Damned (Shaye Archer Series Book 7)

by DeLeon, Jana

  As soon as she saw him come in, she waved at the server. “She’s bringing you an order of beignets and a root beer float. Do you want any real food?”

  “Please. I had real food for breakfast. You can only eat so much of that in one day.”

  Shaye shook her head. “One day, it will catch up with you and you’ll be crying on a treadmill five times a week like the rest of us.”

  “All the more reason to get as much of the good stuff in as I can right now.”

  She laughed. “I can’t argue with that. Okay, you were gone for a while. Did you run into any trouble?”

  “If by trouble you mean being accosted by Father Malcolm who then fetched Father Bernard to educate me on the architectural history of the building, then yeah.”

  “Both priests saw you?” she asked, clearly dismayed.

  “Don’t worry.” He told Shaye his cover story.

  “Smart. And not exactly untrue. At least not all of it.”

  “Not any of it, thank you. I’ll probably paint the front of the church for next week’s assignment. It really is a spectacular structure.”

  “And what did you think about sound and distance?”

  He pulled out his phone and accessed the pictures, starting in the courtyard. He described the layout and showed her the spot where the wheelchair had impacted with the lawn.

  “I paced it off,” he said. “I’d estimate it’s thirty yards or so between the two.”

  “And the windows on the living quarters?”

  “None on the side of the building facing the courtyard. All that’s on that side is the door. There are windows on each side of the building. I asked Father Bernard about the noise level and he said they can sometimes hear people yelling on the street. That’s maybe fifty feet away from the south windows, though. The courtyard is farther away and not direct.”

  “So what do you think?”

  He shook his head. “I can’t say for sure. Is it possible someone in that building heard a yell from the courtyard? Yeah. But I wouldn’t swear to it. If the wind was blowing in that direction it would help. And that’s assuming they didn’t have the television on or radio or nothing else making noise.”

  “So no one’s off the hook.” She sighed.

  “You really think one of those priests I met was spooking another one? I mean, I know you can’t tell me what happened but given what you were asking for, I kinda made some assumptions.”

  “I hope they weren’t up to anything,” Shaye said. “Unfortunately, I can’t be certain.”

  “If it helps, the older priest has a slight limp. Bad right knee, looks like.”

  “Interesting, and yeah, it helps. Thanks for doing this.”

  Hustle nodded. The thought of priests causing trouble for each other made him uncomfortable. The two men he’d met didn’t seem like bad guys, and he usually had a feeling about that kind of thing. But he also knew that sometimes people fooled you.

  “It was no problem,” he said. “And besides, I really did get an idea for my next project. But I’m afraid I didn’t help you much.”

  “You helped plenty. I needed something answered and you did what I couldn’t risk.”

  “But I didn’t get you an answer.”

  “In this business, sometimes ‘I don’t know’ is an answer.”

  “Yeah, well, that answer sucks.”

  She nodded. “Massively.”

  19

  Nicolas cringed as the nurse helped him into the wheelchair. His shoulder was in a sling and didn’t hurt much when he wasn’t moving it, but as soon as it was jostled around, pain shot up into his neck and down his arm to his wrist. He had attempted to use it to change positions in the bed and had almost yelled.

  “Ready?” the nurse asked.

  He nodded. That couldn’t be a lie, right? Just nodding? Even though he wasn’t ready at all. Wasn’t ready for what might happen next. Wasn’t ready to defend himself.

  Wasn’t ready to die.

  He choked back a cry, covering it with a cough.

  “Are you all right, Father?” the nurse asked. “I hope you’re not catching a cold.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine.” If only a cold were the worst thing he had on his plate. He’d take the most awful of colds over this. Anything over this.

  The nurse pushed him out the emergency room doors to where Father Bernard was waiting with his sedan. The older priest opened the passenger door and helped the nurse get Nicolas into the car.

  “Thank you,” Nicolas said, and the nurse gave him a huge smile before going back inside. Nicolas reached over with his left hand to grab the seat belt and fumbled a bit trying to get it into the latch.

  “Let me get that for you,” Father Bernard said, and secured the seat belt. He gave Nicolas a hard look, then frowned. “You’re in pain. Far more pain than you’re letting on. You could have stayed in the hospital for a day or two. Maybe I should take you back in.”

  “Insurance says I’m good enough to go home.”

  Father Bernard snorted. “Insurance says whatever costs them the least amount of money. Your doctor would have been happy to argue with them. Given your other challenges, they would have eventually agreed. Besides, money isn’t an issue for you. So what is it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why do you want to go home when you’re feeling so poorly?”

  “I just don’t like hospitals. I’ve spent enough time in them already. Please don’t worry. I won’t make any additional work for you or Father Malcolm. I plan on hiring someone to assist me during the day until bedtime. I have an interview this afternoon.”

  Father Bernard stared at him a second more, then nodded. “If home is what will make you feel better, then home it is. Did the hospital provide you with a list of possible care assistants?”

  “They had several recommendations,” Nicolas said. That wasn’t a lie. He’d overheard a nurse talking to another patient about that option and knew they had a list. Nicolas just hadn’t asked for it. He planned on hiring someone with a bigger range of skills than just health care. It was Shaye’s idea and she’d given him a name when he called her earlier.

