Demon ordered Xavier to remain with the plane and told him to take off if they weren’t back in three hours. Xavier balked, but Demon insisted and the pilot reluctantly agreed.
Demon and the two warriors headed up the steep hill leading to the cloister. It was an easy hike and took less time than expected. Demon ordered the men to split up as soon as a cross on top of a concrete building came into view.
Shit.
The silence was deafening.
Demon studied the area for a good seven minutes. Not a single hint of occupation. The two wooden doors of the chapel stood open. He spied a small black-and-white marble altar, a pair of brass candlesticks, and a wooden podium.
No smoke and no evidence of fire, but also not even the faint aroma of chicken shit, and that scent couldn’t be missed. He signaled for the man on his left to go to the building that housed the chicken coop.
Demon ordered the other man to survey the perimeter, and then turned to go to the main building. The door stood open and slightly askew. Checking to make sure the GLOCK’s safety was off, he entered the eerie, pin-drop quiet structure.
He went stock-still. The lack of noise of any kind had the hair on his nape bristling. The two other men joined him as he reached the second floor. Using quick hand signals, they informed him that the other buildings were empty. Demon had no hope of finding this one any different.
Nothing. Not a single living soul. And even more puzzling, save for the doors in front of the chapel, nothing out of place. No signs of a struggle. No signs of anyone leaving in a hurry. Just nothing.
Demon made his way to the chapel. Dumped on the altar was a brass benediction incense burner. He opened the thurible, pinched some of the powdery substance, and sniffed: frankincense. The strong, pungent aroma meant the container had been filled recently.
Not more than two hours later, they arrived back at the resort. Demon thanked Xavier for his help and insisted on giving the pilot more than enough US currency to pay for the fuel they’d used. The two men who’d accompanied Demon on the mission joined the other mercenaries patrolling the resort.
Satan hadn’t returned, but he had radioed in an all clear.
They were seven men short, and Demon’s sniper-in-the-vicinity alarms rang at full throttle. He sprinted through the deserted lobby, scanning the entire room, not registering a single blasted resort employee.
Crap.
Chapter Twelve
Jacinta blinked, but her eyelids refused to lift. Her limbs felt like fishing leads had been attached to them. She needed to go to the bathroom desperately but had twisted the sheets, and her arms had become so tangled she couldn’t work them loose. Her stomach cramped.
Guilt washed over her. She’d fallen asleep and then woken up to an unhappy stomach. Though she’d tried to stem the bile rising from her riotous belly, she had eventually thrown up their late lunch and hadn’t been able to rinse the bitter taste left from her mouth. Such a waste of that delicious food and punch. Her tongue lay heavy and thick in her mouth.
She rolled off the bed, dragging the covers with her, and fumbled her way to the bathroom, losing the comforter along the way, relieved herself, splashed water on her face, and trudged back to the main room. The drapes were open and a bedside lamp illuminated the hotel bedroom. It was dark outside.
The digital clock on the bedside table registered 9:30. She’d slept through mass and dinner. Her knees buckled when she bumped into the bed frame, and she slumped onto the mattress.
Where was Demon?
The door clicked open, and she turned to find Demon, gun in hand, sprinting into the room. He screeched to a halt when their eyes met. “Jacinta. You’re okay.”
She frowned. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“What’re you doing up?” He stalked to the bed, sat, and hauled her close.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason.” He loosened his embrace.
“You smell like incense. Where have you been?” The fuzziness slowing her thoughts fell away all at once when the muscle under his eye twitched and he looked away. Right away she knew, and her lips thinned. “You went to the cloister. Is Sister Helen okay?”
“I don’t get it. No one reads me like you do.” His shaggy brows spiked into an upside-down V. “How in heck did you know?”
She grabbed his T-shirt. “How dare you do this? Go without me? Where is she?”
“It was empty. The cloister. Totally empty.”
“Empty? No.” She shook her head. “It could
not
be empty.”
“Hang on. Why are you awake? I left you sleeping like a baby.”
She knew the instant she saw his face. “You drugged me. Again. That’s it. I will never have another meal with you.”
“Simmer down. It was for your own good.”
