Mortal Sin (25 page)

“So Rio’s a pimp.”

“Of a sort, but he takes it one step further. He’s a cinematographer.”

“You mean he makes blue movies?”

“With a twist. Imagine this, Father. Imagine your darkest, wildest sexual fantasy. Imagine having the connections and the resources to make that fantasy come true. And then imagine having it on film so you can relive it, over and over and over. That’s what Rio provides. For a hefty fee, of course.”

Of late, his own wild and dark sexual fantasies had revolved exclusively around Sarah Connelly. The images were vivid and disturbing, and he shoved them forcefully to the back of his mind, where they belonged. “So he provides women for these men to have sex with, and he films it for their private collections?”

“Women, men, girls, boys, monkeys. Whatever. You provide the fantasy and Rio makes it happen. It’s like that old show… what was it? The one with the midget?”

“
Fantasy Island
?”

“Right.” Scott leaned back in his chair. “It’s
Fantasy Island
for rich, horny men. Film at eleven.”

Traffic in Harvard Square stood, as usual, at a standstill. Clancy sipped his coffee and digested what Scott had told him. At the next table, a young Asian girl was deeply engrossed in a thick economics text. A group of passing college students laughed and called out to friends on the other side of the Square. On the corner, a black man in his fifties was selling copies of a local newspaper that raised money for the homeless.

“How often does he come in?” he asked Scott.

“Whenever Pete has a name for him. He might come in twice in one week, then not show up again for three months.”

“Do you ever get a look at these names?”

“Never. They’re always sealed in an envelope that he comes in and picks up. Look,” the kid said, “I don’t know if the girl you’re looking for is with him or not, but if she is, you need to get her out ASAP. This guy is bad news, and a pretty young girl like that… let’s just say she could make him a lot of money.”

Still considering the ramifications, he said, “I had a visit a few nights ago from a couple of thugs who insisted I stop snooping around and go back to lighting candles and praying. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Not for sure. But I do know the minute you walked out the door on Saturday, Pete was on the phone.”

“So they might not have come from Rio,” he said, thinking aloud. “It could have been Pete who sent them.”

“Anything’s possible, Father. If you put Rio out of business, Pete and his cronies stand to lose a big chunk of change.”

Never in her life had Kit been shut out so completely. Rio refused to speak to her, looked right through her as though she wasn’t even there. She wandered around the apartment like a ghost, from room to room, without even the benefit of Pixel’s company, because he had locked Pix in the spare room. She knew he’d done it to punish her, and she told him so. She pointed out that it wasn’t fair to make Pix suffer for her sins, but Rio refused to listen to her pleading, refused to even acknowledge that she was speaking to him.

His coldness was brutal, and she wasn’t sure how long she could bear it. Eventually, she closed herself in the bedroom and sat on the bed, clutching Freddy to her breast and trying to make sense of his anger. She wasn’t a crybaby, damn it! She wasn’t a prude, either. Rio had taught her everything there was to know about making love, and she’d been a willing participant. But getting naked one-on-one, with somebody you loved, was a far cry from baring it all for the camera lens.

You’re either committed, or you’re not.

She was committed, one hundred percent. Or she’d thought she was. Nobody had explained to her that taking off her clothes was part of the package. Could it be possible he was right? That most of her TV and film idols had started their careers by posing nude? She wasn’t completely naive. Anybody who owned a television and watched
ET
knew that every so often, a new crop of nude photos would surface, shedding scandal on the career of some up-and-coming young actress. The actress in question or, more likely, her publicity agent would generally explain it away by saying the pictures had been taken during a time in her life when she’d been starving and couldn’t get a legitimate job.

Kit had heard it all before. But was the practice really industry-wide? She wished she knew what to believe.

I’m doing this for you, Kit. Not for me, but for you.

I think you have promise.

Word will get around that you’re unprofessional, and your career will end up in the toilet.

When bedtime rolled around, Rio bunked on the couch, leaving Kit to sleep alone in his king-size bed. Not that she got much sleep. Instead, she spent hours lying awake, with a hollow, empty feeling in her belly. Was her own judgment really that whacked-out? Was she a fool to hold her ground on an issue that was apparently no big deal to the rest of the world? Would Rio come out of his snit once he’d had time to cool off?

