The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,110
memnon—the owl butterfly. It has big eyes on its wings. And Papilio palinurus—the emerald-banded peacock. It’s the prettiest butterfly in the world.”
“You had your butterfly backpack on Saturday?” Nora said. “You were going to be gone for the whole day?”
“Father Ike said I might want to swim. I should bring other clothes. It’s on an island. And Mom doesn’t get off work until ten,” she said. “We could spend all day at the Dome.”
“You like butterflies a lot, then?” Nora said. Cyrus couldn’t even stand to hear her voice, she was trying so hard not to fall apart. He wanted to scream, to weep, to howl, to pull Ike out of the ground and then put him back in it.
“Yeah, I love butterflies.”
“So do I,” Nora said. “I love them, too. Butterflies are beautiful.”
Cyrus walked away, down to the sidewalk, and quietly called Katherine. He asked her to come down, no lights, no sirens, and to bring a female detective from the special victims’ unit. One who was very good with children.
Chapter Forty-Two
Nora sat in the rocking chair in the finished nursery, one leg curled up to her chest, one leg on the floor, foot pushing to keep the rocker rocking. They would be home soon—Juliette and Céleste and Kingsley—to see the nursery for the first time.
Céleste would squeal, as she did when she saw anything pretty. Kingsley would nod approval though deep down, he would have preferred pink or yellow walls to the blue-green they’d settled on. Juliette would gasp in delight. Nora made sure the nursery was gasp-worthy. She would wander the room, hand on her swollen belly, and touch the ivory changing table, the ivory cradle and crib, the antique rocking chair Nora had scoured the city to find. Céleste had been a New York City baby and her nursery had been in Kingsley’s old Manhattan townhouse in a room with red wallpaper and gilt-framed mirrors. The mirror on the ceiling had been removed before Céleste’s birth, of course. They’d made it as pretty as they could, but the entire house had been an Adult-with-a-capital-A oasis and there was no more turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse than a dungeon into a daycare center.
So they’d moved to New Orleans. A fresh start for all of them. For Kingsley, who’d made enemies in New York. For Juliette, who wanted to raise her daughter in a warmer, more welcoming city. For S?ren, who was ready to teach again after years pastoring in a small Connecticut church. And for Nora, who could use some space between her and the heartbreaks of her past, which were too many to count (but rounding out the top three were Kyrie, Lance, and Wes). Of course, she was up for anything, as long as she could be with S?ren. New Orleans? Why not? An old, beautiful, strange, arcane city bursting with sex and sin and jazz. What was not to like about it?
And it didn’t hurt either that the cost of living was so much lower than New York City. Twice the house for the same price? Sign her up.
They called New Orleans The Big Easy. Her dream city. But that evening, it didn’t feel so easy anymore.
It felt hard. And cold. And sad.
Nora heard the floor creak with footsteps. She turned her head and saw S?ren come into the room.
She didn’t smile at him though she wished she could. He said nothing, but walked over to her, then sat across from her on the window bench right next to the big stuffed ducky she’d put there for Céleste.
Nora pushed off the floor again, set the rocker rocking.
“How are you?” he asked. His tone was careful, like a single word might break her.
“Not good.”
He nodded. Waited. Then said, “Father Murran?”
“Turns out he was sexually obsessed with an eleven-year-old girl named Melody,” Nora said. “He was chaplain at her middle school. He gave her butterfly stuff as gifts and promised to take her to the Butterfly Dome on Grand Isle last Saturday. Her mother works two jobs and is gone from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays. He had a kidnap kit in the trunk of his car. He’d been looking for someone willing to castrate him—the chastity device wasn’t doing the trick—that’s why Doc pointed him to me.”
The room was silent for a minute or two, silent but for the squeak of the rocking chair on the floor.