Author: Tiffany Reisz

He’d confessed this plan to Kingsley. And then they’d fought more bitterly than the day Christian took the photograph. Kingsley had gone mad with rage and grief at the thought of Søren with anyone else, especially his own sister. Any other brother would have been defending his sister’s honor, refusing to allow her sadist husband to tell her he needed to beat her if they were ever to become lovers. But Kingsley’s pain had been for himself alone. If Marie-Laure wanted pain, she had the whole world to give it to her. But Søren’s violence belonged to Kingsley.

He’d threatened Søren, threatened to tell everyone at the school that they were lovers. A foolish, idle threat that would have had no impact even if Kingsley had gone through with it. Søren’s trust fund had already come through. He and Marie-Laure were rich now. Free to go wherever they pleased. Kingsley feared that more than anything—that Søren and Marie-Laure would go and leave him behind.

Søren had stayed calm during the worst of Kingsley’s tantrum, and at the end, when he had exhausted himself with grief and anger, Søren had taken Kingsley’s face in his hands and kissed him. And the kiss had turned into something more. When Kingsley’s shirt slid off his shoulders and landed with a whisper on the ground, and Søren had dipped his head and dug his teeth into Kingsley’s collarbone, causing Kingsley to groan with the pleasure and the pain and the sheer relief of it all…that’s when Marie-Laure had walked in on them. And although her heart would beat for only a few minutes more as she’d raced through the forest…that had been the moment Kingsley knew she’d truly died.

“Of course,” he answered now, but wasn’t sure if he spoke the truth. Had Marie-Laure lived, Søren would have become a piano teacher and a college professor, and his calling to the priesthood would have gone unanswered. Kingsley knew that, without Søren, he would be a dead man. For over ten years after he and Søren had parted company, Kingsley had lived the most dangerous life he could. He ran from death the way he’d run that night from Søren—in the hopes he’d get caught and taken. Not until they reunited had Kingsley found a purpose in his life again, a reason to live.

And Eleanor…Nora…Søren’s Little One. She, too, would have had a comfortable home six feet under the earth had Søren never come into her life. Tempting, Kingsley admitted only to himself. A world without Nora Sutherlin…he’d almost like to see that.

“I mean only what happened between Father Stearns and me as teenagers. I have no regrets about that, even though now he’s a priest. And a very devout one.”

“But not too devout to be seen in public with you.” Christian smiled.

“This is hardly public. And he’s off now, likely saying Mass in the chapel with Father Aldo.”

“Ah, Father Aldo is long gone. Back to South America. He’s saving the soul of the Southern Hemisphere these days.”

“I’m sure the students miss his cooking.”

“We all do. Only Marie-Laure could make better creme brûlée. To die for.”

Kingsley exhaled heavily. “Perhaps that’s why she died.”

Christian pursed his lips and gave him a look half amused, half disgusted.

“You’re deflecting. You realize that, yes?”

“Are you a priest or a psychologist? I’m not quite sure which is worse.”

“I’m both.” Christian sat back on the edge of the kitchen table. “Master of Divinity and Psychology. PhD in Psychology. Priests have to be psychologists. Especially at a school for troubled boys. And it doesn’t take a PhD to see that you’re still deeply grieving for your sister. Every little joke you make about it is further proof.”

Kingsley nearly made another joke, but stopped himself. Christian was right. Why fight the truth?

“Bien sûr. Of course I still grieve for her. More lately than in years. Being here doesn’t help.”

“It makes it much harder to forget, I’m sure.”

“Talking to you helps. Admitting that I was in a large way responsible for her death.”

Christian shook his head. “I’m not sure that you were. To kill oneself…that is the gravest of all sins. To kill another is to kill one person. To kill oneself is to kill all people. Seeing her husband with her brother, terrible? Yes. Absolutely terrible. But to murder the entire world for that? Perhaps there was more going on.”

“More?”

Christian stood up again and started making a circuit of the small cottage. Kingsley remembered this habit of his. During study groups Christian could never sit still. He had to walk and walk if he wanted to think.

“A photograph of you and Stearns, the one I took, was sent to you anonymously. You take that as a threat.”

“It is a threat. The other incidents…they, too, have been threatening. Father Stearns’s childhood bed was burned to ashes. And a file was stolen from my office. The file contains private information about Stearns. Information that could ruin him. Not that he deserves that. If any man deserves to be a priest, it is he.”

“So you say and I’ll believe you. So all of these threats have to do with Stearns’s private life. And Marie-Laure died on that rock out there. And the threats…all these threats…”

“They all involve him, oui. We know that.”

“Who else do they involve?”

“Three people. The only three people who he has ever been with, and that is all I can say.”

“Only three?” Christian smirked and Kingsley caught a glimpse of the wicked teenage boy he used to know. “Even I have him beat there.”

Kingsley exhaled through his nose and stared at the bare wood by the fireplace where he and Søren had once huddled under blankets together for warmth on a bitter winter night. Kingsley had never before been so grateful for the cold.

