by Lisa Jackson
“You’re sure?”
Near black eyes flashed in amusement and she found herself loving the way his hair fell over his forehead and the way his jeans settled low on his hips.
“Did you go outside?” she asked.
He nodded. “I checked under the laundry room window to see if there were any footprints, or any other sign of your thief. Nothing that I can see, but I’ll have someone from the crime lab come out and dust for prints and double-check the ground.”
“Doesn’t there have to be a crime committed?”
“You report the gun stolen, and I’ll pull a few strings. Then you get an alarm system.”
“I’m working on that,” she said. “So far the earliest I can get someone out here is next week.”
“Try All-Security. Mention my name.”
“You’ve got strings to pull there, too?”
“My brother Miguel works for All-Security. Has for years. I’m sure he can hook you up.” He ground the coffee, and as the screeching whir wound down, Hershey let out a quick bark and, toenails clicking on the hardwood, raced to the front door.
The bell rang.
“Company?” he asked, glancing at the clock. “At eight?”
“I don’t know . . .” Cinching the belt of her robe, she hurried to the door. Peering through the blinds, she saw Zoey looking back at her. Luggage was strewn over the porch and a rental car was parked in the drive near Montoya’s Mustang.
“About time!” Zoey said, hauling in a roller bag, computer case, and oversized purse as soon as Abby opened the door. Hershey scrambled and wiggled wildly around Zoey’s feet, as if she’d been missing Abby’s sister for months. “Hey, girl.” Zoey bent down and offered the dog some pets before straightening. “What’s with the car? That’s not your Mustang, is it? You didn’t finally trade in the old Honda? Or did you inherit one from Luke, or . . .” Her words faded as she spied Montoya, dressed only in his battered jeans, his side arm visible in his waistband, standing in the archway between the living room and dining room. “Oh . . . wow.” Her gaze returned to her sister’s. She cleared her throat. “A guy with a gun?”
“Zoey,” Abby said, feeling a blush stain her cheeks and wondering where in the world this was going to go. “This is Detective Reuben Montoya. He’s a cop with a gun and a black Mustang.” Abby looked at Montoya and motioned toward Zoey. “Montoya, my sister, Zoey.”
Zoey stepped forward and shook Montoya’s hand. “I guess I, um, came at a bad time.”
Montoya’s dark eyes glinted and he slid Abby an intimate glance, then winked. “Trust me, it could have been worse.”
“Ohhh . . .” Zoey looked envious.
Memories of their recent lovemaking flashed through Abby’s mind. She could see Zoey melting under Montoya’s charm. Just what she needed, her sister interested in her new man . . . He’s not your new man, Abby, she reminded herself sternly. Managing a smile, she resisted the urge to link her arm through the detective’s. “I think that was all the information my sister needs to hear right now.”
“Let me take those.” He grabbed Zoey’s bags and walked unerringly to the second bedroom, as if he carried guests’ bags through Abby’s house on a regular basis.
Zoey raised an eyebrow and couldn’t hide the smile stretching across her face as she watched him disappear. “Oh, Abby,” she whispered. “He’s—”
“He’s the detective investigating Luke’s murder,” she said, cutting off Zoe’s train of thought.
She looked surprised. “And he’s here, with you? The ex-wife? Isn’t that a major no-no? I watch those crime shows and the detective never gets involved with anyone close to the victim because it could—compromise the investigation.” Her green eyes slanted. “Not that I blame you, though.”
Sending her sister a warning glance, Abby said shortly, “Detective Montoya was just making coffee. You look like you could use a cup.”
“You got that one right. The flight was the worst. I mean the worst. From Seattle to Dallas, I sat between a bawling baby and stressed-out mom on one side, and a big guy who couldn’t get comfortable on the aisle. I was either retrieving ‘binkies,’ those pacifier things, or trying to shrink so the big man could play computer chess. Then I was hung up in Dallas and the next leg was worse. Mechanical problems, a new plane, no bin space, no food . . . speaking of which, what have you got?”
Montoya reappeared. He was smiling, obviously overhearing the tail end of their conversation.
“What?” Zoey asked.
“Nothing,” Abby assured her as they headed to the kitchen, Hershey bounding in front of them.
“A private joke?” Zoey asked. “How long have you two”—she wagged her finger between Abby and Montoya—“been together?”
“It’s not a private joke. More like common knowledge that my culinary skills are . . . limited.” Abby adroitly sidestepped Zoey’s question as she opened a cupboard. “So I’ve got toast and . . . peanut butter.”
“Is it fat-free?”
Abby gave her sister a look. “It’s peanut butter, Zoe. Plenty of fat and . . .” She picked up the jar and rotated it so that her sister could view the label. “. . . it’s chunky. Pieces of real peanuts. Not the fat-free kind.”
“I’ll take it. Beats what I had on the plane, though, you know, you could have stocked up.”
Montoya laughed.
