Read Online Angel Face by Stephen Solomita - Free Book Online Page B

she slept for twelve hours straight. She glances around the diner, at all the Pilgrim kitsch. There’s a plaster turkey in every corner. ‘I have nowhere to go,’ she finally says.
    â€˜How about your folks?’
    â€˜My father’s dead and my mother’s a drunk. Last I heard, she was living in a shelter.’
    â€˜What do you want me to do? I—’
    Angel cuts him off. ‘I want you to do what you said you were going to do. Go after that . . . that Bobby Ditto.’
    â€˜Sorry, Angel, I only meant to worry them. Bobby Ditto’s not a threat, not to me.’
    â€˜Then why did you interfere?’
    Carter’s eyes dart to the diner’s entrance. Two men have just come through the door. Thickly built, they wear wife-beater T-shirts that reveal jailhouse tattooing on their upper chests and arms. When they take seats at the counter, he turns back to Angel.
    â€˜I only came to warn you.’
    â€˜But you didn’t just warn me. You got involved and I’d like to know why.’
    Carter shakes his head. He’s not going there. But Angel’s not fooled and she’s not stupid. He either wants her body or he has a conscience, despite his profession. And it has to be number two because he intends to drop her off. Unless, of course, he wants a quickie in the van. Angel represses a smile. Everything about Carter intrigues her, from his nerdy front, to his stunning (lucky for her) proficiency, to his confidence, to his white-knight heroics.
    â€˜Like I said, I only came to warn you.’
    â€˜OK, but the fact is that you kicked the crap out of one of them and scared the crap out of the other one. I could see it in his eyes. He definitely thought you were gonna kill him. But you didn’t, right? And now you and me, we’re joined together in their minds. We’re joined together and my name is the only one they know, which means they’re gonna keep looking for me.’
    Carter’s trying to think of what to say – her logic is impeccable – when Angel’s cell punches out the opening notes to Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’. He nods when Angel looks up at him. Her life is no business of his. Then she puts the phone to her ear and her already grim expression darkens.
    â€˜What? What? That can’t be.’
    But it is, because when she hangs up a minute later, Angel hasn’t brightened. She tilts her chin up to meet his gaze and Carter realizes that her eyes aren’t black after all. They’re an impossible indigo that reminds him of the blue of the sky just before dark in the mountains around Tora Bora.
    â€˜That was Pierre’s wife, Jeanne-Marie. Pierre’s dead. As in shot, killed, murdered.’ Angel looks down at the table. She’s shaking again. ‘Holy shit, what the fuck have you done to me? To me and the rest of the girls. Because the only thing they stole was Pierre’s computer. And they didn’t even take that. They just took the hard drive.’
    â€˜You want some more coffee?’
    â€˜Is that supposed to be funny?’
    â€˜Probably not. So, what about an almond horn? The marzipan filling? It’s unbelievable.’
    Carter’s remembering the first few minutes after a firefight. You were alive and that was enough. Tomorrow morning, you’d wake up on the right side of the grass. Carter’s been in dozens of firefights, in Asia and in Africa, and come through uninjured, a blessing he doesn’t attribute to his own skills. Better men died before his eyes.
    â€˜Do you have a name?’
    â€˜Carter.’
    â€˜Well, here’s the thing, Carter. I left home unexpectedly and I somehow forgot to take my purse. That means I’ve got nothing, no clothes, no identification, no money, no credit cards, no debit card. I’ve got nothing and it’s your fault.’
    â€˜Actually, I’m blaming the whole thing on Ricky’s wife and