CHAPTER ONE
Remy Chandler watched the older woman as she sat across from him, sipping her gin—no, her
She’d been quite specific with the waitress.
He was trying to figure out what it was exactly that he didn’t like about her.
She leaned forward, placing her glass precisely in the center of the cardboard coaster in front of her. “My grandmother, God rest her soul, used to have two Tanqueray and tonics every day,” Mrs. Grantmore said, straightening the coaster. “She said they helped her keep her wits about her. She was ninety-eight when she finally passed.”
It was obvious that Remy was supposed to be impressed.
“Isn’t ninety-eight the new eighty-five?” he joked, taking a sip of his soda water with lime.
Mrs. Grantmore’s daughter, Olivia, sitting quietly beside her mother on the love seat in the lobby bar of the Westin Copley Place hotel, chuckled before taking a drink of her Diet Coke.
Remy liked Olivia. She seemed like a sweet kid.
“I wouldn’t know,” Mrs. Grantmore said dismissively, reaching for her drink and bringing it to her mouth, careful not to drip any of the condensation from the glass onto her white silk blouse.
Remy crossed his ankle over his knee, pulling the cuff of his dark jeans over the tongue of his brown loafer.
This meeting was exactly what he had expected, and one he would have preferred to have had at his office. Having it at the Westin, out in the open, was uncomfortable, especially with Olivia present.
“So. .,” Remy began, faking cheerfulness. He leaned forward in the overstuffed chair and placed his drink on the glass-topped table before him. “You’re probably wondering about my findings.” He grabbed the folder from the seat beside him and opened it.
Mrs. Grantmore turned to look at her daughter as she returned her glass to the coaster.
“Of course, Mr. Chandler. I’m sure you’re a very busy man. Go on. Tell us what you’ve found.”
Olivia, who had been silently staring into the bubbles of her soft drink, looked up, making eye contact with him.
He tried to assuage her fears with a comforting smile.
“You asked me to look into the background of one James Wardley,” he said, looking down at the file.
Mrs. Grantmore reached over and took her daughter’s hand. The look Olivia flashed her made it clear the gesture was not appreciated.
“Go ahead, Mr. Chandler. What did you learn?”
Remy shrugged. “To be honest, not a whole lot.”
He watched as the older woman’s features momentarily tightened, her stare becoming more intense.
Olivia looked as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
“You found nothing out of the ordinary?”
“Nothing,” Remy said, continuing the litany of his findings. “James Wardley of Lynn, Massachusetts, born August 16, 1988, to Harriet and Robert Wardley. Attended Lynn Classical High School, graduating in 2006 at the top of his class. Enrolled at Northeastern University, currently majoring in electrical engineering and—”
“There was nothing. . out of sorts. . say, a criminal history?” Mrs. Grantmore interrupted.
Remy slowly shook his head. “Not really. There was something about a party and some underage drinking, but no charges were ever filed.”
He closed the file and met the older woman’s eyes. She was speechless. Obviously it wasn’t the result she was looking for.
“See, Mother?” Olivia said, still clutching her mother’s hand. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. James is a good boy.”
Silently Mrs. Grantmore removed her hand from her daughter’s.
“I seem to be developing a rather bad headache,” the older woman said. “Probably the humidity and this air-conditioning.” Her handbag was on the floor at her feet and she bent forward, plucking out a wallet. Fishing inside for a moment, she found a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to Olivia.
“Would you be a dear and buy me a bottle of Tylenol from the gift shop?” she asked, a forced smile upon her strained features.
“Mother, you promised to let this go if I agreed to. .”
“Please, Olivia,” her mother snapped. “Go to the gift shop.”
The pretty young woman rose from her seat, briefly glancing at Remy with pleading eyes before making her way across the hotel lobby toward the gift shop.
As soon as Olivia was out of earshot, Mrs. Grantmore turned back to Remy.
“A regular model citizen,” she said sarcastically, picking up her drink and taking a gulp from the glass, this time forgoing the straw.
