The sound of the bubbling water in the fountain would hopefully keep our voices from being overheard, and the bright pink and purple flowers on the bougainvillea vines crawling up the gazebo’s walls would mask us from prying gazes.
“Jesse, you can’t exorcise her.” I pushed him onto a concrete bench inside the gazebo, then sat down next to him. I was glad for my leggings, since Father Dominic had been right: my skirt really was too short, and even through the cotton/Lycra blend, the stone was freezing against the back of my legs. “You don’t know what happened to her to make her the way she is.”
“I don’t care what happened to her,” he said evenly. “I care about what she did. She caused that man, the best friend we ever had, a concussion, three fractured ribs, and a shattered hip bone.”
“But you don’t know how Lucia died.”
“I don’t care how she died. All I care about is making sure she can’t hurt the living, especially you or anyone else I care about. And I have everything I need to do that in my car right now.”
“Oh, that’s just great, Jesse. And did anyone at the mission try to stop you when you broke into the tabernacle?”
He raised one of those dark eyebrows. “I didn’t have to break in. Father Dominic gave me a key years ago.”
That stung. Father Dominic had never trusted me with a key, and he’d known me longer than he’d known Jesse.
“Besides,” Jesse went on, “everyone who might have noticed is upstairs in the ICU, waiting to see how the father recovers.”
“Which you should be doing, instead of running off to the cemetery to exorcise the soul of a frightened little girl.”
“That ‘frightened little girl’ as you call her nearly murdered my future wife.”
I had to suppress a smile at the word wife—I couldn’t help it. I was still annoyed with him, though. “CeeCee found the article about the alleged accident that killed her. Will you read it first before you go tearing off to cast out Satan?”
His jaw tightened. He was annoyed with me, too. “Only if it says where she’s buried.”
“Jesse, that’s harsh. What if I’d exorcised you when we first met?”
“You did.”
“Not on purpose. And I felt terrible about it later, when I found out you weren’t so bad.”
“Bad looking.”
“That isn’t fair, and you know it. I fell in love with you, not your looks. How could I not, when you’ve saved my life so many times?” I reached out to squeeze one of his biceps—impressively large, especially for a physician—through a suede sleeve. “Of course your looks don’t hurt.”
I must be losing my touch, because he was unmoved. “This girl is trying to destroy lives, Susannah, not save them.”
“Agreed. But there could be mitigating circumstances.” I tugged my phone from my bag. “Read the article. It does say where she’s buried.”
He held out his hand. “Then I’ll read it.”
I pulled up the article CeeCee had sent me, then passed the phone to him. “I doubt you’ll still think she’s evil after you read this. More scared, like Aunt Pru says.”
He lowered his eyebrows with disapproval as he took the phone. “CeeCee’s aunt Prudence suffers from delusions.”
“Right,” I muttered. “Doctors. Everyone’s got a disorder.”
“Counselors,” he shot back. “Everyone needs therapy.”
I rolled my eyes, then put my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket to keep them warm as he read, glancing from his face toward the triplets, whom I could view past the bougainvillea, through the windows of the waiting room. They’d run out of money for snacks, and were now ricocheting around the triage area, jacked up on all the forbidden sugar they’d consumed. Peggy, the receptionist, had risen from her post behind the reception desk, looking stricken, begging them to stop. The girls were ignoring her.
Good luck, Peggy.
I’d read the article CeeCee had sent so many times I knew it practically by heart, along with her text.
CeeCee Hey here’s the info you wanted. Lucia Martinez, 7 yrs old, died 9 yrs ago. I think I remember when this happened. Sad.
You owe me dinner and a movie.
PS He called!
NOV 17 2:15PM
She meant Adam had called. He’d called because I’d reminded him that he should, but of course she didn’t need to know this.
I was happy he’d called her. The article, however, hadn’t left me feeling nearly as good.
SACRED TRINITY STUDENT KILLED IN HORSEBACK-RIDING ACCIDENT
Carmel, CA—A student who attended the Academy of the Scared Trinity all-girls school in Pebble Beach died Saturday afternoon from an injury sustained after falling from a horse.
The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the identity of the student as Lucia Martinez. Martinez was 7 years old.
The accident took place in Del Monte Forest along one of the many riding paths maintained by the Academy of the Sacred Trinity Equestrian Center, at which Martinez was taking riding lessons.