by Kylie Logan
“Friends in high places.” Sister Catherine rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, then made a face. “That poor, young policeman who was upstairs!” Not that she could see him, but Sister Catherine turned her gaze heavenward. “He ended up with quite a bump on the head.”
“Joe . . .” The very name tasted sour in my mouth. “Knocked him out with one whack,” I said. “Officer Jenkins will be fine. I think he’s embarrassed that he never knew Joe was already hiding upstairs when he got there. But then, like I said, I’m betting Joe is a professional. That explains why he was confident enough to take a shot at Sister Gabriel . . . er . . . Ginger from a boat. Nobody but a very skilled marksman would even have attempted it. It also explains . . .”
I was trying my best to be objective, and doing a pretty good job of it, but it was hard not to be creeped out when I remembered what Hank had told me the night before.
“That cardboard tube, the one Joe always carried with him, the one he said was filled with maps of the island and his family trees.” The tingle along my spine intensified. “That tube had a high-powered rifle in it. That’s what he used to take the shot at Ginger. It takes a mighty cold man to do that sort of thing.”
Sister Catherine mixed oil and egg yolks and added vanilla and sugar. “Well, all’s well that ends well,” she said.
The little sniffle at the end of her sentence didn’t exactly go along with the chipper statement.
I’d just taken the saucepan with the beginnings of the icing in it to the stove, and I turned and found her wiping the back of her hand over her cheeks.
“Hey, it’s all right,” I told her. “Like you said, it’s over now. We’ll find out the truth about Sister Sheila and Sister Helene. And Ginger Mancini, no matter what she’s up to or what she’s trying to hide, she’s safe. We’re all safe now.”
“It’s not that.” She set down her mixing spoon so she could dab her teary eyes with the corner of the white apron she wore over her gray habit. “I was just thinking. That’s all. About the cake.”
“You cry when you think about cake?”
This got a watery little laugh from her. Just as I intended. “It’s my Gram’s recipe,” she said.
I suddenly felt like an idiot. “Your grandmother, the one who’s sick. I’m so sorry, I—”
“Nothing to be sorry about!” Sister Catherine smiled through a fresh cascade of tears. “I talked to her this morning and she’s hanging in. That’s certainly a blessing. And the memories . . .” She sniffled. “The memories are what get us through after someone’s gone, aren’t they? Whenever the good Lord decides to take Gram . . . well, I’ll have the memories.” She grinned. “And her secret recipe for this chocolate cake! She made it for special occasions when we were kids—birthdays, holidays. She’s the one who christened it the Official Special Day Hallelujah Celebration Cake and thanks to her, so many women who’ve come through the shelter have taken that happy memory away with them. I’m going straight to see her when I leave the island on Saturday.” Sister Catherine’s grin was infectious.
“I called my brother this morning and he wasn’t around, but he called back and left me a message a little while ago . . .” For a moment, her expression clouded and I thought she’d start crying again.
Instead, she twitched her shoulders. “I think he said he’d meet me at the hospice center.”
“You think?”
“It was so hard to hear him. There was an awful lot of noise in the background. I don’t know what it was, but it practically drowned him out. I’ll try him again later and tell him I think we’re close to the end. It would be nice if we could both be there with Gram when the Lord takes her. It would give her great comfort.”
I thought of my own grandmother who lived in a mansion overlooking the Hudson River and spent her days running other people’s lives. “She’s a gentle woman?” I asked Sister Catherine.
“But no pushover,” she said. “You know, when we were kids . . . well, I was an angel. That goes without saying.” She smiled in a way that said she was teasing. “But Michael . . . Gram had her hands full with him. Drugs, some minor brushes with the law. He’s straightened himself out,” she added quickly as if I might criticize. “Thanks to her iron fist and a whole lot of prayers. I think it would be good for Gram to see him one last time. That way, she can remember what a fine job she did raising him. The three of us haven’t been together since that dinner in New York.”
It was a nice thought, and for a few minutes, we let it settle between us while we worked at our tasks. I heated the mix of brown sugar, salt, and cream, then let it cool while I beat some butter to add to the icing.
Sister Catherine sifted flour and beat egg whites.
“He’s nice,” she said after a bit.
“Your brother, Michael? I’m sure he is.”
Sister Catherine laughed. “Not my brother. Well, he’s nice, too, but he’s not who I’m talking about. You know who I’m talking about.”
I didn’t.
At least not for a couple heartbeats.
My shoulders sagged. “Look . . .” I set down the mixer so I could give Sister Catherine my full attention. “You’ve got the wrong idea.”
“Do I? Then I apologize. I can only say that Levi was chomping at the bit to get over here last night. He was sure something was going to happen to you and as it turns out, he was right, wasn’t he? I got the feeling he would have given his right arm to make sure you stayed safe.”
I slapped the mixer back in the bowl with the butter.
A little too hard.
Before I could continue, I had to clean up the splats of melted butter all around.
I grabbed a cloth and wet it at the sink. “He’s getting paid,” I rumbled and when Sister Catherine didn’t respond, I was sure to add, “Hank was paying him to keep an eye on me. So really, it’s nice to know he’s so conscientious, but believe me, it had everything to do with a paycheck. And nothing to do with me.”
