Where Angels Fear to Tread

EPILOGUE

A month later

“What are you drawing?” Remy asked the little girl sitting across from him, hunkered over her sketch pad.

Zoe remained silent, busily working on her art.

“Drawing,” Marlowe said with a tail thump as he lay at her feet.

“I know she’s drawing,” Remy said to the animal. “I was just curious as to what.”

The little girl laughed. It sounded like tiny, delicate bells happily jingling.

“That’s funny when you talk to the dog,” she said, dropping one of her crayons on the desktop and choosing another from the box open in front of her. “My mommy says he can’t understand you, you know.”

“Your mommy said that?” Remy asked, leaning back in his office chair, enjoying the recently fixed air-conditioning. The chair squeaked loudly, making the child look up from her drawing to stare at him.

Zoe and Deryn had been staying with him and Marlowe since the business in West Virginia; just long enough to get their bearings so they could return to Florida. Finding out that their house had burned down hadn’t helped matters, but Deryn was planning on staying with a cousin for a little while, until she got stuff straightened out with the insurance company, and then hopefully, she and Zoe would have a home again.

“Why’d you do that?” she asked him with a scowl.

“Do what?” he asked her, making the chair squeak again.

“That,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” he asked again, playing dumb. “That?” He made the chair squeak again.

She had started to laugh, even though she didn’t want him to see, pretending to be mad. “That noise, stop it now.”

“What noise?” He bounced in the chair so it squeaked repeatedly. “This noise? You want me to stop this noise?”

She put her head back down, returning to her artwork.

“You’re very silly,” she said, grabbing the blue crayon and scribbling like crazy.

Deryn had gone out to run a few final errands before their flight back to Florida that night, leaving Zoe with him at the office. He didn’t mind; he found the little girl fascinating and had no doubt he was going to miss her.

Remy watched her feverishly working on her project, relieved that everything seemed to have turned out for the best. With the power of creation removed from her, the little girl appeared to have been cured of her autism, receiving a clean bill of health from Franciscan Children’s. It was almost as if Deryn and the little girl had been given a gift from a higher power for their troubles.

“Are you ever going to show me what you’re working on?” Remy asked her as he came forward in his chair.

“Wait a minute,” she said, frustrated by his impatience. “I’m almost done.”

She dropped the crayon she was using and picked up the drawing to study it.

“I’m done,” she said.

“Can I see?” Remy asked.

“You can have it,” she said, casually tossing it on top of his desk. She was already pulling another piece of construction paper from the pad, getting ready to create another masterpiece, he guessed.

Remy picked the drawing up from atop the desk and held it out before him.

He was surprised at what he saw.

“So, what’s this supposed to be?” he asked Zoe.

“It’s you and Linda,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Linda?” Remy began, for the moment not knowing whom she was talking about, but suddenly remembering.

Linda Somerset.

“How would you know about Linda?” he asked, looking up from the drawing to see that she had stopped scribbling with her crayon and was staring across the desk at him.

“I know,” she said, annoyed that he had to ask, and shook her head as she returned to coloring.

Remy studied the drawing again of a man and woman holding hands in front of what looked to be a building. Through the windows in the building he could see other people, sitting at tables, who appeared to be eating.

“This is a restaurant?” Remy asked. “Linda and I are at a restaurant?”

“Yes, you’re going to take her,” Zoe answered, not looking up.

Remy felt immediately uncomfortable. He hadn’t thought of the woman in a while, the last time being when he drove by Piazza, hoping to catch a glimpse of her working.

He decided to focus on some other aspects of the drawing, questioning her about the circular object that she’d drawn in the sky above them.

“That’s pretty cool that you drew the sun with a face,” he said, smiling. “I like that.”

Zoe looked up. “That’s not the sun,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s the lady in the sky watching you.”

“Lady in the sky?” Remy asked, letting the drawing fall to the desk.

“She wants you to be happy,” Zoe said. The little girl leaned on the desk and used the tip of a red crayon to point. “See, she’s smiling. She’s glad you’re with Linda.”

“But I’m not . . . ,” he started to say.

“Not yet,” Zoe interrupted.

Deryn opened the door into the office, plastic bags in each hand.

“Mommy!” the child cheered happily, as Marlowe barked. He had been asleep, and the sudden noise had startled him.

At the moment, Remy knew exactly how he felt, still staring stunned at the images drawn upon the construction paper.

“How’s my big girl?” Deryn asked, coming over to kiss her on the top of the head.

“She hasn’t been bothering you, has she?” Deryn asked.

Remy looked up with a smile. “Not at all. She’s been perfectly fine,” he said.

Marlowe had started to go through the bags she’d left on the floor, and she turned to shoo him away. “Hey, get outta there,” she said to the Labrador, which got the dog’s tail wagging. She bent down to pick up the bags and was rewarded with some awfully moist Lab kisses, which made her laugh.

Remy and Zoe stared at each other across the surface of the desk, the special drawing she had done between them.

“Not yet?” Remy asked.

“Not yet,” Zoe said, finally climbing down from her chair to see what her mother had bought.

“But soon.”