Inn, and it was here that I’d written out my entire account of that first journey into Angel Time. The manuscript was in the room. It was on the desk where I’d killed my last victim with a needle to the neck. And it was here that I’d called my old boss, The Right Man, and told him I would never kill for him again.
Notwithstanding, I’d done murder here. And it had been cold, calculated murder, the kind for which Lucky the Fox was justly famous. I shuddered inwardly, murmuring a prayer that no shadow of that evil would ever touch Liona or Toby, that no consequence of that evil would ever harm them.
This place had been my solace before that murder. It had been the one place where I felt at ease, and it was for this reason surely that I’d brought Liona and my son to this very spot, this very table where Malchiah and I had talked together. It seemed natural that they should be here, it seemed natural that I should experience this new joy of having them both, in this place where my grim, sarcastic prayers for redemption had actually been answered.
All right, my own ways made some sense to me. And what safer place was there for Lucky the Fox than the scene of his most recent crime? Who would ever expect a hired killer to go back to the scene of the crime? No one. I was confident of that. After all, I’d been a contract assassin for ten years and I’d never gone back to the scene of a single crime, until now.
But I had to admit, I’d brought these beloved innocents to a place of remarkable significance.
I was so unworthy of my long-ago love, and my newfound son, so utterly unworthy, and they had no conception of it.
And you had better make sure they never know, because if they do know who you were and what you did, if they ever glimpse the blood on your hands, you will have done them the most unspeakable harm and you know it.
I felt I heard a small voice, not very far away, say distinctly. “That’s right. Not a word that could harm them.”
I looked up to see a young man passing by, making his way along the wall, past the door of the Amistad Suite and off out of my vision. It was that same young man I’d seen below by the lobby doors, same suit identical to mine, and the shock of reddish blond hair, and the urgent engaging eyes.
I will not hurt them!
“Did you say something?” Liona asked.
“No, I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I mean I was talking to myself, I think. I’m sorry.”
I stared at the door of the Amistad Suite. I wanted to get that murder out of my mind. The needle to the neck, the banker dying as if from a stroke, an execution carried out so smoothly no one had ever suspected foul play.
You are one coldhearted man, Toby O’Dare, I thought, that you could so easily seek to exploit a new lease on life at the very crossroads where you destroyed another’s life with such abandon.
“I’ve lost you,” Liona said gently with a smile.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Too many thoughts, too many memories.” I looked at her and it was as if I were seeing her for the first time. Her face was so fresh, so trusting.
Before she could answer, we were interrupted.
One of the guides had come at my request, and I entrusted Toby to him for a tour of “the catacombs” and all the other wonders that the giant hotel had to offer. He was thrilled.
“We’ll have lunch when you get back,” I assured him. Though of course for them it would be an early supper as they had had lunch on the plane.
Now came the moment I had dreaded and most looked forward to, because Liona and I were alone. She’d taken off the red jacket, and she looked suitably shapely in the pink blouse and I felt an immense overwhelming desire to be with her, and to have nothing and no one interfere, and that included angels.
I was jealous of my son at that moment that he would very soon come back. And I was so aware of the angels watching that I think I blushed.
“How can you forgive me for disappearing like that?” I asked suddenly.
There were no tourists wandering the veranda. We were there alone at the glass table as