But she did know one person who would know of somewhere far enough away and how to get her there.
Once her butt beautification was over with, Dree sat in the otherwise-empty sage-smudging meditation room. First, she prayed harder than she had since her confirmation when she was fourteen, and then she made a video-phone call.
The phone rang and then clicked, and a nun’s weathered face filled the screen. “Andrea Catherine? Are you all right?”
“Yes, Sister Ann, I’m fine.” Dree’s voice sounded choked in her own ears. “You said you could send me someplace where no one could find me.”
Sister Ann smiled sadly. “Catholic Charities are always in need of trained medical staff, and no one would pry into the past of a qualified nurse practitioner if I vouched for you.”
Dree said, “I need you to tell my family that I’m okay but I can’t come home for a while. I’m afraid even to try to contact them at this point.”
As a high school principal, Sister Ann was known more for her discipline than her compassion, but that public image was not everything she was. “Oh, my child. We’ll get you somewhere safe where they can never find you, and I’ll make sure your parents are okay.”
“Thank you. I can never repay you for this. I’m in Paris, France. I’ll need a flight from here, and I need to leave tomorrow.”
“I have a friend in Paris. I’ll send you to him tomorrow morning, and he can start you on your way.”
Chapter Eighteen
Cin-Dree-ella
Maxence
Maxence sent Dree to the spa for the day, and he wished he could have accompanied her. His back felt like a snarl of knotted ropes that pulled when he moved his arms.
Instead of allowing his body to be coddled in the spa, Max took some ibuprofen on Dree’s advice and attended business and personal meetings he’d already scheduled.
Early the next morning, Maxence would fly back to the Congo for more work with his charity in that region. He’d worked in the thriving, cosmopolitan megacities of Africa including Kinshasa and in small villages decimated by war. He’d seen the reckoning for the genocide in Rwanda, which was ongoing decades later, which was where he’d met Father Moses.
He met with Father Moses in a small room in the rear of theÉglise Saint-SulpiceCathedral to discuss his projects and the ongoing collaboration with Catholic Charities. Maxence saw himself as an administrator, but that hadn’t stopped him from literally taking a shovel and digging wells or raising the beams and doing the carpentry for new schools. Much of Maxence’s physique from the last several years had been built by hard physical labor, and he had thick calluses on his hands to prove it.
After they discussed the projects and progress for the last few months, Father Moses reached over and rested his hand on Maxence’s arm, a comforting pressure that Maxence had missed since the older priest had transferred up to Paris several years before. In a few more years, Father Moses would look to a quiet placement in an abbey or a monastery to live out his days in a more peaceful environment. He’d more than earned it.
Maxence patted the old priest’s hand with affection.
Deep scars crisscrossed Father Moses’s right hand, and a portion of his pinky was missing. “I am worried about you, my child.”
As well he should be, but Maxence didn’t say that aloud. He’d dropped out of his true life and the praxis he’d committed to and gone rogue far too much this last month.
Instead, Maxence said, “I am working on it, Father.”
He nodded his head, but his eyes did not leave Maxence’s. “I know you are, and that’s what worries me.”
They went over documents pertaining to the projects’ progress. Maxence’s family had been Catholic for probably eighteen centuries or more, since he did trace its roots back to the Italian city of Genoa. Indeed, in the year 1180, Maxence’s ancestor Grimaldo Grimaldi had been an ambassador from Genoa to Morocco. His family had preserved the letters between him and his parents, which they had donated to a museum. Many men in Max’s family had been priests, and some of the women had taken the veil.
At the end of Max’s meeting with Father Moses, the old priest said, “We need to discuss your next assignment. There is great need for your singular talents elsewhere for a few months.”
Maxence said, “But I have a household in the Congo.”
Father Moses nodded. “You’ll need to decide what to do about that, and that is another reason why I worry about you, Maxence, my child, my most faithful child.”
The texts flew furiously that morning because Maxence could not escape his extended family. There were just too many of them.
From his older brother, Pierre:I have made inquiries. I did not order surveillance nor any interference. Our uncle Jules sent people to Paris on a plane from Nice the evening after our altercation. I would suggest you look to him for answers.
Maxence could deal with his brother sending goons after him because Pierre probably just wanted Max temporarily detained.
Jules Grimaldi had good reasons to want Maxence dead.
