Devious by Lisa Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

Years ago. She dated my brother.”
    â€œYou look a lot like him,” Lucia said, fingers pulling the cape closer around her body. “Like Cruz.”
    â€œSo I’ve heard.” Montoya couldn’t deny the obvious, having heard it for years—the family resemblance ran strong.
    Amos held up a hand. “Okay, so let’s get back to your statement. Let’s see, you ‘heard something,’ you said. What was it?”
    â€œI . . . I don’t know.” She swallowed hard. “Something sharp. It woke me and I felt troubled, like I needed to pray.”
    â€œA scream?” Montoya asked. “Or a call for help?”
    â€œNo . . . nothing I can really identify.”
    Really?
    â€œBut you left your room?” Amos pressed.
    â€œYes, as I said, I was upset, like I’d had a horrible dream that I can’t remember. I knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep, so I thought I’d go pray in the chapel. It’s calming sometimes.” Lucia looked frightened and small, as if she wanted to disappear into the shadows.
    Amos glanced down at notes he’d scribbled in a nearly illegible hand. “So then you find the body, see someone leaving, call for help, meet up with Sister Charity, go to the office, make the call to nine-one-one, then run back to the chapel after waking the priests. Oh, only Father Paul. Father Frank was already up. Right?”
    â€œYes,” she said, nodding slowly.
    To get her story straight or because she was trying to remember?
    Amos scratched his chin. “What happened then?”
    â€œOh!” Lucia dragged her gaze away from Montoya. “Then . . . we, um, waited. Father Paul checked Sister Camille’s pulse again. Then we all prayed for her.” Lucia’s voice grew husky, her nose reddened, and tears filled her eyes. “Then . . . then . . . a few minutes later, I heard sirens and you arrived.” She took in a long breath, pulled the cape even tighter around her, and clammed up.
    â€œYou found the body?” Montoya asked.
    â€œI just told him all about it,” she said, looking toward Amos.
    Montoya wasn’t going to be put off. “So bring me up to speed.”
    She seemed to withdraw, as if her body were shrinking for a second. Then she gathered her breath and explained her version of the events of the night yet again. After the mother superior had answered her cries for help, she’d called the police, run into Father Frank in the cloister, awoke a sleeping Father Paul, and had returned to the chapel with the two priests.
    â€œBut you said something about seeing someone leaving the chapel when you arrived,” Amos interjected.
    â€œI . . . I think so.”
    Montoya asked, “You’re not sure?”
    â€œNo . . . sometimes I kind of sleepwalk, so . . . it can be kind of”—she lifted a small shoulder—“blurry, I guess.”
    â€œWait a second. Sleepwalking?” Montoya said. “You didn’t say that before.”
    â€œNo, I know. . . . It was different than that, but . . .” She looked close to tears and blinked. “Hard to explain.”
    â€œBut, in the chapel, you did hear a door close over the sound of the midnight bells tolling?” Amos persisted, not one to be put off by anything, even female tears.
    Lucia seemed flustered. And scared as hell. “It seems that way.”
    Not exactly firm testimony, Montoya thought. He’d never really known Lucia, though one of her older brothers, Pedro, had been in his class at school. What was it about her that Cruz had found so intriguing? Not just her looks, but a bit of ESP or something. But maybe Cruz made that up. Montoya’s younger and wilder brother had been known to tell more than his share of lies.
    They asked a few more questions to piece together the chain of events and time frame; then Montoya and Bentz left Amos to wrap things up.
    â€œPretty,” Bentz mentioned.