“No. No. You do not get away with that sorry excuse. I am warning you—if you do this to me again, that is the end. No more trust between us. And you will give me all your pills.” She held out her hand.
“I don’t understand how you woke up. By all rights you should’ve been out like a light.”
“I was—but my stomach argued with the food and it came back up.” She picked up the comforter from the floor. “What do you mean the cloister was empty?”
“Exactly what I said. How many chickens are normally in the coop?”
“Chickens?” She shook her head. “A dozen and three roosters. Why do you ask that?”
“There wasn’t a single fowl in the place. I know chickens. They stick close to the source of food.” Demon dragged his hands through his hair. “Something’s wrong. Satan’s not back.”
“Back from where?” Confusion fogged her thinking. “I do not understand. How did you get to the cloister and back so quickly? How could it be that there was no one there? Something bad has happened. Tell me what you found.”
“Xavier flew us there. The doors were open. The beds were made. Not one bed had been slept in. Nothing was out of place. Not a single thing.” He lurched to his feet, walked to the dresser, opened a drawer, and tossed the two knives that had been attached to his belt in.
“I don’t understand. This makes no sense. Mother Superior would never abandon the cloister.” Jacinta hopped off the bed.
“She did. And so did everyone else. Can you think of any way this could’ve happened?”
“No. I can’t.” She locked her hands behind her back and paced a tight circle. “They must have been forced to leave. But the chickens and the roosters? Why would anyone let them go?”
“Jacinta. Kitten. Stop. Sit. Take a deep breath. Let me ring for a pot of tea. You haven’t had anything to eat for the day. Not if you threw up that late lunch.”
“Is she dead?” She stood there wringing her hands, her mind more turbulent than the waterfall atop the mountain peak above the cloister.
He tugged her tight against him. “I don’t know. You haven’t heard from her in what—three weeks? And she wrote to you every other day before that. I didn’t take you with me tonight because I didn’t want you to have to face identifying her if she was dead. Be angry with me. Yell, scream. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. You’ve been through so freaking much.”
“Tell me what you found.” She collapsed onto the bed. “Everything.”
He related the whole scene.
“You smell of incense. Were you in the chapel?”
“Briefly. Incense?”
“Father Lawson. He is the regional priest. When he comes to visit, he performs a benediction of the chapel and the grounds. With incense. He always comes on a Friday and stays in the village until Sunday. Today is Friday.”
“Father Lawson? There couldn’t be two priests with that name. What does he look like? This is the priest who brought the mail?”
“No. The parish priest who lives in the village brings the weekly mail. Father Lawson is the regional priest. He was the one who took me to the school. I’ve always felt that he and Sister Helen knew each other as more than priest and nun. Not in a man-woman way. As if they’d grown up together. Why do you look like that?” She picked up the pillow and hugged the soft down.
His bronzed complexion had paled, his jaw was clenched, and the scar at the side of his mouth had stretched to a thin line. “Tell me what Father Lawson looked like.”
Shivers raced across her shoulders. “He’s older than Sister Helen. Short for a man. He has a limp and wears an eye patch. He is blind in one eye from a childhood injury.”
“Damn.” Demon slumped onto the mattress. “He played me. Like a master. He’s going after Pedro. And you and I are the bait.”
He didn’t react when she clambered onto his lap. Didn’t meet her gaze when she shook him hard. “Tell me what is going on. What do you know?”
Their glances met for a mere second before he averted his gaze. “Jose Genro called a press conference this morning. He said his son Emilio’s missing. That he was last seen in the company of one Jacinta Maria da Silva. Add that to the fact that the media got wind of our rescue of the wedding party, and your face has been plastered all over the world.”
“My face? With my real eyes? What has this to do with the cloister? With Sister Helen?” She fisted her hands and watched him, trying to get any meaning from his hooded eyes, his set mouth.
“Your uncle, Pedro Nunez, has offered a reward for you, alive and unharmed and delivered to him. It’s a significant sum. A more than significant sum.” He set his arm around her shoulder but didn’t look at her.
“Why? Why would he want me? My head aches. I have a father who accuses me of killing his son, my half brother. An uncle who killed my mother. My only friend in the world gone missing—like that.” She snapped her fingers.
