In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance

by Nathan, Sandy

  “The wall of the building exploded outward, a wall that was built nine-hundred years ago. Rocks and brick flew into the little street below, where people stood in vigil, having found out where my brother was. They could have been killed! No one was hurt! Not a soul! None of the rocks hit anyone.

  “I saw what happened next, and so did Luigi and the others. Oh, Leroy, such a sight. I never dreamed. I didn’t know it was possible …” He was silent, then weeping, snuffling, and moaning.

  “What did you see, Your Holiness?”

  “Oh, Leroy, Our Lord came through the gaping hole in the wall, Jesus Christ our Lord in splendor. Surrounded by angels, with Holy Mary and the disciples. The light! Oh God!” He began speaking in Latin. “Our Lord held His hands over my brother’s body, and his soul rose to the Savior’s arms. He took my brother from his body and raised him to heaven! I cannot believe it! My brother!

  “No one in the family thought anything of him, working with poor. With terrible people, a simple priest. No one. But God came for him, with all the …

  “I am a Cardinal of the Holy Catholic Church and I did not believe such things could happen. That is my confession, Leroy. I didn’t believe in the power of the God I served.”

  Leroy was silent. He’d never had a Cardinal confess to him. “Now you know it’s true. You can take the learning in it, all of it, and put it in your life. Live that lesson. That’s what God told you.”

  Aldo wept silently, and then stammered, “You’re right. I must make the lesson mine.

  “My brother was a good man, and he will be a saint forever living with God and revered on Earth. For what all of us saw was a miracle; we will testify to it. And the people outside who had giant stones hurtle past them, but not touch them, will testify to that. It takes two documented miracles, plus much investigation, to make a saint.

  “I’m going to follow what you say and give you a third miracle. I am a vain man, Leroy. A proud man. Proud of my position and the robes I wear. I have not always been gentle and righteous using my power.

  “I was going to do something evil, Leroy. A sin. My brother told me to send you some things just before he breathed his last. I was going to keep one as a relic, and destroy the rest.

  “I am going to trust my brother’s soul, and send them to you. They are for you and you only.” Leroy heard someone in the background calling the Cardinal. “I must go. These sad days are full of activities. You are welcome to come to my brother’s funeral, but if I were you, I would not. You might attract attention and harm her. Everyone knows Will Duane sent you. They will be following you. A package will arrive for you, be content with that.

  “And my life is transformed. I will live my brother’s legacy on Earth and see that his projects are completed. I am changed, I swear to you.”

  “I believe it, Your Holiness. To have seen what you have and not follow its teaching would poison your soul worse than the devil could.”

  A gasp of fear, and the line went dead.

  Four huge monsters with beat-up, scarred faces delivered it. They drove a black car with blacked-out windows.

  Leroy met them at the door.

  “This is for you,” one said in guttural English. The package was large and square.

  “Yeah, Aldo said he was havin’ it sent,” Leroy replied. “Thanks.”

  “It’s for you, and no one else. No one’s even supposed to know you’ve got it.”

  “If you’d give it to me and leave, then we’d be sure no one saw it.” Leroy nodded up the street, where patrician Romans were presumably hanging at their front windows, enthralled by the spectacle.

  “Y’ better not let anyone see that.”

  “I already said I wouldn’t.” Get out, scum, he said in his language. Before something serious happens. A gust of wind blew one guy’s straw hat off. They left.

  Leroy opened it on the dining room table. The crucifix that had been hanging above Fr. Tomas was on top. He could feel the vibration of Fr. Tomas’s heart and the heart of Jesus emanating from it. Leroy lifted it out, wondering why anyone would want a cross with a dead body hanging on it, even if the body was Jesus. His Grandfather was a staunch Christian, but he’d been raised in Protestant schools. The cross his Grandfather had given him was plain wood.

  Now he had a fancy brass one with a dead Jesus, wounds graphically portrayed, and nails prominent. Next in the box was a large manila envelope holding a quarter-inch thick sheaf of paper with addresses printed on it. Forty-seven pages, twenty-five addresses typed in neat rows on each page. A total of 1,175 addresses. Of what?