“I simply don’t know who would dare do this to him…”

“Kingsley, I’m going to tell you something and I don’t want you to hate me for it.”

Kingsley looked up sharply at him.

“Tell me.”

“I hated Stearns. Back when we were in school. I don’t use the word hate lightly.”

“I know he was envied.”

“Envied and loathed. He was better than the rest of us. And no, I’m not saying he thought he was better than us. I don’t believe he did. He actually was better than all of us—smarter, more handsome by a mile, still more handsome by a mile than any man I’ve ever seen. He could learn a new language faster than I could learn a new hymn on guitar. He played piano like a god. And the priests here worshipped him. And when your sister, the most beautiful girl anyone had ever seen, came to visit, it was him she fell in love with and married. Thirty years ago, I wanted him dead.”

“And now?”

Christian shook his head. “Teenage hormones and angst. Now I can only admire him. And worry a bit for his congregation.”

“Do not worry. They are in the best hands. But what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that someone obviously hates Stearns. Still hates him. If they knew something about you and him, about Marie-Laure...if someone loved her even more than I did, and blamed Stearns for her death…”

Christian needed to say no more. The motive that had eluded Kingsley all summer, since he’d discovered his pack of rottweilers drugged and Eleanor’s file gone…suddenly all became clear.

Søren’s first lover had been his own sister Elizabeth.

His second lover had been Kingsley, a student when he’d been a teacher. Forbidden fruit in so many ways.

And his Eleanor, his true wife so much more than Marie-Laure, had been only fifteen when Søren and she had fallen in love. Fifteen and a member of his congregation.

“Christian, you might be right. Someone might have loved Marie-Laure, loved her enough to seek vengeance against Father Stearns even after all this time. You were friends with everyone at school. Who else was in love with her?”

Christian sighed heavily. He walked over to a small rolltop desk and opened the middle drawer. From it he pulled out a framed photo and carried it to Kingsley.

Kingsley took the photo from Christian and stared at it.

His breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t quite swallow.

A girl barely twenty years old stared at him from inside the frame. Nothing but clichés could describe her beauty—silken russet hair, copper eyes framed by infinite lashes, a laughing smile that didn’t quite meet those unearthy eyes of hers. She had a dancer’s graceful neck and hands, and an olive complexion just like her brother’s.

“Ma soeur…” Kingsley touched the glass with his fingertip. He wrenched his gaze from the photograph to Christian.

“Who was in love her?” Christian repeated. “Kingsley…we all were.”

SOUTH

As soon as they entered the guesthouse, Nora got on her laptop and on her phone. For some reason, Kingsley wasn’t answering his private line. She tried calling his assistant and got nothing but the cryptic runaround. Kingsley—he was just the man she needed for this job.

“Nora, let it go,” Wesley said as she tried Kingsley’s hotline again.

“He’s going to answer.” Nora hit the number on her cell phone again. “It’s the hotline. He always answers the hotline. I’ve heard that man fucking so many times, I’ve lost count, because no matter what he’s doing or who he’s doing, he always answers his hotline.”

“Stop calling him. If Spanks for Nothing died from electrocution or something, the investigators will figure it out and fine whoever needs to be fined.”

“But that’s Talel’s horse.” Nora turned to Wesley, who sat on the corner of his bed, watching her where she sat on the floor. “I know Talel. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less electrocute a horse.”

Wesley got off the bed and stood in front of her.

“Look, Nora, I know he’s a friend of yours and that’s great. But horse racing’s a rough business. It’s not all silks and Millionaires’ Row. It’s brutal and dangerous and messy.”

“But Talel…” Nora started scrolling through her cell files. Surely she had Talel’s number in here somewhere. She had to talk to him about today. She knew him. Biblically, even. He wanted to be hurt—that was his kink. But to hurt another? Never. She refused to believe that.

“Talel’s a millionaire horse owner and a kinky freak like the rest of your friends. He’s not a saint, okay? You know how you can tell if a Thoroughbred mare has been bred?”

Nora heard the barely restrained anger in Wesley’s voice.

“No. How?”

“Because the mare has scar tissue and visible stitching under her vagina. Yeah. Fact. They cut the mare open so it can take more stallion. Then she gets stitched up. Then cut again for the next breeding. Then stitched up. Then cut again. Over and over.”

Nora clamped a hand over her mouth in disgust. “You’ve got to be—”

“Kidding? No. I’ve seen it myself. That’s just part of the shit that goes on in this Sport of Kings. Your best buddy Spanks for Nothing could have lived thirty years or more. But either someone wanted some insurance money off him, or wanted him to have a few more wins to get those stud fees up there. You saw a horse, a pet. Talel and every other horse owner sees a dollar sign. Lots of dollar signs. Horses are just like race cars to these people. You crash the car, you call the insurance company and get a check. I don’t like it, either, but that’s how it is.”

Nora’s stomach tightened into a hard fist of guilt. “Race cars aren’t alive. They can’t feel pain. They…”

“Now you know why I’m not all into the family business.”