by Lisa Jackson
Charity’s heart constricted. Fear seeped into her soul, and even the corners of her eyes felt tight, as if pulled by imaginary strings.
Thankfully, she thought, no bodies had been found.
Maybe they left.
Together.
The difference in their rooms mere indications of their different personalities.
Perhaps fear had driven them away. And what part of that fear could she ascribe to herself, forever clucking after them like a mother hen or guarding over them like a hawk? Had she been kinder, wiser in her administration, more loving and less rigid, perhaps she wouldn’t be looking for them now.
Forgive me.
She’d spent the very early hours of the morning praying, searching and telling herself she was panicking for no reason, that the frantic drum of her heart was an overreaction; but now she was convinced. All her rules, the extra security, the new locks and police driving by St. Marguerite’s was to no avail.
She walked into her office and realized she’d received a message, one that came in, according to the recorder, a few minutes after five a.m., a time she was never at her desk.
Clicking the PLAY button, she heard a voice she recognized, one she’d prayed she would hear again.
“Reverend Mother, this is Lucia. Lucia Costa. I want you to know I’m fine. I left the order this morning, and I’m on my way to a new life. I realize you might not trust this message, that you might think I’m being coerced into leaving it, but please, trust me, I’m safe. May the Holy Mother’s grace be with you.”
Click.
The message was over.
Sister Charity sank into her chair and replayed the message twice, telling herself she didn’t hear a sound of distress in the girl’s voice, that Sister Lucia wasn’t lying.
Where had she gone?
Why didn’t she say?
Because she’s tired of your meddling.
Because she’s afraid.
Because she doesn’t want to be found.
Sister Charity bowed her head, felt all of her sixty-seven years, not old by any means, she’d told herself, but this morning she was weary. Her joints ached and she felt ancient, the relic she’d heard more than one novitiate call her. Not yet the dinosaur that Sister Irene thought she was.
She placed her elbows on the top of the desk, cast one quick glance at the picture of the Pope, and prayed to the Holy Father for guidance, for help. She was humbled. Afraid. Didn’t know what to do.
In her mind, she heard the voice of God.
Follow your heart, Charity, my child. You know the truth. You know what you must do. Be obedient yet vigilant, firm yet kind. Trust yourself and those around you. Believe in me and in my Son and in the Holy Spirit. Trust the Holy Trinity.
When she whispered a soft “amen,” she realized her eyes were filled with tears and that she’d been weeping in both sorrow and joy. Her cheeks were damp, salty drops falling onto the top of her desk.
She tried to pull herself together. Her grief would not overshadow her faith; her fear would not thwart her courage. She, as the handmaiden of God, would prevail.
Yet her hand was shaking when she reached for the phone and dialed St. Elsinore’s parish. Though it was barely seven, someone answered, probably due to the fact that tonight was the auction for which the parish of St. Elsinore’s had been planning for over a year.
When she was finally connected to Sister Georgia, Charity forced herself to murmur a few pleasantries she didn’t feel and imagined the mother superior at the orphanage without her wimple, veil, and habit. A modern woman was Sister Georgia, a nun with both feet securely set on the sod of the two-thousands, and yet, deep in her heart, she was as staid in her ways, as structured in her beliefs as was Charity.
She had to be.
They both learned their lessons from Sister Ignatia, together at St. Elsinore’s, as orphans. Both Georgia and Charity had grown up within the crumbling walls that were now, for the first time in nearly two hundred years, being emptied of their charges, eyed for possible demolition.
A travesty.
“So, what can I do for you?” Georgia asked after they got through trivialities.
“I want to speak to Father Thomas,” Charity said, girding her loins for battle. She and Georgia were like competitive siblings, always trying to outdo each other.
“He’s not in right now. But I’d be glad to give him a message.”
I just bet you would. “Is he ever there?” Charity asked, unable to keep the bite from her words.
