Mortal Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

Seven than the woman who started this all.
    “It’s different,” Lily said. “My nightmares are all about you. And blood. And a voice.”
    She didn’t want to know, but she asked anyway. “What voice?”
    “He repeats over and over ‘Save Moira. Save Moira.’”
    “Do you know who?”
    The girl nodded.
    “Well? Tell me!”
    Still, Lily hesitated before whispering, “Father Philip.”
    Moira’s heart skipped a beat as grief—physical, overwhelming grief—hit her. Father Philip was dead. His body was buried in consecrated ground. He wasn’t talking to Lily or anyone. Because he was dead.
    Moira would never forgive herself for what happened to him. He’d come to Santa Louisa to save her, and then, he died.
    “It’s just a dream,” Moira insisted.
    Lily shook her head. “It’s more than a dream. He’s talking to me . He’s trying to tell me something important, I know it. I feel… connected to him. I can’t explain it any other way. He’s scared about something, and that makes me scared.”
    “He’s dead, Lily. Gone.” Moira didn’t want to think about it. The pain of loss still haunted her.
    Tears brightened Lily’s eyes. “His body is gone. But that’s all.”
    “You can’t talk to spirits. They lie. It’s not Father Philip!”
    Lily stepped back. “I’m not talking to him. He’s talking to me. I swear to you, Moira, I’m doing everything you’ve told me to. I can’t control these dreams. The more I try, the more they come to me.”
    Why wasn’t Father talking to Moira? Was she that vain, that jealous, that she thought that Father Philip—her mentor, the only man she actually thought of as a father —should talk to her after death instead of a teenager he’d barely known? Why Lily?
    Because he’d baptized her. He sacrificed himself to save her. He’d said she was important.
    Moira’s head hurt. She didn’t want the pain of grief, not with everything else she was juggling.
    “Okay,” she said slowly. “Okay.”
    “You believe me?”
    She didn’t answer the question. “Let’s go to Jared’s house. Make sure everything is kosher there. Then we’ll talk about what we’ll do about these dreams of yours.” She started walking toward the turn-out where she’d hidden the truck she wasn’t supposed to drive because she didn’t have a license. Then she stopped and frowned. “Lily, how did you get here?”
    “I walked.”
    “That’s like two, three kilometers.”
    “I’ve been walking a lot.”
    “That has to stop, Lily.” Moira turned to her. “You can’t be alone. Not out here. Not anywhere. ”
    “Sometimes,” Lily said, looking over Moira’s shoulder toward the ocean, “I start walking and I don’t realize it until I’m somewhere else.”
    “Sleepwalking?”
    “I guess—but it happens in the day, too. Like today—I thought of you, after my mother came, and I just started walking. I didn’t know where I was going; I just knew I’d find you.”
    Well, shit. Moira needed to talk to Rafe. And Anthony, maybe, if she couldn’t avoid it. If Lily was going into trances, that couldn’t be a good thing. And thinking that Father Philip was communicating with her? What if his spirit wasn’t at rest? What if he was trapped in the astral plane, dead but unable to move on because of some nefarious reason? If that was the case, Moira would bet her mother had a hand in it.
    Tears fell from Lily’s pale blue eyes. “What’s wrong with me, Moira? Did my mother do something? Am I always going to be so… so broken? ”
    Broken. That’s exactly how Moira felt.
    “I’ll find out,” Moira said. “Let’s go. This place is draining, and I need an energy boost.”
     
    #
     
    By energy boost, Moira meant a quad-shot latte at the popular downtown coffeehouse, The Bean Bag. “Bean” for coffee bean and “Bag” for tea bag, but the tea was barely drinkable. Though Moira much preferred tea, she’d learned to appreciate the benefits of espresso, even though she