Nun But The Brave (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

Twenty-One

After supper, Giulia walked Frank through the dating site research. He reacted exactly the way Sidney had. Giulia sat back against the couch, arms crossed, and waited.

A few minutes later, Frank clawed himself up off the floor and put his ginger head on her shoulder. “Babe, this is priceless. Show me the videos, please, I’m begging you.”

“Not in your wildest dreams. I deleted them.”

Frank raised clenched fists to the sky. “Noooooo.”

“Yes. They were horrific. However, the last one, the one who hoped the future of humanity resided in my hips, gave me a lead.”

Frank’s arms dropped. “You contacted the nutcase?”

She gave him the stink-eye. “Be serious. My client’s missing sister might have gone Prepper. I know which pits of virtual depravity she joined, and I spent my afternoon in said pits.”

She opened the first site. “Tonight you will be my moral support as I see who’s attracted to my alter-ego, and we will hope at least one of them went for Joanne too.”

“Hold that thought. I need a beer for this.”

Giulia groaned. “Sure, drink a Murphy’s in front of me. Your progeny has stopped my intake of alcohol and caffeine.”

Frank stood in the archway between the kitchen and living room, took a long drink from the cold bottle, and said, “A good Catholic would offer it up.”

Giulia threw a soccer ball pillow at him.

Frank became positively giddy as Giulia navigated the sites. On the mainstream site, the one with the least hits, men were determined to charm her with their pets. Giulia counted nine photos with dogs, four with cats, one with a ferret—“Didn’t ferrets go out of style in the 1990s?”—and two with boa constrictors.

“One of those snake guys should have posed himself like that Nastassja Kinski poster from 1982.”

“You know the year it went on sale? You were,” she calculated, “four years old.”

“Certain images are generational. Every male of my acquaintance owned that poster. It was a twelfth birthday rite of passage.”

“There is still so much I don’t know about you.” Giulia kissed him on the temple.

“How else can I keep you interested? I have to compete with your first husband.” He waited a beat. “Jesus? You know, The Big Guy? Hard sandals to fill.”

Giulia laughed so hard she choked. Frank set her laptop on the coffee table and thumped her back.

“I will—ha ha ha—say a rosary—bah ha ha—for you.”

Frank said, “Only one?” which sent her off again.

He made another trip to the kitchen and came back with grapefruit juice. She sipped it until her breathing returned to normal.

“All right, sir, you are charged with protecting my wifely honor while I navigate these cesspools.” She closed the animal-heavy page and opened the site for twins and triplets. “This one will probably have D-pics too. Fair warning.”

“I will endeavor not to make personal comparisons.”

With a Herculean effort, Giulia didn’t lose another five minutes laughing. “Clicking on the first one.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “
Cac naofa.
This one is a 911 call waiting to happen.”

Fourth in the row of six photos was one of a smiling male whose message said, in part, how much he loved his dogs and coaching Little League. In the photo, he had his arm around a petite blonde. The blonde’s face was obliterated with black marker gouges.

“I will now back away from the internet.” Giulia deleted the contact. “Oh, look. A video.”

Frank riffed on the one-minute video in the best
Mystery Science Theater 3000
tradition. Giulia deleted it, opened the next one, and deleted it after two seconds.

“What are these people thinking?”

“
Muirnín
, you know exactly what they’re thinking.”

Giulia made a gagging gesture. “Only the Prepper site to go.”

It treated her to four junk photos and three videos.

“The videos are my last hope.”

Frank set down the empty beer bottle. “My razor wit is up to the challenge.”

A shivery little Chihuahua yapped counterpoint to a nineteen-year-old’s attempt at stoicism. His jeans hung low on his hips, giving Giulia an unobstructed view of the acne encroaching on his junk.

“I like walking in the woods as long as we’re there to hunt. You should be able to grow everything we can’t shoot or catch for ourselves. I can render deer and pluck game birds. You need to know how to cook them in multiple ways. I like natural blondes, but you’re cute so I’ll try you out. Message me if you’re serious.”

Giulia clicked back to his profile. “He claims he’s twenty-five.”

Frank snorted. “If he’s a day over nineteen, I’ll buy those brats down the street a new vuvuzela.”

“Heaven forfend.”

Frank bounced on the couch cushion. “Play another one. Play another one.”

Her smile was indulgent. “You are easily amused.”

“You know it. Come on, click that guy who claims he’s twenty-nine.”

“Yes, dear.” She clicked. “At least he’s dressed.”

