Authors: Lisa Jackson

Devious (28 page)

BOOK: Devious

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“
S
o you’re Cammie’s sister,” Sister Simone said to Val in the playground. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her slacks and nodded, as if agreeing with herself. “She said you two were close.”

Until Slade Houston came between us.
“We were.”

“So sad that she’s gone,” Simone said. “And I mean it. I loved Sister Camille. She was blessed with a thoroughly wicked sense of humor. I didn’t understand why she stayed at St. Marguerite’s.” Her gaze caught Val’s for a second before she looked away. “I wouldn’t have thought she would fit in there.”

“Why?”

Sister Simone lifted a shoulder, noncommital as she watched a paper wasp work on a tiny nest under the eaves. “Camille didn’t strike me as the traditional, by-the-rules-at-all-costs kind of nun. She seemed more . . . independent than that. A woman with her own mind.”

Amen.

Simone seemed to be the first one who actually understood Cammie. Val thought about keeping Camille’s secret, then realized that was ridiculous. The truth would soon be spread through the press and run through the parochial community like wildfire. Val decided she’d more likely find out the truth if she was forthright.

“Did you know she was pregnant?”

Sister Simone’s eyes widened a bit. “Oh, Holy Mother,” she said, shaking her head. “I . . . I was afraid . . . No, I didn’t know.”

“But you knew she was involved with Father Frank O’Toole.”

“I’d heard she was . . . taken with a priest.” Simone’s dark eyes glanced to the ground. “I don’t think I really wanted to know. Once, Camille tried to talk to me but changed her mind, and I saw her leaving with a priest.”

“Father O’Toole?” Val asked, making certain.

Simone shrugged, seemed uncomfortable. Biting her lip, she looked up at the bell tower where swallows were flying erratically, backdropped by gathering clouds. “I don’t know. It was dark, and he was turned away from me, but he was tall, built like Father O’Toole.”

“Did he, Frank O’Toole, come here often? Meet with her?”

“I’m not sure. He’s . . . he’s been here, with Father Thomas for Mass, of course, and he’s visited the orphanage and the clinic, just as many others have. St. Elsinore’s is unique, you know, a real community.”

Valerie’s gut twisted. She did know. She did remember. She’d lived here, if only briefly.

“Sister Camille said that you were her only living relative,” Simone said as they walked across the empty playground where a solitary swing, its hinges creaking mournfully, moved with the breeze.

“Yes, our parents are dead and there are no other siblings or close cousins. However, Camille was looking for our birth parents.”

Simone blinked and her expression tightened. “You knew that? I thought she was keeping it to herself.”

“She and I were in this together,” Val said, stretching the truth more than a little. “I know she was checking the records here and using the computers to find out if the people who we were told were our biological parents really were.”

Fingering the cross at her throat, Simone nodded.

“Did she tell you anything?”

“No.” Simone shook her head. “But”—she glanced over her shoulder, and her eyebrows drew hard together—“I, uh, I helped her with the computer, and I know she kept a notebook.”

The diary!
Val’s heart nearly skipped a beat. Finally, Valerie felt as if she were getting somewhere.

Simone cleared her throat, as if nervous that she’d said too much.

“Do you know where it is?”

Simone hesitated, as if she were fighting an inner battle, but finally said, “We have private cubicles here. It’s a relatively new practice because of some theft, but the school decided the few personal items we have and the equipment we need to teach should be locked up.” She led Val past the slide with its corkscrew turns and depression in the sawdust where thousands of tiny feet had landed.

Just not hers.

A gust of wind blew, rattling the chains on the playground again, and it was all Valerie could do not to fall back into the darkest period of her life in this place where she felt forever frightened.

“This way,” Sister Simone said, breaking into Valerie’s reverie.

Telling herself she was being ridiculous, Val realized the nun had stowed the bats and balls in a basket on the porch and was holding the door open. She followed Sister Simone along the old familiar hallways where the art and paint color were different, but the worn tiles on the floor were the same and the doorways hadn’t moved in over thirty years. At the gym doors, there was a flurry of activity, volunteers already working on the auction that would be held in a few days. While the dinner was going to be held in a hotel three blocks away, tours of the orphanage, before it closed its doors forever, would be allowed. Hence, the volunteers were converting the gymnasium into the display area for the donated items that would be auctioned.

Valerie had never spent much time in the gym, as she’d been so young when she’d arrived at St. Elsinore’s.

Today, as Sister Simone led her down the halls, her heart began to drum a little faster. She remembered the kids staring at her on the day that... What was her name? The woman who’d brought her here? Theresa . . . or . . . Tonia . . . No, that wasn’t right, but she remembered the nun who had been assigned to settle Valerie into the orphanage.

Sister Ignatia had pulled her along this very corridor. Sharp fingernails had dug into Valerie’s upper arm as she’d been propelled along. The corridor had seemed endless, dark and scary.

“Hurry up, now, child!” the old nun, dressed in a full dark habit, had urged, her heavy dark skirts rustling as she’d sped foward. Ignatia, who to Valerie had resembled the old lady pedaling the bike in the tornado in
The Wizard of Oz
, had swept Valerie along these dark hallways so quickly that Val had been forced to run to keep up with her. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that sloth is a sin?”

Val had been pulled past so many closed doors, and, even though she had been not yet five, she had wondered which one baby Camille was behind. What were they doing to her? Would she ever see her sister again?

Eventually, Sister Ignatia had deposited Valerie in a room with Sister Anne.

