Devious - Lisa Jackson [42]
She steeled herself as she rolled up the window.
This probably wasn’t going to go well.
That was just too damned bad.
After locking the Subaru, she jaywalked across the street to the looming edifice, a stone and brick building whose spires rose as if in exaltation to the heavens. The main part of the cathedral was well over two hundred years old, having withstood wars and storms and scandal. Rimmed by expansive grounds and guarded by a wrought-iron fence and gnarled live oaks, St. Marguerite’s Cathedral was a reminder of ages past, a society locked away, a world unto itself.
There were no news vans parked along the street, and if the police were still on the premises, Val didn’t see any of their vehicles. However, the massive doors of the cathedral were sealed with yellow crime scene tape strung through the handles, and the trampled grounds were evidence of last night’s assault by hundreds of feet during the start of the investigation.
Of Cammie’s murder.
Oh, God.
She followed the wrought-iron fence that guarded the church grounds, heading toward a back alley and a gate that Cammie had mentioned once, an entrance used by delivery trucks and the few nuns who occasionally left the convent.
She found it next to a solitary oak.
Locked tight.
An eerie feeling washed over her, a breeze that tickled the hairs of her neck and caused her to look upward toward the dark windows of the building. Like soulless eyes, they seemed to stare down at her, almost daring her to enter.
Being here, she had the sense that she was trespassing, that if she ever walked through these locked gates, she would be treading where she shouldn’t.
So what? Could anything be worse than Cammie’s murder? Pull yourself together!
A raven flapped his black wings and cawed before landing upon a gargoyle shaped like a snarling demon, and Val told herself it wasn’t an omen.
Just a coincidence, imagery from too many horror movies that had terrified her as a child.
Just like the monster with hot eyes and tiny teeth who creeps through your nightmares?
She gave herself a quick mental shake, located a buzzer, and jabbed it with her finger.
Waiting, she ignored the sensation that she was being observed by hidden eyes.
No one answered.
“Oh, come on,” she said under her breath, and gave the buzzer a long, hard poke. “Hey! Is anyone there?” she called.
Waiting, she felt a slight breeze as it rustled through the alley behind her, a cool breath against the back of her neck. She twisted her neck to glance behind her, certain she would find someone staring at her from the other side of the narrow backstreet.
No one.
Not even a cat slinking through the garbage bins that lined the buildings. She was completely alone, the sounds of the city distant. Squinting upward to the steep gables and turrets of the old compound, she saw no one lurking in the umbra, no hidden set of eyes following her every move. The gravel path wedged between the buildings on the other side of the gate was empty.
And yet . . .
Her skin crawled.
The shifting shadows from a breeze sliding through the trees caused the dappling on the ground to move, as if a ghost had passed quickly by.
Goose bumps rose on her flesh, though the temperature outside was over eighty. “Come on, come on,” she said, and jabbed the button for the third time.
Within a minute, a slim African American woman in a nun’s habit hurried toward the gate. Valerie watched her through the black bars.
“Can I help you?” the nun asked. Tall and regal-looking, a patient smile pinned to her lips, she peered through the wrought-iron bars. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I’m Sister Zita.”
Zita. The name rang a bell. Hadn’t Cammie said she and Zita worked together, along with another nun, Sister Louise, at St. Elsinore’s parish?
“I’d like to speak with Father O’Toole, and the main entrance to the cathedral is locked,” Val said, offering up a little explanation, then added, “I’m Valerie