She got her answer in the morning, when he headed off to work without even saying goodbye. At that point, she realized he was fully capable of shunning her indefinitely unless she gave him what he wanted. She sat on the couch in front of
Guiding Light
, eating Froot Loops and wondering how to fix this mess. At mis point, it wasn’t even about the photos anymore. She loved him, and she couldn’t bear the way he was treating her. It wasn’t worth the battle. Not if something as simple as giving in would return her to his good graces.

So she would extend the olive branch. She would make a special dinner, and they would kiss and make up. Rio loved Italian food, and Aunt Sarah had taught her how to make the best spaghetti and meatballs this side of heaven.

For an instant, remembering those Saturday afternoons she and Sarah had spent in the kitchen together, she missed her aunt fiercely. Every Saturday, Sarah had come home from work early and they’d spent the afternoon in the kitchen. Just the two of them, laughing and horsing around while Sarah taught her how to cook everything from pie crust to corn bread to jambalaya. Female bonding, something she’d never had the chance to experience before. On those Saturdays, they’d declared an unspoken truce, a moratorium on arguing. It had been the only time in Kit’s memory when she’d felt stability, a sense of belonging.

Until now. She reminded herself that Sarah had long since stopped looking for her, and she hardened her heart. Now, she belonged here with Rio. Her man was upset with her, and it was all her fault. She’d been acting like a spoiled child, and it was up to her to show him she was a grown woman, worthy of his love.

At dinnertime, she set the table with linen and crystal, and lit candles for atmosphere. She dressed in the red silk lounging pajamas Rio had bought her, then waited nervously, the scent of tomatoes and oregano and garlic wafting through the apartment.

When she heard the elevator humming, she squeezed her hands together to keep them from trembling. She was doing the right thing. But still she was terrified that he wouldn’t forgive her, terrified of what would happen now she’d made her decision. Terrified of her own uncertainty in spite of that decision. She would stick with it. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

She heard his key in the lock, and the door swung open. Wordlessly, Rio scrutinized her appearance from head to foot, glanced past her to the table with its flickering candles. He sniffed the air appreciatively, and she took a single step forward. Trying to keep the tremor from her voice, she said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

For an instant, he simply stared at her, while inside she died a thousand deaths. And then he smiled, and it was like the sun breaking through after a storm. “That’s my girl,” he said.

Clancy spent twenty minutes in the shower, another half hour making sure he was clean-shaven and his hair was combed properly. Studying his reflection in the mirror, he smoothed an unruly eyebrow and decided this was as good as it was going to get. He brushed his teeth and checked his breath for freshness, then lingered at the door of his closet, debating whether to wear street clothes or clerical attire.
It’s only dinner
, he reminded himself.
Not a date
. He was accustomed to eating dinner at least once a week at the home of one or another of his parishioners, and he’d been mooching meals off Fiona Rafferty since he and Conor were kids. Never, on any of those occasions, had he worried about what he wore or how he looked. He had simply combed his hair, washed his face, and focused on the meal. In theory, dinner with Sarah Connelly should be no different.

In practice, that theory was pure hogwash.

He decided on jeans and a black Henley shirt worn over his clerical collar. Comfortable, casual, but still proper. The collar was a clear statement, although he wasn’t willing to examine too closely why he felt the need to make a statement.

The bottle of wine had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, something he’d picked up in Harvard Square after his meeting with Scott. It didn’t mean anything. He often brought wine to dinner. As a matter of fact, he’d brought wine the last time he’d eaten dinner with Carolyn and Conor. That bottle might not have been as pricey as this one, but he was fond of this particular vintage and suspected Sarah would enjoy it as well. Maybe a glass or two would erase some of the shadows from those beautiful blue eyes.

Dusk was settling in, lovely and fragrant with the scent of spring, when he left the rectory. He popped in a CD, hummed along with the husky crooning of Norah Jones.
Come away with me in the night
. He backed out of his parking space and shifted the car into Drive, his hand sweaty on the gearshift. His stomach felt hard, tucked up tight under his rib cage. This was probably a monumental mistake. But like the proverbial moth, he was drawn ever nearer the flame, and he was too stupid to heed the warning his instincts screamed at him.

