Angel's Verdict by Mary Stanton Page B

help but smile. “Or Tyra, either.”
    “Yeah, she grows on you.” Mira sighed. “Now if you could just teach me that wrath-of-God look of yours, the one that reduced Vincent the Vile to a nice little jelly, I’d be a contented woman. For the next five minutes, anyway. Where did you pick it up?”
    “Here and there,” Bree said sadly. “Here and there.”

Five
    Forbear to judge,
For we are sinners all.
    —Henry VI, Part 2 , William Shakespeare
     
     
     
     
    By the time Bree got back to the office, Lavinia had gone up to her apartment. Petru and Ron had drifted off to their own homes. She sat down in her small office to think and make notes.
    It was close to eight o’clock by the time she was satisfied with her preliminary action plan. She closed down her computer, rinsed her coffee cup in the kitchen sink, and turned off the overhead light in the parlor she had converted into a waiting room.
    Not that anyone ever actually waited there. She’d been incredibly naïve in those early days, imagining a raft of clients, all responsible about paying their bills, all with interesting tax problems, which had been her specialty in law school.
    Instead . . . dead people. Who didn’t seem concerned about her own need to pay the bills. And a career that seemed to be turning her into some sort of . . . what?
    Ron’s desk stood in the far corner. She’d purchased an old leather couch and chair from the thrift store down the block, and set them at right angles to the fine old brick fireplace. An old wooden chest acted as a coffee table.
    Above the fireplace, over the Adams-style mantel, hung the painting of the Rise of the Cormorant .
    Bree had to steel herself to look at it. A three-masted schooner rode flame-tipped waves. The sea was filled with the hands and arms of drowning men. The shadowed face of a dark-haired, silver-eyed woman hovered at the stern of the ship. Above it all was the slim, wicked figure of a seabird, beak open, and eyes glittering with hate, its hungry gaze on the dead and dying that thrashed desperately in the water. The cormorant, an avatar for Lucifer.
    Who was the woman in the ship?
    Who would try to help save the drowning souls?
    Who was she , for that matter?
    She knew the answer to the second question: it was the Company’s job. Her job.
    She suspected she knew the answer to the first. It was her birth mother, Leah, whom she longed to know. Leah had been an advocate for the damned, just as she was now.
    As for the last question: Who was she?
    She didn’t want to think about it.
    They had a small bathroom off the kitchen. It dated from the ’50s, with a pedestal sink, toilet, and a tiny tiled shower. There was a mirror over the sink. The silver nitrate was wearing off the back, so it was speckled with black. Bree walked in, pulled the chain for the lightbulb, and stared at herself: A nice face. A face that had its share of admirers.
    She thought of Vincent Victor White settling into Tyra’s chair with that despicable smirk.
    Her lips thinned. Her eyes grew hard and bright. And her face . . .
    She reached upward, wildly, and wrenched the chain so hard it came away in her hand. The lightbulb flared and went out.
    Not me. Not me. No way.
    She was hit, suddenly, with a tidal wave of fatigue. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She wanted to go home, see her sister, and maybe give Sam Hunter a call. She hadn’t seen him over the holidays, and they’d exchanged vague promises of getting together for a drink as soon as she was back in Savannah.
    Time to go home. She walked into the small front foyer, with a glance at the frieze Lavinia had painted on the stair wall. Brightly colored Renaissance angels followed one after the other in a gorgeously hued procession. Their robes were scarlet, trimmed with gold, edged with celestial blue. The halos gleamed gold fire, and their wings were a silver prayer. The angel at the end of the procession had white-blonde hair piled in intricate