Having made the decision not to fret about Laurant any longer, Bessie Jean sat down at the dining room table and opened the wooden stationery box her mama had given her when she was a young girl. She took out a sheet of pink, rose-scented paper embossed with her very own initials, and reached for her pen. Since Sheriff Lloyd wasn’t going to do anything about Daddy’s murder, Bessie Jean was taking matters into her own hands. She’d already written one letter to the FBI requesting that they send a man to Holy Oaks to investigate, but her first letter must have gotten lost in the mail because a full eight days had passed and she still hadn’t heard a word from anyone. She was going to make certain this letter didn’t get lost. This time she was going to address her request to the director himself, and as expensive as it was, she was going to spend the extra money to send it by certified mail.
Sister got busy cleaning house. After all, company was coming. Any day now, the FBI would be knocking on their door.
CHAPTER 4
The wait was making her nuts. When it came to her brother’s health, Laurant found it impossible to be patient, and sitting by the phone waiting for him to call her with the results of the blood tests required more stamina than she possessed. Tommy always called her on Friday evening between seven and nine, but he didn’t call this time, and the longer she waited, the more worried she became.
By Saturday afternoon she had convinced herself the news wasn’t good, and when Tommy still hadn’t called her by six that night, she got into her car and headed out. She knew her brother was going to be upset with her because she was following him to Kansas City, but while she was headed toward Des Moines, she came up with a good lie to tell him. Her background was art history, she would remind him, and the lure of the Degas exhibit on temporary loan to the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City was simply too appealing to resist. There had been a mention of the exhibit in the Holy Oaks Gazette, and she knew Tommy had read it. Granted, she had already seen the exhibit in Chicago, several times as a matter of fact, when she had worked at the art gallery there, but maybe Tommy wouldn’t remember that. Besides, there wasn’t a rule that you could see Degas’s wonderful ballerinas only once, was there? No, of course not.
She couldn’t tell Tommy the truth, even though they both knew what that was, that she became consumed with panic every three months when he checked into the medical center for tests. She was terrified that the results weren’t going to be satisfactory this time and that the cancer, like a hibernating bear, was waking up again. Damn it, Tommy always had the results of his preliminary blood tests by Friday evening. Why hadn’t he called her? Not knowing was making her an emotional wreck. She was so scared inside she was sick. Before she had left Holy Oaks, she had called the rectory and had spoken to Monsignor McKindry, uncaring that she was acting like a neurotic mother hen. The monsignor had a kind, gentle voice, but his news wasn’t good. Tommy, he’d explained, was back at the hospital. And no, he’d told her, the doctors hadn’t been happy with the preliminary tests. Laurant was sure she knew what that meant. Her brother was undergoing another brutal round of chemotherapy.
Damned if she’d let him go through that ordeal without family by his side this time. Family . . . he was the only family she had. After their parents’ deaths, she and her brother, children at the time, had been forced to grow up on opposite sides of the ocean. So much had been lost over the years. But things were different now. They were adults. They could make their own choices, and that meant they could be there for each other when times got rough.
The alternator light went on just outside the town of Haverton. The filling station was closed, and she ended up spending the night at a no-frills motel there. Before leaving the next morning, she stopped by the motel office and picked up a map of Kansas City. The clerk gave her directions to the Fairmont which, he informed her, was close to the art museum.
She still got lost. She missed her exit off of I-435 and ended up too far south on the highway that circled the sprawling city. Clutching the soggy map she’d accidentally spilled Diet Coke all over, she stopped at a gas station for more directions.
Once she got her bearings, getting to the hotel wasn’t difficult at all. She followed the street marked State Line and headed back north.
Tommy had told her that Kansas City was pretty and clean, but his descriptions didn’t do the city justice. It was really quite lovely. The streets were lined with well-manicured lawns and old, two-story houses with flowers in bloom everywhere. Following the gas station attendant’s instructions, she cut over to Ward Parkway, the street that he had promised would take her directly to the Fairmont’s front door. The parkway was divided by wide grassy medians, and twice she passed groups of teenagers playing football and soccer there. The kids didn’t seem to mind the oppressive heat or the stifling humidity.
The street curved down a gentle slope, and just as she began to worry she’d gone too far, she saw a cluster of pretty Spanish-style shops up ahead. She guessed that this was the area the motel clerk had called the Country Club Plaza and she felt a sense of relief. A couple of blocks farther and there on the right was the Fairmont.
It wasn’t quite noon yet, but the hotel clerk was gracious about her wilted condition and let her check into a room early. An hour later she was feeling human again. She’d been driving since early that morning, but a long, cold shower revitalized her. Even though she knew Tommy wouldn’t mind if she showed up at the rectory wearing jeans or shorts, she’d brought along “church” clothes. It was Sunday, and noon mass would probably just be getting out when she arrived. She didn’t want to offend Monsignor McKindry, who, Tommy had told her, was extremely conservative. He’d joked that if the monsignor could get away with it, he’d still be saying mass in Latin.
