True Believers(165)

She turned away from the computer and went into the kitchen. There was nobody there, either, and for the first time since she had begun this nonsense she began to feel ashamed of herself. What was she doing, breaking into somebody’s house, and especially this somebody, who would surely make a fuss about it if she were ever to discover it? Scholastica could see the headlines now, from the pages of everything from the Philadelphia Inquirer to the specialty atheist magazines. The Housebreaking Nun. Sister Home Invader.

The hall next to the kitchen was dark. Scholastica turned on the light at the switch just outside the kitchen door and looked down into the dining room and the living room. Then she went down to the dining room and turned the light on there, too. On the dining-room table there was a copy of the Vanity Fair that had the interview with Bennis Hannaford in it. She went through the dining room and into the living room and stopped.

For some time now, she had known she was not alone in the house, but she hadn’t been able to put her finger on why. Now she understood. She could hear breathing, heavy, labored breathing, as if somebody with emphysema had fallen asleep. She felt around on the walls closest to her for a light switch, but found nothing. She reached out to see if her hand would hit a lamp on the floor or on a table, but found nothing of that, either. Finally, she just moved forward, toward the breathing, thinking that if she could just find out who was here and where they were, she could get them to tell her where the lights were.

“Hello?” she said.

All that answered her was yet more breathing. She moved forward inch by inch and then her shins hit a low table. She bent down and put her hands on the table’s surface and leaned across it. The breathing was closer now, but just as labored.

“Hello,” she said again.

Her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light just enough for her to know that somebody was lying on the couch. She put her hands out to touch whoever it was, to shake them awake—

—and then the lights went on.

They went on right over her head, so that she was blinded for a moment, and stumbled. She would have fallen if she hadn’t felt so desperately that she mustn’t do any such thing. A moment later, the form on the couch began to come clear. It was a man, apparently fast asleep, bound hand and foot and mouth in masking tape. Scholastica had the sudden, inexplicable urge to laugh out loud. What else could you do in this situation but laugh out loud? She even knew who the man was. She’d seen him a dozen times. It was Ian Holden, the lawyer for the archdiocese, but he was wearing a shirt and no trousers and he had on green argyle socks.

“Turn around,” somebody said.

Scholastica turned, and saw that Edith Lawton was standing over her, holding a gun pointed more or less in her general direction. The more or less was important. Edith Lawton was shaking, and every time she inhaled the gun wobbled in her hands. Scholastica wasn’t afraid at all. She almost felt as if she were playing a part in a soap opera. The scene felt unreal, and was unreal, and nothing Edith Lawton did from here on out could change that.

“Go and sit down in the chair,” Edith Lawton said.

“I don’t think so,” Scholastica said.

“Go and sit down in the chair or I’ll shoot you,” Edith Lawton said. “I should have shot him, you know. I could do it right now.”

“I don’t think so,” Scholastica said again.

Then she took three large steps across the room to where Edith Lawton was and took the gun out of the woman’s hand.

“You can’t shoot a gun when the barrel’s open,” she said gently, chucking the two bullets still left in the chambers into her hand. “What’s the matter with him? Does he have a concussion?”

“He’s a thief. I hit him on the head.”

“He’s probably got a concussion. He looks all right, though. We ought to call him a doctor. Do you have emergency numbers next to your phone?”

“There’s another one,” Edith Lawton said. “In my bedroom. He’s awake, though. I’ll bet he doesn’t have a concussion.”

Sister Scholastica blinked. “Another one? Another man? You’ve got another man tied up in this house?”

“He’s my husband. Will. He came in and I—” Edith Lawton looked around, confused. “It isn’t fair. Did I tell you that? It isn’t fair. But I couldn’t do anything about it. And I wanted them both to stop yelling at me. So I hit them on the head. What do you think of that?”

Sister Scholastica thought Edith Lawton had had a psychotic break, but she didn’t say it. She put the gun in the pocket of her habit and nodded toward the stairs.