by Cameron Dane
While Father Jim waited for Abby to sit, he said, “Your parents are still missed in this congregation, Abigail.” His warm brown eyes immediately softened in a way that put up Abby’s dander. “You are too.”
Abby snorted. She fucking couldn’t help it. “Not enough to take me in all those years ago.”
“There are many here who regret letting their fear beat them.” The priest folded his ankle against his knee and stretched his arm across the back of the pew, putting his hand close to Abby’s shoulder. “There are also those who still believe turning you over to those professionally trained to handle emotionally distraught children was for the best.”
Abby scooted out of range of those fingers. “Which one are you?”
“I am torn.” The father’s gaze and tone remained even. “I, of course, believe that God ultimately heals everything, but I also believe he sends certain members of his flock into vocations to train and be conduits to that healing. You were in a very bad way, Abigail, and I needed to set aside my desire to help you so that someone better trained could.” With his pause, Abby finally noticed his jaw tighten and his throat move convulsively. “Until I reach heaven, I will never be certain that was the right choice.”
Abby searched internally for the fire that had put her legs in motion up the aisle of this church, but only experienced a slight sense of deflation instead. “Intellectually, I suppose I understand that.” The admission only scratched a little bit on the way out.
“But it’s much harder to reconcile with the heart of that child you were. I understand that as well.” Pity filled Father Jim’s eyes. Abby had seen it enough in her life to detect it in even the most skilled professionals.
Yes, well, none of that matters anymore. That’s not why you’re here, girl.
Abby cleared her throat and mentally psyched herself up not to shake or tear up as she’d done with Lorene. “I want to ask you some tough questions about my parents. I’d like you to be open to not only me, but to Detective Crenshaw also.” She looked over her shoulder toward Braden, who sat three rows back and out of her direct line of sight.
“A detective?” Father Jim’s brow creased as he glanced up at Braden. “What is this about?”
“I have suspicions that Rusty Cormack did not kill my parents. They’re valid enough that Detective Crenshaw has been given permission to explore them.” At this point, Abby didn’t want to spill more than the minimum necessary to this man. To anyone. “The best way to determine who would want to hurt someone is to learn about their life.” She looked into Father Jim’s eyes and did not waver. “That’s what I am doing here today. I need your help.”
Father Jim took Abby’s hands. “Your parents were good people, Abigail.” His tone made Abby feel like a silly child. “I don’t know what you’re looking for or what you think to find here.”
Turning away, Abby snapped her jaw shut tightly and put her focus on the trio of stained-glass windows behind the altar. She absorbed the saturated blues, greens, reds, and yellows in the biblical scene and categorized each series of panes by largest to least amount of color per section. By imagining that she shrank each piece of glass in size and dropped them into an appropriate color-coded container at her workstation at the store, Abby allowed herself to temporarily go to a place that offered her peace and order: creating her jewelry.
Breathe. Just keep breathing.
After Abby finished mentally breaking apart the stained-glass windows, she looked back to Father Jim and put iron in her voice. “Did my mother ever confess to you that she was having an affair?”
The priest leaned his shoulder back into the pew. “You must know I cannot speak of anything anyone tells me in confession. Your mother. Your father. I can’t even speak of the things you said to me as a child.”
Abby chuckled and shot him a derisive look. “I never told you anything truthful, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Father Jim didn’t so much as crack a smile. “Confession is sacred.”
“What about outside of confession?” Abby would not believe this man did not know something about her mother that would show a more complete version of her life. Her mother had trusted Father Jim and had believed in him in all things. Even as a child, Abby had understood the priest’s importance in their world. “Do you simply have an observation of my mother’s behavior at any point over the last year of her life that gave you pause?”
“Your mother was a busy woman,” he replied, his voice remaining frustratingly calm. “I believe her life became even more hectic toward the end of her time here. There could be many, many reasons for this, from something as simple as scheduling, too much charity work, to something more sinister. I do not automatically assume the worst when the behavior of one of my parishioners changes.”
