The Priest (The Original Sinners #9) - Tiffany Reisz Page 0,85

the way she smelled and the way she tasted and that sound she made when she came against his tongue, well, this was gonna be a two-shower day for sure.

In the meantime, he forced himself to focus on the case.

He had an entire shoebox full of Father Ike’s credit card receipts and bank statements to go through, which he’d been putting off since Sunday. Nothing for it but to brew a pot of coffee, get out his yellow highlighter and his laptop, sit down at the kitchen table and get to digging.

First thing he found—Father Ike did have money. He wasn’t a billionaire, but he’d died with ten thousand in his checking and eighty-eight thousand in savings. Not to mention a 401K with a little over a half a million in it. Of course, if he hadn’t died, that half a million would’ve had to last him for his entire retirement. With people living longer these days, that could have been twenty years or more. Except instead of retiring to a condo in Boca, Father Ike had eaten a bullet. Personally, Cyrus would have taken Boca.

Very quickly, Cyrus figured out how a man making a priest’s salary had that much money. Living expenses for a priest were pretty low. He owned his own car, but it was paid off. Insurance? Eighty bucks a month. His credit card bills showed charges for gas, for a few dinners at some mid-price restaurants, tickets to a Hornets game…nothing crazy, nothing wild, nothing out of place. Cyrus had most of the same charges on his card.

There was only one large charge.

From August, $4200 to something billed as “HAFH.” There was a ten-digit number next to it.

Cyrus opened his laptop, and searched “HAFH” in Google. No way was he going direct to some creepy kink website without checking it out first.

Praise the Lord. HAFH stood for “Home Away from Home.” A house rental website, like Airbnb.

He clicked through to the website. It specialized in long-term rentals. Not for weekenders, but for people who rented secondary residences for months at a time. Vacation homes for people who could afford long vacations.

Cyrus entered the number from the card statement into the search box. It took him to a one-bedroom cottage on Grand Isle, Louisiana. Cyrus flipped through the photographs of the house. Not bad. He and Paulina might have rented a place like that for their honeymoon. A little yellow beach cottage on stilts with a white wraparound porch, white front door, small galley kitchen, and a great big bedroom with a king-sized bed that looked out onto the water.

Cyrus noted the bed frame was metal with vertical bars on the headboard and footboard. Nora had called it a “bondage bed.”

All right. So Father Ike had rented a romantic one-bedroom vacation house on romantic Grand Isle. But when?

According to the website, the house was booked solid from September twenty-first to the end of the year. With rental rates of $5000 a month in the off-season, that $4200 had to be the deposit Father Ike paid on a long stay.

Cyrus sat back in his kitchen chair, sipped his coffee. It had cooled while he was working. Furthest thing from his mind right now, though.

Let’s say Father Ike was about to spend a few months in a beautiful beach house. He would have told a few people, wouldn’t he? Why not brag a little about getting laid in paradise? But that’s what Cyrus would do. God knows that’s what Nora would do. But is that what Father Ike would have done?

Priests were supposed to be humble. They weren’t. Cyrus knew that for a fact. Father Ike never struck him as a show-off or a blowhard, however. Really, he seemed a quiet, responsible sort of man. Maybe a quiet, responsible sort of man wouldn’t brag, but he’d request time off. At least warn Sister Margaret he was planning to be gone for such a lengthy time.

Cyrus called Sister Margaret. She answered on the third ring.

“Any news?” That was her hello. Poor lady, he didn’t know what to tell her.

“Still looking, Sister.”

“Well…I understand it might take some time. Isaac’s sister is arriving tonight. I’m picking her up at the airport. Will you be at the funeral?”

“When is it?”

“Saturday at St. Valentine’s.”

“I’ll try. Look, this is kind of a weird question, but did Father Ike mention anything to you about taking a long trip to Grand Isle?”

“Grand Isle? Oh yes, he went there a couple weeks every June. Soon as school was