by Kylie Logan
For a few minutes, Hank and I stood listening to the sounds of the nuns’ prayers. Their voices were low and soothing, their heads were bent, their eyes closed, and I stood back and watched them, drinking in the quiet solace.
Until I did some counting.
“There are only seven of them,” I said.
Hank, too, had been lost in the comforting hum of their voices. “Huh?”
Just to be sure, I did another quick count. Not so hard when there were only seven nuns in the living room.
“Sister Gabriel is missing,” I told Hank.
“You don’t think—”
Since I didn’t want to think what he thought I was thinking, I whirled toward the stairs instead. “Your guys must have checked out her room, right?”
“Well, sure. There’s nobody up there.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “Let’s not panic if there’s nothing to panic about.”
Good advice.
Tell that to the sudden crazy rhythm inside my rib cage.
We stood still for a moment, me and Hank, considering our options, and it was a good thing we did. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have heard a distinct thud from the direction of the library.
“Stay back.” Hank waved me behind him at the same time he drew his gun, but when he hurried down the hallway in the direction the noise had come from and burst through the closed door of the library, I was right behind him.
And just in time to see Sister Gabriel freeze in place over near the wall-to-wall bookshelves on the far side of the room. She dropped the book she was holding. Her mouth fell open, her face turned as white as her wimple.
“Sister!” Hank called out at the same time Sister Gabriel stammered, “Don’t shoot!”
“Oh, heck. I’m not going to shoot you!” Hank holstered his gun. “But what on earth—”
He said exactly what I was thinking.
Sister Gabriel stood in the center of what I can only describe as total destruction. There were piles of books on the floor around her and more books stacked on nearby tables. The drawers of a nearby desk hung open and their contents—from paper clips to papers to scissors and pens—were scattered all around.
“What are you doing, Sister?” I blurted out.
Now that Hank had put his gun away, Sister Gabriel regained her color. And her enthusiasm for whatever crazy scheme she was engaged in. She grabbed a thick book off the shelf, riffled through the pages, then cast the book aside.
“I’m looking, that’s what I’m up to. I’m looking for the package that was supposed to have been delivered here earlier in the week. You know, those . . . those books I told you about.”
“You’re the one who left during dinner.” She didn’t deny it so I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about adding, “You’re the one who ransacked the Sisters’ rooms!”
“Well, I’ve asked them like a hundred times what they did with the stupid package, and I’m not getting any answers. Not from any of them.” Finished flicking through another few books, she tossed them aside. “What did you expect? I’m supposed to sit on my hands and wait?”
“Except you didn’t find what you were looking for in any of their rooms, did you?” I asked and, in answer to Hank’s questioning gaze, added, “She wouldn’t still be looking if she did.”
“That’s right.” Sister Gabriel kicked the nearest stack of books and sent books spinning across the parquet floor. “I haven’t found a thing, and I’ll tell you what, I’ve pretty much had it. It’s important.” She grabbed a book and slapped it down on the table near her right hand. “That package is freakin’ important!”
Nuns in high dudgeon were obviously a little outside of Hank’s job description. He took a couple steps back and left me to deal, and though nuns in high dudgeon were well out of my experience, too, I’d dealt with my share of prima donnas in my day. Actresses who’d starred in the movies made from my books. Actors who’d auditioned for the TV series that had been based on a trilogy I’d written about an evil spirit that inhabited an antiques store.
Sister Gabriel was having a diva moment.
And divas . . . I knew how to deal with divas.
“We’re going to figure out what happened to your package,” I assured her and I sounded so darned sincere, even I was sure of it. “But we can’t do that without your help.”
She wasn’t sure if she could believe me. That would explain why her eyes were wild and her cheeks flooded with color.
“The house is only so big, Sister,” I reminded her. “And there are only so many places a package can hide. Come on.” I stepped back and motioned her toward the door. “Let’s get back into the living room and we’ll ask the other Sisters what they know about your package.”
She pursed her lips. “I already asked.”
“But that was before. They might remember something now.”
She didn’t look 100 percent convinced, but she didn’t argue, either. With a sidelong look at Hank and that gun of his, Sister Gabriel stomped out of the library.
We followed her to the living room and arrived just as the other Sisters had finished their prayers.
“What’s going on?” Sister Gabriel looked around at the somber expressions on the faces of her fellow nuns. “You’re praying again. What’s that all about?”
Sister Liliosa stood. “We have bad news. About Sister Helene. She’s . . . Sister Helene was found dead this evening.”
I’m sure that just like me, everyone else in the room remembered how upset Sister Gabriel was when Sister Sheila died. Like them, I braced myself for the waterworks. Instead, Sister Gabriel broke into a grin.
“But that’s great, isn’t it?” She hoped for someone to step up and agree with her and when nobody did, she peered at her fellow nuns as if they’d lost their minds. “She’s the one who killed Sheila. Isn’t that what you’ve all been saying this past week? Helene was the one who murdered Sheila on account of they were having some fight about money. And Helene tried to kill Catherine, too, and you along with her.” Sister Gabriel turned my way.