Abby leaped, physically leaning forward in the pew. “So you’re saying my mother’s behavior did change?”
Burying his hand in his hair, Father Jim sighed. “As do many others at any given time, Abigail. It does not always mean the sky is falling. My job is to ask them if they’d like to talk, and to be there when they decide they’d like to unburden themselves.”
“But you won’t tell me if she unburdened herself on you, even if it occurred outside the sacred bonds of confession?”
“Correct.”
Abby curled her hands under her thighs to keep from shaking this man. “Are you trying to preserve my mother’s image for me at the expense of the truth?”
The priest shook his head, but it didn’t exactly have the decisiveness of a denial. “I think you should know that your mother loved you a great deal. You were her pride and joy.” He touched her hair the way Lorene had yesterday. “Your father’s as well. Everything else will cast a heavy weight on your heart that shouldn’t be there.”
Damn it. Abby felt like she was inside a puzzle box that would not open until she figured out the right question to ask the holder of the key. Father Jim could not be completely unflappable. How to go at him in a different way?
Ah. “Don’t you think God would think it an even graver sin to let two souls sit in purgatory for eternity because their murderer remains free?” Abby went right for what she hoped was a fear of his own eternal damnation.
At the back of the church, Rodrigo watched Abby with an eagle eye trained on her to pick up her subtlest moves. With more than twenty pews between them, her body language still resounded loudly enough to send out signals of frustration rather than pain or anger, which Rodrigo did not consider a victory. It didn’t sit well with him at all.
Abby needed answers. Along with those answers would surely come hurt, betrayal, pain, anger, and possibly even some rage. Right now, she held herself in such a way that Rodrigo knew this priest was not giving Abby the right answers to her questions.
When it’s his turn, maybe Braden will be able to help Father Jim see the light. He can be as intimidating as hell when he wants, and he has a badge to flash that helps the most reticent folks see the light.
Hell, if it came right down to it, Rodrigo wasn’t above threatening a man of God himself.
Waiting for the lightning to strike him for that thought, Rodrigo glanced around the church…and froze on the lone figure of a petite older woman watching Abby from just inside the vestibule.
As if she sensed his eyes on her, the woman turned to Rodrigo and offered a small smile. Ingrained with manners he’d learned from his short time with Marisol, Rodrigo smiled back and dipped his head in greeting.
In response, the woman joined Rodrigo in his pew and sat at his side. “I saw you and the other gentleman come in with her,” she said in a soft voice. Her attention remained on Abby. “How is she today?”
Who the hell?
It hit Rodrigo almost instantly. “Are you Lorene Jones?”
The woman grabbed Rodrigo’s hand in both of hers. “Abby mentioned me?”
Such hope filled the woman’s question and such light instantly sparked in her eyes that
Rodrigo didn’t quite know how to handle it.
“She did,” he finally answered. Anything less would have felt like he was throwing her under a bus.
“Yes, I am Lorene Jones.” She turned her hold of his hand into a shake. “Lorene is fine.”
“Rodrigo Santiago.” After exchanging a handshake, Lorene finally released his hand.
She then turned her attention back to Abby and Father Jim. “And you’re her friend?”
“Yes.” Rodrigo let his gaze drift back to the woman in question. She still had a “fallen angel ready to make God pay” look about her, and Rodrigo’s temperature started rising in kind. “I care about Abby a lot. She’s very important to me.”
Lorene patted his hand with her icy smaller one. “Good, good. After what she went through as a child, she deserves lots of people to care about her.”
“She has good friends.” Something needful in this woman compelled Rodrigo to make her feel better. “None of us can imagine what happened the day her parents died, but some of us went through the foster-care system too and can understand the experience that followed.”
“That makes me feel better.” Lorene looked up at Rodrigo through damp eyes, and a tremulous smile broke through the palpable fear. “I wish I could have kept her. I know it wasn’t possible, but God knows we tried to make it work.” She crossed herself, Rodrigo figured for taking the Lord’s name in vain. “I can only hope Abby understands it better now too.”