He was halfway across the Tobin Bridge when his cell phone rang. Driving one-handed, he lowered the volume on the CD player and answered it. “Father Donovan.”

“Yeah. Father.” said a weary voice on the other end. “This is Sergeant McDougal of the Boston P.D.”

He began easing his way into the right-hand lane in preparation for the cutoff to Revere. “Yes?”

“We have a kid here that we just arrested for lifting a couple of CDs from a record store at Downtown Crossing. He refuses to give us any information, but we found your card in his pocket. We didn’t know who else to call.”

Half the kids walking the streets of downtown Boston had his card. It could be anybody. Or, he realized with a sinking feeling, it could be somebody very specific. “Do you have a description of the kid?”

“Black kid, about fifteen or sixteen. Looks like he could use a good meal. Got a bit of an attitude, but underneath it, he’s scared shitless. Sound like anybody you know?”

His stomach soured and his good mood tanked. Resentment, unexpected and vehement, rose up in its place as he thought about his empty stomach, about Sarah waiting for him in Revere, about the forty-dollar bottle of wine lying unopened on the passenger seat of his car.

He checked his watch. If he hurried, he’d only be a few minutes late. With a sigh, he clicked on his blinker and slowed for the upcoming exit. He would have to turn the car around and head back into the city.

“I know who he is,” he said darkly. “His name is Jamal.”

She made a point of wearing her oldest clothes, faded jeans and a baggy, moth-eaten sweater she’d inherited from her second ex-husband. She didn’t bother to freshen her makeup, left her hair hanging in loose waves. There could be no hint of impropriety, no suggestion that this dinner even marginally resembled a date. It was merely a gesture of goodwill, payback for a kindness extended to her. She made sure the house was well lit, the blinds wide open, so if anybody looked in, they’d see nothing more than two friends eating a meal together.

The jambalaya was thick and hot and fragrant, made from a recipe that had been passed down through three generations of her family. She concocted a salad from various greens, topped with ripe red cherry tomatoes, and she’d bought a fresh-baked loaf of crusty bread at the bakery two doors down from Bookmark. The pecan pie was her own creation, sweet and elegant, the recipe one she’d learned as a girl at her momma’s knee.

Seven o’clock came and went with no sign of her dinner guest. Sarah left the jambalaya on the back burner with the heat on low, wiped her nervous hands on a dish towel, and sat down with a magazine to wait for Clancy’s arrival. By seven-thirty, she’d abandoned her magazine in favor of standing at the window with the curtains drawn back, anxiously watching the street. He didn’t seem the kind of man to just blow her off. What if something had happened to him? He could have been in an accident, could be lying bloody and battered by the side of the road.

Or worse.

At eight o’clock, she called the rectory and left a message on his answering machine, then called his cell phone and did the same. Disappointment welled up in her, disappointment that was totally disproportionate to the situation. This wasn’t a date, she reminded herself, only a friend coming to dinner. There was no sense in reading more into it. The chemistry between them was unmistakable, but it didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that, had the circumstances been different, something more might have come of their friendship. The circumstances were what they were, and there was nothing left to say.

But, damn it, he could at least call. If something had come up, all he had to do was pick up that damnable cell phone that was permanently attached to his hip and dial her number. She wasn’t an unreasonable woman. She understood as well as anybody that shit did, indeed, happen. But she wasn’t a woman to be trifled with. She expected reason in return for reason.

At nine-thirty, she turned off the stove and dumped the jambalaya in the trash, flipped off all the lights, and sat in the dark with Patsy Cline and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. She didn’t often brood, but occasionally, when she had a mad on, she liked to throw her own personal pity party, and Jack and Patsy were invariably her companions of choice. Tonight, she had one hell of a mad on, and as Patsy’s voice sobbed and soared and sliced its way into her insides, Sarah took a long hit of Jack direct from the bottle. God help Clancy Donovan. He’d turned out, to her considerable surprise, to be a normal man with faults and foibles instead of the saint she’d imagined him to be. If he knew what was good for him, he’d already be dead, because if he’d stood her up for any reason less pressing than death, she was going to wrap her hands tight around his throat and kill him herself.