Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [34]
“This will only take a minute,” Judith continued, oblivious that her life hung by a mere thread.
Inwardly he cursed his inability to overcome who and what he was—even with an innocent. And he was becoming convinced she was innocent. He had radar for the enemy, man or woman, and it had never once let him down. She wasn’t as she portrayed herself to the world, there was too much emotion bottled up in her, held back away from the world. He saw it there, smoldering deep below the surface. Damn it all, she had him twisted up inside, a conflicted mess that a few hours earlier he would never have believed could happen.
She bent low to speak to the man on the ground. “Are you warm enough, Bill?”
He nodded. “Blythe brought me socks and new boots.” He pointed to his feet sticking out from under his blanket. “Been nice lately.” His gaze shifted to Stefan, then darted away again. “Saw the devil today. He stood across the street, just there.” He indicated the railing separating the street from the bluffs. “Devil had death in his eyes.”
Judith frowned. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Like this one.” Bill indicated Stefan. “Death in his eyes.”
Judith looked up at Stefan a little helplessly and shook her head as if apologizing for the accusation. That little observation told Stefan more than he’d learned in two weeks about the old man. He was most likely gifted, probably was the reason he’d been attracted to Sea Haven and at one time, he’d been a soldier of sorts, probably serving in the Vietnam War.
“Bill, do you want me to take you to the clinic?”
Stefan knew she thought the old man was ill, but Bill had no doubt seen Petr Ivanov with his dead eyes and recognized a sociopath. The exterminator could easily be identified as the devil carrying death with him. He didn’t want to think too closely about what this man had seen in his own eyes.
Bill shook his head, shrinking back as if the idea of a clinic was far worse than facing the devil, and maybe for him it was.
“Have you eaten today?”
Bill nodded. “Still got credits at the store and coffeehouse.”
Judith smiled at him. “Have a nice evening, Bill.”
“You too, Miss Judith,” the old man mumbled.
It was obvious to Stefan that Bill felt genuine affection for Judith. It had taken a concentrated effort over time to get the old man to even speak with him briefly, exchanging only pleasantries. The occasional hot coffee and pastry hadn’t been enough to loosen his tongue.
“I’m sorry for what he said about you,” Judith said. “He gets confused sometimes. He’s been on the street for years. Everyone contributes, even the high school students. They put money on a tab for him at the local stores. He won’t take much in the way of help, though. He has several places he sleeps and won’t go to a shelter, not like we have anything like a shelter around here.” She sighed. “There isn’t a lot of help for the mentally ill.”
“He doesn’t want help,” Stefan replied honestly. “He’s free. He lives the way he wants to live.”
She fell silent for a moment, walking a few steps before she looked at him again. “Do you think so? He’s been around for as long as I’ve been here, and Inez says for twenty years before that. He actually went to school here and then left for a while. When he came back . . .” She shrugged.
“He has the right to choose. He fought for that right and he’s entitled to do what he wants. If he chooses to sit in the sun for two days without moving, he feels that’s his right.”
Judith swept her hair over her shoulder, her eyes meeting his. Once again he experienced that strange, unsettling reaction in the pit of his stomach.
“I never thought of it that way. I always think he’s sad and I feel bad, wishing I could