The Julius House

No one could say my married life was placid. No rut for the Bartells!

I giggled.

They glanced at me uneasily, then went back to their consultation.

“It’s quiet out there now. We’d better get moving,” Shelby said.

“I’ll call him,” Angel said. She was obviously bent on confessing her failure to someone. After a beat I realized she meant she was going to call Martin, and I just snapped.

“Excuse me,” I said viciously. “If anyone is going to call my husband, I am.”

They both looked startled at my speaking, and dismayed by what they were hearing.

“You should pack, and talk to Martin tonight,” Shelby said gently. But the gentleness was costing him, I could tell. Good.

“I will talk to my husband whenever I damn well please.”

They were considerably taken aback. Though I hadn’t known the true nature of the Youngbloods, they were finding out a thing or two about me.

They had Martin’s telephone numbers where he was staying. They knew where he was and why he was out of town. They knew all about our lives.

They were my bodyguards. I had a little shock whenever the word entered my mind.

Well, Shelby with his acne-scarred face and unruly black hair was nothing like Kevin Costner.

“I will go use the phone in the other room,” I told them. I stalked across the hall to sit at Martin’s desk and call him in Chicago.

The secretary who took the call was quite sure that Martin’s meeting (“He’s in conference with the president,” she said severely) was more important than my call, but I said, “I really have to insist. This is his wife, and there is an emergency.”

After a pause of nearly five minutes, Martin was on the phone, and at the sound of his voice I almost broke down. “What is it?” he asked tensely. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right.” My voice was shaky. I sat for a moment gathering myself. “Angel is a little hurt,” I said with shameful satisfaction.

“Angel? You’re all right and Angel’s hurt? What happened? Is Shelby there?”

“Yes, Martin, Shelby is here and you can talk to him in a minute so you guys can handle everything.” By golly, I was still mad at everyone. “A man was hiding in the garage, and if he’d had the sense to wait till I was in there, he would’ve had me. But I noticed something was wrong and he charged out and Angel was able to get there in time, and I got the ax away. But he ran and got in a car and left.” Now my voice was shaking again. I certainly wished I could pick an emotion and stick with it. Fear, anger, humiliation, shock. A cocktail of feelings.

“Baby. Are you really all right? Hurt anywhere?”

“Not physically, Martin,” I said with great restraint. “Does Angel need to be in the hospital?”

“No, I took care of it with the first-aid kit.”

“That’s good. Very good. Okay, honey. Here’s what I need you to do. I need you to do whatever Shelby and Angel tell you to do. They’re there to keep you safe. I’ll catch a flight home tomorrow morning. I’ll go to Guatemala once I make sure you’re going to be all right.”

“Okay,” I said tersely. There really wasn’t any point in saying anything else.

“Now, I need to talk to Angel and Shelby. I’m-thank God you’re okay. I’m so sorry.”

I looked across the hall. They were standing close to the kitchen doorway. Shelby had his arms around Angel. A weak moment.

“Phone,” I said. “Angel.”

Looking as if she’d rather face wrestling an alligator, Angel Youngblood, my protector, came to talk to Martin.

I went upstairs and lay on my bed.

Chapter Thirteen

IT WAS A LONG NIGHT.

Angel slept in the office/family room downstairs on the couch. Shelby was out patrolling the grounds. I lay awake in our bedroom. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I slept. Sometimes I brooded. In a million years, I could never have imagined myself in the situation in which I found myself now.

I was glad my mother was out of town. I couldn’t envision successfully concealing from her all the misery and fear I felt.

Before we’d all gone to our assigned spots for the night, Shelby had questioned us about the appearance of the man. It had all happened quickly, and he’d been in movement the whole time, but I found that if I shut my eyes and replayed him exploding from the tool-room door I could get a fair picture.

“He had on a short-sleeved khaki work shirt,” I said first. Angel nodded agreement.

“And safety shoes,” Angel contributed, rubbing her shoulder.

“What are safety shoes?” I asked.

“Steel toes,” she told me, looking faintly amazed.

“Oh. And he had on dark brown work pants.”

“So now we’ve got his wardrobe. What did he look like?” asked Shelby with very obvious patience.

I had a good mind to stomp up to my room and slam the door, but I was aware that Shelby, of course, was just doing his job and my acting childish would not help the situation. I was sorely tempted, though.

“He had dark curly hair,” Angel said.

“He was Angel’s height,” I contributed. “He was young. Not more than thirty, I doubt that old.”

“He does heavy work for a living,” Angel said. “Based on his musculature.”

“Clean-shaven. Blue eyes, I’m pretty sure. Heavy jaw.”

“He never said anything in any language?” Shelby asked us.

“No.”

“No.”

And that was the sum total of our knowledge of the man in the garage.

The next morning was clear again, definitely hotter. The Youngbloods switched; Shelby went up to their apartment to sleep, and Angel was detailed to stay with me. We ate breakfast and did the dishes in silence, and when we were facing each other dressed in blue jeans and T-shirts, we fidgeted. Angel hadn’t gotten her run in. I had finished my last library book, and I was not a daytime television watcher. After one round of the news on CNN, I switched the set off.

Normally, at this time, I would be getting ready to start my round of errands, or at least figuring out what that round should consist of-cleaners, grocery, bank, library- making phone calls, or writing letters. But today I couldn’t; they didn’t want me to go into town.

“Can we go outside?” I asked Angel finally.

She considered.

“Yes, in the front yard,” she said at last. “There are too many trees and bushes that block the view in the backyard.”

That was one of the things I liked about it so much.

“In the front yard I can see what’s coming,” Angel said. “Last night, Shelby took out that clump of bushes out by the road that hid the car.”

“He what?”

Taken aback, Angel repeated, “He cut down that clump of yellow bells.”

“The forsythia is gone,” I said unbelievingly. During the night, Shelby had cut down my bushes, a huge beautiful growth of three forsythias that had been happily expanding and blooming for twenty years, I estimated.

“They were down by the road, and they hid things from the house,” Angel explained further, puzzled at the degree of my dismay.