The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,37

told you about Father Isaac Murran’s death,” Cyrus began. “And that he called her minutes before his suicide. She doesn’t remember giving anyone in New Orleans her business card. Did you happen to give one of her red cards to anyone down here at any point?”

“What was the number?” Edge asked.

“My 3969 number,” Nora said.

“That was after you quit working for me,” Edge said.

“Right,” Nora said, nodding. “I had a different number when I was an Edge Enterprises employee.” Cyrus jotted that down his black reporter notebook. “But I quit working for him and went solo—stopped seeing almost all my clients but for a handful of favorites. That lasted about two years, then we moved down here.”

“When was that exactly?” Cyrus asked, though he already knew the answer from Nora. Just wanted to make sure…

“We bought this house…” Edge said, pausing to think. “…November, three years ago. Elle bought hers in December, same year. Yes?”

“Right,” Nora said.

“I’d guess you came down here to house hunt before buying the place,” Cyrus said.

“Of course,” Edge said.

“Any chance you gave someone down here Nora’s card during those trips?”

“I don’t know why I would. Trust me, this city has plenty of sin without needing me to import it,” Edge said.

“But you did, right?”

Edge shrugged. “I left most of my sin in New York. But I couldn’t bear to leave it all back there.”

“What about you?” Cyrus turned to Nora. “You remember giving your card to anyone when you came down here to house hunt?”

She exhaled heavily. “That was a quick trip three years ago. I was here less than a week.” She rubbed her forehead as if trying to jostle a memory loose. “It’s possible, I admit. But I wasn’t looking for clients. I’m trying to think if I met anyone kinky and exchanged information.”

“You didn’t go to any clubs or anything?” Edge asked.

“No,” Nora said. “Not that I remember. Although it is New Orleans. I might have had too much to drink one night and given out my number to everyone on Bourbon Street. I didn’t. I think.”

“Did you do any drinking while you were in town?” Cyrus asked her. She looked at him, lips pursed.

“What do you think?”

“Maybe you got drunk and gave everyone on Bourbon Street your card. Narrows it down.”

“Nobody called me after my trip down here,” she said. “That I do know. And if I give someone my card…they call me.”

“A dead priest did,” Cyrus said.

“A dead priest I never met in my life,” Nora said.

“So…either you got drunk—” he said, pointing at Nora with his pencil, “—and maybe gave your card to everyone on Bourbon. Or Father Ike went to New York, and he could have gotten your card from…”

“Literally any kinky person in the city,” Nora said.

“Great. Fantastic,” Cyrus said dryly. “I’ll ask Sister Margaret if he took any trips to New York. You ready?”

Céleste came running out of the house then with Nora’s big dog now wearing a hot pink collar around his neck.

“Much better,” Nora said.

“Come swim with me,” she said to the dog, pulling him by the collar to the pool.

“No dogs in the pool,” Edge said two seconds before Céleste and the dog waded into the shallow end via the pool steps.

“Out, Gmork,” Nora said. Her dog obeyed, climbed out of the pool, and promptly shook himself dry all over Edge, who took it with impressive stoicism.

“I never knew I could hate a dog,” Edge said. “But I can.”

“Bye, King,” Nora said. “Bye, princess!”

Céleste waved goodbye to them.

“Thank you, Mr. Edge.” Cyrus held out his hand, and Edge only hesitated a second before shaking it. As Cyrus and Nora were leaving the backyard, he saw Edge jump back into the water, swoop Céleste into his arms, and toss her squealing and laughing into the air.

“I’m gonna say something,” Cyrus said to Nora. “And you’re gonna forget I said it after I said it.”

“Say it.”

“That is one good-looking man.”

“Rich, too.”

“Do I want to know where the money comes from?”

“He had a trust fund,” she said. “Sort of. He used it to buy buildings in Manhattan in the ’90s. Sold them twenty years later for ten times what he paid for them. Oh, he’s hung like a horse, too.”

“We’re one-hundred percent done talking about this.”

“Talking about what?” Nora said.

“Thank you.”

Nora sent Gmork back to his doghouse, which was only slightly smaller than Cyrus’s first adult apartment.

“So, we go to Father Ike’s place now?” Nora asked.

Cyrus paused. “Once you tell me what you all were saying