Read Destroyer Angel: An Anna Pigeon Novel (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) for Free Online Page A

hated being confined to the earth like a worm, gazing up at nostrils and armpits; hated being unable to kick the son of a bitch in the balls. Frustration turned to tears and poured down her face.
    Crying like a fucking baby, she flagellated herself as her eyes flooded, blurring the looming man-beast. “I’m not crying because I’m afraid of you!” she yelled, though that was not entirely true. “I’m crying because I can’t have what I want. Your head on a spike.”
    Reacting to her outburst not at all, he pocketed his pistol, then closed his oversized hand around Elizabeth’s upper arm, fingertips meeting on her bicep. His nails were clean and clipped. His cuticles were healthy and whole, not cracked like those of a man who worked with his hands.
    “What are you doing out here?” Heath asked, trying to sound reasonable, civilized, a person other people didn’t kick or kill.
    “Jimmy,” he said, ignoring the question as well as the questioner.
    That, at least, Heath was accustomed to. People had a lot of reasons not to see a woman in a wheelchair, let alone one flopping about in the dirt. As she was trying to think of a way her invisibility might work for her, the small bearded man trotted over and pointed the rifle at her head.
    Dragging Elizabeth with him, the dude moved to where Leah and Katie knelt. Reaching down with his free hand, he grabbed a handful of hair and lifted Katie effortlessly to her feet.
    “Leah!” Katie cried.
    “You didn’t have to do that,” snapped Elizabeth.
    Leah scrambled up awkwardly, her hands bound.
    “Leah!” Katie cried again.
    “Do what they want,” Leah murmured, not even trying to move closer to the child.
    Katie’s fine blond hair, usually tucked behind her ears, fell over her face in a veil. Without her hands she couldn’t push it aside. Acutely aware of how it felt when suddenly robbed of abilities one never considered crucial until they were taken away, Heath wanted to shout at Leah to sweep the hair out of her daughter’s eyes for her.
    “I have money,” Leah said in just over a whisper. “I can pay you if you let us alone.”
    The dude turned his skull back in Heath’s direction, his sleek mustache moving like a drugged ferret as he said, “Now you,” in the same tone a bored receptionist might say, “Have a seat.”
    “Dude,” said the bearded man, the one with the rifle trained on Heath. Umber specks, spit out with the word, added to a brown freckling on the front of the new coat. He jerked his chin. The beard, grizzled with gray, dark brown streaks running from the corners of his mouth, poked out of the neck of his jacket, pointing at something beyond the fire.
    Robo-butt ATV, her wheelchair.
    “Bitch is a crip.” Jimmy sounded affronted, as if Heath had ceased using her legs for the sole purpose of making his life harder. He spit a stream of tobacco juice into the fire, where it snapped and sizzled. The last drop trickled into his beard, adding to the brown stain. “Be doin’ her a favor.” Sober concentration slowing his chewing, he made tiny circles in the air with the barrel of the rifle, making a game of where he would put the first bullet.
    The dude’s cheekbones and chin lifted, the invisible eyes shifting in their shadowy sockets. “Are you crippled?” he asked.
    Please pass the salt. Did you get all your classes? How’s the wife and kids? Are you crippled? I have a great big gun.
    Heath shook her head, trying to rid herself of the unreality swarming around her ears and eyes like a plague of gnats.
    “Whose chair is it?” he asked, mistaking her intent.
    “No,” Heath managed. Her voice was as weak and breathy as if she’d run a mile rather than crawled two yards. The tears had been humiliating enough. She’d not yet found the courage to look and see if the crotch of her trousers was wet. Willing her voice steady in an attempt to retain some shred of dignity, she said, “The wheelchair is mine.”
    Her voice was firm, clear,