Free Where Angels Fear to Tread by Thomas E. Sniegoski

as the child continued to squeal happily, grabbing at her chains.
    "I think it's time for Ron to put himself to good use," she said, her cold gaze falling upon the man in the NASCAR hat.
    "Kill her," Delilah said with a sly smile. "And don't tell me you've never wanted to."
    The weak-willed were always the easiest to manipulate. Ron didn't even hesitate. He lunged forward and wrapped his strong hands around Janie's throat.
    "That's it," Delilah said, bouncing the child who was now watching his father kill his mother. "This is how Daddy shows how much he loves your old mommy," she said in a soft voice. She kissed the top of Max's head as Ron drove a thrashing Janie to the floor of the living room.
    Ron was moaning now, trying to stop himself, but he had a better chance of holding back a tidal wave than trying to defy Delilah.
    "Are we ready to go to Boston?" she asked the baby in her sweetest voice. The child cooed excitedly, arms flapping, as Delilah glanced at Mathias and headed for the door.
    She stopped as she heard a pitiful cry behind her, then turned to see a pathetic Ron, kneeling beside the strangled body of his wife, his cheeks flushed from the exertion of murder.
    "No," he managed, reaching out for his child.
    She smiled at him, holding the baby she called Max all the closer. "He's mine now," she said, kissing the side of the child's head. "And when we're gone, I want you to burn this place." She looked about the disheveled interior with a scowl, then turned and headed out the door that Mathias held open. "Burn it to the ground."
    She was singing a Mesopotamian lullaby to her new baby when the house at the end of the path exploded, fingers of fire and thick black smoke reaching up into the sky in a futile attempt to blot out the bright Florida sun.

CHAPTER FOUR

     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    "W ill you help me, Mr. Chandler?"
    Remy heard Deryn York's plea again, echoing through his mind as he took a right into the visitor lot of Franciscan Hospital for Children, pulling into the first empty space he could find.
    How could he resist? This case reeked of the bizarre; one of those weird ones that Mulvehill loved to give him shit about. The missing child was drawing pictures of herself being taken by her father weeks before it happened, never mind the fact that she had drawn him as an angel, and Marlowe, and had even managed to get down his telephone number and address.
    There wasn't a chance he would have turned this one away.
    He pulled a wallet photo of a six-year-old girl in an Elmo sweater from his shirt pocket and gazed at it. According to Ms. York, it was taken at Sears last Christmas, but Zoe's sad, vacant stare was a sharp contrast to the usual childlike excitement of the season.
    What are you really looking at? he wondered.
    Then placing the photo back in his pocket, he headed toward the hospital's main entrance in the still-sweltering heat.
    The automatic doors slid open with a hiss, and a cold blast of air-conditioned air flowed out to greet him. He stepped into the small lobby just as an ear-piercing scream filled the air.
    To his right, in the reception area, Remy caught sight of two very nervous-looking parents with a little boy about Zoe's age. They were trying to coax him deeper into the hospital, but the child's body was rigid as he rocked rapidly back and forth, and every time they placed a hand on his shoulder, he began to scream and flail wildly.
    Remy slowed his pace as he passed by and caught the child's eye. Almost immediately the little boy settled down.
    It was a strange fact that many physically or mentally challenged humans seemed to possess a unique gift of sight, as if their disabilities in the natural world somehow made them more sensitive to the unnatural. Very often they were able to glimpse the other side, and those who lived just beyond the veil.
    This little boy could see Remy for what he truly was.
    Angel.
    And he seemed to like what he saw.
    Taking advantage of the sudden calm, the