This one wore a polo with a hardware store logo on the pocket. His buzz cut might have hidden some gray at the temples. His tanned face had the wrinkles of either too many years in the sun or too many years chain-smoking cigarettes. His muscles looked legitimate. His voice did not indicate steroids.

“I have half an acre of vegetables and fruit that see me through every winter. You will have canning skills as well as cooking skills. We have to have similar reading tastes. Romances are a deal-breaker. If you can play a musical instrument which doesn’t require electricity, you’ll have a leg up on the competition. I expect a sensible, strong woman. Message me if you’re that woman.”

To the tune of the Monty Python Viking skit, Frank sang, “Men, men, men, men. Testosterone men, Butt-headed men.”

“Got it in one.” Giulia replayed the video. “This one has possibilities. Something about him seems the type my client’s sister would gravitate toward.”

Frank reached over her arm and clicked on the manly man’s profile. “He’s got at least two red flags.”

“At least. I might want you as bodyguard when I set up a meeting with him.”

“What about the mama’s boy?”

Giulia gave him a side-eye. “Please. If I needed backup over a cup of coffee with him, I should turn in my license. All right, last one.”

His black hair and blue eyes were striking. He had to be six foot four or five. His voice resonated like a street corner preacher’s.

“Your profile fits the required parameters. I will presume truthfulness regarding your hunting and agriculture skills, but I will commit to nothing without an in-person meeting.”

Giulia said, “Three in a row who didn’t make me want to gouge out my eyeballs.”

“Are you serious?”

“It’s all in the comparisons. After defaced girlfriend pictures and a barrage of male anatomy, men who keep their clothes on are a win. Even if what they’re really saying is they want a woman to stay barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.”

He leaned away from her. “The sentiment comes from thousands of years of dominant male genes. Or classic TV sitcoms. Donna Reed cleaning the house in high heels and pearls was hot.”

“I refuse to honor such a viewpoint with discussion. Look at this guy’s eyes.” She enlarged the paused video. “He’s on something.”

“He spoke at a normal rate, so not cocaine.”

“He’s not haggard or covered with sores, so not meth.” She restarted the video.

“You may choose the place and time. Include your religious affiliation in the message. If you adhere to Scientology, do not reply.”

“I know what his voice reminds me of,” Giulia said. “The guy who does the movie trailers. “‘In a world where’ and all that.”

Frank said from his diaphragm, “In a world where strange men are flapping their junk at my ex-nun wife and she’s making me watch…”

Giulia laughed. “Oh, hush. You’re enjoying it.”

“True. You want me to check this guy’s record, assuming he used his real name?”

“Yes, please. All three of them, actually. If I have to carry my gun to a first date, my choice of clothing will require alteration.” She opened a reply window. “I’ll need to buy tinted contacts and temporarily go blonde. When they ask why I’m thinner, which they all will, I’ll say I used an older picture to see who’d be attracted to me for more than my body.”

Frank didn’t reply, but Giulia felt him tense up.

“Do not tell me I have to think of the baby. You have to trust me to do my job and take care of little Zlatan, or we are going to have to have a discussion.”

She sent text-only replies to all three. To the “twenty-five-year-old,” she offered a local coffee shop that was not Common Grounds. To the patriarchal wonder who hated romances and played musical instruments, she suggested the public library.

“What do you think?” she said to Frank as she typed a response to the fanatic who wanted her to prove her gun and farming skills. “Someplace public, but not a coffee shop. Someplace, I don’t know, rugged?”

“Home Depot.”

Giulia gazed at him with raised eyebrows.

“I’m serious. It’s open all hours. Do-it-yourselfers practically live there. There’s a perception that girly-girls won’t set foot in there. Try it.”

“Why not?” She sent the third message. “I’ve told all of them to wear a blue shirt and I’ll be wearing a floppy sun hat.” Her computer played
deedle-dee
. “The first reply already. Desperate, much? The teenager agrees to the coffee shop tonight because he’s working early tomorrow.” She looked at the clock. “I need hazel contacts and blonde hair dye now. Walmart, here I come.”

“I’ll be married to a blonde.”

“Your mind follows interesting channels.”

Twenty-Two

Two and a half hours later, a blonde Giulia with a hint of brown roots walked into a coffee shop on the other side of town. She’d chosen her plain blue skirt and the gray shirt left over from her early post-convent days. Combined with tight braids and pale makeup, the overall effect augmented her natural power of invisibility at will. She’d even removed the bright red ribbon from her floppy straw sun hat.

