The Priest's Graveyard Read online

  “Where am I?” I asked.

  He looked caught off guard by the question. “You’re in Lamont Myers’s house. In Malibu. And I think that makes you a very fortunate person. He seems very taken with you, my dear. You’re in the best of hands.”

  The door opened and Lamont walked in. “How are we doing?”

  The doctor straightened his collar. “She’s doing well.” He lifted his coat off an armchair in the corner. “Page me if you have any more questions. Liquids only for now.”

  “And the drugs we spoke about?”

  The doctor nodded. “I’ll call the prescriptions in.”

  “Thank you.”

  I saw the doctor only once more, the next afternoon, when he came to check on me. To this day I’ve never found any record of any doctor in Southern California named Barry Horst. I’m certain that he was part of the whole cover-up that would forever alter my life, and Lamont’s.

  The rest of that first day passed with me drifting in and out of sleep. With each waking I felt stronger. Lamont was the perfect gentleman, nursing me as my own mother might have. I was in my twenties and he was in his thirties, he said, and I never thought of him as a father figure. My initial attraction to him was undoubtedly influenced by his tender care of me as I came back to life.

  I started taking the blue pills that would allow me to break my addiction to heroin completely, he said. Two a day, just like the doctor ordered. My mind was in such a fog from all the abuse it had taken, but patience could have been Lamont’s middle name.

  It wasn’t until the third day after my waking that I began to wonder if something was wrong with me. Why was I sleeping so much? How long would it take to get back on my feet?

  Not that I minded being treated like a queen. I was in heaven lying in that bed, safe from life’s cruel jokes. I still couldn’t believe I was there, being waited on hand and foot when I had no right to be alive at all.

  But I asked Lamont about the daze I seemed to be stuck in.

  “My dear…” He tilted his head down and offered me a gentle smile that I was already getting to know well. I couldn’t help but smile myself. “Who can say what the drugs did to your mind. You have to realize that your psyche suffered a very severe shock when it shut down. Comas are tricky things. They’re hardly understood by the medical community.”

  He rubbed my arm. “The doctor says it could take you a year to recover completely. Let’s just pray there is no permanent damage.”

  “Okay.” I think I giggled then. I was so delighted to be in his company.

  Ten minutes later I sank back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  Mornings, afternoons, nights—they were all one to me, marked only by Lamont’s cheerful good mornings and how’s your evenings when he came in to check on me. We never talked more than a few minutes before he hushed me and let me rest.

  After several days, which felt more like one in my state, Lamont woke me and helped me to the bathroom as he always did. But when I came out he presented me with a chrome, wheeled walker as if it were a gift.

  “Hmm?” he said with a grin. “What do you say?”

  “What do I do with that?”

  “You’re ready to venture out. I’m dying to show you the place.”

  I looked at the contraption that would support me as I pushed it a step at a time. “Couldn’t you just help me?” I asked.

  “Of course!” He pushed the thing aside and rushed up to my side to take my waist. “Of course.”

  I put my arm over his shoulder and sort of hung on him as he led me out of the room. It was the first time since he’d rescued me that I felt the firmness of his arms. He stood a full foot taller than me, a really strong man who must have worked out daily. Two hundred pounds I would say. I’d lost weight, so I was probably only ninety-five. Next to him I was hardly a toothpick.

  He held me as if I were a delicate flower.

  The moment I stepped out of my pink-and-white bedroom I pulled up, staring.

  “You okay?”

  “Uh…yes,” I said. The house wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. All the walls were glass framed by brushed aluminum, so I could see through several rooms at once. “This is yours?”

  “The house? Do you like it?”

  “It’s all glass?”

  “I like to see where I’m going,” he said, then laughed. “Come on.”

  He led me down a long hall to what looked like a living room. All the furnishings were square, covered in black and white leather with chrome and stainless-steel trim. The walls were double-paned glass, each pane a full inch thick. Only the white doors and a marble-tiled floor appeared not to be glass.

  “You live in a glass house,” I said.

  “Not all of it. The bedrooms and kitchen are private, naturally. And my suite is one floor down. But yes, I guess you could say that. Let me show you the best part.”

  He led me through the living room, past a large black table on which sat a silver bowl filled with red apples, to a panel of black buttons on the wall.

  “I often keep the blinds down at night, but…” He pushed a button.

  As one, the white blinds all around us began to rise. Glass walls, from floor to ceiling, looked out over a rocky beach and an endless ocean.

  I gasped as the scene was revealed. Jagged cliffs punished by silent foaming waves rose on either side of the house. The sky was a brilliant blue with a few fluffy white clouds scattered about. The house was built up on stilts, and wooden stairs circled down to the beach.

  I felt giddy. Paradise was right there in front of me!

  “I take it you approve?” he asked.

  “Do I approve?” I hugged him as tightly as my frail arms could. “It’s beautiful! Can we go outside?”

