John Jordan05 - Blood Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF Page B

“This is my Walden.”
    “No wonder you write such inspired books.”
    “Thank you. There
is
something to be said for the impact our environment has on us.”
    “Like spending most of your waking hours with convicted felons,” I said.
    “I can imagine that would be extremely difficult—especially on a man as sensitive and compassionate as I hear you are.”
    “Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said.
    “I don’t, but when it comes from a nun…”
    “So much for confidentiality.”
    “Oh, she would never violate that,” she said. “But it doesn’t cover her trying to set us up.”
    “She working you too?”
    “Since the moment you arrived. She lives certain things vicariously through me, which means lately she’s had a boring life.”
    “Lately?”
    She smiled. “Well, actually most of my life.”
    “No wonder she’s so persistent,” I said.
    “You have no idea.”
    “Every man with a heartbeat that comes through the front gates?”
    “Oh, no, I meant… She’s very particular. She’s just relentless about certain ex-cop, recovering alcoholic, wannabe detective prison chaplains.”
    “Wannabe?”
    A rustling in the branches above was followed by a squirrel as gray as the surroundings scampering down the cypress tree closest to us. As we watched, he bounced across the cypress knees between the trees like a Pentecostal preacher walking pews, and scurried up another tree farther down the bank.
    “And she told you all that without breaking my confidences?”
    “Actually, some of that I learned on my own. You’re not the only one here who can investigate. I have to hunt down information for every one of my books. Speaking of which, I want to help you investigate what happened to Tommy Boy. I’m curious, plus I might be able to use it in a story. I can be your Watson.”
    “As fun as that sounds,” I said, “I’m going to take Sister’s advice and stay out of this one.”
    Her deep brown eyes grew wide in surprise. “Really?”
    “Really,” I said.
    There would always be cases, always be distractions. I couldn’t keep allowing them to lure me from my path. They were becoming red herrings in my life, and like a young, untrained hound I kept losing the true scent—and my way. Since the only way to stop a destructive cycle was to stop, that’s what I had decided to do. I couldn’t continue to fail to live out my convictions and ideals and have any credibility as either a minister or investigator.
    “Wow, so I’ve lived to see the day when Sister was wrong about someone,” she said. “I don’t know if she’ll be happy you took her advice or sad she was wrong to predict you wouldn’t.”
    “You should turn over everything you have to the chief of police.”
    “Steve?”
    “You know him?”
    She nodded. “We went out a few times.”
    I felt myself pull back ever so slightly, and I wondered if she noticed.
    “Then you know where to find him,” I said, surprised not only at my tone, but how much what she said had bothered me. It was irrational and immature, but there it was.
    She nodded. “Shouldn’t be hard. He’ll be joining us for dinner tonight.”

Chapter Eight
     
    The tension during dinner was palpable.
    For the first part of the meal everyone ate in awkward silence. At one end of the long main table, Sister Abigail sat with Ralph Reid, a trim, rigid, early graying representative of the Gulf Coast Company who had come to look over the property. She was finding it difficult to be civil to him and she didn’t conceal it well.
    He acted oblivious. He wasn’t much of an actor.
    At the opposite end, Tammy Taylor, dressed modestly in jeans and a white button-down, was seated between Brad Harrison, Keith Richie, and across from Sister Chris King. Avoiding each other’s eye line, the three watched Tammy intently, but she just kept her head down, moving her food around on her plate with her fork. In fact, she was so subdued, such a different person, I found myself trying