“It’s more than all that, Jacinta.” He captured her hands and, when she tried to wrest them out of his grasp, kissed each wrist. “Bear with me, kitten. I have a tale to tell.”
A ghost crawled up her spine. Her fingers and toes chilled. The tone of his voice had her cringing.
“That story about Pedro burning down the orphanage? It’s true. I know because I was there. It’s taken me a lifetime to reconstruct everything, but this is my story as far as I know. I don’t know how old I was when my mother became involved with Pedro Nunez. He carved the scars on my back—him and his cronies. Somewhere in the mix, I ran away. A lovely Lutheran couple from Germany found me and absorbed me into the orphanage they were running. Pedro discovered where I was and came for me. He forced me to watch the building burn. To listen to the screams.”
Her heart ached so badly it would surely implode. She nuzzled his neck, stroked his cheek, combed his hair. But his remoteness wouldn’t abate.
“They all died. Every single last one. Pedro held me captive for another four months. I was always running away, but he’d find me and haul me back to his estate. For some reason, I was Pedro’s personal battering ram. I almost died the last time he beat me, and Rosa and Father Lawson persuaded Rafael Vilas—who was Pedro’s accountant back then—to smuggle me to Venezuela.”
“You said you did not know my mother.”
“I don’t have any memories of Rosa. I was told later that she had helped Father Lawson smuggle me out of the country.”
Sadness and fury swelled a huge clog in her throat. That a little boy should be treated like garbage; she couldn’t fathom a mother allowing anyone to harm her own child. “Your mama, did you ever see her again?”
“Never. I have no idea what she even looks like. Don’t care. I couldn’t pick my relatives, but I have chosen my friends.”
“Lorcan, also known as Satan.”
“Him and few others.”
She studied her hands. “This trip is your revenge?”
“I think of it as retribution, not revenge. Pedro’s becoming more powerful. He’s now linked to terrorism and slave trading as well as his core competency: cocaine. He needs to be taken out. Rosa was the only reason I haven’t done this before. I couldn’t risk Pedro hurting her, not after she’d helped me at her own peril. When Father Lawson told me that Pedro’d killed her, I knew it was time.”
“I don’t understand. Why did my mother’s death free you to do this now?” He was lost in the past; she saw that from the distant expression on his face.
“Rosa tried to escape from Pedro many times. She and Elvira Genro were friends as girls. The last time she tried to escape, Elvira helped her. Pedro kidnapped Elvira and raped her repeatedly. Rosa went back to Pedro voluntarily in return for Elvira’s safe return to her father.”
“And that’s why you waited until she died.”
“No. I waited because it was the only thing she ever asked of me.”
Jacinta shook her head. “Não entendo. I do not understand. How? How did my mother ask this of you?”
“Through Father Lawson. Back then I thought she feared for my life. But now I know it was you she protected. Father Lawson made me swear an oath to abide by her wishes. I didn’t want to, but I owed him and her. When she died, I was no longer bound to my word.”
A strange numbness settled over her, a sensation she’d experienced once before when she first saw that photograph of her mother, Rosa Nunez. And she knew in that instant that she had to confront her uncle.
Demon shook his head. “I need to get in touch with Satan. Pedro has Lucia and Fredo. Satan went to rescue them. He should’ve been back before me. But the men said he radioed in, gave the all clear, and said he’d be late.”
“All clear? That means he is okay?”
“It means that he rescued Fredo and Lucia. The rest I don’t know.” He bowed his head. “I’ll have no more lives on my soul.”
She hurt for him, bled for him, mourned for him, but knew he needed to be active, to be searching for Satan. “How can I help?”
“Stay here. Stay safe. Take one worry off my mind.”
“Do you know where Lucia and Fredo are?”
“Not far downriver. Give me your word that you’ll stay here.” Demon clasped her hands. “I need to help patrol with the others. I’ll be back after dawn.”
“Demon mina. I should like a gun.” Jacinta leveled her jaw. “You know I am trained, and I will feel safer. I would have you give me the weapon. If not, I shall steal it.”
“Your promise?” Demon stood, crossed his arms, and glowered at her. His eyes showed not a glimmer of green.
“I promise to wait for your return.”