“He’s a busy man. The Lord’s work is never done.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she said, and decided she had to tell Georgia what was happening. “I’m hoping he’ll consider rescheduling the auction,” she said, knowing she was asking the impossible. “We have a . . . situation here at St. Marguerite’s. Another one of my novitiates has gone missing . . . well, maybe even two, and as it is, I think it would be disrespectful to go on with any kind of festivities.”
There was a long pause and then a sigh on the other end of the line. “I understand,” Georgia said, surprisingly accommodating, “but you know, it’s too late. The invitations have been sent, the tickets sold, the hotel ballroom booked, the caterers and women of the church who have gone to all the trouble to get the refreshments and dinner ready. Oh, Charity, you and I both know what Father Thomas’s response will have to be. I’m sorry,” she said.
“Me, too, Georgia.” There was no reason to press the issue. Even before her request had been presented to Father Thomas, wherever in the world he was, Georgia had squelched it.
Of course.
“I’m not certain that the choir will be able to perform.”
“Surely they will. For their lost sisters. For the Holy Father. I know this is a time of great trouble for you, Charity, but this auction is for the good of the very place we called home for so many years. Even Sister Ignatia, bless her heart, is going to attend. Father Thomas is going to wheel her in, though she’ll have an attendant, of course.”
Just how old was Ignatia, the woman who had helped raise her and yet terrorized her? Ninety-five? A hundred? Even older. Sixty years ago, she’d been a miserable woman in her forties, and the years surely hadn’t improved her sour, almost cruel disposition.
In Charity’s opinion, Sister Ignatia had scarred more children than she’d helped.
“It’s going to be grand,” Georgia said on a sigh, as if she were a debutante going to her first ball.
“If you say so,” Charity whispered, but didn’t believe it for a moment, not with two of the novitiates confirmed dead—murdered, here on the hallowed grounds of St. Marguerite’s Cathedral—and two more missing.
“I do. You’ll see.”
Charity took in a long, deep breath as she hung up. She rubbed her fingers across the smooth, worn surface of her desk, her heart heavy.
Why was she being tested?
She glanced at the crucifix hung on the wall over her door. Jesus’s gaunt frame was etched in dark wood, but even so, the scars of his wounds, the crown of thorns, the nails pounded through his hands and feet, were visible.
How could she possibly think her own pain was anything when she thought of his agony? She crossed herself, closed her eyes, and whispered several prayers.
Then, squaring her shoulders, she picked up the receiver again.
This time to call the police.
CHAPTER 47
Montoya stormed into the station. He took the steps two at a time and strode directly to Bentz’s office without bothering to drop his sidearm at his desk or grab a cup of coffee from the kitchen.
He’d forgone his run this morning and was itching for a fight.
Bentz was just reading his e-mail while the rest of the department came to life. Cops chatting, keys rattling, phones jangling, air conditioner wheezing, the weekend staff already arriving. The smells were there, too, fresh coffee mingled with floor polish, a burning smell from the overworked copy machine, and the stale
odor of human sweat, left over from a recent booking.
All part of the ambience.
“We need to find my brother’s Harley!” Montoya announced, irritated beyond belief. “Right now it’s probably heading northwest on the ten, heading toward Houston or Texas or Arkansas or goddamned Oklahoma! And it’s being ridden by our star witness.”
“Slow down,” Bentz suggested, waving him into a side chair near the corner of his desk. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Montoya preferred to stand and took a spot near the window. “My son of a bitch of a brother,” Montoya said, fury singing through his blood. “What a fuckin’ idiot!” He glanced at Bentz and said, “Don’t even start with some joke about it running in the family.”
And then he launched into the story that Cruz had told him on the stoop a couple of hours earlier. He explained that Lucia Costa, Sister Lucia, who was romantically involved with Cruz as a girl, had called him, begged for his help because she wanted to leave the convent in the dead of night. She hadn’t wanted to face Sister Charity or something, was scared, she’d claimed, then stolen his bike and left Cruz to walk back to Montoya’s house. She’d also admitted to having mailed Camille Renard’s prepaid cell phone to the police—in an act of contrition or something, which Cruz might believe but Montoya didn’t.
