Damned (Shaye Archer Series Book 7)

by DeLeon, Jana

  Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  She’d take three to four hours of really solid sleep and another three of dozing in and out over the alternative. At least it had been months since she’d had a nightmare. When her memory had first returned, they’d been more frequent and more terrifying than before. Eleonore had said her mind was working overtime to process everything. But eventually, things calmed and the time between the nightmares grew longer until at least a month passed without a single night of interrupted sleep. Not interrupted by a nightmare anyway.

  Shaye still slept so lightly that the slightest uncommon noise had her bolting upright. Two nights ago, it had been a slow drip in her bathroom sink, which was still awaiting repair. In the meantime, she had a washcloth in the bottom to stop the rhythmic noise. At least twice a week a car alarm went off and it took her the better part of an hour to get back to sleep every time. And the rain still bothered her. Nights when it was really coming down, she sometimes didn’t sleep at all.

  But the beauty of being self-employed was you could catch up in the daylight.

  She grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator and was headed for her bedroom when her cell phone went off. Assuming it had to be Jackson, she glanced at the display, and her pulse spiked when she saw it was Nicolas.

  “Nicolas?” she answered. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice wavering. “I’m in the hospital.”

  She gripped her phone. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m stable or they wouldn’t let me have my phone. I dislocated my shoulder, but they put it back in. No other damage but bumps and bruises, but they’re keeping me overnight.”

  A bit of relief passed through her that he was stable and didn’t appear to have any more serious injuries. “What happened?”

  “He was there,” Nicolas said, his voice cracking as he said the words.

  Shaye stiffened. “Where?”

  “At the church. I was running a committee meeting tonight in the administration building. The walkway connects that building to the one our living quarters is in, but the administration building is on the other side of the cathedral and our quarters are at the far end of the courtyard.”

  “Did he attack you?”

  “No. But he was there. I heard him in the bushes and when I tried to go faster, I lost control of the chair and went off the walkway.”

  He was silent for a couple seconds and Shaye could hear him breathing heavily.

  “I thought he had me,” Nicolas said. “I managed to pull myself upright using the walkway, but my legs were spent, and my Mace came out of my pocket when I fell. He was moving closer. I knew when I turned around he was going to be right there…I thought I was dead.”

  Shaye’s chest tightened as empathy for the young man swept through her. She’d thought that the end was near too many times, and the horror and dread you felt was indescribable.

  “I am so sorry,” she said. “I know how awful it is. How did you get away?”

  “Father Malcolm heard me yell when I fell off the walkway and came outside to see if someone needed help. He was reading in our common living area and had the windows open to allow the breeze in. If he’d had them closed or been playing music…”

  Shaye said a silent thanks to Father Malcolm and his desire for fresh air or to save money. Whichever one, it had probably saved Nicolas’s life.

  “Did you get a look at him?” she asked.

  “Yes, but it won’t do us any good. He was wearing dark pants, hoodie, and a mask, like the street kid said. His face was blanked out.”

  “What about size?”

  “Maybe six feet or so, taking his height in comparison to the bushes. He seemed solid in build—not skinny or overweight.” He sighed. “Which doesn’t help much at all.”

  “What about movement? Could you gauge age at all?”

  “No. I only saw him take two steps before I turned around to drag myself back to the sidewalk. I managed to pull myself up, but when I turned around again, he was gone. Then Father Malcolm showed up shortly after.”

  Shaye’s heart clenched as the mental picture of Nicolas pulling himself up on the sidewalk flashed through her mind. “Can I get you anything? Do anything?” she asked.

  “Catch this guy.”

  “I’m working on that, but it’s clear that he’s fixated on you for more reasons than wanting to unburden his soul or brag. He confessed to you to scare you.”

  “It worked. I’m terrified.”

  “And I’m sure that’s exactly what he’s enjoying. I promise I’m doing everything I can to figure out who he is, but I need your help. I need you to think hard about who might be targeting you. Regardless of reality, this guy believes you’ve done something wrong. If you have any idea what he fixated on, it might help.”

  “I swear I don’t know. I thought about it a considerable amount this afternoon. I prayed for enlightenment, but I’ve come up empty.”

  “It’s not going to be something obvious, or you’d already have the answer. So start thinking about your interaction with people over the last month or so. See if there’s anything you can think of that someone could twist into something untoward.”

  “I’ll try. I just don’t see…”

  “Don’t worry about it tonight. You need to get some rest and make sure you didn’t injure yourself further. And I’m afraid you’re going to need to restrict your movement even more, at least for a while. I realize that makes things rather inconvenient.”

  “Actually, given how bad my shoulder hurts, I’m probably going to have to have some help for several days, at least.”

  “So no traversing walkways at night by yourself?”

  “Not anytime soon. If you don’t catch this guy, maybe not ever again. Maybe I should become a monk. I could move to Tibet.”

  If he hadn’t been completely serious, it might have been amusing. But Shaye knew desperation when she heard it. And she understood it. Right now, Nicolas would do anything to feel safe again. Even if it meant cloistering himself in another country.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to take it that far,” she said. “But I have some ideas on the help end of things. Let me make some calls and I’ll have some information for you in the morning.”

