“No. Sister Rebecca, who usually walks with her to morning prayers, knocked on her door. When there was no answer, she went inside. Seeing Sister Maria was missing, she called me, and I came to her room. Then we went to prayers, thinking she would join us, but she didn’t. When she didn’t come to breakfast, we started looking more seriously. I spoke with everyone here and no one saw her after I did—which was around eight
P.M
. As I said, she didn’t say or do anything that would lead me to believe that she was troubled. Then, I called you. She’d given me your phone number in case of an emergency.”
There was nothing he could do officially until his aunt had been missing twenty-four hours. Nonetheless, he walked the perimeter of the convent, unofficially talked with a few of the nuns who were his aunt’s friends, and was shown some of the rooms and hallways Sister Maria had called home for nearly forty years.
Anger burned through him. She hadn’t been safe in a nunnery—the very place she’d found sanctuary when her own family had shunned her.
“You know my aunt well,” he said, eyeing the Mother Superior as she escorted him to his car.
“As well as anyone, I suppose.”
“Were you here when she joined?”
She nodded. “Yes.” She smiled slightly. “I’ve been here a long time. I think some of the younger nuns consider me a dinosaur. T. rex, I believe.”
He eyed the woman’s birdlike stature. T. rex was quite a stretch. “You must know why my aunt came here in the first place.”
She lifted a gray eyebrow as her lips pulled into a frown. “We’re a tightly knit little community here. There are few secrets.”
“Everyone has secrets.”
She hesitated, then said, “And they should be kept private, between oneself and God. I know about her son.”
They’d reached the pockmarked lot where Montoya was parked. He opened the car door but paused. “I don’t know if my aunt’s…if Sister Maria’s…disappearance has anything to do with the old hospital,” he said, “but I would like all the records for it. I need information about who worked there, who resided there, who visited often.”
She looked up sharply. “The hospital’s been closed for a long time.”
“It’s the records I’m interested in,” he said. “They must still exist.”
“That information is confidential.”
“I’ll get a court order. It will be granted. All you’ll do is delay me and use up time.” He looked at the little woman steadily. “I’m not sure how or why, but I think the double homicides that have occurred lately might be connected to the hospital. The information in those records might help me locate my aunt.” He felt a little needle of guilt to think that soon after he’d spoken with Sister Maria, when he’d asked for information from her, she’d gone missing. “I asked her for some of this information and she gave me the confidentiality speech. Now she’s missing. Is there a connection? I don’t know. I need to find out.”
“What are you looking for, specifically?” she asked.
He was surprised she read him so well. “I want to know exactly what happened to Faith Chastain.”
Tiny lines grooved between her brows. “I don’t know—”
“And I need to find Sister Maria.”
She looked away for a moment, came to a decision. “I’ll see what I can do. Despite what I may appear, I’m not a dusty old relic clinging to the ‘old ways,’ Detective. I understand about the world we live in and all its ills. But like you, I have a protocol I must adhere to.”
“Thank you. I’ll be back soon.” He jogged to his car and drove like a bat out of hell to the city. As the miles passed, he called his mother and asked her to phone all the family members, find out if any of them had seen Maria. Then he dialed his brother Miguel at All-Security and explained that he needed someone to connect or rewire the alarm system ASAP at Abby Chastain’s house in Cambrai.
“Hey, Reu, we’re booked up for over a month,” Miguel complained. “We bid a new subdivision and people are calling like crazy what with that nut of a killer running around. When business is good for you, it’s good for me, too.”
Montoya took a corner too fast, forced himself to ease off the gas. “This is important.”
“They all are.”
“I’d owe you.”
“You already do, for life. Who is this woman anyway?”
“A friend, who might be in danger.”
Miguel chuckled and Montoya heard him lighting a cigarette. “A new friend?”
“Yeah.”
“About time you had a new woman friend,” Miguel said. “Okay, I’ll get to it the first of next week. Give me her address. Wait…I need to find a pen.”
