Avenging Angels (30 page)

“And the Players started up again. And Harriet went right back to her old tricks. She was selling the same ten percent of the company to at least five different prospects that we’ve turned up so far.

“They got Eddie’s phone call, of course, and decided he was too much of a threat to live. They booked an early flight into Savannah, rented a car, and met Eddie at the visitors’ center much earlier than the two o’clock time Eddie requested. They shot him, put his body in the trunk, and checked into the Mansion at Forsyth Park. It takes five minutes or less to get from Forsyth Park to here on Factor’s Walk, by car. And whatever Buck is, he’s got the balls of a buffalo. Sorry, Daddy. Eddie was wrapped in canvas. Buck and Harriet sat in the bar all afternoon, then Buck excused himself for a bit, drove over here, dropped him into my hallway with some fuzzy idea of implicating me in the murder, and scooted on back to the bar at 700 Drayton in the time it’d take some folks to go to the bathroom and back.”

“Why you?” Francesca asked anxiously.

“When they called Eddie back to arrange an earlier meeting time, he told them he was about to turn all the evidence over to me and Hunter.” Bree shrugged. “It must have seemed like a good idea at the time,. My guess is if they’d laid off the whiskey they might have come up with a better way of disposing of the body—but they didn’t have much time. And it’s hard to get rid of a corpse.”

“Some nerve,” Antonia said.

“That’s what it took,” Bree agreed. “Some nerve. And a half bottle of Jameson’s whiskey, They were due to leave here tomorrow, so we had to act fast.”

“This is the third time you’ve had to deal with a body in as many months,” Francesca said. “I hope you aren’t considering criminal law as a career, Bree, darlin’.”

Bree reached down and scratched Sasha’s ears. “Not in this life, Mamma.”

Ron adjusted Bree’s courtroom robes over her shoulders, fixed the collar that rose behind her head, and smoothed the lapels. “Very nice,” he said. “Did you notice what Lavinia embroidered on the hem?”

Bree shook out the folds of the heavy red velvet. Tiny, elegantly shaped letters had been added under the gold spheres:
Beaufort & Company
. Lavinia did beautiful work. She could stand here and look at it all night. Especially in preference to pleading this case before the Celestial Court.

Ciaran Fordham stood with them on the seventh floor of the Chatham County Courthouse. He held the cloisonné bowl in one hand.

At least the red velvet robes made her
look
competent. “Are you ready, Sir Ciaran?”

“Are you taking me home?”

“I hope so,” she said gently. “We’re applying for a Writ of Sanctuary. If the judge grants it . . .” She paused. She wasn’t sure what would happen after that. The case precedents Petru found were based on a small, almost forgotten Christian sect that believed all the bits and pieces of a person had to be in place for a correct and proper burial. Barrie and Tully had removed Ciaran’s heart and kept it in the cloisonné jar. It wasn’t a decorative piece at all, but a canopic jar, made especially for the purpose. Ciaran’s spirit was bound to a spirit so old, Petru had been unable to find any written references to it. “There are hieroglyphs, which perhaps allude to its presence. But we truly know not much, dear Bree. All we know is that it is hungry.”

The Celestial Courts were ecumenical in their application of the legal code. As long as the petitioner hadn’t committed a variant on one of the Seven Deadly Felonies (and especially if the defendant had—and Bree was sure the Being, whatever it was, was guilty of an attempted murder of Ciaran’s spirit), all temporal beliefs were worthy of consideration.

So they had a shot. If she could convince the Judicial Presence that Ciaran should be offered sanctuary, he could indeed go home to the Light that called him. If Beazley and Caldecott prevailed, the case would be thrown out of court for lack of jurisdiction.

And Ciaran’s terrible half-life would go on.

Ron pushed the door to Superior Court open and stepped aside to let them enter.

Bree had been in Superior Court once before, and she breathed a faint sigh of relief to see that the venue hadn’t changed. A long elevator led from the entrance platform to the vast courtroom below. Scenes from the current case were painted on the walls, colorful murals that flickered with movement. Bree paused in front of the one that showed Ciaran in the hands of those who had removed his heart. She hoped the Judicial Presence took a long time looking at that one.

The judge’s platform held the scales of justice, made of gold and, for now, evenly balanced.

Bree took a seat on the bench provided for the plaintiff on the right. Ciaran sat down beside her. First Beazley, then Caldecott appeared on the bench at her left.

Bree got to her feet again, as did the others. She didn’t know the source of the voice. It was everywhere and nowhere.

A soft gold light shone behind the scales. There was no shape to it. It was a presence without form. The Judicial Presence.

And then a soft, glorious voice, stern and beautiful all at once:

“Plaintiff’s counsel may present her case.”

Bree stepped forward and began her plea for the death of Ciaran Fordham.

