House of V

by Raen Smith

  “Not really,” I lied. The run-in with Rolf had helped push me over an edge that I hadn’t wanted to be pushed over. I didn’t want to give in to Delaney’s email, I really didn’t, but the run-in with Rolf had reminded me too much of the time I had spent with Sister Josephine as a child. She had given me a purpose in life at my lowest point. I couldn’t let this happen to her; I couldn’t let someone who had pulled me through my darkest hour down. According to Delaney’s email, Sister Josephine needed me.

  “Well, then be productive tomorrow and join me. I’m used to the help,” he said as he pulled down the rubber coveralls and boots, stowing them on the boat. His arms flexed again as he bent over the boat, finishing the clean-up for the day’s work. No matter how hard I tried to get my body to help, I couldn’t move.

  The words of Delaney’s email scrolled through my mind. Someone needed me. I had never known what it felt like to be needed before this moment. I felt an unnerving responsibility to both Delaney and Sister Josephine.

  “Ivy,” Ryan said, but I didn’t turn. “Ivy,” he repeated. I still didn’t turn. “Evie.”

  The sound of the name I had been called for more than a quarter of a century trickled through my veins as I finally looked up to see Ryan holding out a bag for me to carry. Although it had been a year since we began calling each other Luke and Ivy in public, it didn’t always stick. Okay, I’ll be honest, Ivy never stuck.

  “Keep it down,” I warned as I took the bag into my hands and swung my head around to see Aaron and Andris just a few boats down. The brothers were working in their own fishing boat and hadn’t flinched at the sound of our voices.

  “It’s fine. They didn’t hear me.” Ryan shook his head before he leaned down to grab another bag from the boat and swung it over his shoulder.

  “You’re lucky,” I said with a little too much edge, but Ryan didn’t seem to notice.

  “You must have spent too much time in the sun today. You can’t even remember your own name.” He brushed me off with a laugh as he walked down the dock, nearing the brothers.

  “Fang noe?” Catch anything?

  “En liten. Mer enn du, Montana gutt,” the darker skinned brother, Andris, replied with a laugh. A little. More than you, Montana boy. Aaron pat Ryan on the shoulder and let out a deep chuckle from his belly. The fishermen at the docks were a rowdy set of men, though relatively jovial once you were accepted into their ring. Ryan was in, and since I was his ‘sidekick,’ I was in. Lucky me.

  I hooked the bag over my shoulder and followed Ryan down the wooden planks with my eyes down. I cast them up for a moment, giving the brothers a small smile before catching up to Ryan. It was enough to blend in, but not too much to be noticed; it had been mode of operation for the last year. So far, it was working.

  I veered to the left, grabbing my bag on the beach as Ryan folded the chair in one quick motion. I felt the warmth of the sand against my feet and let it soak in for the final time that day before following Ryan to the concrete sidewalk. We walked side-by-side to Ryan’s truck in silence where he put the chair and bag in the back then climbed into the driver’s seat.

  I stood for a moment, thinking that most women would hate the fact that Ryan hadn’t offered to help me with the bags I carried. But he knew me, I did things myself. I always had and always would.

  I thought about Delaney’s email again and her sprawling plea to respond back to her. Delaney had offered a final PLEASE at the end of the email. Now things were different, though. I had Ryan to consider, and it had been good here, safe. I reminded myself that I had already made up my mind.

  “Are you coming?” Ryan yelled from inside the cab. I swung the bags into the back with a loud thud.

  The heat of the cab swirled in the air as the engine roared to life and the windows shot down. I pressed my arm against the opening, feeling the scorching heat of the side of the truck. My sheer black cover-up flapped in the wind and exposed my black swimsuit beneath as he accelerated and turned onto the road.

  “I’m not going to lie, black is always sexy, but I don’t think it would kill you to wear something with a little color every once in a while,” Ryan finally broke the silence. “I think the mourning phase is over.”

  “I’m not in mourning.”