Then again, Cruz was pissed. Furious that he’d been played for a fool, he’d stopped at a couple bars on Bourbon Street before he’d returned, tail between his legs, and waited for Montoya to wake up to give him the great news. “The last thing he saw was the taillight, heading, he suspected, to the freeway. The only reason he knows she was heading west was that she mentioned Houston, but hell, that could be a lie! She could be heading to California or New York City or the fuckin’ Yukon! Sheeeeit!” He kicked at Bentz’s metal waste-basket, bending it with the toe of his boot, then shoved a hand through his hair, wanting to wring his brother’s neck. “Dumbass!”
“Careful with the government-issued office equipment!”
“That trash can has 1965 written all over it!” And, from the looks of it, had been kicked a time or two before.
Bentz, Montoya noticed, wasn’t feeling the same ire that fueled his blood.
Bentz asked calmly, “You put out a bulletin on it?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, ’cause we have another problem.”
“It’s not even nine a.m. and the hits just keep coming,” he said, some of his rage ebbing. “What?”
“The reverend mother at St. Marguerite’s called this morning. She already reported that Lucia Costa was missing; though, supposedly Lucia called and said she was okay, which I guess your brother just verified. But she’s not the only one missing. Louise Cortez, another novitiate, is gone, too.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” Montoya threw up a hand and stalked in front of the desk.
“There’s already two units at the convent. I was just waiting for you to show up so we could head over there.”
Montoya was already walking through the door. “You know I’ve been inside the church more in the last week than I have been in ten years.”
Bentz snorted a laugh as he reached for his jacket and holster, checking to see that his service weapon was snapped in. “Guess we’re lucky the walls haven’t fallen in on us.”
“Yeah,” Montoya said, “real fuckin’ lucky!” He was out of the office first, returning the way he came, his boots clattering down the steps. He nearly ran into a cop urging a man in handcuffs down the hallway to an interrogation room. The guy smelled like he’d slept in his own vomit, and his hair was matted, his face scratched and pimply, his eyes blinking, his teeth clenching and grinding.
Definitely tweaking. Probably meth.
Montoya signed for a car and walked outside again. The sun was shining, but a thickening layer of clouds was beginning to cluster, the humidity already intense. What was with the nuns at St. Marguerite’s? He thought of the missing bridal dresses and the list of novitiates and nuns who had at one time in their lives lived in the orphanage at St. Elsinore’s.
Sister Louise Cortez’s name was on the list.
Sister Lucia Costa’s was not.
Lucia was alive.
He had serious doubts about Louise.
“We gotta get this guy,” he said as Bentz slid into the Crown Vic’s already-warm interior and buckled his seat belt.
“The sooner the better.”
Montoya lead-footed it across town. Traffic was light, as it was Saturday morning, and the trip fairly easy. Bentz told him that he’d caught the report on Grace Blanc’s family—a brother in Duluth, Minnesota, her mother, finally giving up the cold northern winters, now lived year-round in Miami. Both Grace’s relatives seemed shocked and saddened at the horrid twist of events.
Montoya pulled into a parking spot near the back door of the cathedral. He noticed the spires stretching upward, seeming to puncture the gray bellies of the clouds rolling over the city. The cathedral was dark and somber, no parishioners scurrying in and out, no nuns making their way to the garage to pick up a car and drive to the hospital or St. Elsinore’s, no priest stopping to chat with pedestrians as they strolled by.
No, the huge edifice looked dark and foreboding, an empty fortress that was unwelcoming, hardly a sanctuary for those with troubled souls.
This morning, he observed as he walked across the lawn to the back gate, there was no yellow tape strung across the entrance, no news vans parked nearby, no one from the medical examiner’s office, no crime scene investigators.
At least not yet.
No telling what they would find when they started searching.