  Not that he wasn’t going to need some real help getting around. His shoulder had pretty much left him with no engine, so to speak. Since he was going to need help anyway, Shaye figured he might as well have someone who could pull double duty. It’s not like anyone would have to insert needles or change IV bags. All he needed was help moving from one location to another. And Shaye preferred that the person doing that be armed. Nicolas preferred it as well.

  So before Bernard had picked him up, Nicolas had made another phone call. This one to Colby Stringer, and Nicolas had arranged to meet him at the living quarters. Colby should arrive shortly after he and Father Bernard got home.

  When they reached the church, Father Bernard parked in the lot just down from the living quarters and retrieved Nicolas’s chair from the trunk of his car. Bernard then instructed Nicolas to lean out from the seat and the older priest grabbed him underneath his arms and helped him into the chair. Even though Bernard hadn’t appeared to struggle with his weight, Nicolas knew it wasn’t good for him to be lifting like that. Not just because of the weight, but because medical professionals were trained on how to do it correctly to minimize injury. After his accident, his mother had taken lessons from a nurse, in case an emergency occurred and she needed to help Nicolas when an aide wasn’t available.

  “I’m sorry you’re having to do this,” Nicolas said as he struggled to force his legs to cooperate, but he was afraid they weren’t much help at all.

  “Nonsense,” Father Bernard said. “I’m not so old and creaky that I can’t assist with minor things. And you’re not exactly a heavyweight.”

  “Well, I appreciate all of your help, especially lately.” He blew out a breath. “I know I’ve been even more trouble than you anticipated when you hired me.”

  Father Bernard gave him a serene smile. “We all have our challe
nges. Sometimes they are spread out over time—a little here and a little there. Those are the easiest to manage. But sometimes they seem to collect and hit us all at once. Those are the ones that test us. I have complete faith in your ability to come out of all of this an even better person, and priest, than you were before.”

  “I hope one day to have such a logical view of life.”

  “Oh well. That just takes years. Or maybe it’s exhaustion. Speaking of which, let’s get you inside so you can get on with your healing.”

  Nicolas clutched his right arm as Father Bernard pushed him down the walkway. He hated the feeling of overwhelming helplessness. Things had been difficult before but he hadn’t felt so vulnerable. Now every shortcoming was amplified.

  “Here we are,” Father Bernard said as he pushed Nicolas into the living room. “Would you like to shower or rest? Are you hungry?”

  “I had breakfast at the hospital but I don’t have much appetite. I don’t think I have the energy for a shower right now and I have that interview shortly. You can just leave me here for now. I know you have a full schedule. I don’t want to hold you up any more than I already have.”

  “Sometimes other things take priority. I’ll get you one of those sodas you like so much and the television remote. That way you can watch something until your interview arrives. Will you be able to handle getting to the door?”

  “Just leave it unlocked,” Nicolas said, forcing his voice to remain steady as he said the words. He had his backpack with the Mace inside, but he wasn’t about to pull it out until Father Bernard left.

  “All right,” Father Bernard said. “You have your cell phone. Father Malcolm and I are both on-site all day. If you need anything, call. And don’t try to stand without help, or you’ll injure that shoulder even more. Call.”

  “I will. And thanks again for everything. I’m really sorry to have caused all this trouble and additional work.”

  “Try to get some rest after your interview.” Father Bernard exited the building, closing the door behind him.

  Nicolas was seated toward the back of the living room. From his position, he could see down the hallway, out the living room window, and had a clear view of the front door. The window in the kitchen was at his back, but it was smaller than the others. Not exactly the first choice for someone breaking and entering.

  Father Bernard had placed the remote on the table next to his chair, but Nicolas wasn’t interested in background noise. That would just make it harder to hear someone coming. His backpack was on the floor beside him on his left side, so he pulled it up and located the can of Mace. It appeared to be in working condition despite its fall, so he stuck it in his lap and sat the book on Roman history on top of it.

  He was just about to try to maneuver himself a bit back from the table when there was a knock at the door. He checked his phone for the time. It must be Colby Stringer. He took a deep breath and blew it out before calling for him to enter.

  The door opened and a man about thirty-five years old with a shaved head stepped inside. Nicolas looked up at the guy who resembled the Hulk but not green and couldn’t help smiling. Shaye really knew how to make a person feel safe.

  “You must be Colby,” he said, barely stopping himself from just throwing money at him and begging him to take the job.

  Colby nodded and took a step forward, offering his left hand to shake. “And you’re Nicolas, I take it.”

  “Did the wheelchair give it away?”

  “Maybe a little.” Colby scanned the room and leaned over. “Can we speak openly?” he whispered.

  Nicolas nodded. “I’m the only one here. Would you like to sit down?”

  “That would be more polite than towering over you.” Colby angled a chair to face Nicolas and took a seat. “Shaye tells me someone is messing with you and it’s escalating, but you don’t want anyone to know so my role is undercover bodyguard.”

