Chapter 15
"Look!" Cora demanded. Seated at her desk, she pointed a shaking finger at her laptop screen, then turned to watch anxiously for Cisco's reaction.
Cisco leaned over her shoulder and read:
Where did that come from Darlin'?
He straightened up, drew his eyebrows together, and dropped one side of his mouth. "Yeah? So? Why are you so excited? What does that mean?"
"That's what I want to know! What do you think it means?" Cora waved her hand at the screen, and then searched his eyes again.
Cisco shook his head and folded his arms over his chest. "Cora, what are you asking me here? You show me something you typed and then ask me what you mean. In reference to what? I haven't got a clue what you're driving at!"
"I didn't type that! That's the problem!" Cora said, rapidly tapping one heel on the floor, frustrated that she had to explain what seemed obvious to her, that he wasn't as blown away by the message as she was.
Cisco rolled his eyes and glanced at the ceiling, clearly struggling to remain patient. "What do you mean, you didn't type that? Who typed it then?"
"That's just it! That's the question!" Cora opened both eyes wide and jabbed her finger at the screen.
He threw his arms up in the air and rolled his eyes again. "Cora, back up. Give me a break. Talk to me here!"
Cora took a breath, stretched her neck, rolled her shoulders, and leaned back in her chair. Cisco plopped into his chair, swiveled it around to face her, and waited, hands tucked into his armpits.
"Cisco, I was working, sorting things out, whatever-working. The laptop was off. I turned it on, checked emails, played a game of solitaire. Then I opened a Word document. These words just started to flow onto the screen. Like an f-ing Ouija board or something! And I called you right away. That's it. I don't know how it happened." Her eyes kept moving back and forth between the screen and Cisco, and she put a thumbnail between her teeth.
Cisco, leaning back in his chair, exhaled loudly. "So someone hacked your computer. Or you stored a series of keystrokes to your clipboard unconsciously, and they appeared in the document when you opened it. Computers do crazy things. Nothing to get so excited about."
"Come on! That's pretty far-fetched. Why would I type those words?" She shook her head and turned down a corner of her mouth.
"I don't know. What were you doing last time the computer was on?"
Cora crossed her arms over her chest, imitating his position, and glared at him. "Cisco...no. Don't go there. That didn't happen."
He shook his head slowly from side to side and let out a low groan. "Fine. Why do you ask me if you don't want to hear what I have to say? How do you think the words got there?"
"I think Angel did it."
He exhaled loudly and shook his head again. "Come on! That business again? Can't you give that a rest?"
"When stuff keeps happening? I should give it a rest? Don't you think I should try to figure it out?" Cora's voice rose as she glared at him.
"Well, if you're figuring it out, can't you consider something besides this Angel crap?" Cisco stared fixedly at the screen as he flung an arm toward it.
Cora turned from him, put her chin in her hands, then rubbed her nose and cheeks, and took a deep breath. "No-I can't think of anything else. If I had a logical reason for what's going on, don't you think I'd be talking about it? Can you explain it? Do you have any ideas? I mean, that stuff with Valerie, that was pretty weird, not to say scary. What do you think happened there?"
Cisco shifted his eyes and set his jaw. Cora knew he hated to back down once he'd stated an opinion. "I haven't been thinking about it. Valerie had an accident, that's all. And this other stuff, well, I don't know. Maybe your mind is running away with you."
"You've seen strange stuff too," Cora reminded him.
"The wolf, you mean, and a long time ago? Yeah, but...I can't explain any of it, but I don't buy supernatural stuff, and this mythical Angel you keep trying to make into a person." He scratched the back of his head.
"Father McGrath isn't so sure Angel is mythical. He thinks...."
"Father McGrath? You brought Father McGrath into this? Why would you do that?" He threw both arms in the air.
"Because I thought it was serious and you didn't. I needed another opinion." She raised her chin defiantly.
"Because mine's no good, right?" His eyes flashed and a muscle in his jaw jumped.
Cora suddenly realized why she and Cisco were on different pages. She had been so preoccupied by the excitement of the past few days that she had never filled him in on the events. After he indicated he didn't want to think the first message on her computer and Valerie's attack had anything to do with Angel, she had put off telling him about the second message and her conversations with Frannie and Father McGrath, intending to do it when things were less hectic and she had a better handle on it herself. That time had not come.
"Oh, Cisco, let's not fight about this!" She dropped her eyes and then rubbed her face before looking up at him again.
"There's some things you don't know, but you've been so dead set against my ideas about Angel, I didn't want to argue with you about it. It only made me more upset and I needed someone who wasn't so involved-who would approach it with an open mind. So I talked to Father, and I talked to Frannie, too."
He stared at her, blinking rapidly, but didn't say anything.
She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "This isn't the second strange message on my computer. It's the third," she said. She glanced nervously at the laptop screen and around the room, but nothing had changed. Her anxiety was ebbing, and she launched into a short version of recent events, interrupted by multiple questions and explanations, but in the process they both calmed considerably.
She reached out and placed a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, Hon. I should have told you right away, but I was so mixed up. But now, can you just humor me for a minute? Let's just pretend this is Angel on the computer then. What could this message mean?"