“Why isn’t anybody else seeing the plus side of this?” Sister Gabriel asked, tossing her hands in the air. “It means we don’t have to worry anymore. Sister Helene isn’t going to try and off any of us. We’re safe! We’re all safe!”
It was a pretty darned impassioned speech and it would have made more of a positive impression if at that particular moment, a bullet didn’t crack through the living room window and miss Sister Gabriel by little more than a couple of inches.
15
By the time Hank drove me home, I was too tired to drag myself around the hulking Victorian and to the back door. I hauled myself up the front steps, got as far as the door, and grumbled a curse.
I had a rule at Bea & Bees—the front door remained unlocked until eleven. Apparently, one of my guests took that rule very seriously. It was eleven—well, after eleven—and the door was locked. Not to worry, I reminded myself, there was an extra key hidden under the multicolored rag rug between the wicker couch and rocking chair. Of course at that point, bending down to retrieve it sounded like way too much work.
Especially since Jerry Garcia was parked in the middle of the rug.
“Shoo!”
Yeah, like I actually thought that would encourage my not-so-friendly neighborhood cat to get a move on.
I put a hand to the small of my back to try to ease my aching muscles. “Come on, Jerry.” I grabbed one corner of the rug and gave it a little flip in an effort to dislodge the tabby. “It’s late and I’m tired and you don’t belong here, anyway.”
As bone-tired, tuckered-out, too-exhausted-to-see-straight pleas went, it was a pretty impassioned one.
I wasn’t the least bit surprised when Jerry did not take pity on me.
What I really wanted to do was let loose my inner New Yorker and swear a blue streak, but hey,
there were people sleeping inside the house, so I bit back the words, gritted my teeth, and hoped that Jerry didn’t take offense (at least not too much) when I scooped him up off the rug and deposited him on my front steps.
“Go home,” I told him.
He headed that way.
And though I was grateful, I am not delusional. I had not one shred of doubt that he would double back as soon as I was inside and pee on the pansies in the pots out front just so I’d have something to remember him by.
At that point in time, I was too tired to care.
I let myself in, pocketed the key, and hoped I remembered to put it back where it came from the next day. Then I . . .
Nearly had a heart attack when Levi walked out of my parlor.
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Well, you did.” Oh yeah, that inner New Yorker was aroused now. I squared my shoulders, “Why didn’t I see your car? What the hell are you doing here?”
He cocked his head toward the back of the house. “I parked near the garage. You came in through the front door. As far as how I got in, those librarians are a friendly bunch. They welcomed me with open arms. Figuratively speaking, of course. And before you take it out on them . . .” I don’t know why he thought I was going to. Except for the laser look of death I shot up the stairway, I was my usual cool, calm, and collected self. “Marianne was with them and she knows me and she knows—”
“What?”
His cheeks shot through with a color that matched the deep crimson in the antique Persian rug on the floor in the parlor behind him. “Well, not about that.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate about that because for one thing, I knew full well what he was talking about and I didn’t need to be reminded and for another . . .
Well, there wasn’t any other.
“Marianne knows me and she thought you wouldn’t mind.”
I shuffle-stepped past him (sore knees, remember) and down the hallway to the kitchen. With the door closed between us and the rest of the slumbering household, there was less chance that the four-letter words that were rolling around my tongue might be heard.
I waited until the swinging door flapped shut behind him before I whirled around, my arms crossed over my chest.
“Marianne thought wrong.”
Levi scraped his hands over his chin. “I figured you’d say that.”
“Then for once, you were right.” I backed up a step and waved toward the door.
Levi’s face screwed into what I’d like to think was an expression of repentance. If I didn’t know better.
“Can’t,” he said.
“‘Can’t’ . . . ?”
“Leave.”
“Can’t or won’t? There’s a big difference.”
“Can’t and won’t. If you’d let me explain—”
“I don’t want an explanation. I want you out of my house.”
“And out of your life.”
This wasn’t the time for a conversation that intense. Not when I was tired. Not when I was off my game. Not when I had so much else to worry about.
“Look . . .” I dragged myself over to one of the high stools near the breakfast counter and sat down. “It’s been a really long day.”
“I know. I talked to Hank.”
“About what happened at Water’s Edge.”
“About everything that happened at Water’s Edge.” Trying to make sense of it all, he shook his head and a lock of honey-colored hair fell against his forehead. “Were you going to tell me that you nearly got killed today?”
I rested one arm against the black granite countertop. “No. Because I had no intention of talking to you. Not about what happened to me this morning. Not about anything.”
“Not even about the body you found at the state park?”
It was an image that wouldn’t fade from my imagination, not even when I shook my shoulders to try to dislodge it. “If you know about that, then you know Sister Helene was murdered.”
“And that someone tried to kill another one of the nuns this evening.”