“I see he knows you already,” Zoey grumbled. As Montoya poured cups of coffee all around, she slid onto one of the bar stools. “I’m telling you, I’m going to eat this and then do a face-plant on the daybed. Wake me up an hour before the funeral and I’ll pull myself together.”
“It’s at eleven.” Abby found half a loaf of bread in the refrigerator, examined the slices for mold, then slid a couple into the toaster.
“Good. I can sleep a bit before the service and then catch up if I need more afterwards.” She stared into her coffee cup. “I’m not looking forward to it.”
You and me both, Abby thought.
A phone chirped from the living room.
“That’s mine,” Montoya said and strode out of the room.
Zoey, sipping from her cup, followed him with her eyes. “Nice butt.” She turned her gaze on her sister. “As a matter of fact, pretty nice all around.” Her eyes gleamed. “You should have told me.”
“It’s all new, I mean, real new.”
Zoey gave Abby’s state of undress and tousled hair the once-over. “Looks like you’re pretty involved.”
Abby didn’t like where this was going. “As I said, ‘new,’ I’m not sure how . . . involved . . . we are.”
“Run with it, Abs, the guy’s definitely hot.” She sipped from her cup. “But I don’t know about the whole cop thing.”
“I’m not marrying him, Zoe. We’re just . . .” What were they? Not dating. “. . . seeing each other.”
“Mmm.” Zoey took a sip. “Don’t blame you . . . not at all.”
“What do you mean, ‘missing’?” Montoya asked, his heart turning to stone.
The Mother Superior sighed. “I mean that we’ve searched the building, the grounds, everywhere. Sister Maria is missing. Her bed was obviously slept in, unmade, and . . . she’s just gone. I hated to call you, but she spoke so highly of you and told me if ever something was wrong, I was to phone you first.”
He was rapidly getting dressed, throwing an arm through a shirtsleeve, finding his socks and shoes.
“Who was the last person to see her?”
“I think I was.”
“Where?”
“At the door to her room, sometime before vespers, we passed in the hallway . . . and . . . oh, dear.”
“I’m on my way,” Montoya assured her, a cold hammer of dread pounding at his skull. “Don’t let anyone into her room or even in the hallway by the room. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
He threw on the rest of his clothes, strode into the kitchen. Abby looked up from slathering peanut butter on a piece of toast.
“I
gotta go.” He didn’t have time to explain, but she looked so damned seductive in the white terry bathrobe that he couldn’t stop himself from pulling her into his arms, kissing her hard, then releasing her. “Lock the doors,” he said, already heading out the door. “I’ll call later.”
“Okay.”
Zoey sat with the uneaten toast in front of her.
“My God, Abby,” she whispered. “He’s hot.”
* * *
“You’ve looked everywhere?” Montoya asked, trying to keep his cool as he sat in the chair in the Mother Superior’s office, a large wood-paneled room with a fireplace, broad desk, and windows that opened to the cloister.
“Everywhere in the convent. Everywhere she usually goes.” The woman, about half of his aunt’s height, was in her eighties, with papery skin, half-glasses, and eyes as blue as all of June. The lines around her lips were deep, but her mind seemed as sharp as it ever was. “Sister Maria is known to go on walks, alone. I’ve cautioned her against it, to take someone with her, but . . .” She sighed and shook her head slowly, making the sign of the cross over her thin chest.
“Have you searched the grounds?”
“Just around the convent here, but I’ve asked Mr. DuLoc to check the surrounding areas.”
“Lawrence DuLoc, right? The groundskeeper?” Montoya remembered.
“Yes.”
“How long as he been with you here?”
“Years . . . over ten, I’m sure. I would have to check the records.”
“Would you?”
“We’ve never had any trouble with him.”
“Does he live on the grounds?”
“A small cabin, yes, on the edge of the property, but really, Mr. DuLoc has been a godsend.” Her eyes were fervent, and her chin inched up a bit, as if he’d offended her.
“We’ll have to look into everyone associated with the convent to find Sister Maria. I’m sure you’ll want to cooperate fully.”
Her lips pursed a bit tighter. “Of course, Detective Montoya, but it’s also my position to protect the people who live here.”
“We’ll both be protecting them.” He stood. “May I see her room?”
The old nun nodded, took her glasses off her nose so that they swung from her neck on a chain, then climbed from behind her desk and led Montoya through the hallways to the second floor. She’d barricaded the room with a couple of chairs and opened the door without a key.
“The room wasn’t locked?”
She looked up at him. “There is no need.”
“Until last night.”
He looked inside the tiny chamber. A twin bed was pushed against one corner, the covers wildly mussed, the sheet draping to the floor. His stomach wrenched as he imagined her struggle. The closet door was ajar and a few items of clothing—habits and street clothes—peeked through. Her small window was open a crack, a breeze sliding through. “You haven’t disturbed anything?”
“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. Che
ck 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.”