Once he was back on the line, Montoya gave Miguel as much information as possible, then mentioned that Maria was missing.
“From the convent?” Miguel asked.
“Looks that way.”
“My God, a person isn’t safe anywhere these days.” He paused. “You’ll find her, though, right? And she’ll be okay.”
“I hope so. Check around. With all the cousins, anyone she knew. I’ve already told Mom. I’ll catch ya later.” He hung up just as he was slowing for a light in the French Quarter. The sun, through a thin fog, sent rays of light along the streets and alleys.
It was Saturday and already warm enough that Montoya rolled down his window. Throngs of people were walking the streets, clogging the crosswalks or jaywalking through the city. He tapped his hands restlessly on the steering wheel. No one and nothing else seemed to be in a hurry. The Mississippi flowed steadily by, the scent of the river noticeable despite the aromas of baked goods and coffee emanating from shops or the odor of gasoline and car fumes that rolled through the town.
As he stopped for a traffic light, he noticed two young men, peacock proud as they sauntered across the street. He’d been one of those young toughs, he thought, noticing how low their shorts rode on their butts and how they swaggered. If it hadn’t been for his stern you’re-going-to-make-something-of-yourself-or-else mother and his athleticism, he might have never gone to college, never become a detective. Three girls in tight T-shirts and shorts walked by. The men’s heads swiveled as if pulled on strings. One of them said something that the girls, one chatting on a cell phone, ignored.
The game goes on,
Montoya thought, glancing at his watch. He drove past Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral, its three towering spires knifing upward into a blue sky currently blotted by wisps of lingering fog. People pushed strollers, walked dogs, laughed, and shopped, seemingly unaware that their lives were in danger, that a killer was stalking the streets, that the serenity of this morning was just a mask for something dark and terrible.
You have to stop him. You’re a good cop, you know you are, so nail his hide and save Maria. For God’s sake, Montoya, step it up. Don’t let this bastard take another life.
He parked on the street near the station and strode quickly inside. On the second floor he ran into Lynn Zaroster. “Hey,” she said as she was slipping off her jacket and hanging it over the back of her chair in her cubicle. “You heard the news? Billy Ray Furlough’s missing.”
He froze.
All his fears congealed. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. The wife’s already filed a report, though we think the last person who saw him didn’t leave the estate until around eight last night. Apparently the reverend and the missus don’t sleep together; he usually stays in his office on the property. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours, but because of the recent murders, we’re already all over it. Brinkman and Conway are on the scene along with someone from the local field office of the FBI.”
“Shit,” Montoya said, feeling sick inside. “My aunt’s missing, too. From the convent.”
“What?”
“My aunt’s a nun. The last anyone saw her was yesterday around eight
P.M
.”
“Oh, God.” She grabbed her jacket. “I’ll go out there.”
“I was just there.”
“Are you nuts! You can’t investigate family members—”
“It wasn’t official,” he cut her off. “I was just the first family member called and I happen to be a cop. Yeah, I asked some questions. Yeah, I took notes. Yeah, I looked into her room. Yeah, I did tell the Mother Superior to keep it cordoned off. I figure we’ll have to work with the local Sheriff’s Department.”
Frowning, she was already sliding her arms down the sleeves of her jacket. “You’re already thinking that we’ll find your aunt with Billy Ray Furlough.”
“Yin and yang,” Montoya said.
Zaroster gave him a long look. “Explain.”
“Look at the two other pairs of victims: one person is directly opposite of the other. The woman is staged to look like the killer, fully clothed, diametrically opposite from the other victim as anyone could be.” He felt bile crawl up his throat. “And that’s the way it would be with my aunt and Billy Ray Furlough. Both involved with the church, one outwardly, ostentatiously, so; the other, a woman who became a nun to live a quiet, peaceful life with God.”
“What is that? Principles of Taoism or some other Eastern philosophy?”
“I don’t know.”
She slid her Glock into her shoulder holster. “Maybe it’s time to bone up.”
