AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The last memo I’d seen hadn’t been conclusive. Instead it had opened another question—one I didn’t have the answer to. I definitely didn’t have all the facts.
Mom had convinced me years ago that Dennis was responsible, and I’d been working under that assumption ever since, looking for the information that would prove it.
Would I want someone judging me and later only looking for evidence to back up the accusation?
As I looked up from my plate, I realized the man in front of me hadn’t exhibited any of the traits I’d suspected him of. The opposite was more true.
Mom had always said he was responsible like it was a fact, but was it? Since I’d started working for Dennis, nothing I’d seen or heard had corroborated what my mother and I had been certain he was guilty of.
He wanted the benefit of the doubt, he said. I’d been denying him that by judging him without compelling evidence—without any evidence, it turns out.
What if I was wrong? The thought chilled me.
I’d passed on information that clearly hurt Dennis, and would continue to. What if he wasn’t guilty of killing my stepfather after all?
What kind of person did that make me? Was I the one who should be punished?
He caught me staring at him. “Hey, I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that. I’m sorry.”
“No, you were right.” I smiled up at him. “I don’t know all the facts.”
He couldn’t know that I was talking about more than the TV news story. I was convinced now that those other memos held the key.
“What’s bothering you, Angel?”
It unnerved me to hear him call me that again. I liked it, but whereas I’d thought he might change his opinion once he learned I was an avenging angel, now I worried I might be a malevolent demon in an angel’s disguise.
I decided he deserved an honest answer. “Pondering my future.”
He laughed. “Angel, you have a very bright future ahead of you, starting with another date after this last one didn’t end so well.”
I was tempted. “I really have some thinking to do.” A lot of thinking was more like it.
The file I’d retrieved for Hydra gnawed at me. If I passed it on as I had the others, wasn’t I passing judgment before the evidence was in? Or was this another hormone vs. neuron battle? This had been so much easier before all this gray invaded my black-and-white view of this man.
He wasn’t giving up so easily. “I know just the place. It’s where I go when I have to sort things out.”
“But—”
“No arguing. You’re coming with me.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“There’s plenty to choose from upstairs.”
“I don’t want to wear any of your ex’s clothes, thank you very much.”
“None of it is Melissa’s.”
“Then not any of your ex-girlfriends’ stuff either.”
“It’s all my sister’s.”
“Oh.” Once again I’d jumped to a conclusion without any facts.
“Kelly stays with me when she comes out. You two are about the same height.”
He didn’t seem to realize more than height went into fitting into another woman’s clothes.
