the hill, leaving behind all those memories and wisps of spirits riding the wind. But as they got to the building that towered over the rows of white crosses and gray tombstones, Abby stopped and turned around to look back. The wind whipped at her blue coat, and Maggie could see her shiver. She felt the small hand squeeze tight the fingers it had managed to wrap around.
    “Are you okay, Abby?”
    She nodded twice, setting her hat bouncing. Then her chin stayed tucked down. “I hope he doesn’t get cold,” Abby said. Maggie’s heart took a plunge.
    What should she say to her? How could she explain something that even she didn’t understand? She was thirty-three years old and still missed her own father, still couldn’t understand why he had been ripped away from her all those years ago. Years that should have healed the gaping wound that easily became exposed at the sound of a stupid bugle or the sight of a casket being lowered into the ground.
    Before Maggie could offer any consolation, the girl looked up at her and said, “I made Mommy put a blanket in there with him.” Then, as if satisfied by the memory, she turned back toward the door and pulled Maggie along, ready to continue with the task at hand. “A blanket and a flashlight,” she added. “So he’ll be warm and not scared of the dark. Just till he gets to God’s house.”
    Maggie couldn’t help but smile. Perhaps she could learn a thing or two from this wise four-year-old.

CHAPTER 6
    SATURDAY
November 23
Arlington National Cemetery
    M aggie O’Dell gripped the lapels of her jacket into a fist, bracing herself for another gust of wind. She regretted leaving her trench coat in the car. She’d ripped it off in the church, blaming the stupid coat for her feeling of suffocation. Now, here in the cemetery, amid the black-clad mourners and stone tombstones, she wished she had something, anything, from which she could draw warmth.
    She stood back and watched the group huddle together, surrounding the family under the canopy, intent on protecting them from the wind, as though compensating for the mistakes that had brought them all here today. She recognized many of them in their standard dark suits and their trained solemn faces. Except in the middle of this graveyard, even those bulges under their jackets couldn’t prevent them from looking vulnerable, stripped by the wind of their government-issue, straight-backed posture.
    Watching from the fringes, Maggie was grateful for her colleagues’ protective instincts. Grateful they prevented her from seeing the faces of Karen and the two little girls who would grow up without their daddy. She didn’t want to witness any more of their grief, their pain; a pain so palpable it threatened to demolish years of protective layers she had carefully constructed to hide and stifle her own grief, her own pain. Standing back here, she hoped to stay safe.
    Despite the crisp autumn gusts