Whoa.
“Wait.” Rodrigo barely managed to keep his voice down to a hissing whisper. “Abby started out living with you?” That had not been in any old newspaper article he had found or anything Chris had ever shared.
Lorene whipped her head around to look at him. “She didn’t…” Clear horror filled her entire face, and she quickly slid down to the edge of the pew. “Oh dear. I shouldn’t have spoken without her permission. I shouldn’t have stopped when I saw her. She’ll think I’m hovering and trying to force a relationship. I have to go.”
“Wait.” Rodrigo leaned halfway across the seat, but Lorene had already gotten to her feet.
“Will you give this to her?” Lorene thrust a folded piece of paper into his hand. “Or keep it for your file, Detective Santiago—”
Shit. “Wait. I’m not Braden’s part—”
Lorene paused for a moment at the doors leading to the vestibule. “I spent last night and this morning getting in touch with people who belonged to the same book club Abby’s mother did. She and I spoke of it yesterday. This is their best recollection of the members from back then. Thank you.” She looked ready to burst into tears. “Good-bye.”
As Lorene hightailed it out of sight, Rodrigo sat with the folded sheet of paper in his hand, dumbfounded but also full of the sickest twist in his gut he’d ever felt.
Abby started out in a real home, and they let her go?
Good God. Every foster kid’s most cherished dream was to find a permanent place to call home, no matter that not a single one of them would admit to such longing out loud. Never admit to what you want the most. Never be that vulnerable. Never. Only, Abby must have never even had the flickering flame of that dream, because she’d already experienced it and had essentially been told she wasn’t good enough to keep.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Specks of something Abby had mentioned last night about this congregation putting her aside fell into place for Rodrigo. No wonder Abby had always refused to talk about her past. When confronted, she continually shut down, even more than the usual adult who’d spent time in the system. Most put roadblocks in the paths of other people trying to get to know them as adults. Abby, though, had constructed solid steel walls and moats with piranhas and crocodiles swimming within to keep others out.
Not anymore. Rodrigo made himself a vow right in a goddamn church. You’re going to start talking to me, Bit, and it’s gonna happen soon.
Activity at the front of the church drew Rodrigo back just in time to see Abby offer a terse nod to the priest. She then said, “He’s all yours” to Braden as she passed him. Finally, she broke into a run up the aisle to the back of the church.
As she passed Rodrigo, she seethed. “I need air.”
Rodrigo glanced over his shoulder to see Braden take a seat next to Father Jim.
They’ll be a while.
He jogged to catch up with Abby, meeting her as she shoved open the front doors. “We’ll take a fast walk while we wait.” Rodrigo didn’t pause for an agreement before starting a brisk pace around the church grounds.
She followed, gaining his side easily, as he knew she would.
For now Rodrigo figured sweating out her anger in this manner would have to do.
He didn’t figure fucking her in a church parking lot until she couldn’t think anymore would get either one of them into heaven.
* * *
From the entrance to Abby’s kitchen, Rodrigo watched the very woman prowl the galley’s length, taking little more than three long strides in either direction. Braden had received a call a while ago and had left for a crime scene, but not before he and Abby had talked briefly.
After her and Braden’s conversations at the church, they’d all come back to Abby’s place, whereupon Abby had railed at Father Jim’s blocking, sidestepping, or evading her every attempt to get him to spill about her mother and father’s relationship. Abby figured the man was going for sainthood and thought preserving a child’s memories at any cost would help get him there.
Or maybe he’s just trying to cover his own church’s ass.
During the short time he’d been here, Braden hadn’t espoused as many details or shown as much outward frustration as Abby had, but he did claim the priest had effectively blocked his questions. Braden hadn’t laid out a theory per se, but as Rodrigo had quietly watched him and Abby compare notes, Rodrigo sensed that under Braden’s calm detachment he had some skepticism about this Father Jim that went beyond his saintly nature.
