Web of Angels by Lilian Nattel Read Free Book Online

sister-in-law to blame her for bringing Ingrid, with her rifle and her handgun, next door to the house of a depressed child. She put the bottle down on the counter, hands on her hips.
    “So you ask her to come here where everyone can bug her?”
    “She should be with friends. Nobody else knows. Oh, and I’ll want you to take the food over later. You can use the minivan. Go talk to her, okay?” Eleanor pushed her sister-in-law in the general direction of Ingrid as if she had no idea that Sharon was shy. But then he wasn’t Sharon. He just thought most people were assholes. Picking up the beer, he moved toward the food. The salmon smelled good.
    “What do you do?” Bonnie was asking, pushing the conversation along while Ingrid stood with her arms crossed.
    “I teach at the university.” Trapped between a table crammed with finger food and Bonnie Yoon, the famous author, Ingrid gazed out the window at the small patch of yard, the alley, the backs of other houses pressed together.
    “Oh? What do you teach?”
    “Astronomy.”
    “That must be interesting.”
    “Yes.”
    Bonnie waited for a question in turn. When none was forthcoming, she fiddled with the gold chain she wore. Her fingernails were painted dark blue. Alec was helping himself to bagel, cream cheese and lox while Ingrid stood quietly,saying nothing until Bonnie moved away, escaping to the hum of conversation at the other end of the room. The lox was good. Alec swallowed it down and slathered guacamole on pita. He didn’t say anything either. Silence never bothered him.
    “I should be going,” Ingrid said. With her black hair, her white shirt and her grey eyes, she looked like she’d stepped out of a black and white photograph, not sepia, not old-fashioned, but angled and sharp. She’d moved here from the west to take a tenure-track position. She smelled of cigarettes.
    “Lucky you,” he said.
    She half-smiled. “I need to drive out to the observatory. I’ll be up all night and I want to air the dogs first.”
    “What kind?” He hadn’t thought that the moms would be talking about dogs. He liked dogs.
    “Two greyhounds. They’re beautiful but hilarious. They go swift as the wind and then poop right out. Forty-five-mile-per-hour couch potatoes. The rescue foundation got them before they were destroyed.” In her eyes was a hard and steady anger. “That’s what people do when they’re finished with racing greyhounds.” She was quiet another moment then said, “I’m not much of a people person.”
    “Me neither. Too many questions.”
    Ingrid nodded. “Everyone’s been asking if I noticed anything.”
    “Like you want to think about it over and over.” He moved away from the table to make room for Laura and Ana, in a black and gold sari. Right behind them came Sofia, the homeschooling mom, who took up space disproportionateto her physical size as if her good works marched before her. Two of her children were adopted, two of them birth children, all of them biracial. The women descended on the food, saying,
I shouldn’t, well just for tonight, you only live once
. And before any of them could ask him what he heard or what he saw, he moved further, out the back door, Ingrid following.
    Lights went on, triggered by motion detectors. It was cold on the deck and quiet. “I have no idea what I’m doing here.” Ingrid pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and lit up.
    “It’s Eleanor. She does this thing.” Alec stepped away from the circle of light, into the shadowy corner of the deck. “You don’t even know how she does it. All of a sudden you are somewhere you had no intention to be.”
    Ingrid was standing right under the lamp, her skin paler, her hair darker. “I detest crowds, even faculty functions. Everyone playing games. I’m no good at it. That’s what I like about hunting, it’s clean. You know what you’re there for.”
    “And you’re doing something useful, not just talking. What do you shoot