Devious Read Free

door.
    “Father?” she called, thinking the person running from the chapel was a priest. The door clicked closed. “Wait! Please . . .” She started for the doorway. “Father—Oh, no . . .” Her voice left her as she glimpsed a flutter of gauzy white fabric, the scallop of lace undulating on the floor by the first row of pews.
    What?
    Her heart nearly stopped.
    The horrid, rapid-fire images that had awakened her seared through her brain again:
    Yellowed gown.
    Cruel lips.
    A door shutting as the church bells pealed.
    Just like before.
    The whisper of evil brushed the back of her neck again. She nearly stumbled as she raced forward, her bare feet slapping the cold stone floor, echoing to the high, coved ceiling.
    This can’t be happening!
    It can’t be!
    Stumbling, running, afraid of what she might find, she dashed to the front of the apse, to the altar and the glorious, now-dark stained-glass windows. The crucifix towered to the high ceiling, the son of God staring down in his pain.
    “Oh, God!” Lucia cried. “Dios! Mi Dios!”
    Horror shot up her spine.
    A crumpled form lay in front of the first row of pews.
    “¡No, por favor, Jesús. No, no, no!”
    Her blood turned to ice at the sight of the body, supine near the baptismal font. Biting back a scream, Lucia fell to her knees near the bride dressed in a fragile, tattered wedding dress. A thin, unraveling veil covered her face.
    Lucia’s stomach wrenched as she recognized Sister Camille, her face pale, her lips blue, her eyes wide and staring through the sheer lace.
    “Oh, sweet Jesus . . .” Lucia gasped. She touched Camille’s stillwarm flesh, searching for a pulse at the nun’s neck, where small bruises circled her throat. Her stomach threatened to spew. Someone had done this to Camille, had tried to kill her. Oh, God, was she still alive? Did she feel the flicker of a pulse, the slightest movement beneath Camille’s cooling skin? Or was it only a figment of her imagination?
    “Camille,” Lucia coaxed desperately, her voice cracking, “don’t let go, please. Oh, please . . . Mi, Dios! ”
    The ringing bells overhead sounded like a death knell.
    She looked up. “Help! Someone help me!” Her voice rose to the rafters, echoing back to her. “Please!”
    To the near-dead woman, she whispered, “Camille, I’m here. It’s Lucia. You hang in there. . . . Please, please . . . It’s not your time. . . .” But someone had decided Camille needed to die, and despite her good thoughts, Lucia knew of one person who wanted Camille Renard to die.
    She whispered a quick prayer to the Father, praying with all her soul; then, tears filling her eyes, she bent close to Camille’s ear. “Don’t let go.” With her own gown, she tried to stop the spreading pool of blood coming from the wounds on Camille’s neck.
    Camille didn’t move.
    Pupils fixed.
    Skin ashen. Cooling.
    Blood flow slowed to nothing.
    Lucia was frantic. She had to do something! Anything! Please God, do not take her. Not now . . . not yet . . . Oh, Father!
    “Help!” Lucia screamed again, unwilling to leave the friend she’d known so closely for a year, a woman she’d known of most of her life. She couldn’t be dying . . . couldn’t be . . .
    Lucia’s mind was awash with images of Sister Camille, beautiful and lithe, with her secretive smile and eyebrows that would arch to show amusement or disbelief. A troubled woman, yes, a nun with far too many secrets, one she’d met long ago before they’d independently decided to take their vows.
    Throat closing, she whispered, “It’s not your time, Camille. You hear me? Don’t leave . . . don’t you . . .”
    But the poor, tortured woman was gone, her spirit rising from the lifeless shell that was her body. Stolen from her.
    “No . . . please . . . Father—”
    Thud! Somewhere a door banged shut as the bells pealed again.
    Lucia jumped.
    Someone was coming!
    Good. “Just hold on,” she said to the ashen body, though she knew