  Nunneries and monasteries. Kathryn Duane was at one of them, the one with the funny tile, gargoyle and chimney.

  The rest of the box was full of old cassette tapes and CDs of—nuns singing in a dozen languages and Latin.

  He had clues to finding her that no one else would be able to figure out. That he couldn’t figure out. Leroy would have to know much more about computers and searching than he did. If he started looking up all those addresses on a computer, what would happen? Without being at the monastery, he couldn’t tell if the tile came from there. He’d have to visit every one. Or search for them on a computer somehow.

  Hannah said that Enzo Donatore had a crystal that allowed him to look anywhere. None of Will’s technology could stop him. He probably could focus on Leroy, or Leroy’s computer, and see what he was doing. Leroy didn’t know a lot, but he knew that someone very skilled could figure out what he’d done on-line. If he found Kathryn Duane that way, he’d doom her as much as Hannah charging in with her soldiers.

  Marco had said, “She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. If ever a woman could cause me to break my vows, it was she. But I didn’t and she didn’t. Still I have loved her all these years, keeping her safe from Donatore, and her husband.”

  A love story and a tale of enormous trust. One that could destroy Marco’s chances for sainthood if it were known. “That whore of a nun was his lover.” Leroy knew exactly what public opinion would do to them. This must never come out. He would not try to find Kathryn Duane. The phone rang.

  Tom’s voice came through the loudspeaker. “Leroy, sir, it’s Will Duane.”

  “Oh, fuck!” Leroy never swore without grave provocation.

  17

  Protecting an Angel

  “Will, you must have some news by now? How is she?” That raspy old voice again. Vanessa Schierman had taken to calling every few days. “How long has she been in that hospital? They must know if she’s dead or alive.”

  “She’s alive, Vanessa. Very ill. In seclusion.” Will was getting sick of being conciliatory. “It’s a family matter, Vanessa. Private.”

  “Pish. Family pish. I’m family, Will. The child practically grew up on my estate when you were off gallivanting. I’m Cass’s grandmother in all but blood. For years, I cared more about her than you did, much more.”

  “How dare you say that? I’ve supported her through everything she’s done. This is the eighth hospitalization, Vanessa …”

  “Necessitated because you were such a terrible parent and husband. You practically threw Kathryn at that monster so you could lally-lally around with your chippies. Except you sent her to a real monster, didn’t you?”

  He hung up. She called back and left a message. “Don’t think I’ll give up. I won’t quit until Cass is sitting on my front porch, smiling. She belongs here, Will. I have resources too, my friend, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

  What did she mean by that? He poured a paper cup of water over his head and wiped his face with a towel. He was working out in his private gym again. The Indians were as annoying as ever. He’d taken to his quarters to escape. Carl did not consider his baring his soul to Leroy as being sufficient.

  “You didn’t tell him you were jealous of him. Or how you want to get back at her. You gotta let him talk to her. And you need to tell her she’s doing bad. She’s depressed and not eatin’. That’s from not talking to her soul mate. You’re
making her sicker.”

  Should have fired the cheeky bastard.

  Carl had stopped going to work with him. Stopped serving him dinner too. Damn bastards, costing him a fortune being there. Except they weren’t: the guesthouses where they lived were already there. They cost him nothing. Those who could work got jobs right away, not depending on him for patronage. They didn’t go on spending sprees. They even bought their own food.

  Will felt so bad, he decided to call Leroy. He was one person who wouldn’t disappoint him.

  “You found the priest I’ve been talking to all these years? That’s fantastic.” Will was elated when he got Leroy on the phone. At least one person in his life wouldn’t let him down. “Did he tell you where Kathryn is?”

  “Have you been watching the news from Italy?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Fr. Tomas Bessagiori died last night. He was the man you’ve been talking to. He knew that you had sent me to find Kathryn. He had his brother take me to his room before he died.”