  More silence.

  “Good. So you want to tell me what’s up or am I going to have to coax it out of you after I take advantage of you? Just let me know, either way, I’m fine with it.” Ryan gave a sideways grin with one hand on the wheel. He was sexy and tempting, I couldn’t deny him that.

  Delaney. The note.

  “Today’s the year-mark.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Three-hundred sixty-five days.”

  “Yep, that’s how long a year is.”

  “Things are going well. Really well,” I said with a small nod, fingering the edge of my cover up. They were going better than I expected; dare I say, normal, maybe even extraordinarily well?

  “That’s a bad thing?”

  “No, it’s not. It’s a good thing.”

  “Then, what’s the problem?” Ryan asked again.

  I inhaled the mix of sea and sun into my nostrils; the smell of Ryan, the smell of Norway, the smell of the good life. His hand pressed into my thigh as I exhaled and let my head fall back onto the seat. I didn’t want to leave him, but I owed this to Sister Josephine, to go back and help her, but I also knew that there was no way in hell that Ryan was coming with. And there was no way that he was going to understand.

  “I love you, Ivy Stone, Evie Parker, Anna Jones. I always will. Whatever it is, you know I’m here. Hell, I’m aiding and abetting a fugitive. Even sleeping with her. It has to count for something, right?” Ryan said as his hand crawled up my leg and onto my swimsuit. I closed my eyes as my head reeled at the thought of telling him I was leaving, but instead of starting the conversation, I let his fingers dance along the black fabric as the warmth of excitement flooded to my thighs.

  Later, I promised myself.

  2

  June 17, 11:30 p.m.

  Appleton, Wisconsin

  It was the only way he knew to get Evie Parker to come back.

  Derek Schuh stood before the open window of the rectory, peering into Father Haskens's living room. He leaned his gloved hands against the sill, careful not to press his face into the screen. A couch and matching chairs glowed in the soft hue of a plugged-in night light. A night light, Derek scoffed as he thought of the countless priests that had been accused of child molestation over the past decades.

  The hypocrisy was amusing to him; those priests wore cloaks of morbid pretense to hide their sinful behavior. They were called to protect God’s children, but instead, they abused their positions and the children. He wondered if Father Haskens was hiding something from his parishioners for all these years; over six decades presiding at St. Mary’s. Father Haskens was the beloved shepherd on the verge of retirement.

  He listened to the silence of the house; the outside air was filled with the incessant chirping of crickets in the bushes to his left and right, but there were no movements inside. If all went as planned, Evie Parker would come crawling back to Wisconsin, tail between her legs, and he could finish what Holston Parker had started.

  Derek had been gone for far too long and had let Holston do the unspeakable. He knew that there was no way to bring back a dead son, but he would do the next best thing; he would take what Holston had taken from him. He would kill Evie Parker and set the world back to its balance.

  Derek jabbed the bottom of the screen, breaking the plastic clips that held the screen in with small snaps. He waited, listening to the still unmoving house, before prodding the screen out of its place and resting it against the siding. He exhaled, cursing the fact that a door hadn’t been unlocked.

  His body, at the ripe age of sixty-two, was starting to weaken despite his valiant efforts to stay in shape. The hours spent at the gym swimming and lifting weights kept his body tight enough to fit in t
he same pants he wore thirty years ago, a size thirty-two waist. However it wasn’t cut out for this line of work anymore. His glory days of theft and burglary were over, and he had settled for the last ten years into a working-stiff just like all the other schmucks in blue-collar America.

  Wearing an orange apron eight hours a day wasn’t exactly what he had in mind when he fell for Erica, but that’s what women do; they change men. They change what the rest of the world sees, however they don’t change what’s deep inside. Now that Erica was gone, fallen victim to a heart attack just over six months ago, Derek could go back to who he was. He didn’t have to answer to anyone except himself. It had been a long time coming.