  Lamont chuckled. “No. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “You’re just out of bed, my dear.” He cupped my chin when he said it, and for a moment we looked at each other. He was tender, he was masculine, he was wealthy, he was holding me. I wanted to crawl up into his arms.

  He kissed my forehead, then started to say something, but I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He blushed, then turned to the ocean. “Please, don’t do that.”

  I was confused. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “I don’t want to take advantage of you.” He looked at me, then took my face in both of his hands. “Do you understand? Don’t get me wrong…I…”

  He leaned over and kissed me. I felt a tremble in his hands as he gently took my lips in his.

  Flushed, he stood back, releasing me. I reached for the glass wall to steady myself, but he intercepted my hand before I could touch it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  We stood in an awkward silence for a moment. I didn’t know if he was sorry for kissing me or for letting me go.

  “Here, sit.” He led me to a white leather sofa, and I eased myself down. “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  An elaborate display of electronics covered the wall to our left. Seeing my interest, he went to it and punched a few buttons. Orchestral music filled the room.

  “Beethoven,” he said, turning back. “Over a thousand albums, and they’re all yours to listen to. If you choose, that is.”

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “Would you like to?”

  “I love the music.”

  “Well…” Lamont returned and sat down next to me. “I was thinking of something else. Where are you going to go? When you’re better?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “You could stay here.”

  “I could?”

  “You don’t have to, of course. The choice is entirely up to you.”

  “You mean…”

  “I mean you could live with me. Here.”

  “Really?”

  “We’d have to establish some rules. I don’t exactly lead an ordinary life, and I’m v
ery particular about some things, but yes.”

  The idea excited me more than I would dare show him. It occurred to me that I didn’t know much about the man who’d rescued me and brought me into his home. He was wealthy, that much was obvious. He was a beautiful man both physically and spiritually. He’d rescued me, and the monsters hadn’t made an appearance in his home. The very thought of leaving terrified me.

  “Of course,” I said. “What do you do?”

  “I work in international investments. My partner’s the devil and I swear that one day one of us is going to kill the other, but sometimes that’s the price one must pay for wealth. He’s twice my age and still has twice my ambition.” He chuckled.

  I laughed with him. “Does this devil have a name?”

  He grinned. “Jonathan Bourque. Used to be a priest, if you can believe it.”

  “I take it you don’t like this so-called priest.”

  “Former,” he corrected. “Let’s just say that he has his graveyard and it’s full of his victims.”

  The world was a twisted place, I thought.

  Lamont grew more serious. “Your living here might present us with a rather complicated relationship. It’s a dangerous world out there, and I’m obsessive about security.” He looked at me. “I told you that Cyrus would never lay a hand on you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have to confess, I might have spoken out of turn.”

  “He’s after me?” I was alarmed.

  “Not as long as you’re here. No one can touch you here, I’m absolutely certain of that. But short of killing the man, which is not in my nature, I can’t keep him from being who he is.”

  “But you talked to him?”

  “An associate of mine had someone approach him. To say that he’s upset about having lost you would be a gross understatement. Which is why I think you’ll be safer if you stay here.”

  “Okay.”

  A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Just like that?”

  I shrugged, and he shook his head. “No, you have to be deliberate about this decision. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m taking advantage of you.”

  “I would never think that. I like you.”

  He blushed. “I like you, too. That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “I’m not a little girl,” I said.

  “No. Now, that I do know.”

  Lamont stood and paced thoughtfully. “I’m a little OCD, you know. I have my rules.”

  “OCD, that’s like…anal?”

  “No, it’s more than anal. Everything has its place.” He motioned around the room. “The doors all have two locks and a dead bolt. The house is dustproof—no door leads directly outside. The glass must never be touched. I prepare my food in a certain way. To the average man they’re just quirks, but for me they’re necessities. Why else do you think I live so far out of the mainstream?”

  “I’m a bit quirky myself,” I said.

  “I’m gone for days at a time. I’m not sure you could handle that.”

  “I’d miss you. But you’d come back, right?”

  At this point, I was hardly lucid. My mind was spinning and I was overwhelmed by my surroundings. His cleaning habits and travel schedule were trivial compared with the prospect of living in such a wonderful, safe environment.

  “That’s not what concerns me. While I’m gone I would need to be absolutely confident that you and the house were all right. It’s just the way I am and you might grow tired of it. I wouldn’t want you to leave the house alone, at least not until we were sure the world outside those doors was safe for you. And I would need to know that you aren’t spilling beans on the floor or otherwise making a mess in my absence.”

  He looked at me apologetically as he said it, then he shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Sure.” I had no interest in leaving the house and I wasn’t messy.

  “Sure? You’re very sure?”

  “Are you forgetting my alternatives?” I asked.

  “True. But you might get lonely. Are you sure you could handle that?”

  “Trust me, I’ve had enough of the streets to last me a lifetime. As long as I have food, music, and television I’ll be fine.”

  “Unfortunately, I don’t have television. We could get it just for you. But my idea of controlling or messy might be different from yours.” Lamont took my hand and kissed it. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” I laughed weakly, not because I wasn’t delighted, but because I suddenly felt so tired.

