Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [628]
She glanced down at Harvey who sat at her feet, staring up at her. He’d be able to sense, to smell, to know if it was something…dead. Wouldn’t he? There’d be blood, even dried blood. Yes, of course, he would.
She used the letter opener to carefully slit the packing tape on the sides of the box. Using the palms of her hands rather than her fingers, she lifted the flaps, trying to avoid adding her fingerprints to the many that may already be on the outside. Once the flaps were pressed back she still couldn’t see beyond the white packing material. She poked at it with the letter opener and made no contact. There seemed to be nothing of substance under the crinkled white paper. Did she dare peel it back?
She stood paralyzed, staring at it. Finally she set the letter opener aside and commanded her fingers to touch, then grip a corner, to lift, to pull it back. She found herself squinting and cringing as if preparing for something to jump out at her. When had she started holding her breath? Her chest already ached. But her fingers were steady. Thank goodness, since nothing else seemed to be.
Her fingers peeled and pulled and tugged until all the white packing paper had been removed, a pile of it now on the counter. At the bottom of the box remained only a single key on top of an index card. Without removing either, she recognized his familiar block-style handwriting. And what was worse, she recognized the address he had scrawled on the card.
CHAPTER 38
Our Lady of Sorrow High School
Omaha, Nebraska
Nick couldn’t find Christine. He wasn’t surprised that she hadn’t waited for him right outside the classroom like she’d said she would. He wandered over to the second-story windows facing the street. No police cruisers. No cops. That was a good sign.
He dug his hands into his jeans pockets. He hated waiting. He could go back in for the second half of Sister Kate’s class and make Christine come get him. Yep, that’s exactly what he’d do. Make her wait on him for a change. He was headed back to do just that when he noticed down the hall the door to Tony’s office was open. He hesitated. He and Tony had known each other a long time. Maybe he’d been too hard on him the other day when all Tony had wanted and needed was a friend, not an attorney.
He reached in and knocked on the open door, startling Tony.
“Hey, come on in.” He nodded at Nick, but his eyes returned to the computer screen and his fingers flew over the keyboard, as if he needed to close down whatever he was working on before Nick could get a glimpse. Or was Nick still just being suspicious?
“You haven’t seen Christine, have you?”
“No, is she here, too?”
“We brought Timmy for the Explorers’ class. I sat in on the first half. I think Christine’s downstairs giving that guy in the monsignor’s office a piece of her mind.”
Tony looked up at the mention of the intruder. Nick tried to figure out whether that was how Tony saw the guy, as an intruder. But Tony just shook his head and reached for a coffee mug that sat on the bookshelf. Nick waited, letting him take a gulp of what he knew was chocolate milk and not coffee. He only put it in a mug to draw less attention, or at least that was his explanation. Nick had ribbed him about it, jokingly asking if he thought a chocolate-milk-drinking priest would be taken less seriously than a coffee-drinking one.
Instead of some explanation of why the guy was going through the monsignor’s stuff, Tony said, “Christine should be careful.”
It wasn’t at all what Nick expected him to say.
“And why is that?”
Tony shrugged, took another sip. “Everyone’s on edge right now. I’m sure the archbishop won’t appreciate the media snooping around.”
“But he doesn’t mind sending some goon to snoop around?”
This time Tony smiled. “Brother Sebastian does look a bit like a goon, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, in a freaky sort of way. Who exactly is he?”
“Assistant to Archbishop Armstrong, his right-hand man.”
“And his job description includes rummaging through dead priest’s offices?” Nick asked.
Another shrug