Page 41 of Priestly Sins

“Zera?”

“Is living with Enzo not penance enough? Is knowing I took an innocent life not penance enough?”

“You tell me.”

Her resounding silence lasts until I break it.

“I can’t say. But you asked me what you do now. What do you need from me, Zera? How can I help you?”

What I’m desperate to do is run to find Sirona and see if she’s okay. Alternatively, I want to wait and let her come to me. I’m no second fiddle. I force my mind back to the here and now.

“I don’t know, Father. I mean, I came straight here. The cleaners are still at the house. I just needed to get this off my chest.”

“It was today?” I try not to let my tone rise or my panic bleed through into my voice.

“Yes. That’s why I wanted to know what to do now.”

“I didn’t assume you were asking for advice, so I’m sorry.”

“Of course you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t know what this is like, taking a man’s life.”

Oh, how wrong she is, but I’m not about to make my confessions to this woman.

“I’m sorry, Zera. Go in peace. And I mean that—find and protect your peace.”

Zera Calabrese wants her husband dead so much so that she was willing to pull the trigger and put the bullets in his back herself.

I keep my seat through three more confessions. I comment and “um-hm” and “ah” at all the right places. I keep my seat until the booth is empty and there is no sound except for my own breathing, no smell but the alcohol-induced sweats.

* * *

When my mind is calm,I head home, shower, grab my knife, and the silver doubloon. I disable the tracker on my car and head toward Petites Fleurs.

From the street, the shop looks less inviting than it has even since I first came here. And it needed a little TLC even then.

I loop around the building before making my way to the front.

The bells ring out when I open the door. At least there’s that. It’s a welcome sound after its previous absence.

A heated conversation abruptly stops and an eerie silence falls over the bakery. No greeting meets my ears.

My gut tells me something isn’t right. So I open the front door as if I’d left and quietly pad to the bathroom area.

“Thought you’d be saved by the bell, did you?” Enzo Calabrese’s voice is practically a sneer.

Silence.

“Answer me when I talk to you, you little whore.”

There’s a reply but it’s so faint, I cannot make it out.

“That’s better. Now… Where were we?” His loud shoes squeak across the floors, giving away his position. “Ah, yes. About Clara?”

When I hear the sob rip from her chest, I move. I’m down the hall in an instant and standing in Sirona’s office. Enzo’s surprise is evident and his body language softens from confrontational.

“Father O’Ryan, don’t you always seem to be in the right place at the right time when Miss Dugas needs a savior?”

“I don’t know about that. She has exceptional petits fours and they’d make a great Thanksgiving dessert, assuming you don’t like pumpkin pie.”