In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance (15 page)

Marco had said, “She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. If ever a woman could cause me to break my vows, it was she. But I didn’t and she didn’t. Still I have loved her all these years, keeping her safe from Donatore, and her husband.”

A love story and a tale of enormous trust. One that could destroy Marco’s chances for sainthood if it were known. “That whore of a nun was his lover.” Leroy knew exactly what public opinion would do to them. This must never come out. He would not try to find Kathryn Duane. The phone rang.

Tom’s voice came through the loudspeaker. “Leroy, sir, it’s Will Duane.”

“Oh, fuck!” Leroy never swore without grave provocation.

17

Protecting an Angel

“
W
ill, you must
have some news by now? How is she?” That raspy old voice again. Vanessa Schierman had taken to calling every few days. “How long has she been in that hospital? They must know if she’s dead or
alive.”

“She’s alive, Vanessa. Very ill. In seclusion.” Will was getting sick of being conciliatory. “It’s a family matter, Vanessa. Private.”

“Pish. Family
pish
. I’m
family, Will. The child practically grew up on my estate when you were off gallivanting. I’m Cass’s
grandmother
in all but blood. For years, I cared more about her than you did,
much
more.”

“How dare you say that? I’ve supported her through
everything
she’s done. This is the
eighth
hospitalization, Vanessa …”

“Necessitated because you were such a terrible parent and husband. You practically threw Kathryn at that monster so you could lally-lally around with your chippies. Except you sent her to a
real
monster, didn’t you?”

He hung up. She called back and left a message. “Don’t think I’ll give up. I won’t quit until Cass is sitting on my front porch, smiling. She belongs here, Will. I have resources too, my friend, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

What did she mean by that?
He poured a paper cup of water over his head and wiped his face with a towel. He was working out in his private gym again. The Indians were as annoying as ever. He’d taken to his quarters to escape. Carl did not consider his baring his soul to Leroy as being sufficient.

“You didn’t tell him you were jealous of him. Or how you want to get back at her. You gotta let him talk to her. And you need to tell her she’s doing bad. She’s depressed and not eatin’. That’s from not talking to her soul mate.
You’re
making her sicker.”

Should have fired the cheeky bastard.

Carl had stopped going to work with him. Stopped serving him dinner too. Damn bastards, costing him a fortune being there. Except they weren’t: the guesthouses where they lived were already there. They cost him nothing. Those who could work got jobs right away, not depending on him for patronage. They didn’t go on spending sprees. They even bought their own food.

Will felt so bad, he decided to call Leroy. He was one person who wouldn’t disappoint him.

“You found the priest I’ve been talking to all these years? That’s fantastic.” Will was elated when he got Leroy on the phone. At least
one
person in his life wouldn’t let him down. “Did he tell you where Kathryn is?”

“Have you been watching the news from Italy?”

“No. Why?”

“Fr. Tomas Bessagiori died last night. He was the man you’ve been talking to. He knew that you had sent me to find Kathryn. He had his brother take me to his room before he died.”

“Yeah,
and
 …”

“He died. He told me nothing. No clues. It’s a dead end.”

“How can it be a dead end?”

“Watch the news. The priest can’t tell me where she is because he’s dead.”

“Those fucking Catholics got her! I should have known when I found out it was a Vatican number. God damn it! I gave her a hundred million dollars when we split. Fair and square—half what I was worth when we split. I bet they …”

“Saved her life, healed her, and protected her all these years. I bet they’re all that’s standing between her and Donatore right now.”

That calmed Will down a bit. “Who
is
protecting her now? This priest is dead. Did he name anyone else? You said he had a brother.”

“His brother is His Imminence, Agapite Agusto, Cardinal Bessagiori.”

“A
Cardinal?”

“Yes.”

“Great. Let’s get him involved in this. I’m sure they got everything she had. They must know where she is.”