The funeral had been excruciating. Abby and Zoey sat in one of the back pews with their father and Charlene, listening all the while the preacher extolled Luke’s virtues. Mourners sniffled and a few close friends gave testimonials to what a fine all-around guy he was. She recognized some of his coworkers from WSLJ, a few friends that she’d lost track of after the divorce, and some mutual acquaintances.
Montoya had been there, too, observing the crowd, positioning himself near the church steps as people left. News crews had camped outside and several reporters brandishing microphones talked into cameras held on the shoulders of cameramen as the crowd dispersed.
She and Zoey had spent a couple of hours with their dad and Charlene until, after looking at her watch pointedly several times, the second Mrs. Chastain insisted it was time to go and dutifully wheeled her ailing husband to her Cadillac. Zoey and Abby helped her get Jacques seated, then managed to hoist the wheelchair into the car’s voluminous trunk. “Careful of the paint,” Charlene warned and Abby saw Zoey’s jaw tightened. Afterward, on the drive home, Zoey muttered, “I wanted to bang the frame of Dad’s chair against the fender of her damned Caddy. Who does she think bought that car? What a bitch!” Zoey leaned her head against the side window of Abby’s Honda.
“It’s not her fault Dad’s in such bad shape.”
“Yeah, well, it’s what she signed up for whether she knew it or not. All part of the ‘in sickness and in health’ part of the vows.” Abby didn’t reply and Zoey sighed. “Okay, I’m cranky, I admit it. No sleep tends to upset my usually bright and cheery disposition.”
Abby laughed.
“What?” Zoey grumbled.
“Bright and cheery? Give me a break.”
Zoey let out a huff of air. “Maybe you’ve got a point.” Yawning, she found a sweater in the backseat and wadded it up to pad her head before placing it against the side window again. “Mmm, better…”
“You sleep, I’ll drive.”
“You didn’t talk to that cute new boyfriend of yours.”
“He’s
not
my boyfriend.”
“Coulda fooled me.” Again she yawned. “You know when a guy stays over, makes coffee, and kisses the socks off you before he leaves—that’s usually an indication that he’s a boyfriend.”
“Did you see how he watched the crowd?”
“Like a wolf ready to pounce.” As Abby drove onto the freeway, Zoey manipulated the sweater again. She closed her eyes. “Abs?”
“Mmm?” Abby checked her rearview mirrors and accelerated.
“I never slept with Luke, okay?”
“Zoey, that’s a lie and we both know it.”
“I mean
after
you were married. I know you think I did, but even I’m not that low.” Zoey opened one eye and peered at her sister. She was dead sober. “I wouldn’t do that to you, okay. Not ever. I don’t know what Luke told you, but after you said, ‘I do’, I said ‘I won’t. Ever.’ And I meant it. As for before the wedding, okay, yeah, you know about that. But never once while you were married.”
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because Luke can’t lie anymore. He can’t screw with your head.” She sighed and twisted her neck so loudly it popped. “Being with Luke was not exactly my proudest moment, okay? I felt rotten about it forever. But there’s nothing I can do about it now except tell you the truth. Luke came on to me a lot, but I didn’t give him the time of day. Sure, I found him attractive once, but he was your husband.” She hesitated. “Is there any chance we can…lay that to rest and start over?”
Abby hesitated, looked over at Zoey. Could it really be that simple?
Zoey still stared at Abby with her one open eye. “Deal?”
Luke was dead. It was over. So why not get on with her life? “Okay Zoey,” she finally said. “Deal.”
“L
ook, I just wanted you to hear it from me,” Montoya said as he drove to the station. He hadn’t been able to catch up with Abby at the funeral, so he’d called her at the first opportunity. “Sister Maria is missing.”
“What?”
He heard the anxiety in her voice. “I take it you haven’t heard the news.”
“No,” she said, her voice breaking up as their cell-phone-to-cell-phone connection was weak.
“What’s even more disturbing is that Billy Ray Furlough is missing as well.”
“Oh, God.”
“We don’t know if their abductions were done by the same person who killed the others, but it doesn’t look good.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“You’ll find her.”