She put on a pale pink, ankle-length, linen, sleeveless dress with a high mandarin collar. The skirt had a slit up the left side, which she hoped Monsignor wouldn’t think was too racy. Her long hair was still damp at the nape, but she didn’t want to mess with it any longer, and after she fastened the dainty straps on her sandals, she grabbed her purse and sunglasses and went back downstairs.
The heat felt like a slap in the face as she stepped outside, and she couldn’t quite catch her breath for several seconds. The poor doorman, an elderly man with salt-and-pepper hair, looked in jeopardy of melting, dressed as he was in his heavy gray uniform. As soon as the valet brought her car around the circle, the doorman stepped forward with a wide smile to open the door for her. But the smile vanished when she rechecked her directions to Our Lady of Mercy church.
“Miss, there are churches much closer to the hotel,” he informed her. “Why, there’s one just a couple of blocks away on Main Street called Visitation. If it weren’t so hot, you could even walk there. It’s a beautiful old church and it’s in a safe neighborhood.”
“I need to go to Our Lady of Mercy,” she explained.
She could tell he wanted to argue with her, but he held his tongue. As she was getting into her car, he leaned forward and suggested that she lock her doors and not stop for any reason until she had reached the church’s parking lot.
The area she drove into half an hour later was run-down and depressing. Abandoned buildings with broken windowpanes and boarded-up doorways lined the streets. Black graffiti on the walls screamed angry words at passersby. Laurant drove past a fenced-in, empty lot that some of the locals were using as a trash bin, and even with her windows up and the air-conditioning blasting away, she could still smell the stench of rotting meat. At the corner of the block were four little girls, about six or seven years old, dressed in their Sunday best. They were playing jump rope as they chanted a silly rhyme, giggling and carrying on like little girls do, oblivious to the destruction around them. In such decay, their innocence and beauty were jarring. The girls brought to mind a painting she had once seen during her studies in Paris. It was of a dirty brown field, fenced with black barbed wire, ugly and menacing with its sharp points. An angry gray sky swirled above. The mood was d
ark and bitter, yet in the left corner of the painting, entwined in the gnarled metal, a straggly yellow vine wound halfway to the top of the wire. And there, reaching toward heaven, was one perfect red rose just about to bloom. The painting was called Hope, and as Laurant watched the children at play, she was reminded of the artist’s message—that life will go on, and even in such blight, hope can and will flourish. Laurant committed to memory the scene of the little girls playing, hoping one day, when she had her paints, to capture them on canvas.
One of the little girls stuck her tongue out at Laurant and then waved to her. Laurant retaliated in kind and smiled as the child dissolved into a fit of giggles.
Four blocks ahead, in the midst of the rubble, sat Our Lady of Mercy Church. Twin pillars, painted white, stood as sentinels guarding the neighborhood. Mercy looked worn out from her duty. She was in desperate need of repair. Cracked paint peeled at the top of the pillars and the side of the church, and warped, rotting boards curled along the foundation. Laurant wondered how old the church was and pictured her all spruced up again. From the ornate carvings along the roofline and the stonework in front, Laurant knew she had once been magnificent. She could be again, with a little care and money. But would Mercy ever be renovated to her former glory, or, as was the horrid fashion these days, would she be ignored until it was too late and then torn down?
A black wrought iron fence at least eight feet high surrounded the property on all sides. Inside the barrier was a large recently tarred parking lot and a whitewashed, stone house adjacent to the church. Laurant assumed this was the rectory and drove through the open gates, parking her car next to a black sedan.
She had just gotten out and was locking the door when she noticed the police car. It was parked in the rectory’s driveway but was practically obstructed from view by the leafy branches of an old sycamore. Why were the police there? Probably more vandalism, she guessed, as Tommy had told her that the problems in the neighborhood had escalated in the last month. He thought it was due to the fact that the kids were out of school and there weren’t any jobs or organized activities to keep them occupied, but Monsignor McKindry believed that the increased violence and desecration was gang related.
Laurant headed for the church. The doors were open, and she could hear organ music and voices raised in song. She was halfway across the parking lot when the music stopped. Seconds later people came pouring out. Some of the women were using the church bulletin to fan themselves, and several men were mopping the sweat from their brows with their handkerchiefs. Then Monsignor McKindry, looking as cool as a cucumber despite being dressed in long flowing robes, joined the crowd. Laurant had never met the monsignor, but she recognized him all the same from Tommy’s description. The priest had shocking white hair and deep creases in his face. He was tall, and so thin as to appear sick. But, according to her brother, Monsignor ate like a lineman and was in the best of health, considering his advanced age.
His congregation obviously loved him. He had a smile and a kind word for every man and woman who stopped to speak to him, and he called each of them by his or her first name—impressive considering the number. The children adored him too. They surrounded him, tugging on his robes to get his undivided attention.
Laurant moved to the side of the steps in the shade of the building, waiting for Monsignor to finish his duties. Hopefully, after he had changed out of his vestments, he would walk over to the rectory with her while she questioned him in private about Tommy. Her brother tried to shield her from unpleasant news, so much so that she had learned not to trust him when he told her anything about his medical condition. From what Tommy had told her about Monsignor, she knew that, although the older priest was kind and compassionate, he was also honest to a fault. It was her hope that he wouldn’t sugarcoat the truth if Tommy were no longer in remission.