Scratching the back of his head, he gazed for a moment out the window, and then turned back to her. "Okay...you think there's some all-seeing entity out there, watching over you, and it's handing out sanctions to people who offend you. Somehow there's a wolf involved. And now this 'being' is communicating with you through your computer. Is that about it?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Cora said in a weak voice, avoiding his eyes.
"So who is it then, this entity?" He turned both palms up. "Or what is it? And why is it protecting you? If we suppose it exists, that is?"
"I can't answer that. But let's talk about what's happening now. Let's suppose an angel or spirit is communicating with me right now, on my laptop. What do I do?" She pointed at the message on the screen again, then turned to watch his face.
"I suppose you should try answering it." Cisco raised his arm and made circles in the air with one finger.
"That's what I thought too. But I don't understand the question, so how can I answer? I don't know what it wants. And I wanted you to be here, Hon, to see, in case I got an answer." She reached over and touched his arm again.
"Yeah. Right. An answer from a supernatural being," Cisco said, taking a slow deep breath and staring at the ceiling.
She removed her hand and shot him a look. "Stop!"
"All right...but if it's an all-seeing being, why does it have to ask you anything? Why doesn't it know?" He lowered his chin and looked at her over the top of his glasses.
Cora rolled her head from side to side. "Can't you try to be helpful here?"
"I am trying. I'm trying to figure out what it's looking for. What doesn't it know? And why doesn't it know it?"
"Ah, I see. You mean, if it's been following me and seeing what I see, then it knows what I know. Unless it's something new? Or something I don't know myself yet?"
Cisco pointed a finger at Cora. "Right! So what's new?"
Cora spent a moment in thought. "Let's suppose she would want to know as soon as something happens-she's impatient."
"She?"
Cora ran a hand through her hair, then put her elbow on the desk and rested her chin on it. "Don't ask-bear with me. I just know it's a she. Intuition...whatever. We're assuming here."
"Fine," Cisco said, playing along. "So what's new, what just happened, that the two of you don't understand, since the last time she had a chance to contact you?"
"Well...I interviewed Bridey."
Cisco held out both hands, palms up, inviting. "And....?"
"We talked about Sag Bridge, and I borrowed photos and a diary from her. I looked at them at my desk this morning."
"Could Angel be interested in old photos or a diary? Why?"
Cora considered the question. "The photos are nothing special. The diary is interesting though. It talks about when Sag Bridge was a thriving community, and it was written by a young woman who wound up getting killed along with her husband and baby."
"Did you do anything else?"
"I made a list of things to work on, to try to figure out more about Angel."
"Maybe she doesn't like the idea of being figured out. That could make her angry." Cisco pushed his chair closer and leaned over Cora's shoulder, looking at her screen with more interest.
"Yes, it could. But why would she ask where I got that? Wouldn't she ask why I'm doing that?" Cora said, shaking her head.
"So you think Angel wants to know about the diary? Why would she? Do you think she recognizes it?"
Cora shrugged. "Well, it's a place to start. I could ask her, respond to her message with a question, but how do I do that?"
Cisco threw his arms up in the air, but he was smiling. "How should I know? I never tried to send a message to an Angel before!"
"Well, if she's listening to us, then she's hearing us now, and she already has her answer. Only we don't know she knows, so we'd like some kind of confirmation from her."
"Assuming here, she's communicating through your computer. So type it, I guess. Below her message," Cisco moved his chair closer and leaned toward the laptop.
Cora placed her hands on the keyboard and tried to type into the document. The computer was locked.
"Reboot it," Cisco said. Cora powered the laptop down and turned it back on. When it came up the message was gone.
"That's not surprising, as we never saved it," said Cisco. "See if it was auto-saved."
They checked all possible locations, but found no trace of the document. Cora opened a new Word document and typed in bold letters and large font:
Are you asking about the diary?
Nothing happened. They waited five minutes, staring at the screen. After ten minutes more, they moved around the office, making busy work and checking the screen frequently. After half an hour, in the event Angel didn't want to communicate while they were in the room, they went down to the kitchen, reheated coffee from breakfast, came back and checked again. Still nothing.
Cora moved the cursor down the page and added:
Are you there?
No response.
"What now?" Cora asked, feeling foolish.
"Leave it open. Go about your day and check your screen now and then. If nothing happens by tonight, forget it, and ask yourself if this whole business is nonsense." Cisco turned away to leave the room.
"Cisco," she said, ignoring his last suggestion, "something bothers me here. You brought it up before. If Angel has the power to know about what happens to us, why doesn't she know about the diary? Why does she have to ask?"
"Maybe she knew about it, or it was hers. Maybe it got lost. I don't know." He shrugged.
"I'm glad you said that- that's what I was thinking, too. If there is a ghost around here, how many could there be? And this diary falls into my hands, a diary of a woman who was murdered? Just when things are getting hot around here? If it isn't Angel's, at least she recognized it." She searched his face with wide, unblinking eyes.
"Don't get carried away, Cora. You didn't get an answer. This is probably just a pile of coincidences, not some ghost." Despite his words, his furrowed brow suggested uncertainty.
They went downstairs. Cora put her arms around Cisco and hugged him. "Thank you," she said.
"For what?" he asked, hugging her and rubbing her back.
"For humoring me. And for not saying I told you so."