Montoya nodded, switching lanes. “Yeah.” He only hoped that his aunt would be located while she was still alive. His fingers tightened over the wheel and his guts churned when he considered the alternative. “I called my brother, Miguel, from the security company. They’re going to squeeze you in.”
“Thanks.”
“And I’ll be by, I just don’t know when. Your sister is with you?”
“Yes. She’s planning to stay for a few days.”
“Good, and you’ve got the guard dog.”
Abby laughed. Despite his sour mood, Montoya felt the corners of his mouth twitch. “Don’t forget Ansel the alarm cat,” she said.
“Oh, right. My buddy.” He turned onto Chartres Street, close to Jackson Square, where a cluster of tourists had collected to listen to jazz musicians performing next to an open guitar case.
“Ansel misses you,” she said and he snorted.
“Tell him the feeling is mutual.” He pictured her face and the teasing light in her gold eyes and he felt better than he had since learning the news of his aunt’s disappearance. “I don’t suppose you’ve found the missing .38?”
“Not yet,” she said. Her voice sobered, now coming in loud and clear. “But I haven’t really looked for it again.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I know.”
The more he thought about the missing gun, the more worried for her safety he was. “I’ll try to stop by later. In the meantime you let me know if anything, and I mean
any
thing, seems out of place.”
“I will,” she said. “Thanks.”
He hung up, feeling vulnerable. Not only was his aunt missing, but he was worried for Abby’s safety. Worried enough that, once her sister left, if the house hadn’t been wired with a security system, he was going to ask her to stay at his place, here in town.
His conscience twinged as he considered that he had deeper, ulterior motives—motives that had more to do with sleeping with her than keeping her safe, but he dismissed those thoughts. First and foremost he was concerned with her safety. He knew in his gut that she was somehow in danger and he couldn’t let anything happen to her.
Face it, man,
a voice deep in his brain nagged,
you’re falling for her.
His jaw clenched hard as he slowed for jaywalkers. The police band crackled.
And the last time you fell hard for a woman, you couldn’t save her. All of your hotshot police skills and you were still helpless.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered under his breath as he parked near the station. Though he hadn’t been officially removed from the case, it was only a matter of time if his aunt’s disappearance proved connected to the killings.
He locked his car and headed inside. He intended to plug his camera into his computer and print out all the shots he’d taken at Gierman’s funeral. He then planned to compare them to the ones he’d taken at Courtney LaBelle’s candlelight vigil. Her funeral was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, so he would be in the crowd there as well. Surely the killer would show, to bask in the glory of the chaos and pain, to feel superior, to rub shoulders with the grief-stricken and the police to, in his mind’s eye, relive the crime.
Come on, you bastard,
he thought, climbing the steps to the second floor,
I’ll be ready for you.
“You received an anonymous letter that said,
Come home, Hannah needs you
?” Abby repeated, staring at her sister as if she’d gone completely mad. They were seated in a restaurant on St. Charles Avenue, located not far from Sacred Heart Academy.
It had been Zoey’s idea to ride the streetcar and “get away from all this stress,” once she’d taken a two-hour nap. Abby had wanted to stay home. She was tired and drained after Luke’s funeral. But she also wanted to get to the bottom of the “secret” Zoey and her father seemed to share about the night her mother died, and Zoey had promised she would tell Abby everything she knew.
In the end, Abby had driven them into town, where they’d hopped on the streetcar, ridden down the oak-lined avenue, and ended up in this quaint Victorian home–turned–dining room. It was early evening. They’d been seated at a table near the window, where a view of the garden showed off a million tiny white lights winking in the lush vegetation and along the fence. As the waitress delivered a tall glass filled with bread sticks, Zoey dropped the bomb about the note.
“Here, I’ve got it with me.” Zoey leaned over to scrounge in her purse. She came up with a plain white envelope. The postmark was
NEW ORLEANS
, but there was no return address.
Though the late afternoon was warm, Abby’s skin turned to ice. “Didn’t you think this was odd?”