Her brother worried about her worrying about him. It was ridiculous, the games they played. Because he was older and because there were just the two of them in the family now, Tommy tried to shoulder too much on his own. Admittedly, she had needed his guidance when she was a little girl, but she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and Tommy needed to stop shielding her.
She happened to glance over at the rectory just as the front door opened and a policeman with a rather noticeable potbelly came out on the porch. He was followed by a taller, younger man. She watched as the two shook hands and the policeman headed for his car.
The stranger on the porch captured her full attention, and she blatantly stared at him. Impeccably dressed in a tailored white shirt, navy blue blazer, and khaki pants, he looked like he had just stepped off the cover of GQ. Yet he wasn’t what she would call drop-dead gorgeous, or even handsome, at least not in the usual sense, and perhaps that was what appealed to her. She’d done a little bit of modeling for an Italian designer during her summer break from boarding school, before Tommy had found out and put a stop to it, but in those two and a half months she had worked with a fair number of pretty males. The man on the porch could never be called pretty. He was too rugged and earthy for such a label. And very, very sexy.
There was an aura of authority about him, as if he were used to getting his way. She stared at the sharp angle of his jaw, the hard line of his mouth. He could be dangerous, she thought, yet she couldn’t define what it was about him that made her feel that way.
The stranger had an interesting face and a complexion that was unfashionably tanned. Interesting indeed.
One of Mother Superior’s constant warnings rang like an alarm bell inside her head. Beware of wolves wearing sheep’s clothing. They’ll steal your virtue every time.
This man didn’t look like he ever had to steal anything. She imagined women flocked to him and that he took only what was freely offered. He was something else all right. She let out a little sigh then, feeling guilty about having such thoughts just a few feet away from the holy church. Mother Mary Madelyne was probably right about her. She was going to go to hell in a handbag if she didn’t learn to control her sinful imagination.
The stranger must have sensed her staring at him because he suddenly turned and looked directly at her. Embarrassed at being caught in the act of gawking at him, she was about to turn away when the front door opened, and Tommy came outside. Laurant was overjoyed to see him there, and not in a hospital bed as she had feared.
Dressed in his long black cassock and white Roman collar, he looked pale to her—and worried. She started weaving her way through the crowd.
Tommy and the stranger he was talking to presented a striking picture. Both were tall and dark-haired, but Tommy bore the Irish complexion with his ruddy cheeks and generous sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Unlike her, when he accidentally stayed out in the sun too long, he didn’t tan; he burned. He had an adorable dimple—at least she thought it was adorable—in his right cheek, and his boyish good looks had earned him the amusing nickname “Father What-a-Waste” from all the college and high school girls.
There certainly wasn’t anything boyish about the man standing next to her brother. He kept watching her make her way toward the porch as he listened to Tommy and occasionally nodded agreement.
He finally interrupted her brother when he tilted his head toward her. Tommy turned, spotted her, and shouted her name. Taking the stairs two at a time, his black robe flapping about his ankles, he raced to intercept her with a look of acute relief on his face.
Laurant noticed that his friend stayed on the porch, but he wasn’t paying any attention to them now. He was thoroughly occupied watching the crowd disperse around them.
She was astonished by her brother’s reaction to seeing her. She’d thought he’d be mad, or irritated at the very least, but he wasn’t upset at all. In fact, he acted as though they’d been separated for years, even though she had seen him only a few days ago when he’d taken her on a tour of the abbey’s attic.
Tommy engulfed her in a bear hug. “Thank God you’re all right. I’ve been worried sick abou
t you, Laurant. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I’m so happy to see you.”
His voice shook with emotion. Thoroughly confused by his behavior, she pulled away and said, “You’re happy to see me? I thought you’d be furious that I followed you. Tommy, why didn’t you call me Friday evening? You promised you would.”
He finally let go of her. “And you’ve been worried, haven’t you?”
She looked into his big brown eyes and decided to tell him the truth after all. “Yes, I’ve been worried. You were supposed to call when you had the results of the blood work, but you didn’t call and I thought . . . maybe the results weren’t very good.”
“The lab screwed up. That’s why I didn’t call. They had to redo the tests. I should have called, but damn it, Laurant, you should have let me know you were coming. I’ve got Sheriff Lloyd looking all over Holy Oaks for you. Come on inside. I’ve got to call him and tell him you’re here, safe and sound.”
“You called Sheriff Lloyd looking for me? Why?”
He grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her along. “I’ll explain everything as soon as I get you inside. It’s safer.”
“Safer? Tommy, what’s going on? I’ve never seen you so rattled. And who is that man standing on the porch?”
The question surprised her brother. “You’ve never met him, have you?”
“Who?” she asked, her frustration mounting.
“Nick. That’s Nick Buchanan.”
She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to her brother. “You’re sick again, aren’t you? That’s why he’s here . . . like the last time when you got so bad and you didn’t tell me until—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I’m not sick again.” She didn’t look like she believed him, and so he tried once again to convince her. “I promised you I would tell you when and if I had to have chemo again. Remember?”