“Displaced Persons, indeed,” Caldecott sniped when the verdict had been rendered. “Sanctuary offered and received. Phooey!” The four of them rode up the escalator back to the seventh floor. “Crock of baloney. We should have been granted that Motion for Dismissal. This case is
not
part of our jurisdiction.”

“Caldecott hates to lose,” Beazley said. He smiled at Bree. It wasn’t a nice smile. “On the other hand, Caldecott, she has to deliver the Writ of Sanctuary to whatever it is that holds her client’s soul. Bad luck to you, Miss Beaufort.”

They exited into the seventh floor. Bree and Ciaran turned right. Beazley and Caldecott turned left. When Bree looked back over her shoulder, both lawyers had disappeared.

“I’m to go home?” Ciaran asked. He held the canopic jar in one hand and the Writ of Sanctuary in the other.

“I hope so.” Bree shepherded him into the elevator. “It’ll be just a little longer.”

Ron was waiting for them in the lobby. It was very late at night. It had taken Petru all weekend to track down the case precedents to make the argument that Ciaran’s soul had been stolen and his true death desired. The security guard touched his cap in a wry salute as he unlocked the front door and let her out.

“You sure you don’t want an escort home, ma’am? Kind of late for the two of you to be out on the streets all by yourself.”

Bree ran her hand over Sasha’s ears and smiled at Ron. “We’ll be fine, Officer. Thank you.”

The security guard at the Bay Street office building was new, and wasn’t anywhere near as solicitous as the other one had been, merely bored. He unlocked the doors with a yawn and waved Bree and Ciaran toward the elevators with indifference.

Sasha and Ron rode up with them.

They rode to the sixth floor in silence. As the elevator doors opened, Bree was in the middle of recalling a particularly apt objection she’d made to one of Caldecott’s snide objections. She was totally unprepared for the shrieking figure that jumped at her.

“You!” Barrie Fordham screamed. She swung out wildly, and her nails raked down Bree’s face. “You leave my husband alone!”

“Barrie,” Ciaran said. He glanced at her but continued to walk down the hall. Barrie ran after him. Bree dropped her briefcase and touched the blood on her cheek.

“Ciaran! Ciaran! What are you doing?” Barrie clutched at his waist. He walked on. Barrie fell to her knees and scrambled to her feet again.

“Oh, my,” Ron said. “We’ll have to stop her. He has to get through the door.”

Bree ran down the hall. Ciaran reached 616 and stopped, his hand on the door. Barrie grabbed at him again, tugging at his coat. She was a small woman, and frail, but her strength was rooted in utter panic. Ciaran swayed backwards. Bree caught Barrie’s wrist and pulled her away from her husband. Barrie turned and beat at Bree’s face with her fists. “Let me go! Let me go!”

Ciaran opened the door into the deep, cold black that had greeted Bree once before. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. Barrie screamed, a long anguished shriek of despair.

A great white light flared behind the door.

Then silence.

Bree folded the newspaper carefully and set it on the fireplace mantel, just under the gilded mirror left to her by Uncle Franklin. She tilted her head back slightly. The mottled glass reflected the living room behind her: the worn, comfortable couch; Sasha fast asleep under the coffee table; a glimpse of the foyer where Eddie Chin’s body had lain less than a week ago.

Where Bree herself stood, the mirror showed only a column of faint silver light, encasing a tall, slim shadow with a cascade of hair.

Bree closed her eyes and fought off the clutch of fear inside her heart.

“You taking today off, or what?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Antonia slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a quick hug. “Awful about Sir Ciaran, isn’t it?”

Bree opened her eyes and stared up at the mirror. For a horrible, heart-stopping moment, Antonia stood there alone, with the couch, the coffee table, the dog, all reflected behind her, as if Bree herself didn’t exist.

“That is
so
weird,” Antonia said. “Look! If the angle’s wrong, you can’t see yourself at all! Just me!” She placed both palms under the bottom of the frame and shoved it straight. “There you are!’ she said cheerfully. “You’re back in the picture!”

Bree stood with her arm tucked into Antonia’s, her own silvery blonde hair next to her sister’s deep red curls. She reached up and touched the cold glass. “You remember that time I got caught in that undertow at Tybee Beach?”

Antonia frowned. “What in the world made you think of that?”

“I got myself out, didn’t I?”

“You would have gotten out faster if you’d thought to yell for help,” Antonia said. “But as usual, you figured on doing it yourself.”

“But I got myself out,” Bree said. She stared defiantly into the mirror. “And I can do it again, if I have to.”

“Whatever,” Antonia said. “You going to give me a ride downtown or not?”

ALSO FROM
MARY STANTON

Money’s been tight ever since Brianna Winston-Beaufort inherited Savannah’s haunted law firm Beaufort & Company—along with its less-than-angelic staff. But she’s finally going to tackle a case that pays the bills, representing a spoiled girl who robbed a Girl Scout. But soon enough Bree finds that her client’s departed millionaire father needs help, too. Can she help an unsavory father/daughter duo and make a living off of the living?