Immaculate Reception Read Free Page A

of yours. I may not beat him up.”
    That got a laugh out of me. Wes is the last one you’dever imagine fighting anyone. It’s me who likes to punch it out, when I’m at the gym, anyway. But his loyalty to our friendship is awesome.
    â€œYour enemies are my enemies.” He smiled back at me.
    â€œXavier Jones is not my enemy.” I sighed.
    â€œHe broke your heart, didn’t he?” Wes was suddenly serious.
    â€œEveryone gets their heart broken. Besides, that was years ago.”
    â€œYeah. But hearts take a long time to heal.” He looked me over and then asked, “Despite everything that happened and all those years, when you saw him again, you must have felt…something?”
    â€œWhat are you talking about? He’s taken a vow of celibacy. He’s practically a priest.”
    â€œHey, watch out. You dropped a page.”
    Down at my feet, a thin sheet of paper must have escaped the old book of recipes I’d been examining. I retrieved it and laid it flat on the butcher-block table. It was written in Latin. I picked up a word here and there. Wes bent over it and started reading aloud. It was just like Wes to be fluent in a dead language.
    â€œâ€˜â€¦with grave suspicions that the purpose was to eliminate our most Reverend Father…’ Hey, Mad, this isn’t a recipe. It seems to be…” he read on quickly to himself and then looked up, startled.
    â€œWhat? What is it?”
    â€œIt’s signed by a Brother Ugo. And I believe he’s confessing .”
    â€œLike confessing his sins to a priest?” I asked.
    â€œNo. Like confessing to murdering a priest.”
    I stared at Wesley. “Could this be a joke?”
    â€œThis is not Catholic humor.”
    â€œDoes he happen to mention which priest?”
    Wes read it through again. “It’s only one page from what looks like a personal diary. It goes on, but we don’t have…”
    As Wes spoke, I quickly turned the old cookbook upsidedown and shook it gently. No other pages slipped out. I put the heavy leather binder on the counter and flipped through the recipes. All were bound in place. There were no other loose diary pages.
    I looked at the paper again.
    â€œWell, it can’t be that old. Look. It’s written on plain paper, not parchment.”
    Wes turned the document over. “I believe it’s acid-free paper,” he said, feeling the surface, “but that doesn’t mean it’s contemporary. The Jesuit order observes the Rule of Economy and hasn’t used parchment, which is much more expensive, in their casual documents since, I’d hazard a guess…the fourteenth century.”
    â€œYou mean this confession might be seven hundred years old?”
    I looked at the neat black ink and the even rows across the sheet.
    â€œIt’s so odd,” I said, puzzled. “A confession…”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œOf murder.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI wonder what it’s all about?”
    â€œJust when things were looking up,” Wesley muttered. “Just when we were about to launch Mad Bean Events with the hippest party the pope has ever been thrown, you have to go finding a little old confession to murder.”
    â€œIt’s probably nothing,” I said, tucking the page into a drawer. “It’s so old anyway, it can’t have anything to do with us.”
    â€œOh, baby,” Wes said, smiling despite himself, “from your lips to God’s ears.”

Chapter 3
    â€œY ou mean the pope pope, or some other pope?” Holly asked, her mind apparently blown senseless.
    â€œYou know the one,” I said. “Rome, big hat, loved by millions.”
    â€œIs this cool or what?” Holly asked.
    â€œCold,” I said.
    â€œFreezing,” agreed Wes.
    Holly giggled as she pulled her sweater tight around her long thin arms. As our first and only full-time employee, Holly has been