“As your daughter said,” Remy answered, “he’s a good boy. You should be glad.”
“Glad, Mr. Chandler?” she scoffed. “It’s obvious you don’t have children.”
Remy felt himself immediately rankle. Having children had always been a sensitive issue in his long, otherwise happy marriage to Madeline. No matter how much she had said that she understood they couldn’t have a family, he had always believed a part of her resented him for it. Because she was human, and he. .
But it didn’t matter now, because she was gone. And at that moment, he realized that was the first time he’d thought of her that afternoon.
And it bothered him.
“No, I don’t have children,” he replied tightly. “But I think if I did have a young, attractive, intelligent, and respectful daughter like Olivia, I would be quite happy to see her dating someone with similar characteristics and not the local crack dealer.”
Mrs. Grantmore used the stirrer in her drink to move the ice around.
“No, not the local crack dealer, but close enough.”
Remy couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“What about the boy’s father?” she asked. “One of the other investigators mentioned that his father might have had some trouble with the law.”
“One of the other investigators?” Remy felt his pulse quicken.
“Well, you’re certainly not the first I’ve hired since Olivia told me she was dating,” the conniving woman scoffed. “Did you look into the father’s background?”
It took all of Remy’s strength to remain calm and professional.
But he could feel
The power of the Seraphim had been much more active and more difficult to silence of late. If he let his guard down, even just a bit, he could only imagine what the power of Heaven would do to the woman.
“His father did some time in a juvenile detention center for car theft more than twenty years ago, but he hasn’t been in any kind of trouble since,” Remy said. “But I don’t see what that has to do with—”
“That’s good,” she said, ignoring him. “We can work with that; maybe make some connection to genetics.”
“Genetics?” Remy started to laugh in disbelief. If he hadn’t, he wasn’t quite sure what he—what the angelic nature he had squirreled away inside him—might have done.
For an instant he imagined the fires of Heaven, leaping from the tips of his blackened fingers and consuming the woman’s hateful flesh.
“This might seem funny to you, Mr. Chandler, but I assure you it is not,” Mrs. Grantmore said with obvious annoyance. “My daughter is the most important thing in my life. Everything my husband and I have worked so hard to acquire will someday belong to her. . ”
“And to someone you deem worthy,” Remy completed, not bothering to hide his disgust.
“The key word is
“Mother.”
Olivia had returned, although neither Remy nor Mrs. Grantmore had noticed her approach, so wrapped up were they in their. .
The older woman took a deep breath and composed herself. “Did you find the Tylenol?” she asked.
Her daughter let the bag containing the bottle of pills drop into her mother’s lap.
“Thank you, dear.”
Remy wasn’t sure how much the young woman had heard, but the look upon her face told him it was enough.
“I think we’re finished here,” Mrs. Grantmore stated, shoving the bag into her purse.
And Remy couldn’t have agreed more. For a brief instant he imagined the woman on her knees, begging forgiveness from the frightening visage of what he truly was, golden armor glistening, powerful wings beating the air as they held his mighty form aloft.
A soldier of God.
Seraphim.
But no matter how his true nature fought him, that wasn’t who he was anymore.
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Chandler,” the woman said stiffly, offering her hand as they stood.
“You’re welcome,” Remy said, taking and quickly releasing her hand, yet again resisting the urge to end her hateful existence in a searing release of Heaven’s fire. “I’ll send you my final invoice before week’s end.”
Without comment, the woman bent to gather her things, and Remy turned to her daughter.
“It was very nice meeting you, Olivia,” he said, holding out his hand.
She took it with a small smile.
“I’m truly sorry about this,” he told her as his gaze drifted to a displeased Mrs. Grantmore.
“As am I, Mr. Chandler,” Olivia said, releasing his hand.
Remy left the two women then, feeling Mrs. Grantmore’s eyes burning into his back as he walked toward the stairs, certain in the knowledge that it would take much more than Tylenol to kill the