“Will! Watch the news! They’re rioting in the streets to get Fr. Thomas made a saint early. If people know about Kathryn, the press will be on it in a minute. If where she is becomes known, Donatore will be on her faster than that. He’ll make sure that
everyone
knows what she did, especially the Church. She did
terrible
things. Aldo …”

“Aldo?”

“His Eminence, the Cardinal, won’t come to her aid. Anything that hooks a woman with a past like that to his brother will destroy Tomas’s bid for sainthood. Twenty years of phone conversations definitely is a link.”

Leroy got back on the phone the instant Will hung up. He called the only person he could think of who could help him.

“I cannot do that. I work for Mr. Duane,” Hannah Herhman said.

“It’s not lying, Hannah, it’s not telling him everything. If he asks why you sent them out, tell him I was worried about security.”

“But his regular people …”

“I’m worried about
them.
I need really good people, Hannah. The best. The kind you know.”

“You say if I don’t do what you want, Cass could be in danger?”

“Yes. Worse danger. I got it when I was talking to Will. Kathryn has been protecting Cass all these years. Spiritually. She was friends with a saint, Hannah, a real one. Do you know what they say about holy people at the highest level?”

“No.”

“‘It takes one to know one.’ All you’ve done to save Cass, and all Will’s done has worked because of Kathryn’s prayers. I bet that she’s close to being a saint herself.”

“This is crazy.”

“This is not crazy. This is how spirit works. Like attracts like. Fr. Tomas loved and cared for Kathryn because she was like him. She was interested in one worldly thing: her daughter. If Donatore gets Kathryn, he gets Cass. Nothing we can do about it. There’s no one on Earth to protect Kathryn now.

“But me,” Leroy said softly.

“You.” Hannah was thoughtful. “Yes, this is true. You stand between her and hell.”

“Yes. I’m going to find Kathryn and see that she is protected the rest of her life.”

“Isn’t her prayer and vocation enough?”

“Maybe. But in wars, they always kill the holy people first. Will you do what I say, and do it fast?”

Less than an hour later, Leroy got a beep on his cell.

“Open your kitchen door.” He let them in.

The three of them were clad in black, completely. Not an inch of skin showed. No words, no introductions. They covered the villa, studying and testing. They unearthed bugs in every room, despite Will’s stringent security.

“Could anyone see in a box if I was sitting here?” On the sofa, where he’d opened the box and taken out its contents? A nod, yes. The crucifix. The papers. The tapes. And the black and white photo. “Can they blow the images up and know what they were? Or said?” Maybe.

Maybe. He had to get rid of everything permanently. “You brought the incinerator?” They set it up in his room.

The high tech and tiny furnace was easy to use. It rendered anything put inside to unanalyzable powder. The noise blockers they left were also easy to use. Tom could not hear him even in the same villa. The surveillance experts would stay nearby until he summoned them to take everything away.

“Tom, I trust you. I need to really trust you now. I need to do something; it’s a ceremony from my people. I need to make sure someone is safe. To do that, I have to go to a place where I go for a few days. It’s where a shaman goes.

“I’ll need you to take care of me, to feed me; bring me food, but feed me too. I’ll look drunk, Tom, but I’m not. Can I trust you to help me and not tell anyone about it, ever? Lives depend upon it. Can you do that?”

“Certainly, sir …”

“
Please Tom,
call me Leroy.”

“All right, Leroy, sir.” Leroy rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, Leroy.”

“Forget it. Cover the phones for me. I’m sick or … no, I’m in a Native American ceremony. A quest. Goes on for days …”

Leroy went to his room and rearranged his altar. It was set up on a wide chest of drawers. He carried it with him everywhere, packing the objects in a specially made case. A fine woven rug made by one of the women of his Nation ran down the middle. A small buffalo skull sat in the very middle. Hard to explain at the airport, but he wouldn’t be without it. Arrayed on each side of the buffalo skull were his pipe, a fan of eagle feathers, bundles of cedar, sage, sweet grass: smudges. An abalone shell for the ashes of smudging.