Oh, how I would have loved a few hours to think through everything that had happened that evening over at Water’s Edge before I jumped to any kind of conclusion! Oh, how I was convinced that with a few hours of sleep, things might look different, even though I was sure they wouldn’t look better.
This wasn’t the time to discuss it.
But it was as good a time as any.
“I don’t think someone was trying to kill her,” I said.
Levi’s eyebrows rose just enough for me to know this wasn’t what he expected me to say.
I wasn’t sure if he knew all the details so I filled him in. “The cops say the shot came from out on the water, from a boat. What does that tell you?”
He didn’t need to think about it, but then, when I heard the news, I didn’t, either.
“You’d have to be either really stupid to think you could manage a shot like that, or a really skilled marksman.”
“Exactly. And I don’t think we’re dealing with stupid.”
He took another couple moments to consider what I was saying.
“So you think . . .”
“That if someone’s that good of a shot, he’s going to make the shot.”
“And he didn’t.”
I thought back to the scene earlier that evening, to Sister Gabriel’s shrieks when she realized what had just happened, to the way the other nuns scrambled, fear and confusion in their eyes.
“The shot missed Sister Gabriel by a couple inches, but it missed her,” I said. “I think—”
“Someone’s trying to send a message.” Levi finished the sentence for me and for a couple heartbeats, we were back in sync, and the old feelings flooded through me like bubbly, tickling my insides and warming me through.
Until I remembered the hot sting of betrayal and came to my senses.
When Levi pulled up the stool next to mine and sat down, I made sure I turned enough on my seat so that my knees had no chance of brushing against his.
“So was that message for Gabriel?” he asked.
When I shrugged, I remembered how much my shoulders ached. “She’s desperate to find a package that she had shipped to the island,” I told him, because something told me Hank wouldn’t have seen the incident with Sister Gabriel in the library as significant enough to mention it to Levi. I wasn’t sure I did, either, but I couldn’t shake it loose from my brain. “She says it was a box of books.”
“But you don’t believe her.”
“She doesn’t strike me as the type . . .” I thought about it for a moment. “She isn’t scholarly, that’s for sure. She isn’t even all that nunly.”
“Nunly?”
I ignored the glint of blue fire in his eyes.
“I’m an author,” I said, my shoulders as rigid as my voice. “I’m allowed to make up words.”
“So why do you think she’s not nunly?” Levi asked.
“Well, she’s not nearly as calm as the rest of them.” If I needed any proof of that, I had only to think of the scene in the library earlier that evening. “And she doesn’t seem as . . . I don’t know . . . as reverent, I guess. And if I said that in front of the other Sisters, they’d be all over me about it and tell me not to judge.” I drummed my fingers against the countertop. “Sister Gabriel was awfully upset when she found out that Sister Sheila was dead.”
“I’m sure they all were.”
“Yeah, of course. But not . . . Not like Sister Gabriel was upset. She barely stopped crying. That strikes me as more over-the-top. More personal.”
“Maybe she thought someone was trying to send her a message that time, too.”
“Or she thought she was the intended target and the killer got the wrong nun.”
This was somethi
ng Levi hadn’t considered, and I couldn’t blame him. Before the words were out of my mouth, I hadn’t considered it, either.
“Think she’s hiding something?” he asked.
I sat up like a shot. “I bet Sister Gabriel would fit into those clothes I found up in the attic.”
“Then she is hiding something.”
“Or hiding from someone.”
“And looking to slip into that disguise and leave the house?”
“It’s not a bad plan,” I admitted. “And it makes more sense than if Sister Helene left the clothes there. Helene wears . . . wore”—I corrected myself—“clothes like everybody else. Regular clothes, not a habit. She didn’t need jeans and a leather jacket to look different.”
“Sister Gabriel is one of the nuns who does wear a habit?”
I didn’t blame him for not being able to keep the Sisters straight. I nodded. “The full regalia, including the long dress and the veil and the wimple. If she wanted to look different . . .” I thought back to what I’d found in the attic the night before. It seemed a lifetime ago. “I wonder what color her hair is.”
“Because if it’s light, the dark hair color makes perfect sense.”
Had I been plotting a new book (something I had no intention of doing anytime soon), I would have jumped right on this train of thought and ridden it to the end of the line. But this wasn’t fiction, it was reality. And the reality . . .
I took off the glasses that were supposed to be part of my I’m-not-a-megafamous-author disguise and set them on the countertop. “It seems a little . . . I don’t know . . . a little far-fetched for a nun, don’t you think?” I asked, and even before Levi had a chance to think about it, I answered my own question.
“That all depends on how desperate the nun is, doesn’t it?” I asked him and myself. “And if you’d seen Sister Gabriel in the library this evening, you’d know she’s desperate. Desperate to find a package she had shipped to the island. She says it’s a box of books.” The words swirled around inside my head and got me pretty much nowhere. “Why would books be that important?”
“And where did the package disappear to in the first place?”