  “I know it seems foolish keeping such a thing a secret—”

  Colby waved his hand. “People have all kinds of reasons for keeping things to themselves. Being that you’re a priest, I figure you’ve got better reasons than most. And besides, Shaye wouldn’t have called me if she didn’t trust you. She may seem all casual and polite, but she doesn’t miss a thing.”

  “Have you known her long?”

  “Sort of. My mother and hers have done a lot of volunteer work together over the years. I remember the first time I ever heard Shaye really talk. She had been living with Corrine for maybe two years and she usually didn’t come out of her room when Corrine had gatherings. On the rare occasions that she did, I don’t think I’d heard her utter five words.”

  Colby smiled and shook his head. “So I’m back on leave from the military and I’m at this gathering with my mom and my fiancée, and Shaye is sitting silently in the back corner of the kitchen. I’m standing next to the table where she’s sitting and one of my mother’s friends asks me about my fiancée’s and my wedding plans. So I start talking about what we’ve decided on and I see Shaye frown. Then she snorts.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. So I look over at her and ask if something’s wrong. She looks me dead in the eyes and says she doesn’t understand why I want to marry a woman who’s in love with someone else. Then she looks at my fiancée and then my best friend. Both of them look at each other and I could see it in their expressions. She’d hit the nail on the head. I took off out of there and dumped my fiancée in the driveway.”

  “How did she know?”

  Colby shrugged. “Women’s intuition? Hell, I’d even believe it was magic. All I know is she saved me a lot of trouble even though Corrine was mortified.”

  “I guess when you’ve been through what she has, you get really good at reading people.”

  “It’s survival. I learned quickly how to read expressions and body language when I was in the desert. The allies and enemies all look the same, you know. If you don’t learn how to distinguish the small behaviors that signal which side someone is on, you can come back in a bag.”

  Nicolas shook his head. “I can’t imagine…you probably lost people over there. Men you served with.”

  Colby nodded. “We all do.”

  “I’m very sorry. I know that has to be so difficult. But I appreciate your service and the lifestyle it affords me. My father was an army paratrooper for fifteen years. Knees finally caught up with him and he retired.”

  “Your father sounds like he was a good man. Fifteen years is a long time to jump from planes.” He glanced around the room and Nicolas could see him assessing the door and windows. “Can you give me the rundown on these quarters? Then I’d like to take a look around. I won’t tamper with the other priests’ things, but I’d like to at least open the doors and check out all modes of ingress.”

  “Of course,” Nicolas said, and gave him a description of the location of each apartment and the layout of the ones upstairs. Colby headed down the hall and Nicolas could hear the doors opening and closing, then footsteps on the back stairwell. A minute later, he heard footsteps above him.

  It didn’t take Colby long to do his assessment and he came back into the living room. “No one’s been in the upstairs for some time,” he said. “There’s a decent layer of dust and none of it showed signs of disturbance. The windows are all locked from the inside and in good working order. I don’t think someone would choose those as an entry point except a professional.”

  “And we’d hear them. I heard your footsteps above me. They almost echoed through the room.”

  “That’s how the acoustics are sometimes with these old places.”

  “So what about the downstairs rooms?”

  “The locking hardware is in good shape, but all the windows open easily. Shaye said you guys like to open everything up when there’s a cool breeze. It’s clear that the windows have been maintained and used for that purpose. I could slide them up with almost no noise.”

  “But there’s no way to unlock them from th
e outside without breaking the glass.”

  “Or cutting it, but again, that leads us back to more of a professional job and Shaye doesn’t think that’s the case here. Do you lock the front door when you’re all gone?”

  “Yes. And the back door is never used, so the dead bolt remains drawn.”

  “Good. So how many people have keys to the building?”

  Nicolas blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine that the locks are changed often, and Father Bernard hands out keys to visiting priests. I’m sure the cleaning crew has one, and probably some of the maintenance people. We don’t…I guess we never considered that security would be an issue.”

  “And I’m sure things have been that way because it never has been.”

  “We don’t really have much of value in here. I suppose if it was left unlocked someone might lift a computer or iPad, but if someone is going to expend the energy to break into a residence, I assume they’d choose one with more content to take than what we have.”

  Colby smiled. “You’re absolutely right. Priests wouldn’t be the first on the list of any decent thief. A crime of opportunity would be the more likely thing to occur. But you have a stalker, so all bets are off.”

  Nicolas looked down at the ground, then back up at Colby, his gut clenching. “I did some reading on the internet last night…police stuff mostly. They say that if someone is stalking you, it’s almost impossible to protect yourself.”

  “‘Almost’ being the operative word. I’m not going to lie to you—stalking is serious business. If someone is fixated on another person, then there’s nothing in the realm of logic that’s going to dissuade them from their task.”

  “So the only way this ends is with him dead or behind bars.” Nicolas swallowed. “Or if he’s successful and moves on to the next target.”

  “That last one isn’t going to happen. I’m here to make sure that it doesn’t.”

  Nicolas wasn’t convinced. “I agree that attacking me with you standing there isn’t likely, but that wouldn’t stop him from shooting me from across the street. Or you too, for that matter.”