“If you say so.” She busied herself mixing cake batter. “He’s a lousy poker player.”
Not a comment I was expecting from her, so my head shot up.
“He’s a lousy poker player,” Sister Catherine reiterated. “Can’t maintain a poker face. His left eye twitches when he’s holding lousy cards.”
Since I wasn’t planning on playing poker—or anything else—with Levi anytime soon, I filed this bit of information away in the interesting but pointless category.
“Of course, it didn’t help that he was sitting next to Sister Margaret.” Sister Catherine laughed softly. “The poor dear nattered on and on all through the card game and I kept wondering how Levi could think straight at all. One moment Sister Margaret was peeking over at his cards and upping the ante, the next she was talking about some fertilizer delivery she couldn’t find. Said she was sure it had come, but she couldn’t remember what she’d done with it.”
“She talked about fertilizer the day I saw her in the greenhouse,” I mentioned in passing. “There must be some connection to something she’s doing back home. She is a sweet woman. I’m only sorry she doesn’t remember what she did with—”
I froze.
“What is it?” Sister Catherine asked. “You’ve thought of something.”
“Sister Liliosa said Ginger’s package was delivered.”
Sister Catherine nodded.
“And Sister Margaret said she got a package of fertilizer.”
Sister Catherine’s eyes went wide. “You think—”
I wiped my hands against the white apron I had looped around my neck. “Ginger looked everywhere. She rummaged through all your rooms and every other room in the house. But I bet she never looked—”
“In the greenhouse!” Sister Catherine was right behind me when I raced out of the kitchen.
We found our way to the greenhouse and I paused just inside, tryin
g to picture Sister Margaret as I’d seen her the day the piece of the house came down and nearly clunked me and Sister Catherine in the garden.
“She was over there,” I said, and led the way to the potting bench. The terra-cotta pots that Sister Margaret had been organizing were still stacked into neat piles. I stood where she’d been standing and Sister Catherine stopped to watch me, not far from where I’d stood when I talked to Sister Margaret that day, my hands automatically flying over the flowerpots, just as Sister Margaret’s had.
“What if she thought her fertilizer order had come?” I asked Sister Catherine and myself. “What if she scooped it up off that table where Sister Liliosa said the delivery guy had left it? She could have brought it here and—”
I looked at the two shelves below the potting table and sucked in a breath.
So did Sister Catherine when I retrieved a package and set it on the potting table. It was addressed to Sister Gabriel Hyland.
* * *
As it turned out, it was a good thing we didn’t open the package. Evidence, and all that.
When Hank did and peeked inside, he let out a low whistle and slid the contents out on the potting table and even later, after a team of FBI agents arrived to take over, I still remembered the tingle of excitement I felt when I saw what was inside the package.
Stacks of fifty-dollar bills.
Lots of stacks of fifty-dollar bills.
We were back in the house, and Hank was just finishing up with the team of feds. “It was the consecutive numbers on the bills that gave them away,” he told me and Sister Catherine. “They were taken in a bank robbery in Denver.”
“Denver, where the real Sister Gabriel lives,” I said.
Hank nodded. “And where her great-niece, Ginger Mancini, also lives. The feds here are on their way to Sandusky now to talk to Ginger, but I think we can guess what happened. She was probably supposed to hold on to the money from the robbery.”
“And she took off with it instead. Disguised as a nun so no one would recognize her.” I had to admit, it was ingenious. Or at least it would have been if it had worked.
“Somebody wasn’t happy with Ginger,” Hank said. Understatement. “She should know—”
“No honor among thieves,” Sister Catherine said.
Hank headed for the door. “You’ve both given your statements to the FBI?” he asked, even though he knew we had. “Well, good.” He clapped his cap on his head. “Now that all this craziness is taken care of, maybe things can get back to normal around here.”
We waited until he’d gone before we looked around the kitchen.
“Think we can salvage your cake?” I asked Sister Catherine.
She grinned. “I think they don’t call it the Official Special Day Hallelujah Celebration Cake for nothing! You pour the batter into the cake pans. I’ll preheat the oven.”
I got to work, only half listening when the oven click-click-clicked in response to Sister Catherine turning it on.
That is, until the oven whooshed, belched, and exploded.
19
I went airborne for the space of a couple rib-hammering heartbeats. That is, before I slammed into the kitchen cupboards.
My head hit first, then I collapsed like a rag doll on the floor, but thankfully, I didn’t black out. If I had, I never would have seen Sister Catherine’s dove-gray veil catch fire.
I guess if I was thinking more clearly, I would have screamed for help, but the way I saw it, I didn’t have time. My legs shaking, my blood racing, and my ears ringing like I had first-row seats at a heavy metal concert, I hauled myself to my feet and lurched across the kitchen.
Sister Catherine lay facedown on the floor, her arms splayed out at her sides and her legs at funny angles, and I yanked the flaming veil from her head and tossed it into the kitchen sink. A flare of orange flame shot up nearly as high as the light fixture over the sink. The fire consumed the fabric in an instant, signaling that the veil was completely annihilated with a puff of black smoke that trailed through the air and wrapped me in acrid fumes.