  “I appreciate all the help you can offer.”

  “I wish I could come see you, but I know that’s not prudent. I would like to do some poking around at the church, though. Can you describe the location of the different buildings so that I can get a feel for the distance between them and the options for entrance and exit?”

  “You’re not going to go there, are you?” he asked, sounding a little panicked.

  “No,” she said. “But there’s someone who helps me from time to time. He’ll be able to give me the information I need.”

  “Photographer or something like that?”

  She smiled. “Even better. An artist with photographic memory.”

  “That’s cool,” he said, his voice back to normal.

  He gave Shaye a rundown of the various buildings and their location on the church grounds. His voice grew weaker as he talked, and she knew he needed to sleep.

  “Thanks for this,” she said as she finished up her notes. “I’m going to let you go so you can get some rest. If they offer you anything to sleep, please accept it. You’re safe in the hospital. And you need your strength.”

  “I know. They gave me a sleeping pill. I didn’t take it yet because I wanted to call you, but it took so long to get all the tests, then I had to convince Father Malcolm and Father Bernard to go back to the church. They have to cover my duties as well as their own. Nothing would be served by either of them staying here.”

  “You said Father Malcolm was reading, right? Where was Father Bernard?”

  “In his bedroom. He heard Father Malcolm leave and when he came out of his room, found the front door standing open. So he dressed and went out after him.”

  “So neither of them would hav
e seen anything.”

  “I don’t see how. I didn’t tell them about the man, of course. I just said I miscalculated because I was tired and fell. But if either of them had seen someone on the church grounds that late, they would have called out or at least commented on it because it would have been unusual.”

  “Is the cathedral open at night?”

  “No. People sometimes go to the front entry to pray and leave flowers, but they aren’t normally on the interior grounds that late. There’s no reason for anyone to be in the courtyard at that time except me and Fathers Malcolm and Bernard. We’re the only staff who live on-site and the rest had gone home hours before.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you go now. Take that sleeping pill and get some rest. Call me tomorrow when you get a chance and let me know what the doctors say. If you want me to do more, just ask.”

  “Thank you. I want to maintain our secrecy for now, but I suppose there might come a time when my transgression will be exposed.” He sighed. “I knew the risk I was taking when I spoke with you. If the church finds out and takes action against me, then I’ll accept that. But I’ll never regret my decision.”

  “Let’s worry about that if the time comes. Right now, I need you alert and strong. Take care, Nicolas.”

  “You take care as well.”

  Shaye sat her cell phone on the kitchen counter and blew out a breath. Things had escalated from dangerous to dire in a single night. She put the bottled water back in the refrigerator and set a pot of coffee to brew. Sleep would have to wait. She needed to do some research on Nicolas. Something had prompted the penitent to target him.

  She needed to know what it was.

  He stood across the street from the church, gazing up at the steeple on the cathedral. It was an impressive sight during the day, but with the moon big and bright behind it, it looked like something out of a movie or one of those award-winning photos you saw in magazines.

  Don’t worry, Father. Thy will be done.

  There would be other nights. Other opportunities. He knew God would provide. And tonight wasn’t the right time anyway. More of a test run, really. But it had yielded an interesting bit of information. Father Nicolas might have spoken to Shaye Archer, but he hadn’t told anyone else about his fears. If he had, the police would have come along with the paramedics.

  Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe Nicolas had met with the PI for another reason altogether, but the timing had been highly suspicious. Still, it was possible, he supposed, that the young priest hadn’t broken his vows. Hadn’t committed another egregious sin.

  Not that it mattered. The one sin was enough.

  Shaye grabbed her cup of coffee and took another drink. It had cooled some, so she filled it up with what was left in her carafe, wondering if she needed to put another on to brew. She’d been at it for an hour so far, combing through every mention of Nicolas she could find on the internet. And there were many. The young priest was popular with his congregation. That meant tons of pics and mentions on social media—Nicolas christening babies and attending charity events.

  She’d looked at every single mention going back a year and hadn’t found anything that set off alarms. That might mean it was something deeper in Nicolas’s past, something that very few people knew about, or it could mean that it was something the penitent had invented in his own damaged mind. With no way to determine which it was, she decided to keep pushing. She’d take it back another year and see if anything popped.

  Some of the first hits were of Nicolas shortly after his car wreck. He was much thinner then and his eyes had that sunken look that came along with worry and a lack of sleep. She imagined the pain had made solid sleep difficult and worrying that he’d never walk again tipped it further in the wrong direction. It was a lot for a young man to process, especially when he was just starting his career.

  She found a picture on social media of Nicolas and his mother. She was smiling down at him in his wheelchair and he was smiling back. The gaunt look was still in place but the smile was real. Shaye could tell Nicolas and his mother had been close. It was another huge blow, losing both of his parents so young, especially when he needed their help more than ever. Shaye gazed at the photo for a bit, then frowned. Reaching for her keyboard, she did a search for Nicolas’s accident.

