A Fool and his Honey Page 0,30

me from hugging her, which would have surprised both of us. Angel is almost a foot taller than me, and golden and rangy as a leopard. Though now she looked like a really pregnant leopard, the effect was still striking. I couldn't remember exactly how old Angel was, but I was sure she was at least six years younger than I, and her husband Shelby was a few months older than Martin. Shelby and Martin had been buddies in Vietnam, and had met sporadically after the war and their covert activities in South America had concluded. Now Shelby worked for Martin as a crew leader at the Pan-Am Agra plant.

"Where's the baby?" Angel was always direct. I called up the stairs softly, to alert Martin, and led Angel up to have a look. Martin, who'd been reading a magazine (or at least staring at its open pages), rose when Angel came in, seemed to pull himself together a little. Angel just nodded at him. She was absorbed in the tiny face. She put her long fingers around the curve of Hayden's skull, and she laid her other hand on the mound of her pregnancy. The mound constricted - that's the best way I can describe it - and after a long moment, relaxed.

Angel smiled at me. "This one doesn't even have room to move around anymore," she said, her voice quiet and smooth so as not to wake Hayden. "Isn't it almost time for you?"

Angel nodded. "Time, and a day over. But I'm feeling fine, so today's not the day, I guess. I'm sorry about your stepfather," she added, jumping mentally from her own hospital stay to John's. "How's he doing? How's your mother holding up?" My mother and Angel had developed an arm's-length mutual respect.

"She's doing pretty well." You know my mother, my voice said. Angel nodded, her eyes back on the baby's face. "There's something about them," she said, the smooth low voice almost hypnotic. "You'd kill for them." Her hands caressed her own stomach again, and I saw it tighten again. "If they're your own," I said, a question in my tone. "Maybe not just then. Look at him." And Angel crouched over the pale-green-and-blue portable crib, her blond hair framing her narrow face. "What are you gonna do with him, Roe? If I understand right, his dad is dead and his mother is missing," Angel said as we went back downstairs to the kitchen. She sat at the table while I poured her a glass of orange juice. "We're planning on driving to Corinth, where Regina and her husband were living," I explained. "Then, I guess we'll see if Craig's family will keep him. Or maybe Regina will have turned up by then, and we'll know what happened. Or . ...e'll be able to get in touch with Barby, and when she flies back from her cruise, she'll be coming into Pittsburgh, which is the closest airport to Corinth."

It sounded pretty thin and uncertain, even to me. "Wouldn't it be better to stay put?" Angel drank her juice in one long gulp, and set the glass down. She eased forward in her chair, and her hand rubbed her back absently. Her face tightened suddenly, then relaxed. "After all," Angel said slowly, with effort, "if Regina does escape, or return..." Her face did that tightening and relaxing thing again. "She'd come back here, for her baby..." This time Angel's face stayed tight for a while.

"Angel?"

"I think," she said slowly and thoughtfully, "that maybe it will be today, after all."

I was on my feet in a flash. I'd seen one baby born, and I wasn't about to do that again. "Let me drive you to the hospital," I said. "I'll get my jacket." "No, that would get the cars all confused," Angel said, but as if she hardly knew what she was saying. All her attention seemed to be focused inward. "My car would be out here, and who knows when I could come back to get it. I can drive home, and wait there for Shelby to get off work." "Call him from here."

"Okay," she said, to my surprise. My concern deepened. Easy capitulation was not one of Angel's characteristics. "Let me use the bathroom first." I hovered outside the door.

When Angel emerged, she said, "Today for sure." Her voice was still calm and flat, but I sensed all kinds of suppressed excitement just trying to bubble to the surface. She went to the telephone on the