“Time for what?”

“Time to simply be a priest. That’s all. No distractions. No complications. Being both Father Marcus Stearns and Søren is...”

“What?”

“In a word—exhausting. I want to be Father Stearns for a while. Only Father Stearns.”

“I’ll miss Søren.”

“I wish you missed Father Stearns. I admit I was jealous hearing you were talking to Father Mike O’Dowell instead of me.”

“Just talking. No flirting. Speaking of flirting with priests, who’s taking over for you when you leave? And is he cute?”

“The associate pastor at Immaculate Conception is the interim replacement. You’ll have to decide for yourself if he’s cute. And he’s stopping by any minute now to talk about the transition so you should go. I’d rather not have to explain your presence on my piano bench.”

“Then take me to bed.”

“That would be even harder to explain. But if you want to come back tonight, I’d like to give you a proper goodbye.”

“We’ll see,” she said. “I might be in jail by tonight.”

“Again? What did you do this time?”

“It’s nothing I’ve done. It’s something I’m going to do.”

“That sounds foreboding.”

“You remember Milady?”

“I’ve never forgotten her.”

“I inadvertently stole her favorite client out from under her. This apparently was the last straw. She’s blackmailing a friend of mine, stole his phone with pics of him and his doctor girlfriend on it.”

“She’s his doctor?”

“She is. Almost as bad as a priest sleeping with a parishioner, right? Milady’s blackmailing him to force him to blackmail me. So I’m going to kill her.”

“We aren’t under the seal of the confessional. I can report you for threatening someone’s life.”

“I’ll kill you, too, then. That’s one way to keep you from leaving.”

“We both know you’re not going to kill Milady.”

“I might if I knew her real name or where she lives. But I don’t think anybody does. I have to do something, though. She’s trying to hurt me. She’s already hurt a friend of mine. She could probably hurt my client, too, the one who was her client once. Oh, and she cut your hair and wore it in a locket around her neck just to fuck with me. If that isn’t a capital crime worthy of the death penalty, I don’t know what is.”

“You’re still angry about that?” he asked. She could tell her displeasure pleased him.

“A skosh.”

“I’m going to tell you something again, Little One. This time you might like it.”

“Please. I could use a little good news today.”

Søren stood up and walked over to his steamer trunk. He pulled keys from his pocket and unlocked it. On his knees he pushed this and that aside until he seemingly found what he was looking for.

He stood back up and walked over to her with a white envelope in his hand.

“I realize this might tarnish the romantic aura around the memory of me selling a lock of my hair to buy you a laptop,” he said. “But you did tell me she’d threatened you. While in her presence I made, well, let’s call it a preemptive strike.”

Nora opened the envelope and inside it was a driver’s license. She didn’t recognize the name on the license, but she did recognize the photograph.

She couldn’t get a word out at first. Her heart swelled and warmth radiated from the center of her chest out into the world, as if her heart was a cymbal and someone had struck it with a mallet. Her eyes filled with tears and her throat closed.

“Eleanor?”

She raised her hand, needing a moment’s silence.

“You let her kiss you so you could steal her driver’s license,” she said when she could finally speak again. “For me.”

Nora came to him and wrapped her arms around him.

“For you,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “You said she wanted to hurt you.”

“That’s your job,” she said. And hurting him was her job. They were too good at their jobs.

Nora laughed against his chest, wiped her tears on his T-shirt.

“How?”

“She has a phone number clients use to make appointments. I called her. I told her I’d heard she’d threatened you. She said we should meet and talk about it. I agreed as long as we met in public and she wore vanilla attire in case one of my parishioners saw me. It was like stealing candy from a baby. People trust the clergy. Too much perhaps.”

She stared at him, incredulous. “I’m speechless.”

“The words you’re looking for are ‘thank you.’”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Søren bent to kiss her as she rose up on her toes to kiss him. Their mouths met in passion and sorrow. Passion for it was a powerful kiss of hunger and need. Sorrow as it might be their last kiss if she failed.

“I’m giving you her license so you can protect yourself, not so you can hurt her. Try to remember we’re on the side of the angels,” he said.

“So I can’t kill her?”

He shook his head.

“Fine. I’ll talk to her. I might talk to her loudly. But I’ll only talk to her.”

“That’s my good girl.”

“Am I? You’re leaving. Am I still your girl?”

“Forever,” he said. “My love for you isn’t going anywhere, I promise. Only my body.”

“Your body’s my favorite part.”

“I’d be hurt if I actually believed that.”

“You know...” she said, putting her hand flat on his chest. “You know I love you, too.”

“I do.”

“So you know I’ll find a way to make you stay. I will. I promise you I will.”

Søren caressed her cheek, rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip.

“Little One, you won’t succeed, but I will enjoy watching you try.”

She turned to leave him but stopped when he called her name.

“Eleanor?”

“What?” She didn’t turn back around.

“I’ll take my keys back now.”

With a sigh Nora tossed his keys over her shoulder, the keys she’d stolen from his pocket while they were kissing. She didn’t have to look back to know he caught them.

“And my wallet.”

Nora surrendered his wallet.

So much for that plan.

32

Milady

NORA DROVE TO a house on Long Island, a small house, pale yellow and gabled, a bit run-down. She knocked on the front door and waited. An elderly woman in linen pants and a faded blue cardigan answered the door.

“Yes?” asked the white-haired woman with a slight smile. “Can I help you?”

“Is Kimberly home?” Nora asked. “I’m an old friend of hers.”

“Grandma? Who’s at the door?”

And there she was, Milady herself, standing at the top of a hardwood staircase in a plain navy skirt and white blouse staring down at Nora with murder in her eyes. Nora grinned.

“Hi, Kim,” Nora said. “I was in the neighborhood. Want to go for a walk?”

“Sure,” Milady/Kim said. “Let me put on my shoes.”

“Nice to meet you. Mrs. Matsui, right?”

“That’s right. Have a nice walk,” she said as Milady stepped past her and onto the porch.

“Pretty neighborhood,” Nora said as she started down the porch stairs. “Where should we go? Is there a park nearby?”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. Not until you tell me how you found me.”

Milady’s hands were tight fists and her lips a hard line of extreme displeasure.

“Did you really think my priest would let you kiss him for money? A man who took a vow of poverty selling kisses for money?”

Milady glanced to the left and nodded. “We met in a bad neighborhood. I assumed I’d been robbed on the street.”

“That priest. Drives me crazy most of the time and I’ve thought about killing him a time or two but he’s damn pretty and insane in the sheets so what are you going to do?”

“What are you going to do to me?” Milady asked.

“Haven’t decided yet,” Nora said. “Before you get any ideas, let me clarify the situation. I know who you are—Kimberly Matsui. I know where you live—this cute little house in the burbs. I know your family—your grandfather owned a sushi restaurant that you worked in growing up, which is how you know Japanese. You are not, in fact, the daughter of a geisha. You didn’t attend Harvard or any college, much less get kicked out of one. You are the widow of a wealthy man, but you haven’t inherited any money from him yet because the will’s being contested by his children, who claim you seduced and abused their father. I know your whole life, so does Kingsley, his secretary and a few other people who will remain nameless. If anything happens to me, they will destroy you.”