  “Then I think we should celebrate tonight. Our first meal together, what do you say?”

  “Can I sleep first?”

  I did sleep, and for most of the day.

  That night Lamont bounded into my room with gifts. Seven pairs of white slippers, one for each day of the week. Seven pairs of matching cotton gloves, in case I didn’t want to avoid touching the glass, which he personally cleaned once a week. The gloves weren’t mandatory, just a suggestion, you know, in case…

  The slippers, on the other hand, had to be worn at all times. He pointed to the matching black pair on his own feet. He’d already cleaned the floor of my tracks where I’d tread in bare feet that morning, he told me.

  His antics made me laugh. Looking back, I think I may have fully fallen in love with Lamont Myers then, when he was explaining how important it was that I not step off the bedside rug without a pair of slippers on my feet. He was on his knees, pointing out my tracks. When I donned the footwear, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  We ate dinner by candlelight at a table overlooking the dark, foaming ocean. I had to keep pinching myself to be sure that I wasn’t on another acid trip. I even wondered at the possibility that I was dead and this was heaven, but I knew people like me don’t make it to heaven. Never have, never will.

  I ate bland food—bread and water and some peas, a little chicken soup—because the doctor said that my stomach was still too weak to eat steak. I had never really cared for red meat anyway.

  My mind was still foggy, but in a pleasant sort of way, like a soft pot buzz. I saw the best of everything around me, and that contented high was unlike any drug I’d ever tried.

  “Why did you come to my rescue?” I asked, watching him cut his steak.

  “Is that what happened? I remember you running out in front of me. I had no choice but to get out of my car. The moment I saw you sitting there so helplessly, obviously strung out, I knew I had to save you.” He placed a neatly carved cube of meat into his mouth. “I should ask why you ran out at me.”

  “The monsters were chasing me. They were telling me they were going to kill me. I saw the streetlight. I was going for the light, I think.”

  “Monsters?”

  I told him about them.

  “Well,” he said, then took a drink of red wine. “Those monsters can never enter this house. Stay inside and you’ll be safe.”

  A shiver passed down my neck. I was certain that he was right. “They can’t get in?”

  He looked at me with those big brown eyes—my blond angel of strength—and he smiled. “No. I see everything that happens in and around this house. I will always protect you.”

  If I hadn’t truly fallen in love with Lamont Myers while he made his case for slippers, I did as soon as he spoke those words. You might say I was easy pickings, but I wasn’t. He found me because I’d rejected Cyrus and gone on the run. Lamont had risked his life when he picked me up off the road that rainy night. The cost to him of finding and saving me was significant.

  Now he would protect me. No one had ever protected me before. As long as he lived I would love him, no matter how obsessively compulsive he was, no matter how strange his rules.

  He had many rules. Rules about touching the walls. And washing my hands. And eating only what was good for me. And wearing only the clothes that did not disturb him. And a hundred other laws, but more on that later.

  Lamont means “the law” and I suppose it was appropriate, but to me he wasn’t the la
w. He was my savior and he quickly became my lover and I cherished every waking breath with him.

  6

  One Year Later

  I CAN REMEMBER some things about myself but not everything. My name, Renee Gilmore, for example, is something I could never forget—how could I, after Lamont’s constant affirmation?

  You’re a beautiful girl, Renee. You’re the light of my world, Renee. I’m not sure I could live without you, Renee.

  That much I could remember as I lay on my white bed in the pink-and-white room. I also knew that I was in my early twenties. That I was dressed in the same checkered pink flannel pajamas that I almost always wore. That the one man who loved me more than I could possibly love myself would soon be home after a long day at work.

  There were other things that I knew about myself. I was no longer addicted to heroin. I never went hungry or lacked anything I needed to live comfortably.

  The thought that I might have to run down an alleyway to escape brutal men no longer entered my mind. I was safe as long as I stayed in the house. If I ventured out alone, I might not be so lucky.

  But that didn’t matter because I had no intention of leaving the house alone, at least not until I was ready. I hadn’t set foot outside without Lamont once in the last year, and I had no desire to do it now.

  Outside was where the monsters were. Outside was where the Cyruses of this world lived. Outside was where I was useless to my dead mother and father.

  After two decades of hell, I wasn’t interested in anything but this slice of heaven. Yes, there were some challenges. Lamont’s obsessive-compulsive disorder sometimes about drove me mad, I will admit. But his need for order and perfection was something I had learned to tolerate, then appreciate.

  Had he been any other man, one less loving, less tender, less caring and affectionate, I might have rebelled. Sometimes I was tempted to wonder what living with a different man might be like, but the thoughts didn’t last long. The moment he walked in at the end of the day, I knew my lover had come home, and any small price I might pay because of his quirks was insignificant compared with the love he showered on me.

  I loved Lamont with all of my being.

  A chime pulled me from my lazy thoughts. I jerked upright—he was in the driveway!