I gulped down the sick feeling in my stomach; I didn’t like to think what would have happened if the veil had still been on Sister Catherine’s head.
That was the moment when . . . well, I was going to say all hell broke loose, but I guess it’s more accurate to call it holy hell.
The nuns converged from all corners of the house and above their startled cries and the high-pitched ringing in my ears, I heard one of them say she’d already called 911.
Hey, by this time, we should have just put the cops on speed dial.
The thought hit just as I took the time to take a careful look at Sister Catherine. She wasn’t moving and I knew better than to flip her over and risk making any injuries she might have even worse. As it turned out, I never had the chance. I pitched toward the kitchen island, one hand out to keep myself upright, and kicked Sister Catherine’s phone. It must have fallen out of her pocket when she was blown back from the oven, and before anyone else could trip on it, I picked it up. By the time I tucked it away in the pocket of my jeans and steadied myself again, Sister Francelle was already kneeling on the floor. She put two fingers to Sister Catherine’s neck.
“It’s weak, but she’s got a pulse.” Sister Francelle sat back on her heels and let go a breath of relief. “She’s alive!”
“Don’t you worry about her.” Gentle hands clutched my shoulders and turned me away from the scene.
Too disoriented to question what was happening, I was cradled in Sister Liliosa’s arms and marched into the dining room before she plunked me down in a chair.
“We’ve got to make sure nothing’s wrong with you.” She bent down to look me in the eye and spoke slowly.
“But—” I was already halfway up and out of the chair when she pushed me back down.
“Sister Catherine is in good hands,” Sister Liliosa assured me. “And listen, the ambulance is almost here.”
I would have to take her word for it, I couldn’t hear the siren, not above the never-ending buzz between my ears.
But not so impossible to miss Hank and the crew of paramedics when they burst through the front door and made a beeline for the kitchen. A minute later, Hank stalked into the dining room.
“What happened?” he asked me.
At least I was pretty sure that’s what he said.
“Ears.” I pointed to each in turn. My own voice sounded like it was muffled beneath a thick down pillow and I had a feeling I was talking too loud, but I couldn’t help myself. “The stove blew up!”
Hank nodded. “I know that. But how?”
I shrugged, then added, “Old,” in case he’d forgotten what the kitchen looked like.
I was convinced I was right and wished Hank looked like he was convinced, too. I tugged on the sleeve of his jacket.
“You don’t think . . . Joe Roscoe? Could he have—”
The way Hank shook me off, I wasn’t sure if he was telling me I was right. Or that I was way off base.
I didn’t have time to find out, either. One of the firefighters who’d just arrived at the scene ducked into the dining room and pulled Hank out into the hallway.
I grumbled a curse and wasn’t even sorry. After all, if I couldn’t hear it, maybe Sister Liliosa couldn’t, either.
“Not to worry.” When she patted my shoulder, I figured it was Sister Liliosa’s way of forgiving me for my language. Instead, she added, “You stay put. I’ll do a little eavesdropping.” She tiptoed to the doorway and paused there. A second before Hank reappeared in the doorway, she gave me the thumbs-up and scooted back my way.
Hank waved toward two paramedics who walked into the room behind them. The emergency crew was beginning to look way too familiar. “They’re going to check you out,” he said.
“And Sister Catherine?”
Eve
n as I asked I saw another paramedic team wheel a gurney out of the house.
* * *
Sister Catherine was flown to the mainland for treatment at a hospital there, and even by the time the plane took off, she was still unconscious and she couldn’t speak up for herself.
I had no such problem.
I was thoroughly checked by the paramedics, but since they didn’t find any obvious damage and I promised I’d see a doctor about my hearing as soon as possible, there wasn’t much they could do. Besides, Dorothy was right when she said there was no place like home. The librarians were off somewhere with Marianne, and Tyler was, no doubt, in hot pursuit of warblers; my home was blessedly quiet that early afternoon.
That is, until Kate, Chandra, and Luella arrived.
I’d been sitting in my private suite, but that wasn’t good enough for them. Within thirty minutes of their arrival, I had my jammies on and my feet up on the couch. I was covered with a plaid wool blanket even though I wasn’t cold, there was a cup of tea at my elbow even though I wasn’t thirsty, and Chandra had just brought me a bowl of tomato soup and a bag of those little crackers shaped like fish.
No, I wasn’t hungry. But who can resist that sort of pampering?
“You’re going to need to scoot around.” While Chandra stood by with the soup and crackers at the ready, Kate grabbed my feet and gently moved them from the couch to the floor. “She can’t hold that soup bowl in her lap,” she told Chandra and really, I thought that was the end of that.
Until Chandra set the bowl on a nearby table, spooned up some soup, and stuck the spoon in my mouth.
It wasn’t like I had much choice so I swallowed dutifully. “Really . . .” Before she could get another spoonful into me, I waved away her ministrations. “I can do that by myself. I’m fine.”
“Lucky to be fine.” Luella eyed me from the other side of the room. “Someone wanted you dead.”
