Chapter 3
THREE
Levi
“Oh my fucking god!” A whiskey-rich laugh echoes from the other side of the line as I explain the day’s events to my older brother, Grant.
I’m wandering on the far edge of the lake, a good distance from the convent’s walls along the shoreline, where I have a clear line of sight to make sure no one has followed me out here.
Not that anyone would. They’re all convinced I am who I say I am, to the point I start to wonder myself until I get a dose of reality through the phone again.
“Fucking hell. It’s funny, but I don’t know if it’s that funny.
” I curse as I pick up a rock to skip across the lake as the sun sets.
I miss the lake back home. The falls that pour into the river that leads to its basin.
The feel of the Colorado sun on my face and the sight of ponderosa pines and aspens rising out of the red rocks and scrub brush.
The memory is such a contrast to the hint of Alpine chill here and the broad linden trees and edelweiss.
They’re beautiful in their own right, but they aren’t home.
Speaking of beauty, this lake is breathtaking when you’re alone.
It’s so much quieter out here at this hour when the sailboats and the kayaks have gone home for the day, the tourists are tucked in their beds, and the wildlife has simmered to a dull hum as they nestle down for the night.
I took a walk once after dinner with Zephyrine, and I hadn’t known where to put my eyes, on her or the sunset.
I could see why the convent was built here.
Why the king was designing a castle to rival Versailles on its shores.
My brother’s renewed laughter knocks me out of my daydream.
“Oh. I’m not sure there’s anything funnier than that.
You as a priest taking confessions from nuns?
” He cracks up again, and I hear the distant tinkle of a woman’s laughter in the background.
I suspect it’s my future sister-in-law, and he confirms it a moment later. “Even Dakota can’t stop laughing.”
“Laugh it up. Both of you. Real funny when you’re not the one sweating it out in a tiny box trying to remember whatever the hell we learned at St. Martin’s when we were kids.”
“I’m sorry. I just… Did anyone confess to anything spectacularly devious?” he muses, no doubt rattling ice around in his lowball glass.
I can see him now, like he’s right in front of me, leaning back in his worn leather chair behind his massive oak desk in the offices above the Avarice.
Grinning at the way I’m being forced to play a man of the cloth in these austere conditions halfway around the world while he runs the floors of the casino from the safety of his cushy executive suite.
When I’m not moonlighting as a priest, I co-own a luxury casino resort in Purgatory Falls, Colorado with him.
It’s a small mountain town that my family has run behind the scenes for decades from our home at Bull Rush Ranch.
My youngest brother owns the ranch and inn now with his once-and-future wife, and my oldest brother and I have taken over the largest family business outside of it.
Ours turns a much bigger profit than the ranch could ever hope to, thanks to a never-ending supply of lust and greed, but they’re both formidable family businesses.
“I couldn’t tell you if they did. Confessions are private.” I play the reverential role assigned to me on this mission.
“Oh fuck. You have been there too long.” He groans, and I hear the squeak of his chair as he sits up straight again.
“I just want a decent fucking burrito, smothered in green chili. I would give my soul for one right now. That and an endless supply of cold ice water. I don’t know what the fuck these people have against good Mexican food and water that doesn’t fizz,” I grumble.
The food here is good. The little cakes Zephyrine makes are even better.
But it doesn’t stop the rumble in my gut that can only be sated with familiar flavors and a glass of ice-cold water from the mountain runoff.
“At least you get to enjoy the beer.” Grant attempts to remind me of the benefits of being here. There’s one particular upside I’ve enjoyed more than I should, and I wonder if she’s been using her rosary all day to atone for her part in it.
“Fair.” I launch another rock across the water, but it dips below the surface after three mediocre skips.
“Did you get any more research done in the archives? The stuff Charlotte wanted?” His tone turns more serious, and we shift back to the business at hand.
“Not today. I was practically snatched out of my bed by Sister Maria Teresa, politely instructing me I would take the English confessors today. She’s a fucking battle-ax.
I don’t know how these women deal with her every day.
A lifetime of it. Can you fucking imagine?
I could barely handle dad telling us what to do as kids. ” I scoff.
“I don’t think they have much of a choice.
Isn’t that the whole deal with them when they take their vows?
Something-something poverty and obedience and all that?
” My brother sighs on the other end of the line, and I can hear him filling a whiskey glass, the slow trickle of the pour, the click and roll as the cap slips back into place.
Just another thing I miss. There’s plenty of good liquor around here, more than enough.
But I miss the taste of home at this point, regardless of how irrational it is.
I have to focus on priorities. I can do my job from here, and what I’m doing right now is worth ten times what I could be doing in an office at the Avarice.
Besides, it’s not like I have someone waiting for me.
My brothers are both engaged. Grant runs our empire, and the other plays professional football when he’s not running the family ranch.
My sister’s marriage might be on the rocks, but she has a wildly successful career as an archaeology professor and a teenage daughter that’s smart as hell. Then there’s me.
I’m floundering by comparison. And in my thirties, floundering feels a hell of a lot like failing, even if there’s plenty of money and all the worldly possessions I could ever dream of.
Not that I particularly wanted love either.
That shit burned me before, and I’m more than happy to watch my brothers walk down the aisle while staying well clear of the mess it creates in your life.
But it still feels like there could be something more than this.
Especially now that I'm watching these women who have dedicated their entire lives to simplicity and service. They seem, at least outwardly, happy to be living out their days that way. I’ve been trying for the last several weeks to make sense of it.
“I suppose that’s true. I can’t fathom it. But good for them,” I mumble when I realize I’ve been lost in my thoughts while he takes another slow draw from his glass.
“And what about her?” My brother brings us back around to the real subject of the phone call, the one who brought me to this island in the first place.
“She’s good. She’s warming to me. I’m making progress with her.” I keep my assessment perfunctory.
She’s another little conundrum because, from all my observations of her, with and without her knowledge, she seems like a good person.
Every bit the perfect little nun she appears to be.
Minus a few indiscretions in the middle of the night.
None of which match the ruthless roots of self-interested pricks on her family tree.
“Still keeping an eye on her via the phone?” he asks, the jovial brother gone and the ruthless head of our family back on the line.
I installed specialized spyware on her phone through a zero-day exploit on one of her apps when we first discovered her.
It gave me access to everything, even the ability to activate her camera and microphone.
Features I might have taken advantage of once or twice.
“Yes, lots of interesting data.” I stare out across the lake to where the shadows of the mountains start to fade into the dark horizon.
Flashes of her dance through my vision. That melodic laugh of hers, followed by her sweet smile.
The way her nose scrunches up when she studies a book in the archives.
The breathless sighs in the middle of the night as she works herself up to—
“Like?” My brother interrupts again by pressing me for details.
I usually share everything with him. In a case like this, I always would.
I’m not just his business partner; I’m head of his security team.
There’s a trove of confidential information I have on her now from the things she’s shared with me, Father Levi, the priest, on our walks to the things she unknowingly shares with me, the watcher, who installed spyware on her phone.
But the intimacy of some of the things I know about her make me hesitate.
I’m guilty of cherry-picking the things I share.
If it’s pertinent to the investigation I’m conducting—anything to do with the madman she calls a father or his unhinged quest to obtain Caroligian relics—I’m an open book.
I've been quick to give them every single detail I find and spending long nights helping comb through datasets to find anything that might help us turn up answers. But if it’s just her, the private would-be college student turned nun?
I leave her privacy intact. For now, at least.