“A case? You’re still working cases?”
“’Parently.”
She started to chastise me. I could see it on her face. She wore scorn like a trophy wife wore Louis Vuitton. Instead, she lifted a shirt out of a laundry basket that said DEAR DIARY, HAD TO CUT A BITCH TODAY and didn’t say a word. No terms of aghastment. No scathing remark. It was weird, and I was more convinced than ever that she was possessed.
I decided to wait for the call in the theater room, which was really a few chairs and a television. I ended up curled into a recliner and watching an episode of Andy Griffith when my husband walked in. I eyed him. Yep, I could do him again.
He walked into the theater wearing the lounge pants and nothing else. Even his feet were sexy. But now I understood the scruffiness of his appearance. The sleep-deprived features.
“You’re not coming back up?” he asked.
“I’m waiting for a call.”
He nodded, picked up a magazine with Oprah on the cover, and sat in the chair beside me. “You know,” he said right as Opie was going to knock some birds out of a tree. Such a bad boy. “You can tell me anything.”
I snorted. “No, I can’t.”
He stopped and gave me his full attention. “Why would you say that?”
He was magnificent, and I didn’t want to disappoint him. But now was as good a time as any. The thought of what I was about to do to him—to us—saddened me. I was about to turn his world upside down, but he needed to know what I’d done.
My nerves jumped to attention. My heart raced. He would hate me come morning. But where could he go? We’d be stuck in the same house for God knew how long, hating each other. Or, well, him hating me. I could never hate him. Not even if he ate the last Oreo, though that would be pushing it. “What if I told you—?”
My phone rang. I paused midsentence, swallowed back my fear, and picked up my phone. I had been given a momentary stay of execution, and I damned well was going to take it.
“It’s Howard,” the voice on the other end said.
“I figured as much. What did you find out?”
“There was a novice there, about to take her vows when she accused a priest of molesting her.”
“Let me guess, the priest who went missing.”
“Yes. But nothing ever came of her charges, and there’s nothing about anyone dying there. Not a young nun anyway. The novice was excommunicated.”
“Of course, she was.” I stood and paced the room. “Coming forward to accuse a priest of misconduct back then usually meant excommunication.” That would explain why her death had not been recorded. But how did she die? Did the priest kill her and then disappear? “What was her name?”
“Bea Heedles.”
“Sister Bea?”
“I think she went by Sister Beatrice. So, is that all?” he asked.
“Did you get the picture to my uncle?”
The moment I asked, I heard a car pull up. That would be Ubie.
Reyes stood to open the door.
“Yes. I did as you asked.” I could hear the resentment in his voice.
“Okay, then answer me this: Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why does the Vatican—I mean, seriously, the Vatican—have a file on me?”
“I’m just the observer,” he said, trying to pull that innocent-as-the-driven crap again.
“Howard, if this relationship is going to work, we have to be honest with each other. So I, honestly, will let your heart keep beating if you stop bullshitting me.”
He took a long moment to get back to me. When he did, his voice was a tad more reverent than before. I’d take it.
“All I know is that you are of interest to them. They— They have prophecies, and apparently when you were born, all the predictions started to come true.”
“How did they find out about me in the first place?”
“We have people, too,” he said. “People like you. People with gifts. They, they saw you, I guess.”
I knew that they paid very close attention to what Sister Mary Elizabeth had to say. They’d wanted her in Italy when she was a novice, but she wanted to stay in New Mexico, near the girl causing all the uproar in heaven. Were there more like her?
“What about you? Do you have gifts?”
“No,” he said.
Uncle Bob came in, gave me a peck on the cheek, then went upstairs to find his wife. Cookie was about to get a nice surprise. Reyes walked up behind me and draped his arms over the back of the recliner so he could rub my Beep bump. His hands felt wonderful. His heat soothing.
“What about other … people like me?” I asked. “Do you know about them?”
“There are no other people like you.”
“No, I mean, what about other people they observe. How many are there?”
“Look, I was hired to observe you and report back. That’s it.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I know that your husband is special, too.”
He had that right. He was busy nibbling on my earlobe, causing ripples of pleasure to race over my skin.
“Do you know what he is?”
“I know that he’s from hell.”
I stilled. That was more than I thought he’d know. “Is the Vatican aware?”
He’d grown more hesitant as the conversation wore on. I sensed a spark of fear in his voice, but he soldiered on. “Everything about you goes into my reports.”