The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,16

Certainly less strange than the man who lives in the house.”

“Juliette is thirty-five weeks pregnant. We don’t let strange men near her. I’d ban strange women as well, but we need you to babysit.”

“Juliette told me I should invite him in.”

“You shouldn’t have listened to her.”

“Is this the key to happiness in your relationship? She says something calm and rational and not paranoid and you ignore it?” Nora asked.

“So far so good,” he said.

“I swear to God I would slap you if I didn’t know for a fact you’d like it.”

“You could have called me. I would have come right home.”

“Cyrus Tremont is a P.I. who helps women catch cheating husbands and parents find missing kids. And he has very good Yelp reviews. He’s not a serial killer. I Googled him.”

“We do not vet visitors to this house with Google.”

“I do.”

“And we do not help P.I.s destroy the lives of our clients.”

“They’re my clients now, not yours,” she reminded him. “I don’t work for you anymore. And he wasn’t even asking me about a client.”

“Then why the hell was he here?”

“Because some priest killed himself last night.”

Kingsley’s head snapped up and he started to stand. Nora put her hand out, pressing him back down into the chair.

“Not him,” Nora said, rolling her eyes. As if she’d still be vertical and breathing if anything happened to him. “A priest named Isaac Murran. Apparently he tried to call my old number a few minutes before he shot himself. My business card was in his pocket. Tremont wanted to know why. The end.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth—that I have no idea who Isaac Murran is, that we’ve never met, that he’s certainly not a client of mine.”

“Did you tell him—”

“I know what I’m doing, King. And you can’t guard Juliette all the time. She’s a grown woman.”

“She’s vulnerable right now.”

“Obviously, she is not the only one.”

Without warning, Kingsley rolled forward in his chair and rested the top of his head on her stomach. “Help me.”

Sighing, she put her hands on the back of his head and stroked his hair.

“Do the thing,” he said.

“The thing? Oh, right, the thing.” Nora brushed his soft wavy hair off the back of his neck and found the two pressure points at the base of his skull that when massaged just right, helped relax Kingsley more than a bottle of wine.

These two spots, known in the acupressure world as “the heavenly pillars” were about an inch below the hairline and an inch apart. For some reason, no one but Nora could ever find them on Kingsley. Juliette had tried, plus two doctors, a massage therapist…even S?ren. Only she could “do the thing,” and since the thing needed done, she did it.

As she rubbed his heavenly pillars, she felt the tension in his neck and back and then slowly felt it leaving. Not all the way, but a little bit—enough for his broad shoulders to slump slightly, enough for him to exhale.

“Merci,” he whispered. “But don’t stop.”

“King, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

His back moved with his long deep breath. Nora reached under his neck and unbuttoned his shirt to the center of his chest. He didn’t try to stop her as she pushed it down his arms to bare his shoulders and back. She massaged his arms, his shoulder blades, ran her fingernails up and down his spine the way she knew relaxed him best. It was easy to be with him like this. They had been passionate lovers long ago. And they’d hated each other, long ago. Both passions had burned themselves out. Only the softer feelings survived the flames—affection, friendship, tenderness.

“I slept in a chair last night. Everything hurts,” he said.

“There are six bedrooms in this house. Why would you sleep in a chair?”

“There’s only one bed in the master bedroom. Juliette was sleeping in it.”

“That bed is huge. There’s room for her, the baby, and you and half the National Guard.”

He shook his head. “I had a nightmare last night. I woke up tangled in the covers. Woke Juliette up, too.”

“Ah…” She stroked his hair gently. “Are they back? The bad dreams?”

“For a month now, they’ve been back.”

“What do you dream?”

“They’re awful.”

“I can handle awful.”

Kingsley shuddered. “I dream Céleste is lost in the house, and I can hear her crying for me but…no matter where I look, I can’t find her. I dream men with guns come for Juliette and take her from me while she screams my name. I dream someone is trying to