  Taking one last glance into the quiet street behind him, he hoisted himself over the sill and maneuvered his body through the small opening. He pulled the ski mask over his face, his breathing heavy against the knit until he adjusted the opening over his mouth. His boots pressed against the carpet, his footsteps making slight indents into the cheap nylon. The police would find the small tracks of the size twelve boots, just like a million other men in the world, but he wouldn’t leave any other trace. He’d broken into convenience stores, pawn shops, hell, even a bank once, and had never been captured. He wasn’t planning on getting caught, not tonight. In and out, like the blink of an eye.

  Derek needed to find Sister Josephine, and Father Haskens was going to help him. He had gone to her apartment earlier that night, but she wasn’t there. Derek had his mind set on tonight, and he was all in. There was no going back; he had crossed the line he never wanted to go back over. Tonight was the beginning of the end. After all, in his mind, Sister Josephine equaled Evie Parker. It was only an added bonus that Sister Josephine happened to be the catalyst that started his rivalry with Holston Parker.

  He thought of the newspaper article sitting on his kitchen table back home that had given him the ingenious idea to go after Sister Josephine instead of one of the Jones’s family members. The Jones were still being monitored, even a year later, thanks to the magnitude of Holston’s legacy. It was too risky to have the FBI on his ass.

  Derek had found the article on a Catholic website dedicated to creating safe homes for abused children. Sister Josephine Angeletto was the headliner, her smiling face plastered in the large black and white photo. According to the article, Sister Josephine had started a program for abused children in the Appleton area back in 2001 with the help of a young aide by the name of Evie Parker. However, Ms. Parker hadn’t been available for a picture. There was no surprise there. Derek had only seen her once when she was around five-or-six-years-old. He guessed that she wasn’t supposed to be there on the night Derek’s world was destroyed.

  He pressed through the living room and kitchen, going to the back of the house where Father Haskens slept. He had surveyed the outside of the house just two days ago, the layout like most of the old Victorian homes flanking the streets of downtown Appleton’s residential areas. With the bedroom door only a few feet away, he stopped at the sound of a creak on the other side of the house. He waited, but only heard the crickets outside echo through the house. He shook it off, finding solace in the age of the rectory that surely caused the small creak.

  His gloved hand pushed the door open with silence, the door swinging in easily to see Father Haskens pale face shining in the streamed moonlight. He lay still in the bed, his breath raspy and labored. Derek swept closer, standing over the bed before reaching down to cover his mouth. Father Haskens’s eyes popped open, his irises flashing a moment of pure panic and shock.

  Derek kept his hand clamped over Father Haskens's mouth while putting his finger up to his mouth to motion him to be quiet.

  “Father Haskens, tonight can go in your favor or it could end very badly. I personally want it to go in your favor. Would you agree?” Derek asked.

  Father Haskens nodded his head, gasping for air between Derek’s fingers. Father brought his white hand to his own chest and clutched at his heart.

  “Good. That’s the answer I was hoping for. I am going to release my hand as long as you agree to be quiet,” Derek continued. “Do you agree?”

  Instead of the nod Derek anticipated, Father Haskens’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. Derek felt the priest’s breaths weaken beneath his hand. He quickly pulled his hand away and waited for his breathing to restore, but instead, it weakened as Father Haskens released two small chokes. He writhed in restlessness beneath the sheets before his body slowed to a stop.

  “Where is she?” Derek asked as panic rushed through his veins. “Where is Sister Josephine?”

  Derek shook the priest’s bony shoulders, but he remained lifeless. It had been so fast, all just a matter of seconds. The faint echo of a police siren sounded from the window. Derek took three steps away from the bed, stumbling through his bedroom. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. He needed Sister Josephine, not a dead priest and the police on high alert.

  Derek turned, fled out of the room and back out the window he came in. He fumbled to replace the screen and sprinted down the road in the haze of the streetlamps as the sound of sirens neared.