She ordered a peach smoothie, since she’d consumed her allowed caffeine intake for the day. As she waited for the barista, she looked around at the tables. Her contact sat at a window with an iced tea, wearing a blue polo with a lawn care company logo.

A moustached young man sat in one corner texting with one hand and drinking cappuccino with the other. Two middle-aged women hovered in front of the dessert case, debating the caloric doom of cheesecake versus jelly rolls. The speakers played Spyro Gyra.

Frank came in the back door as she took her smoothie over to the window table.

“Hi. I’m Maria.”

He gave her the once-over.

Giulia copped an attitude. “Yeah, I lost a bunch of weight. I want men to ask me out for what’s in my head, not what’s stuffed inside my bra.”

He blushed. He might have tried not to if he knew how it turned his acne into a dot-to-dot puzzle.

“You look, um, good.”

Frank sat at the table behind them. Her date spoke in a thin voice about self-sustaining crops and large families to make a working farm the center of the new Cottonwood. Ten minutes of this lecture without him once asking Giulia about her wants or needs or even her taste in music.

All at once, Giulia reached her limit. “Driver’s license, please.” She laid her hand palm up on the table.

He jumped. “Why?”

“I’m sitting at a table with a complete stranger I met on the internet. I want proof you are who you claim you are.”

He must have gone to Catholic school, because he produced his license without hesitation at her peremptory Sister Mary Regina Coelis voice. She inspected it.

“Tell the next person you buy a fake ID from to use better materials. This one wouldn’t fool the greenest bouncer at a low-class strip club.”

Behind her, Frank coughed into his drink.

The teenager stammered excuses.

“Please. Did you think you were going to impress me with your Prepper knowledge? Did you think I would leap at the chance to travel into the new world with you because of your youth and stamina?” She gestured with her smoothie as though it were a ruler. “I’m reporting you to the site moderators. Go call your mother to come pick you up.”

Since she never raised her voice above a whisper, neither customers nor baristas looked in her direction. She walked out the way she came in, sipping her smoothie in a show of unconcern. Using the spare car keys, she unlocked the Camry and drove it into the next parking lot.

A few minutes later Frank opened the passenger door. “Honey, he cringed. I swear I almost peed my pants. If God is good, my phone caught it in full color.”

“What a waste of time. If my client’s sister met up with him, she would’ve reacted the same way.” She drove home and popped out the contact lenses first thing. “Little Zlatan will not be pimply and pale and living in our basement when he’s nineteen,” she called downstairs. “His sister or brother will kick his butt into gear first.”

“As well he or she should,” Frank called from the living room. “Hey, babe, more total strangers want to meet the sexy blonde I’m married to.”

Giulia came downstairs and sat next to him. “You’re not going to think this is sexy when it wears off and I look like 1980s Madonna in need of a dye job.”

Her husband adopted Rodin’s “The Thinker” pose. “You know how I said the Kinski snake poster was a rite of passage? Fantasizing about easy-access Madonna was the other rite.”

“I so enjoy learning more about your young, impressionable mind.” She opened the message. “The one who hates romances has to come into Pittsburgh tomorrow for supplies and suggests eleven a.m. You’ll be asleep. I’ll get Zane to be my muscle.”

Frank’s foot beat time on the carpet. “I should be your muscle.”

She pecked his nose. “Not when you’re on all-night stakeouts. Why have minions if I’m not going to use them?” She spoke as she typed: “Eleven a.m. good. Western Allegheny Community Library NF section.”

“It’s the closest to Cottonwood,” she said to Frank. “If he wants to scope me out as a potential apocalypse mate, he’ll make the trip.”

“I’m not happy, but”—he forestalled Giulia’s impending speech—“you trust Zane and I trust you.”

Giulia grinned like a loon. “It’s good to hear you say it. Now let’s see what number three has to offer.” She clicked. “Well. We have competition for the Overbearing Patriarchal Attitude trophy. Listen: ‘If you’re serious, meet me at the Home Depot on Ben Avon in Pittsburgh at six-ten tomorrow morning by the seed displays.’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. At least he’s consistently domineering.” She typed: “Will be there.”

“I can do abrupt too,” she said to Frank.

He was texting. The reply buzzed a moment later. “Okay, VanHorne says he can finish the last hour of our stakeout on his own. I’ll meet you at the Big Orange Box.”

“Yes, dear.”