  “Yeah, and …”

  “He died. He told me nothing. No clues. It’s a dead end.”

  “How can it be a dead end?”

  “Watch the news. The priest can’t tell me where she is because he’s dead.”

  “Those fucking Catholics got her! I should have known when I found out it was a Vatican number. God damn it! I gave her a hundred million dollars when we split. Fair and square—half what I was worth when we split. I bet they …”

  “Saved her life, healed her, and protected her all these years. I bet they’re all that’s standing between her and Donatore right now.”

  That calmed Will down a bit. “Who is protecting her now? This priest is dead. Did he name anyone else? You said he had a brother.”

  “His brother is His Imminence, Agapite Agusto, Cardinal Bessagiori.”

  “A Cardinal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. Let’s get him involved in this. I’m sure they got everything she had. They must know where she is.”

  “Will! Watch the news! They’re rioting in the streets to get Fr. Thomas made a saint early. If people know about Kathryn, the press will be on it in a minute. If where she is becomes known, Donatore will be on her faster than that. He’ll make sure that everyone knows what she did, especially the Church. She did terrible things. Aldo …”

  “Aldo?”

  “His Eminence, the Cardinal, won’t come to her aid. Anything that hooks a woman with a past like that to his brother will destroy Tomas’s bid for sainthood. Twenty years of phone conversations definitely is a link.”

  Leroy got back on the phone the instant Will hung up. He called the only person he could think of who could help him.

  “I cannot do that. I work for Mr. Duane,” Hannah Herhman said.

  “It’s not lying, Hannah, it’s not telling him everything. If he asks why you sent them out, tell him I was worried about security.”

  “But his regular people …”

  “I’m worried about them. I need really good people, Hannah. The best. The kind you know.”

  “You say if I don’t do what you want, Cass could be in danger?”

  “Yes. Worse danger. I got it when I was talking to Will. Kathryn has been protecting Cass all these years. Spiritually. She was friends with a saint, Hannah, a real one. Do you know what they say about holy people at the highest level?”

  “No.”

  “‘It takes one to know one.’ All you’ve done to save Cass, and all Will’s done has worked because of Kathryn’s prayers. I bet that she’s close to being a saint herself.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “This is not crazy. This is how spirit works. Like attracts like. Fr. Tomas loved and cared for Kathryn because she was like him. She was interested in one worldly thing: her daughter. If Donatore gets Kathryn, he gets Cass. Nothing we can do about it. There’s no one on Earth to protect Kathryn now.

  “But me,” Leroy said softly.

  “You.” Hannah was thoughtful. “Yes, this is true. You stand between her and hell.”

  “Yes. I’m going to find Kathryn and see that she is protected the rest of her life.”

  “Isn’t her prayer and vocation enough?”

  “Maybe. But in wars, they always kill the holy people first. Will you do what I say, and do it fast?”

  Less than an hour later, Leroy got a beep on his cell.

  “Open your kitchen door.” He let them in.

  The three of them were clad in black, completely. Not an inch of skin showed. No words, no introductions. They covered the villa, studying and testing. They unearthed bugs in every room, despite Will’s stringent security.

  “Could anyone see in a box if I was sitting here?” On the sofa, where he’d opened the box and taken out its contents? A nod, yes. The crucifix. The papers. The tapes. And the black and white photo. “Can they blow the images up and know what they were? Or said?” Maybe.

  Maybe. He had to get rid of everything permanently. “You brought the incinerator?” They set it up in his room.

  The high tech and tiny furnace was easy to use. It rendered anything put inside to unanalyzable powder. The noise blockers they left were also easy to use. Tom could not hear him even in the same villa. The surveillance experts would stay nearby until he summoned them to take everything away.

  “Tom, I trust you. I need to really trust you now. I need to do something; it’s a ceremony from my people. I need to make sure someone is safe. To do that, I have to go to a place where I go for a few days. It’s where a shaman goes.

