Saint's Gate

Saint's Gate by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online

Book: Saint's Gate by Carla Neggers Read Free Book Online
Authors: Carla Neggers
Joan Mary Fabriani. She was fifty-three. She grew up in Rhode Island but went to college in Maine and was drawn to the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. She became an expert in art conservation.”
    “Religious art?”
    “Any kind but most of her work came from religious institutions.”
    “What about you two?”
    “Sister Joan was never convinced I had a true calling to a religious life. She didn’t question my sincerity, but during my period of discernment—” Emma stopped herself, realizing her words sounded foreign to her. She couldn’t imagine how they sounded to Yank. “I learned a lot from her. She was open and honest in her dealings with me.”
    “Joyful?”
    Emma sighed. “Yank.”
    He grinned at her, dropping his feet to the floor. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist. I could see you drifting back to those days.” He rose and pointed again at the tear in her jeans. “Clean up. You don’t want that to get infected.”
    “It’s not going to get infected. It’s nothing. I didn’t even realize it happened until one of the detectives pointed it out.” She jumped down from the balustrade. “Anything else?”
    “Trying to get rid of me, Agent Sharpe?”
    “I just need some time to myself.”
    Yank didn’t respond. Emma didn’t have a clue what he was thinking. He was a hard man. A total pro. He hadn’t changed since she’d first met him almost four years ago, at the same Saint Francis of Assisi statue where she’d waited for Sister Joan to return with the gate key. Yank had been on an art theft case, tracing a connection to drug trafficking. Emma had helped. Two days later, he’d handed her his card and told her to call him when she’d had enough of being a nun.
    “I make my final vows soon,” she’d told him.
    He’d raised his eyebrows. “Bet not.”
    A year later, she’d entered the FBI academy. Yank had never doubted—at least not to her face—that she could get through the eighteen weeks of training.
    Now here they were, on her porch on a chilly early autumn evening, a member of her former order dead—because of her? Was her work as an FBI agent somehow responsible for what had occurred today?
    Yank walked over to the back corner of the porch, where a wooden easel was set up next to a small, painted chest loaded with art supplies. He frowned at the canvas clipped to the easel. “What’s that?”
    “The docks,” Emma said. “It’s a work in progress.”
    He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Your doing? You paint?”
    She nodded without explaining.
    He leaned forward and squinted again at the oil painting. “Is that a seagull?”
    “Actually, it’s a boat.”
    “Oh. Good thing you’re an art detective. You’d have a hell of a time trying to make a living as a painter.” He straightened and turned back to her, his dark gaze as penetrating and unrelenting as she’d ever seen. “So did you lie to me, Agent Sharpe?”
    “No.”
    “Which came first, deciding to come up here to pick apples or Sister Joan’s call?”
    “Sister Joan’s call, but I didn’t lie.” Emma tried not to sound defensive. “There was no need to tell you about Sister Joan.”
    “She didn’t sound nervous?”
    “A little, but I don’t think she was really afraid until I arrived at the convent and saw her.”
    “Then not telling me about her was a sin of omission, not a sin of commission.”
    “It wasn’t a sin at all.”
    Yank was silent a moment. “Did you assume this painting she wanted you to assess was a personal or a professional matter?”
    For the first time, Emma felt the sting of her scrape and the ache of her muscles in her legs and lower back. Her head was pounding. She looked out past the channel toward the Atlantic, the sky and ocean a purplish gray, the air clear, as if the fog earlier in the day had never existed.
    Finally she said, “We didn’t get that far. Sister Joan promised to explain once we were in the tower.”
    “What about this Sister Cecilia?”
    “She’s a novice.

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