“Yeah, a little.” Zoey reached for a bread stick.
“A
lot,
Zoe. No one ever called me Hannah but Mom.”
“Well, obviously
she
didn’t send it.”
“Precisely. So who did? Who wanted you here?”
“I thought maybe you sent it to me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I figured it was your way of getting me here without, you know, you having to swallow your pride.” Zoey dipped her bread stick in a tiny butter rosette.
“If I had needed you here, I would have called. You know that.”
“Then maybe…I don’t know…maybe Dad sent it.”
“Dad?” Abby picked up the note and shook it in front of her sister’s face. “How would he mail it?”
“Maybe Charlene did it for him.”
“Then why not just sign it himself? Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Better yet, why not just phone? You know, like a normal person.”
“Then I don’t know,” Zoey said defensively, but little lines of concern sprouted between her eyebrows. “Look, let’s not worry about it right now. We’ll talk about the damned note later.” She snagged the paper out of Abby’s hands and slipped it into the envelope just as the waitress reappeared.
“Are you all ready?” she asked pleasantly. She was plump, with rosy cheeks, her order pad at the ready. She glanced at Abby and added, “Or would you like a few more minutes to decide?”
Zoey, who had somehow scanned the menu, said, “I’ll have the iceberg lettuce wedge, with shrimp, caramelized onions, and blue cheese dressing on the side…oh, and maybe a cup of the shrimp bisque.”
The waitress turned to Abby, whose appetite was fast disappearing. She’d walked into the little restaurant famished and now her stomach was in knots. Who had sent Zoey the note?
“Abby?” Zoey said and glanced from her sister to the waitress. “Do you know what you want?”
I want an end to all these questions…all this secrecy…
Glancing down at the menu, Abby tried to focus. Was it her imagination or had several people at nearby tables stopped eating to stare at them?
Pull yourself together, Abby. Don’t make a scene. You’ll get to the bottom of this. So Zoey received a note with your middle name on it the same week that your gun was stolen and people are turning up murdered…
Her hands were shaking so she clasped them together in her lap.
“Maybe we do need a few more minutes,” Zoey said.
Abby cut her sister a look, then ordered the first thing she saw on the menu. “I’ll have the spinach salad, with barbecued shrimp. House dressing.”
She waited until the waitress had disappeared before she turned furious eyes at Zoey. “You should have told me about the letter earlier.”
“I wanted to wait until after the funeral.”
“So you knew I’d be upset?”
“
More
upset.” Zoey cast a glance to the ceiling, where paddle fans were gently pushing the warm air around.
Abby was finished with skirting the issue. “So when are you going to tell me about the day Mom died?”
Zoey stared down at the table.
“Zoe.” Abby leaned toward her.
Zoey closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. She let out her breath as she picked up her glass of sweet tea. “All right…I wasn’t supposed to tell you…”
“Why? What happened? Who said you shouldn’t tell me?”
“The doctors. Your doctors, Abby. The ones you saw right after Mom’s death.”
There was an echoing roar in Abby’s head, a sudden raging surf. She clenched her hands over her knees. “Tell me,” she demanded, her heart nearly stopping.
Spying Abby’s reaction, Zoey nearly changed her mind. “Maybe this isn’t the place.”
“Tell me!” Abby repeated more tensely.
“Okay, okay…You seemed to have had some kind of blackout that day. Because of the emotional trauma. Dad talked to the doctors who saw you after Mom’s death and they said it’s not uncommon. It’s emotional amnesia and sometimes your memory comes back after a while and other times…it just doesn’t.” She took a swallow from her tea.
“Like in my case.”
“Right.”
“And in the past twenty years, neither you nor Dad thought I needed to know?”
“We were advised against it,” she said simply.
“But it’s been two decades!” Anger burned through her, but she tried like hell to push it aside. “Okay, okay, so what was different, Zoe? What is so horrible that I’ve blacked it out? What am I forgetting?”