It wouldn’t surprise me if he threw the priest into their nonexistent pool of suspects very soon.
Rodrigo wondered how Abby would handle it when Braden did.
“I spoke to a woman at the church today,” Rodrigo said, keeping his tone nice and level. “She introduced herself as Lorene Jones.”
Abby didn’t quite cover the hiccup in her step. “Oh yeah?”
Not as indifferent as you want to be.
“Lorene didn’t want to bother you. She had something for you, though.” Rodrigo slipped the paper out of his pocket and handed it to Abby when she cycled back his way. “She said you would know what it was.”
After unfolding the sheet, Abby gave it a cursory glance and then slipped it into her duster pocket. “Thanks. I’ll add it to our file.”
Putting his shoulder against plaster, Rodrigo watched Abby. It was obvious she stubbornly refused to look back at him. “She also let it slip that you’d spent some time in her home.”
Blatantly covering another small, jerky pause, Abby murmured a noncommittal noise and picked up her prowling again.
Rodrigo took one big step into the kitchen and trapped Abby against the counter with hands braced on either side of her waist. Her breath caught, making her breasts push against the thin white T-shirt she wore beneath her flowery duster. She looked up at him through pupils that left only a thin ring of blue showing in her eyes.
“What happened, Bit?” With everything in him, Rodrigo kept the demand out of his voice. “How did you end up in the system?”
“I’m all talked out.” Abby put the tip of one finger on Rodrigo’s chin and let it run an enticing, lingering line down his throat, chest, and stomach to land just above his belt. “I’ve done it enough for one day.”
Ignoring the rush of reaction to his dick, a slice of Rodrigo’s fiery impatience slipped out. “Bit, this is a pretty fucking big deal. Don’t pretend you don’t care about it.”
Moving up on her tiptoes, Abby rubbed her entire front against his. “Right now I ca
re about something else a whole lot more.”
As Abby rose up and bit Rodrigo’s lower lip, she reached down and put her hand on his cock.
Chapter Ten
Rodrigo moaned at the first touch of Abby’s hand on his dick, and Abby knew she had him.
For a split second, she’d touched him as a way to distract him, but the moment he let out one of those throaty noises, Abby only cared about pulling as many more sounds just like that from him as necessary until he came.
With another rub along his length, Abby then curled her hand between his legs to finger his balls, feeling the heat of his sac burn through his clothes and brand her hand.
“Abby…” Rodrigo gritted his teeth as Abby withdrew, ran her hand down his inner thigh, and found the tip of his cock through his clothes. He shook his head in denial even as he rotated his hips into her teasing fingers. “You need to talk about what happened in Lorene’s house when you were a kid.”
Whispering a no against his warm lips, Abby undid Rodrigo’s belt and the button holding up his jeans. She looked into his eyes, held that dark gaze, and listened to his zipper sigh as it came down. “Right now we should let me touch you without anything between us.” Instead of shoving down his pants, Abby slipped her hand into Rodrigo’s underwear and closed her fingers around his rapidly growing erection.
Rodrigo inhaled sharply, and Abby did too as the fiery heat he emanated scorched her hand. She’d already seen his cock once, but it somehow felt so much longer against the span of her fingers. She circled Rodrigo’s width as best she could in the confined space and dragged her palm up and down his thickening prick.
His eyes slid to half-mast, and he white-knuckled the countertop, his fingers flexing in time with every abbreviated stroke Abby delivered to his prick. She forced her hand deeper into his jeans to his nuts and closed her fingers around the heavy weight. With a fast jerk in response, Rodrigo grunted and covered her hand with his, forcing Abby to handle him in a rougher manner. Every time Abby rolled her fingers or pulled back to squeeze the base of his cock, Rodrigo let out another hungry sound, which in turn spurred an answering throb deep inside Abby’s pussy.