A small painting of the crystal eagle sat behind everything, leaning against the mirror. Depicting the eagle was impossible, but this artist had made a good stab. He and his grandfather shared the same totem. Not a regular eagle, this was the being that covered the thin membrane between birth and death. She guarded the Western gate that led from this life to the next. A totem of immeasurable power, the eagle appeared as a neon strip in the sky whose coming released brilliant light and all of God’s power. She came with a terrifying shriek. Those were all in the center.

He looked to each side of his People’s sacred objects. Did they know what they did to him, his dear friends of other faiths? They branded him; they separated him from his own with their sacred gifts and symbols. And their knowledge of God.

On the left side, he’d placed the Menorah given him by his grandfather’s dear friend, the rabbi who got them going with the Kosher beef. Next to it were three Stars of David, a yarmulke—skullcap—of white with gold embroidery, a flat symbol of a hand—the
hamsa—
with an eye in the middle to symbolize God’s protection and watchful eye. His prayer shawl was draped over his shoulders.

The rabbis wanted to convert him so much; they didn’t realize that they
had
converted him. They were his people. He loved them and their religion. It was his religion. “I’m an Indian,” Leroy whispered. “They don’t know we don’t toe the line. We don’t convert same as others.”

Leroy touched the ritual objects with his fingers, working his way to the other side of his chest of drawers. He wasn’t a Christian. His Grandfather had been a Christian. Jesus had come to him the first night he had been stolen from his family and band so many years ago.

Jesus had saved him and kept him from being so raped and abused that his light could not shine and he could not be the gift of God he was. Jesus stayed with his grandfather every day of the shaman’s life. Leroy knew of Christianity through Christ himself, who was visible in Grandfather’s every smile and move. But Jesus wasn’t the center of Leroy’s soul.

The lemongrass and sage owned his soul, as did the buffalo skull and the shrieking eagle that covered the horizon. His People’s ways and legends and ceremonies owned Leroy Watches. He was traditional, despite it all.

Leroy did not know why words of Jesus had poured from him as Fr. Tomas lay dying. He did not know why he prayed to the man who needed to be nailed to a cross to save the world. He didn’t know why Jesus and his multitudes had flooded in as the holy name came from his mouth. Leroy didn’t understand that.

But he had been branded by the soul of Jesus, the man Grandfather had loved as much as life. Grandfather was a soul that held all religions as equal because he
knew them as equal.
Leroy’s fingers ran to the end of the bureau. On the other side of his People’s totems was the smooth wood cross his grandfather left him, a Protestant cross with no ornamentation. Next to it was the crucifix left him by Fr. Tomas. The nailed God. The cross with Jesus’s ruined body hanging on it. It stood on a base, so he couldn’t escape seeing it wherever he was in the room.

As did the Menorah and Star of David and cross and this new thing, this nailed and naked God. He held them all and understood them all to their depths and heights.

Did his loved ones, the holy men and women of God who had gifted him so, know what they had done? They had converted him, all of them, even with this horrifying new cross. He was
all
of them.

He was like his Grandfather. A shudder ran through him.

Grandfather was 100% Native from an ancient lineage of holy men. A great holy man had picked him as a toddler to be the next Great One to save his People. And then he was stolen by the whites and locked in Indian schools, a lot of them. He was so smart; they wanted to show him off. And they did.

They made him into a preacher. He taught the Christian Gospel to his mangled People who stared at him through depression and alcohol, unable to understand how the benevolent Savior he preached about was supposed to appear and fix their ruined world. Grandfather was a perfectly trained white-man’s Indian, until he found out what had happened to his family and band and left the white man’s world.

He walked into the desert, intending to die, but was found by the greatest shaman of all, Great-grandfather. Great-grandfather nurtured him, taught him, healed his soul, and gave him his secrets. When the old shaman died, he turned the power of his lineage over to the master shaman Grandfather, the Christian Joseph Bishop, the hybrid who loved God in all forms.

Very nice for a sermon on ecumenical Sunday, but that wasn’t reality. Leroy had heard his Grandfather reviled—screamed at, hated—by traditional People because he loved Jesus.