  ***

  Sister Josephine waited for the noise to stop, holding the statue high above her head as she crept through the living room in her bathrobe. All she could think about was how she didn’t want to smash her beloved crystal angel statue on the intruder’s head. It was too delicate and meaningful for her to waste it on this vial individual. She had received the statue as a gift from him over thirty years ago when she had graduated from the convent, and it was the only possession that she never let out of her sight. It served as a reminder of the guardian angel in her life.

  She had already placed the call into the Appleton police from her bedroom, thanks to a cell phone she had finally agreed to get after speaking with Father Haskens’s nurses. The police station was only a few blocks away, and it would be just a few minutes longer. She could already hear the sirens whistling through the opened window.

  She peered out the window, looking for any signs of the intruder, but instead, viewed the familiar vacant street, undisturbed. The humming of crickets sang in the bushes below the window. She moved back to the living room, looking to see if anything had been disrupted, but the scene was the same as she remembered before she went to bed. No cabinets open, no furniture overturned. No sign that anyone or anything was lurking in the house, but she could have sworn she heard something. She prayed that she was right; otherwise, she was going to get a talking to from the police officers. They would make fun of the old woman who was hearing things. She wasn’t that old. At least, she didn’t think so.

  Her thoughts drifted to Father. Her long-time friend and companion had been feeling ill for the past two weeks, and despite his insistence that he didn’t need looking after, she had moved in, temporarily, anyway with a single suitcase and statue just a few hours ago. She fluttered to the back of the house, walking through the already open door to see Father Haskens’s body lying motionless in his bed. The crystal statue fell from her hands, bouncing in the plushness of the carpet as she rushed toward him.

  “Father.” She shook him, desperate for his eyes to open.

  She peeled back the covers to look for any injuries, but found none. No, not yet, Father. She made the sign of the cross in a quick sweep and bowed her head, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, before stumbling back into the kitchen. Her shaking hand fumbled at the numbers, finally connecting to the three digit number again. She had never had to dial the number before in her sixty years, but now she had dialed it twice in the same night.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  “Hello? I need an ambulance immediately. I think Father Haskens had a heart attack."

  3

  June 17, 6:30 p.m.

  Norway

  “I think we should go out and celebrate,” Ryan said as he wrapped his arms around my waist from behind me and settled his hands on my stomach.

  I let the water splash against
my bare breasts in the steaming shower, feeling the heat pelt my body in rapid successions. He was right; one year did mark the joyous anniversary of killing Holston. It was not every day that you could celebrate killing your so-called father.

  “But we usually don’t go out,” I replied as his hands moved up and cupped my breasts gently. He cradled them, comforting me as I felt my inhibitions run down the drain.

  It was just the two of us living off the grid in Ballstad. He had managed for more than a decade not to be found, although no one was really looking for him. I disrupted his easy life, his freedom. We hadn’t done much else than stay in his cottage and on his boat with the occasional venture into town to the bakery and small grocery store. Ryan had gone to a local pub a handful of times with a few of the guys from the docks, but he never stayed late. A few rounds and he was home. Our home. It was just Luke and Ivy.

  “I know. All the more reason why we should.” He pulled my body closer to his, and my head fell onto his hard chest. I couldn’t leave this. “No one is looking for you. For us. I’ve been here forever. No one suspects anything, but they will if you turn into some sort of recluse, never leaving the house.”

  “I’m a fugitive. A recluse sounds okay to me,” I replied, trying to shake the words of Delaney’s email. The letters burned through my skull. Come back. Please. God, I hated her right now.

  “You’re a red vixen now. You don’t fit the old description. Plus, no one really looks out for people charged with identify theft. It’s not like your face was plastered on America’s Most Wanted. Sure, you headlined a few articles back in the day, but nothing major that’s going to translate over here. We’ll be in the dark at the bar. We’ll stop in for maybe an hour or two then come back home.” Ryan placed his hands on my biceps and grazed the scar along my arm until he rested his hands on my shoulders.