  “I’ll need you to take care of me, to feed me; bring me food, but feed me too. I’ll look drunk, Tom, but I’m not. Can I trust you to help me and not tell anyone about it, ever? Lives depend upon it. Can you do that?”

  “Certainly, sir …”

  “Please Tom, call me Leroy.”

  “All right, Leroy, sir.” Leroy rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, Leroy.”

  “Forget it. Cover the phones for me. I’m sick or … no, I’m in a Native American ceremony. A quest. Goes on for days …”

  Leroy went to his room and rearranged his altar. It was set up on a wide chest of drawers. He carried it with him everywhere, packing the objects in a specially made case. A fine woven rug made by one of the women of his Nation ran down the middle. A small buffalo skull sat in the very middle. Hard to explain at the airport, but he wouldn’t be without it. Arrayed on each side of the buffalo skull were his pipe, a fan of eagle feathers, bundles of cedar, sage, sweet grass: smudges. An abalone shell for the ashes of smudging.

  A small painting of the crystal eagle sat behind everything, leaning against the mirror. Depicting the eagle was impossible, but this artist had made a good stab. He and his grandfather shared the same totem. Not a regular eagle, this was the being that covered the thin membrane between birth and death. She guarded the Western gate that led from this life to the next. A totem of immeasurable power, the eagle appeared as a neon strip in the sky whose coming released brilliant light and all of God’s power. She came with a terrifying shriek. Those were all in the center.

  He looked to each side of his People’s sacred objects. Did they know what they did to him, his dear friends of other faiths? They branded him; they separated him from his own with their sacred gifts and symbols. And their knowledge of God.

  On the left side, he’d placed the Menorah given him by his grandfather’s dear friend, the rabbi who got them going with the Kosher beef. Next to it were three Stars of David, a yarmulke—skullcap—of white with gold embroidery, a flat symbol of a hand—the hamsa—with an eye in the middle to symbolize God’s protection and watchful eye. His prayer shawl was draped over his shoulders.

  The rabbis wanted to convert him so much; they didn’t realize that they had converted him. They were his people. He loved them and their religion. It was his religion. “I’m an Indian,” Leroy whispered. “They don’t know we don’t toe the line. We don’t convert same as others.”
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br />   Leroy touched the ritual objects with his fingers, working his way to the other side of his chest of drawers. He wasn’t a Christian. His Grandfather had been a Christian. Jesus had come to him the first night he had been stolen from his family and band so many years ago.

  Jesus had saved him and kept him from being so raped and abused that his light could not shine and he could not be the gift of God he was. Jesus stayed with his grandfather every day of the shaman’s life. Leroy knew of Christianity through Christ himself, who was visible in Grandfather’s every smile and move. But Jesus wasn’t the center of Leroy’s soul.

  The lemongrass and sage owned his soul, as did the buffalo skull and the shrieking eagle that covered the horizon. His People’s ways and legends and ceremonies owned Leroy Watches. He was traditional, despite it all.

  Leroy did not know why words of Jesus had poured from him as Fr. Tomas lay dying. He did not know why he prayed to the man who needed to be nailed to a cross to save the world. He didn’t know why Jesus and his multitudes had flooded in as the holy name came from his mouth. Leroy didn’t understand that.

  But he had been branded by the soul of Jesus, the man Grandfather had loved as much as life. Grandfather was a soul that held all religions as equal because he knew them as equal. Leroy’s fingers ran to the end of the bureau. On the other side of his People’s totems was the smooth wood cross his grandfather left him, a Protestant cross with no ornamentation. Next to it was the crucifix left him by Fr. Tomas. The nailed God. The cross with Jesus’s ruined body hanging on it. It stood on a base, so he couldn’t escape seeing it wherever he was in the room.

  As did the Menorah and Star of David and cross and this new thing, this nailed and naked God. He held them all and understood them all to their depths and heights.

  Did his loved ones, the holy men and women of God who had gifted him so, know what they had done? They had converted him, all of them, even with this horrifying new cross. He was all of them.