“I don’t know,” she said baffled. “It’s just your memory isn’t exactly right.” The waitress refilled their tea glasses and Zoey waited until they were alone again. “You weren’t just getting out of the car that day, Abby. You and I—we’d had a fight about who was going to take her present up to her. I won the flip of the coin. Dad was pretty angry that we were being so petty, as it was Mom’s birthday and all…your birthday, too, I know. Anyway, when we pulled up, you got out of the car before Dad had even shoved the gearshift into park. You took off up the steps into the hospital at a dead run and disappeared inside before either Dad or I got out of the car.”
Abby blinked hard, remembered that sultry twilight. “I wasn’t outside?”
“No. When Mom fell out her window, you were already in her room.”
The dull roar in her head grew louder. The restaurant’s chandeliers seemed to sway. The lights out the window twinkled and faded into stars. She looked past her memory of that day—her false memory, as it turned out. Vaguely she recalled running inside, through the dark building, past a boy in a wheelchair who watched her fly by, and around a nurse pushing a tray of medications down a hallway. She tore past the grandfather clock that was beginning to chime out the hour and ran up the stairs.
“I do remember,” she murmured in surprise. “I do.”
Zoey looked unsure of yourself. “Really?”
“Yes…”
She’d rocketed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, nearly plowing into the nun. She’d had to hurry. To be the first of Faith’s small family to say “Happy birthday.” It was their shared, special day. It belonged to them, and Abby, her heart pounding crazily from the exertion, couldn’t wait to tell her mother about the upcoming Sadie Hawkins dance.
Up, up, up she climbed, her shoes pounding on the stairs, past the stained-glass window of the Virgin Mother on the landing and up a final few steps to the third-floor hallway that was empty, the lights already dimmed.
Breathing hard, Abby pushed open the door to 307 and raced inside. “Happy birthday, Mom…” she said, then stopped short, her good wishes dying on her tongue. Faith was standing near the window, not far from the rumpled bed. Half-dressed, her blouse open, her bra unhooked, a dark nipple visible, she wasn’t alone. A doctor in a white lab coat, his stethoscope swinging from his neck, his hair mussed, was trying to grab her.
As the door banged into the wall, he spun. His face was red, a vein jumping in his temple as he pinned Abby with his furious gaze. “Don’t you know this is a private room! You should knock before you just barge in!”
“But…” Abby, standing in front of the closet, looked past the doctor to her mother.
Faith was already rehooking her bra, swiftly covering up. Her fingers were working with the buttons of her blouse, but her gaze, looking over the shoulder of the doctor, was fixed on her daughter. Fear shone in Faith’s gold eyes, tears glistening. Without saying the words out loud, she mouthed, “Don’t please…”
Her mother wanted her to keep her silence. She wanted her to hold the secret safe. And Abby hadn’t breathed a word. Not ever. She hadn’t even remembered that she’d been in the room. Now, she was shaking, feeling with surprisingly sharp clarity her mother’s despair.
“Abby!” Zoey’s voice was like a slap.
The memory faded, withering away, and Abby found herself in the restaurant again, her salad sitting upon the place mat in front of her. Zoey stared at her anxiously across the table. Her face was strained, ashen. “The waitress asked you if you’d like ground pepper on your salad.”
“What?” Abby glanced down at the mound of dark green spinach leaves, pieces of mandarin oranges, bean sprouts, and succulent shrimp on the plate in front of her. She hadn’t even been aware that she was still in the restaurant, much less been served. Dear God, she was cracking up!
Just like Mom.
No!
Quickly she looked up at the waitress holding the huge pepper mill poised over her platter. She forced a tremulous smile. She was not like Faith. Not weak-minded.
“Pepper?” the waitress asked, probably for the third or fourth time.
“No, thank you,” Abby managed, and with a last, curious look, the round little waitress moved on to the next table.
“What’s the matter with you?” Zoey hissed. “Get a grip, for God’s sake!”
“I remember…” Abby leaned over the table, whispering just loud enough for Zoey and Zoey alone to hear.