you see anything? Was it a car accident? Who’s hurt?”

Of course. The sound of screaming sirens had drawn attention.

Before she could address the rapid-fire of questions thrown at her, Pam swung out through the door and beckoned her inside.

“I’m late. Please accept…”

Pam waved her attempt at an apology aside. “Never mind that, tell me what happened.” The small crowd followed them into the bakery.

“One of my neighbors was injured.” The brief answer was not what Pam wanted to hear. She wanted a name. “Lydia Keough.”

“Tell me everything.”

“I went out for an early morning walk,” was what Adriel meant to say. The partial truth seemed safer than complete honesty. The lie would not pass her lips. Omitting certain facts had been her stock in trade for all the centuries of time. Humans rarely ever needed or wanted complete truth, though no angel was allowed to out and out lie. Surely now she was human, Adriel was free to exercise free will and fib if she felt like it. She opened her mouth and tried again. The words stuck in her throat and would not emerge. Thinking fast, she covered, “I found her lying unconscious in the field, so I made her comfortable,” an allowable partial truth, “then called for help. Zack thinks she was attacked.”

“You’re on a first name basis with Zack Roman?” The revelation distracted Pam for a split second. “Never mind. Is Lydia…”

“Alive. Her condition is critical. She took a hard blow to the head.”

“Head injury. So someone bashed the meddling old busybody,” Pam said thoughtfully. “This is going to be the biggest story since my own family tragedy; a nine day’s wonder that lasted thirty years.”

A family tragedy would explain those fleeting moments of sadness Adriel detected every once in a while when Pam let her defenses down. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s no secret. Thirty years ago this summer, my little brother, Ben, disappeared without a trace. Just like that, our lives were turned upside down and my family never really recovered.”

Adriel laid a hand over Pam’s, trying to communicate her sympathy with the simple touch.

Chapter 5

Halfway through Adriel’s first official shift, the electronic cash register emitted a series of demented pinging noises before going dark and silent. Oh great, she thought, my first day after training, and I’ve already broken something. What an auspicious start.

The customer, a rather stout woman wearing a hand-knit sweater crafted from variegated yarn in shades of pink and purple unflattering to her sallow coloring, fixed Adriel with a look that plainly said she was not amused by this little blip in her day. Impatience translated into the tapping of a foot quite dainty in size compared to the rest of the woman, and only succeeded in flustering Adriel more.

It was early afternoon; Pam and Hamlin had already returned with the empty food truck, elated to have sold out in under two hours. So, when Pam pulled out a little device attached to her cell phone to read the woman’s credit card, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t worry, it happens sometimes when you bump two numbers at once.” Pam shrugged off the incident and unplugged the machine. “Cutting power for a minute or two usually resets it without a problem,” and sure enough, when she connected the plug, the register beeped a few more times and went back to working properly.

After the customer sailed out the door like a battleship on a mission, Pam glanced pointedly toward the plate glass window where they could see the annoyed woman easing herself into a very large, very old car and whispered, “Mrs. Donato must have gone off her diet.”

Because it seemed expected, Adriel nodded and matched the knowing grin on Pam’s face, but had no idea why her new boss found the prospect amusing. She might have asked, but was interrupted by Hamlin letting Pam know he had a tray ready for the case.

When the tinkling of the bell signaled another customer, Adriel squared her aching shoulders. Tired feet carried her back behind the counter where she looked up to meet the gaze of a woman in her early sixties. Thick-lensed glasses with dark frames intensified a pair of piercing dark eyes carrying a speculative expression. Shallow grooves set into a round face, framed by chin-length, time-streaked hair, evidenced she wore this particular expression often enough it had begun to leave marks in her skin. Something about her looked familiar.

“What can I get for you?”

“Who are you?” The tone carried just a hint of aggression.

“My name is Adriel. I just…I’m new here.” Adriel offered no additional information since there was none to give.

“You move here with your family?”

“No, there’s only me.”

“Where are you staying?”

“In a cabin up the road.” Adriel gestured in the general direction of the cabin. “Pam was kind enough to offer me sanctuary.”

“You don’t say.“ The woman yelled toward the rear of the bakery, “You finally found someone gullible enough to take on that nightmare and she actually thinks you’re doing her a favor? Where did you find her? Rubes R Us?”

Pam never looked up from the notes she was making in a spiral bound notebook. Adriel thought her lack of response quite odd.

“It won’t be a bad little house once it’s cleaned up.”

“House,” she snorted. “That place is a hole and you can’t deny it, Pamela Allen. Are you listening to me?”

Pam kept writing.

“That building should be condemned. It’s not a fit place for anyone to live,” the newcomer argued hotly. When her head swiveled back toward Adriel, she finally realized where she had seen that face before. It looked entirely different now, animated by strong emotion, than when Adriel had found its owner lying unconscious in the field. How could the woman have recovered so quickly?

The answer slapped Adriel in the face: she hadn’t. Lydia Keough was not here in the flesh, only in spirit, and not only could Pam not see the ghost, the entire conversation was going unheard.

“I’m someone in this

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