Read Online Daniel and the Angel by Jill Barnett - Free Book Online Page A

grabbed a purse that was sitting on a chair, then she went back to the door, where she listened to make certain no one was in the hallway.
    Cracking the door a smidgen, she peered out. The coast was clear. She left the bedroom and hurried to the gallery that ran next to the stairs. Her hands on the gallery railing, she looked down into the foyer.
    It was empty.
    She moved to the top of the stairs and started to tiptoe down. She paused, then sat on the banister and slid to the bottom, landing perfectly and quietly.
    A minute later she was running down the steps and away from the house, and she never looked back.
     
    D.L. stood at the window of his office, his hands in his pockets, as he watched the traffic on the street below. A delivery boy in a blue coat with gold epaulets and a gold-brimmed hat came running through the crowd outside his building.
    A few minutes later he heard the chain hoist on the elevator. He stood there, tense and tight, as he waited. The door burst open and the boy rushed inside.
    "I went as fast as I could, Mr. Stewart!" The lad was out of breath, which D.L. thought appropriate, since he himself was holding his.
    "I spoke to your butler, and he said to tell you Miss Lillian was still asleep."
    D.L. closed his eyes and sagged back against the windowsill. He felt the tension he'd been living with all morning drain away. He suddenly remembered himself and straightened, then shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out a ten-dollar gold piece. "Fine." He flipped it to the boy.
    The boy snatched it out of the air. "Thank you, sir." He turned to leave.
    "Willy?"
    The boy paused and turned back. "Yes, sir?"
    "Where's your family?"
    Willy's mouth gaped open, then he suddenly snapped it shut. "Hoboken, sir."
    D.L. nodded, then turned around and looked out the window. "If one wanted to buy some Christmas greenery and perhaps a tree, where is the best place to go?"
    "The freshest greens are at the Washington Market, near the docks on the North River. Most of the freight barges dock there, sir."
    "I see," D.L. said, lost in thought.
    A few minutes passed, and then Willie cleared his throat.
    D.L. turned back.
    "Is that all, sir?"
    "Yes." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of gold pieces. He stared at them for a moment. He looked at Willy and said, "Take off the two days before Christmas and spend them with your family."
    "But sir—"
    "With pay. Consider it payment for information."
    Willie grinned. "Yes, sir!"
    D.L. watched the door close, then heard a loud whoop echo down the hallway. His lips twitched slightly as he reached for his topcoat and hat, and he was smiling when he left his office. A few minutes later his carriage pulled away from the Stewart Building, headed for the Washington Market in lower Manhattan.
     
    D.L. strolled through the marketplace, where Christmas greens were piled like cordwood along the walks and twined up awning posts and around storefront windows. Booths were made up of barrels with rising latticework that looked like arbors. And from them hung festoons of every shade and thicket of greenery from Maine to the Catskills.
    Three ropes of greenery hung from around D.L.'s neck, and in one hand was a basket filled with holly, red roses, and rolls of ribbon. And the purchase he was most proud of, a large bouquet of snow-white lilies.
    He walked along, breathing in the tangy clean scent of pine and trying to picture Lilli's face.
    It wasn't difficult. She was standing just a few feet away.
    She was bent over a little boy, who was looking up at her with serious wide eyes. He held a tin whistle in one hand, and under the other arm was a mechanical cow with a brass bell around its neck.
    D.L. moved closer and listened.
    "Yes, Alfred, it's true," Lilli was saying. "Didn't you know that?"
    The boy shook his head.
    "I have a rhyme to help you remember. Do you want to hear it?"
    He nodded.
    Lilli squatted down until she was at eye level with the boy, and she said, "Every time a