Unlike Ignatia as day is to night, Sister Anne had welcomed a frightened Valerie with open arms, a kind face, and extreme patience. She’d been kind and gentle, read stories and allowed the children, including Valerie, to sit on her lap. None of the children had ever been rebuked for playing with her scapular, coif, or rosary.

“God blessed the little ones with curiosity,” Anne had told a disapproving, sour-faced Ignatia when Valerie had fingered the bloodred beads.

“Cursed is more likely,” the older nun had huffed, but hadn’t challenged the younger nun. Ignatia had suffered Anne’s serene authority where the children were concerned. It seemed to Valerie that Ignatia was only too happy to get rid of the responsibility of dealing with the “urchins.”

That had been thirty years ago.

Now, Sister Simone pushed open a door and frowned. “Odd,” she said. “This is one of the few rooms we lock. Hmmm.” She moved past a conference table to a counter under which were storage cupboards. She paused in front of one, then, almost to herself, said, “It’s not locked either. Weird.”

She swung the door open and Valerie peered inside.

The cupboard was empty.

Just like Mother Hubbard, she thought, her throat thickening when she recalled Sister Anne reading the nursery rhyme to the boys and girls spread at her feet in a room just down the hall.

“I don’t understand,” Simone said.

“Does anyone else have keys?”

“Yes, of course. Sister Georgia, Philomena, and the maintenance man and some others.”

“Father Thomas?”

“Of course.”

So much for privacy,
Valerie thought. “Is anything missing from your cupboard?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. Why? Oh. Let’s see.” She unlocked another cabinet, and Val saw a couple of books and a small box of markers within. “Just as I left it.” She tried another, and sure enough there was a couple of skeins of yellow yarn and two sets of knitting needles along with what appeared to be the start of a baby blanket.

“What about Father Thomas?” Val asked.

“Oh, he doesn’t have a cubby,” Simone said as she straightened. “He’s got his office.”

“Is he in?”

“I don’t think so. He had a conference that starts tomorrow; I think he flew out early this morning.”

“But do you have a key?”

“What? To his office? Oh, no.” She seemed startled at Val’s suggestion. “No, of course not.”

Val wanted to ask Simone if she would show her the priest’s office and unlock the door if it was bolted, but she thought better of it. Besides, if it came to looking through Father Thomas’s things, she’d rather do it alone. Not that she had any reason to suspect the priest of anything, but maybe, just maybe, if Camille needed to talk to someone about her relationship with Father Frank, she might have turned to someone outside Frank O’Toole’s parish for counsel.

Something to think about.

“It’s odd,” Sister Simone said as she ushered Valerie toward the front of the complex again.

Val wondered what had happened to Slade. It had been over an hour since he’d taken the call that had propelled him from the office.

“What’s odd?” Val asked. Everything was odd to Valerie; there wasn’t any one thing she could put her finger on.

“I’d just called St. Marguerite’s and spoke with Sister Charity today about Sister Camille’s things, and now they’re gone.”

“When did you make the call?”

“Just a few hours ago.” Simone’s perfect brow knitted. “She said she’d send someone for them, but no one spoke to me.”

“Maybe we could look on the computer and see what she found.”

“I don’t know.”

“They were my parents, too,” Val pushed.

“The parish computers are private, for parish use only, but . . . I’ll have to check with Sister Georgia.”

At that moment, Val finally spied Slade, walking swiftly along the hallway as he tucked his cell phone into the pocket of his shirt.

“Ready to go?” he asked Val, then extended his big hand to Sister Simone. “Slade Houston, Val’s husband.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said as Val introduced her.

“Sister Simone was a friend of Camille’s and showed me around.”

“Sorry I missed it,” he said with that crooked smile that she found so irritatingly endearing. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we really have to go.”

She caught his look and didn’t argue, even though she didn’t think she was finished here—she was certain that somewhere in these dark hallways was the answer to her sister’s death. “Would you please let me know if you find out what happened to Camille’s things?”

“I’m sure the reverend mother will,” Sister Simone said as Slade walked swiftly to the front doors, Valerie at his side.

“What’s wrong with you?” Val demanded once they were outside. With storm clouds brewing, dusk was soon settling over the land. “Is there something wrong at the ranch?”

His lips twisted as they reached the truck. “Everything’s fine.”

“But I thought you got a call. . . .”

“Yeah, well, that was an excuse. I called myself.” He climbed in behind the wheel as she slid into the passenger seat.

“You what?”

“You were getting nowhere with the reverend mother. The same old runaround, and I decided I needed an excuse to leave and snoop around again. So I faked the call.”

“You’re downright devious,” she said as raindrops fell, pinging against the roof of the old Ford.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Do.” She was surprised at his deception. “So did you find anything?”

He flicked the ignition, and the truck’s engine rumbled to life. “Yep.” Checking his mirror, he pulled into the street.

Her heart raced just a bit. “Okay, what?”

He slid her a glance. “Look in my jacket pocket,” he said, turning off the side street and into heavier traffic heading south.

She was already reaching into the space behind the seats where he’d tossed his jacket. Digging into the pocket, her fingers brushed against a plastic bag, and inside, the spine of a book. In her mind’s eye, she saw Camille’s empty cupboard. She felt a second of regret as she pulled out the slim bound pages, the cover as plain and black as a prayer book. “Camille’s diary?”

“Looks like.”

“
You
stole it?” she said, disbelieving. She’d been certain the killer had taken the diary to hide his identity.

“Borrowed. We’ll have to give it up to the police once we’re done with it.”

BOOK: Devious

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