Devious - Lisa Jackson [175]
Lucia sat in the middle of the bus, on the opposite side of the aisle from the others.
Tonight she was dressed in street clothes again, though her hair was cropped short, compliments of her own hack job with a pair of scissors she’d stolen from the convent. She was traveling courtesy of Sister Camille, who had left her, along with her cell phone, a wallet filled with hundred-dollar bills. Fifty of them, to be exact.
A fortune to Lucia. She sighed, her breath fogging the window as she remembered Camille giving her the money.
“Just in case,” Camille had said when she’d tucked the thick leather billfold into the pockets of Lucia’s habit just two days before she was killed. “The Holy Father may want us to give up worldly possessions, but he surely doesn’t want us to be stupid.”
“But where did you get this?” Lucia had gasped, intending to return it to Camille.
“It doesn’t matter,” Camille had said, but her smile had faded. “I guess some people might say it’s hush money.” She’d squeezed Camille’s hand. “But rich people, you know, people like Marion Wembley, they call it a ‘donation.’ ”
“To what?”
Camille had grinned again. “To ensure their future is never ruined. That some secrets are never revealed,” she’d said cryptically, with a naughty little smile. “Just take it, okay?”
“I can’t.”
“Then keep it for me. Please.” Her eyes had clouded. “I might need it.”
Lucia had swallowed hard and slowly nodded, even though she’d known she was somehow compromising her values, committing some vague sin. “Just for a while . . .”
And now Camille was dead, murdered, and Lucia had thrown away all of her promises to herself. She was using the cash to put as many miles as she could between herself and Cruz.
She closed her eyes and wondered where she’d be in the morning.
Her route had been a zigzag course to nowhere.
She’d gotten aboard a westbound bus in Baton Rouge wearing exactly what she’d had on when she’d left Cruz; then, once the bus had crossed the state line into Texas and stopped at the first station, she’d bought a ticket heading south. In the restroom, she’d donned her holy habit. She’d worn it for as long as she was on the bus rolling toward Mexico, so if anyone saw her, they’d remember the habit—that a young nun was on the bus to a border town.
Two stops later, the one before the border, she doubled back, taking a northbound bus and wearing street clothes again, this time adding a pink sweater that she had in the backpack. At each stop in her circuitous route, she changed something about her appearance. She had sunglasses and a scarf she tied over her hair that she wore with a blouse and jeans or with a T-shirt and skirt.
Now, as rain began to fall, the bus was climbing hills. With the bus speeding by long stretches of dark countryside, she thought about the East Coast, but not north—no, she was a Southern girl.
The names of the towns along the coast went through her mind, and she settled on Savannah—a big enough city to get lost in, yet small enough to feel like home. Yes, she thought, Savannah.
She noticed the driver, a portly man with a buzz cut and red face, switch on the windshield wipers.
The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish
Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.
The wipers on the bus go . . .
At the hotel, the salad plates were removed by the waiters. Val, nerves strung tight, scanned the dining area and eyed the patrons. She recognized many of the nuns from both parishes. Conversation and laughter, rattling dishes and clinking glassware created a rumbling cacophony that rolled through the room as steaming plates of jambalaya, crawfish étouffée, red beans and rice, and stacks of biscuits and corn bread drizzled with butter and honey arrived.
Though she and Slade tried to avoid small talk, they