Free Seraphim by Jon Michael Kelley

years.
    One simple phone call, but hardly routine. Received at seven a.m. on the seventh day of the seventh month.
    Later that same evening, she’d interviewed with the McNeil family. During introductions, she’d learned that the child’s name was, indeed, Amy. Upon that affirmation, she began showering the poor thing with gushing affection. It had taken all she had to keep from kneeling before the bundled form and weeping.
    It wasn’t long into the informal interview when she sensed Señor Duncan’s fear of her, and it was likewise during this time that her distrust of him was born. She’d since learned that Rachel had the “final say” in the matter, and had hired her despite Duncan’s protests. She’d also since learned that when Rachel McNeil had the “final say,” God Himself couldn’t have carved the pronouncement any deeper in stone.
    But now she didn’t know what to think of Señor McNeil; hadn’t for a good year or so. He was a mysterious and certainly troubled man. Of this she was sure. But evil? Evil enough to do his own daughter harm? She now doubted it. Something had begun many months back to persuade her otherwise. Nothing tangible, nothing that he’d said or done, only a nagging feeling that maybe she’d been spending far too much time and energy suspecting her employer. The deep, troubling secrets she intuited from the man, she had to finally admit, were probably not worthy of her longstanding suspicions.
    No, it was now arguable that Señor Duncan was not Satan incognito. He was just an asshole with issues.
    She continued to pace, driven by fear. Earlier that morning, something had occurred within her, a sense of heightened alert, as if someone had climbed to the crow’s nest of her mind, waving frantically to the rest of her being, her soul, signaling the approach of doom on the horizon.
    Polishing her rosary, she mumbled, “ Va haber un desmadre .”
    Yes, all hell was going to break loose, she was sure. And soon.
     
    *****
     
    Juanita continued to pace.
    Rachel, no longer intrigued with her hands, was leafing through a two-year-old edition of People magazine when a young man in a blue and white uniform walked up to her. He was one of the paramedics she’d seen earlier in the ER. He was still wearing a troubled face.
    “Excuse me,” he said, “but are you the mother of the little girl we transported from Jefferson Elementary?”
    “Yes,” Rachel said, “I am.”
    “May I talk with you?” He glanced nervously around. “Privately?”
    “Keep the chair warm for me, Juanita,” she said, grabbing her purse.
    The paramedic placed a gentle hand on Rachel’s elbow and led her, somewhat urgently, into an elevator.
    Descending from the seventh floor, neither spoke. By the time they’d reached the lobby, Rachel was surprised the medic hadn’t chewed his lower lip bloody.
    The air was still hot despite the sun’s position, which teetered like a steel orange on the Pacific Ocean. It was the last week of September, and was promising to be the start of one of the hottest and muggiest autumns this city had ever seen. But LA wasn’t the only place suffering third degree burns. Nearly the whole country was in the midst of a tenacious heat wave.
    He pulled a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket. Offering a cigarette to Rachel, he said, “Nasty habit, huh?”
    “What’s this all about?” she said, accepting. Dave Schilling was stenciled on his name tag.
    “I’m not crazy,” he whispered. “And my partner won’t back me up. He refuses to talk about it.”
    “Okay,” Rachel said “Talk about what?”
    Dave lit her cigarette. “Ya know, I’ve seen some bizarre things in this city,” he continued in a low voice. “A car wreck so bad there were intestines splattered across a billboard thirty yards from impact. A hobo whose face was eaten off by two Chihuahuas as he lay passed out in an alley. A crazy old woman who choked to death on her pet hamster.” He stared at the noisy