  Pay dirt.

  People had died.

  Nicolas and another seminary student had been returning from a weekend event. The other student, Jason Roper, had been driving and the vehicle belonged to him. It was late at night and he’d fallen asleep at the wheel. Neither had been drinking. The Jeep Wrangler had crossed over into the oncoming lane and hit a sedan head-on. They’d both been thrown from the vehicle, so either the seat belts had broken or they hadn’t been wearing them. Katrina Fontaine, the woman driving the other car, had died on impact. She’d been five months pregnant.

  Nicolas survived but Jason died later at the hospital. Shaye did a quick check on Jason’s family and found that his mother and father lived in Nebraska. He was an only child. She shook her head. That had to have been horrible for them, but she couldn’t see any reason for them to blame Nicolas for the accident as it was Jason’s vehicle and Jason had been driving. But the family of the other victim might not feel the same way. They were left with the ultimate loss and the person to blame wasn’t available.

  Shaye did a search on Katrina and located her Facebook account, which had basically been turned into a memorial. She saw a picture with Katrina and an older couple identified as her parents and clicked on her mother’s account. They were local but they had obviously had her later on in life. Neither was young, and one of the posts referenced her father’s Parkinson’s. Not a good fit for the penitent.

  Then she saw the father’s full name. Harvey Breaux.

  Her mother must have created her Facebook account under her maiden name because it wasn’t Breaux. And granted, there were a lot of Breaux in Louisiana, so it might be a coincidence. But looking at Harvey’s eyes and nose, she already knew what she was going to find. She scrolled down some more and found what she was looking for.

  Jeff Breaux, the electrician, was Katrina Fontaine’s brother.

  Another picture sent her off to Katrina’s husband’s account, and her eyes widened when she scanned the posts. Jeff Breaux had been best friends with Katrina’s husband, Damon. And Damon had committed suicide two weeks after Katrina’s death.

  She leaned back in her chair and blew out a breath. It was everything. Motive and opportunity. Granted, Nicolas hadn’t been driving the car, but Jeff had lost his sister and his best friend because of the accident. If he was looking for someone to pay for it, Nicolas was the only target.

  She closed her laptop and headed off down the hall for bed. Finally, she felt like she had a break in the case. Tomorrow—correction, later today—she’d ask Jackson if she could borrow his surveillance car. She wanted to find out how Jeff spent his free time. And even though Jeff was the best suspect, there was something else she wanted to know—if Father Malcolm could really hear a yell from the courtyard to the living quarters.

  Malcolm had been outside the door to the cathedral when Nicolas pushed it open. It was Malcolm who’d given Nicolas the first letter from the penitent. And now, Malcolm had been on location when the penitent had stalked Nicolas on church grounds.

  Be the first responder.

  It was a classic fallback for the smarter criminal. Pretend you’re assisting and people won’t suspect that you were the perpetrator. Sometimes it was simply due to timing. They needed to explain why they were there, and playing the Good Samaritan was an easy out. Or sometimes they did it because they craved the attention and couldn’t help pushing themselves into the limelight. Some forensic psychologists believed that they subconsciously wanted to be caught and that’s why they inserted themselves into the investigation. Shaye figured that might be the case a handful of times, but mostly she believed some were so egotistical that they thought they could get away with the duplicity. That th
ey enjoyed fooling law enforcement—proving how mentally and physically superior they were.

  Yes, Jeff Breaux was the best fit, but Father Malcolm and Robert Croft weren’t off the hook.

  17

  Hailey heard the sound of footsteps descending on stone stairs. She scrambled for the back corner of the room, panicked. If she pretended to be passed out, would he leave her alone? If he thought she was unconscious, would it give her an opportunity to bolt past him and run? She’d seen it work that way in the movies, but what if she ran past and then there was another locked door at the end of the stairs? Or what if she got out but had no idea where she was? She didn’t even know how much time had passed. She could have traveled any distance away from New Orleans.

  But if she didn’t do something, then he might attack her. She knew that rape wasn’t about sex. Some guys got off on the fear and the struggle. He hadn’t assaulted her yet. She was a virgin and would have known. But maybe he was waiting for her to be conscious. Waiting so that she was awake and he could see her terror.

  She heard a bolt slide back and dropped onto the ground, slumping against the wall, deciding that playing unconscious was her best bet. The door groaned as it opened and light flooded the room. She’d draped her arm over her face, but the light coming through the cracks between her body was enough to blind her.

  She forced herself to remain still as he approached her. She could hear his footsteps on the stone. When she heard him breathing, she wanted to scream. She felt a finger poke her on the shoulder, and she struggled to remain limp as every muscle in her body wanted to tense.

  “I know you’re awake,” he said. “God told me himself. It’s his work I’m doing here.”

  What the fuck?

  Hailey struggled to process the words. Even her father, with all his rigid beliefs, didn’t say things that crazy.

  The sound of an object being dragged across the stone echoed through the tiny chamber, and she cringed at the screeching. It stopped next to her and she felt the presence of the man right above her.