Death Angel

Keeping an eye on the weather was second nature to everyone in the Midwest and the South. "Tornado watch until nine tonight," she sang out to the kitchen crew.

"Lord," another of the waitresses, Denise, said as she wiped her hands before reaching into her pocket for her cell phone. "Joshua was going to spend the night with one of his buddies. I’d better make sure he lets the cats in the house before he leaves."

"The cats will be fine," Andie said absently. "Just tell him to make sure he turns off the stove."

"Stove? Joshua doesn’t cook-Oh!" Her eyes went round as she realized Andie had kind of drifted off, mentally, which they’d learned was a signal. Cassie had shot off her mouth, telling some of her trucker pals about Andie’s near-death experience, and some of those pals had asked the other waitresses about it, and even though some of them had considered her slightly psychic before, now they were really paying attention to what she said.

Furiously Denise punched the buttons on her cell phone. "Voice mail!" she muttered with annoyed frustration. Instead of leaving a voice message, she texted her son; teenagers found it almost impossible to resist reading a text message, whereas they could ignore voice mail with ease.

Her phone rang within two minutes. "No, I don’t have a spy camera set up at home," she said after listening to an outraged teenager squawking so loud Andie could hear the tone of it from ten feet away. "But it’s a good idea, thank you for giving it to me. Now go home immediately and make sure the stove is off, do you hear me? Immediately! Joshua, if you say one more word, you’ll not only go home, you’ll stay at home. Is that understood? You may say ‘yes.’"

With an air of satisfaction, Denise disconnected the call and winked at Andie. "Thanks. Now he thinks I either have spy cameras all over the place, or I’m psychic. Either way, he’ll think twice before he does something he shouldn’t be doing."

"Glad to be of service."

With a little start of inner surprise, Andie realized that she felt good. She liked being able to help people even in small ways, though preventing a kitchen fire that could have burned down Denise’s house probably didn’t qualify as "small," certainly not to Denise. She liked working and paying her bills. Physically, she felt damn good, not just for someone who had been impaled and died, but better than she’d felt in years. She was active, she had plenty to eat, she slept well. If she could see her way clear to using that two million dollars for her own benefit, well, life would be better, but her conscience wouldn’t let her do it.

Whoever said money corrupted had had it the wrong way around. Money was okay; money was good. Having it was way better than not having it. The corruption came from the person, not the money itself. She would love to use at least part of the two million to buy herself a nice house and a new car, but every time she had herself halfway talked into doing it some bitchy little inner voice would say "Nope, can’t do it."

But the money was sitting in her bank account, tempting her every day, and she knew she had to get rid of it before a weak moment caught her when the bitchy little inner voice was on a coffee break or something. She just wished that this one time, doing what she wanted to do and what was right had both happened to be the same thing.

Ah well. She still had her jewelry, and she hadn’t stolen it, so selling it and using that money shouldn’t be any problem. The amount wouldn’t be anywhere close to two million, but she’d still have a nest egg-unless the inner voice told her to repay what she’d used of the two million, in which case she was shit out of luck. Doing right definitely wasn’t easy.

A thunderstorm rolled overhead about five p.m.; that was usually a busy time at the truck stop, with people getting off work, but the heavy sheets of rain kept people in their cars, inching along the interstates and surface streets. Stopping might have been the better option, but no one wanted to get out and get soaked. Even the big rigs kept rolling past. The customers who were already in the truck stop stayed put, lingering over a last cup of coffee or deciding to have a slice of pie after all, but overall both the kitchen staff and waitresses had time to catch their collective breaths.

Business remained slow. Storm after storm marched across the city, and though they dodged the bullet regarding tornadoes, the thunderstorms were magnificent. Huge sheets of lightning flashed overhead, and straight-line winds blew trash like missiles across the parking lot. Andie had always kind of liked thunderstorms, so when she could she’d go to the windows and watch.

Around dark the storms eased and the rain lessened, and business picked up a little. Mother Nature wasn’t finished with the fireworks, though; the last line of storms marched through, providing a little more drama even though this one wasn’t nearly as intense as the earlier storms had been. One particularly brilliant and long-lasting flash of lightning lit the sky, and automatically Andie looked out the windows.

If the man had been walking toward the restaurant, she wouldn’t have paid any attention to him. But he wasn’t walking; he was just standing there as motionless as a rock, while the lightning flashed around him. She couldn’t make out any of his features, he was wearing a long rain slicker and was nothing but a dark shape, but the bottom dropped out of her stomach and her breath caught, and she knew. She had this reaction to one man, and one man only.

She forced herself to turn away from the window as if she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. She wanted to run screaming, but letting herself panic was the last thing she needed to do; look what had happened before.

The way he was just standing there, staring inside, reminded her of how Cassie had described the man she’d seen last month. Had he been watching her even then? How long had he known where she was? At least a month, she was certain. So what was he waiting on? Why hadn’t he made his move?