Would they locate the body of Louise Cortez, or would she, like Lea De Luca and now, perhaps, Lucia Costa, disappear forever?
Montoya had a bad feeling about Louise.
A real bad feeling.
“The police have released Camille’s body,” Valerie said as she clicked her cell phone shut, and a cold wave washed through her body. She was in the passenger seat of Slade’s truck, returning from their breakfast of beignets and café au lait at the long, low restaurant in the French Quarter. They’d sat beneath slow-moving paddle fans, listening to the buzz of conversation while watching the Mississippi roll slowly toward the Gulf.
Water fowl had cruised the shore, smaller birds hopping along the sidewalk hoping for crumbs.
Slade had insisted that they go, so, after she’d called Rick Bentz at the police department, helped Freya with the breakfast and dishes at Briarstone, and met with an officer who came out to take her statement, she’d agreed.
Getting out of the house and into the bustle of the city had helped elevate her mood and stopped her from dwelling on the sibilant voice’s threat.
You’re nexxxt. Breathy pause. There is no esssscape.
She and Slade hadn’t talked about it during all of their time away from the cottage. They’d agreed the subject was taboo and had enjoyed their time together. It was almost as if they were falling in love for the first time.
Except, she reminded herself as the truck hit a pothole and bounced, this was round two.
And the peaceful morning that they had managed to restore had been shattered, the call from the funeral home bringing Val back to earth, to reality and the soul-scraping truth that her sister had been murdered, the victim of a psychopath whose thirst for blood was yet unquenched.
Her jaw tightened at the unfairness of it all. Who was this creep, and how the hell were they going to catch him and throw his ass in jail? She wanted revenge; she wanted the bastard to pay, and she was frustrated that he hadn’t been identified.
If not that swine of a vow-breaking priest, O’Toole, then who? she thought idly as Slade braked for a woman pushing a baby carriage, then turned the corner onto St. Charles Avenue. On one side of the avenue, they passed Audubon Park, on the other the circular drive of Loyola University, one of the buildings looking like a medieval fortress built of red brick. Next to Loyola were the groomed lawns lea
ding to the pale bricks of a massive edifice that was part of Tulane University. “The Harvard of the South,” according to some of her friends who had graduated from the school. That was up for debate, though, she knew, as she looked at the arched windows and the smooth grass, the beauty of the campus.
Two schools Camille would never have a chance to visit.
“You know,” Slade said as he turned down the side street leading to Briarstone. “We don’t have to go to the auction tonight.” He’d been worried all day, ever since the morning telephone call.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Everyone involved in this case will be there.” She thought of Father Frank O’Toole again. Would he show his face? “And Camille would want me to attend.”
“You don’t know that.” He rolled to a stop across the street from her garage.
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” she said. “I never will.”
“So what have we got?” Bentz asked as he and Montoya picked up ribs from a takeout place a few blocks from the station, then found a park bench where they could talk, pick at the bones, watch the storm roll in, and generally work out the day.
“You mean besides diddly-squat?” Montoya’s mood hadn’t improved much. Talking for hours with nuns who they were getting to know well enough to send Christmas cards to, being stonewalled by the priests, and trying to get a bead on the reverend mother had been draining for them both, Bentz knew, and Montoya, always more volatile, a “young buck,” wasn’t taking it well. Though he’d mellowed a little over the years—marrying Abby and becoming a father had helped—he was still explosive and impulsive. Working with Reuben Montoya was always a challenge and always exciting. Bentz bent rules; Montoya broke them.
They picked at their ribs, the sauce tangy and gooey, and watched ducks floating on a pond where the water was turning a worrisome shade of gray, reflecting the clouds rolling in. A woman was feeding them, and they were gathering around her, quacking and demanding bits of bread.
On the far side of the pond, a woman was trying to walk a black dachshund. He was straining on his leash, barking insanely first at the ducks and then at a squirrel that scurried up the bark of an oak tree.