“That makes sense. Come on. Let’s hit the library. See what we can find about channeled speaking. Maybe he’s in an altered state, maybe he’s channeling demons. Hell, maybe he’s channeling angels or having visions. I don’t know.”
He lifted two fingers to his forehead and started to rub. I reached for his other hand and squeezed. “I’m so sorry.”
“Good God, Katie, you don’t have anything to be sorry for. I wish I had answers for you. Whatever this is, I think it’s important. Come on.”
He led me out of the room and down the hall. I hurried to keep up with his long stride.
“Important how?” I asked.
“Not sure. At first I thought it was nothing. A medical anomaly, maybe. I even thought that it was you. Exhaustion and wishful thinking.”
“You know me better—”
“I do. I’m sorry. But my point is, now it seems like it means something. Like Allie does need to be careful. She needs to focus on staying safe. And as for rat ... well that one I just don’t know.”
“Same thing, maybe? That Allie needs to survive? From what Father Donnelly said, that’s pretty true. She’s important. More important than we knew.”
“Or it could be a traitor.”
We were halfway down the stairs when he said that, and I stopped to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“There are a lot of new people in our lives now, Kate. We don’t know anything about them. Not really. Hell, the furniture assemblers attacked us.”
I hugged myself. He wasn’t wrong.
“Maybe we haven’t been careful enough. Maybe we’ve been relying on the fact that we have skills. But think about what we’re up against. If there’s a traitor in our midst, we could have a big problem.”
“But who?” The minute I asked the question, I knew it was foolish. We had a team of six who handled maintenance and IT stuff, though only one came in daily during working hours to make sure the computer and security system worked. The others worked at the cathedral but were on call. And all had been vetted by the Vatican.
As for the housekeeping, that was the same deal. A staff of four, all of whom worked during school hours and lived on site in the guest cabana behind the building. All had begun their careers withForzain Rome. They’d wanted to move to different locations, but they hadn’t been fired, they hadn’t left.
Soon, we’d have medical staff, too, but only one doctor would live on site. And they weren’t even here yet. Same with Signora Micari who would have two helpers in the kitchen eventually.
As far as I was concerned, the odds of a traitor within the staff seemed pretty slim.
I said all that to Eric, thinking out loud, my voice low.
“I know,” he said. “But can we really be too careful?”
“I suppose not.”
“Come on. Let’s get to the library. I want to get on the computer and talk where no one can overhear us.”
But just as he said the words, Mindy and Laura walked by. They looked up at us. “Are you coming to the library? We were going to go do some research on San Diablo. See if maybe we can find out if there is a gate.”
I’d filled Laura in on everything Father Donnelly had said, but I hadn’t expected her to jump into research-mode so quickly. And as much as I loved and trusted my bestie, I didn’t want anyone knowing about Stuart’s strange rat proclamation. Not yet.
“No,” Eric said, apparently reading my mind. “We were just going to get some coffee. We have some paperwork to go over.”
“Ugh,” Laura said. “Have fun.”
As soon as they passed by, I turned to Eric. “I don’t think it’s them,” he said. “But they don’t need to know yet.”
Once again, I was reminded of how well we’d meshed as a team. “Agreed,” I said. “Do you really want coffee?”
“No. Come on.” He led me back up the stairs to my bedroom. Timmy was with Eddie and Rita, so Timmy’s attached room was just as empty as mine. “You have a school laptop, right?”
“Um,” I said, but he’d found it by the time I remembered where I’d tossed the thing. Not great friends, technology and me.
