Free Desolate Angel by Chaz McGee Page B

optimism of the human race, whether he might not be waiting somewhere for their daughter, a loving presence that would usher her to a better place than this world.
    I wondered, too. There had been no one there for me. And no one able to give testimony to my memory, not the way this loving mother had. No one had grieved for me like this, in fact, yet I had no one to blame but myself.
    Morty seemed to know that the mother was thinking of her dead husband, was envisioning a reunion between her loved ones. He patted her hand as if to reassure her that this was almost certainly true. The mother wiped her eyes and asked if Morty would like to see photos of her daughter’s life.
    “Oh, yes,” he agreed at once. “I would. Let me get them for you.”
    Soon the mother had stacks of albums piled before her on the coffee table and was poring over them with a rapt Morty beside her. He listened quietly as she sketched a portrait of her daughter. Unnoticed, Maggie found the kitchen and made them all tea while the woman led Morty through page after page of her daughter’s life.
    Maggie listened intently as the mother talked, sorting out all that the woman said in some part of her amazing mind, searching for a clue to the girl’s killer. That was what made her different from Morty, I realized, and more dangerous to the killer. Morty was listening with his heart, Maggie with the total sensory acuteness of a hunter seeking prey. Yet, she had known this about herself—had known her sympathy would quickly give way to the desire for vengeance—and so she’d had the good sense to bring Morty with her to provide the gentleness she lacked.
    That, I thought, made her a very dangerous opponent to whoever had taken the lives of Victoria Meeks and Alissa Hayes. Maggie knew her weaknesses and she had learned how to use them. I was filled with an inexplicable pride that she had taken on the task of bringing the dead justice and would not rest until it was done. Maggie would do what I had not done.
    After a while, Maggie murmured her regrets, promised to send a squad car later, and left the mother sitting with Morty, taking comfort in the remembered glory of the mundane milestones humans mark their brief lives with. Birth, baptism, school, confirmation, holidays, graduations, the senior prom. Morty was ready to listen to it all. Morty was ready to bear witness.
    I followed Maggie, knowing that whatever good still lurked within me, it was not in my heart, but in my head. I could help Maggie. Morty, well, he was a master at what he did best. He needed no help from me.
    We left Morty and the mother sitting together on the sofa, yet another photo album spread out across their knees, the mother intent on remembering her daughter while Morty, resplendent in his dress uniform, listened with an unwavering interest, his entire being devoted to the stranger beside him.
    I was alone with Maggie, content to search her face for signs of what her magnificent mind was mulling over. She seemed distracted, upset by something. I could not fathom her thoughts.
    And then I felt it again. Like an icy finger from the grave reaching through the warmth of the car to trace a fingernail down my spine: cold, cultivated, celebrated, coddled evil. And it was near.
    I looked around, searching the curb, the driveways, the houses. I saw no one. No one at all.
    Maggie reached the corner where the subdivision began and turned right toward the station house. As she turned, I looked behind us and saw a gleaming metallic black SUV pull out from the curb to follow us. It was soon lost in the traffic behind us, mired in a sea of trucks and impatient rush-hour motorists who lost their manners and, frustrated, created mayhem in the process. All Maggie had to do was activate the dash lights—which she did not hesitate to do—and, unwittingly, she left the SUV far behind us as the traffic parted to let us pass.
    But I had seen the SUV. And I had felt it. The man from the grove was