Cold Betrayal

“I’m choosing quick and good,” Ali replied.

“As in spare no expense?”

“Yes,” Ali answered. “Athena will be the official client, but the billing is to be sent to me. I’m assuming you’ll have to locate some outside assistance.”

“Absolutely,” Stuart said. “I’ve been to Mi

“Okay,” Ali said, “if he agrees to take this on, let me know before you make it official so I can clear it with Betsy.”

“Right,” Stuart agreed. “The only way to make this work is to have her full cooperation. Do you know if she has a computer?”

“According to Athena, probably not one that’s up to date. I understand Betsy has Wi-Fi in the house that may not be functioning at this point. She most likely discontinued the account once Athena moved here.”

“We need to find out for sure,” Stuart said.

“Talk to Athena,” Ali advised. “She’ll be able to tell you what you need to know.”

“The thing is,” Stuart cautioned, “most ordinary computers won’t have the kinds of advanced electronic capabilities we’ll need.”

“You have carte blanche,” Ali assured him. “Plan on getting whatever we need to do the job right.”

“Okay,” Stuart said. “Will do.”

Ali’s call waiting buzzed. “Get back to me, please, Stuart. I’ve got another call.”

Ali switched over. “Any room in the i

Sister Anselm, a Sister of Providence, was also Ali’s best friend and had served as Ali’s matron of honor at B. and Ali’s Christmas Eve wedding at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas. It had taken a special dispensation from the mother superior at St. Bernadette’s, Sister Anselm’s convent in Jerome, for Sister Anselm to be absent from the convent on Christmas Eve.

When she wasn’t at home in Jerome, Sister Anselm often operated as a special emissary for Bishop Francis Gillespie, head of the Catholic diocese in Phoenix, who for the past dozen or so years had routinely dispatched Sister Anselm to hospitals all over Arizona where she served as patient advocate to mostly impoverished people who had no one else to intercede on their behalf.

“Of course,” Ali said. “We always have a spare bed for you. What’s going on?”

“I’m still here in Jerome dealing with construction issues,” Sister Anselm explained. “I have to be in Flagstaff for a meeting early tomorrow morning. With a storm blowing in, I don’t want to be driving back and forth to Payson in ice and snow.”

St. Bernadette’s had been built by the Sisters of Charity in conjunction with a parochial school in the early 1900s while Jerome was still a thriving mining community. When the mines shut down, so did the school. After lying dormant for a number of decades, the convent had been reopened by the Sisters of Providence as an R&R center and retreat house for nuns from any number of orders who needed a place of quiet contemplation and respite where they could recover their mental and spiritual equilibrium.

The programs offered at St. Bernadette’s, many of them facilitated by Sister Anselm, may have been up to the minute, but the physical plant itself, now over a hundred years old, was falling down around the sisters’ ears. Months earlier, a building inspector had threatened to red flag the convent and throw the resident nuns out into the street.

At the time, B. Simpson had been worried about a badly injured teenager who had come to his attention. The kid, Lance Tucker, was a talented hacker. He was hospitalized in Texas having already survived one failed homicide attempt. Fearing another, B. had negotiated a treaty with his friend Bishop Gillespie. In exchange for sending Sister Anselm to Texas to look after Lance, B. had agreed to tackle the daunting project of bringing St. Bernadette’s into the twenty-first century. Since Sister Anselm had already established a close working relationship with B., the mother superior, Sister Justine, had appointed Sister Anselm to serve as construction supervisor for the convent’s complex remodeling project.

Rehab work had been scheduled to begin in early January. The nuns from St. Bernadette’s had decamped to a diocese-operated retreat in Payson in order to be out of the way. The facility in Payson, usually open only during the summer months, was a camp of sorts where priests from Phoenix could go to escape the valley’s all-consuming heat.

The displaced sisters from St. Bernadette’s had anticipated that their stay in Payson would last for no more than a matter of weeks. But that time period had already stretched into months. Delays with obtaining building permits had postponed work for nearly a month, and construction had only now finally begun. In the meantime, the nuns were shivering their nights away in flimsy cabins never designed for wintertime occupancy.

Ali had driven the almost eighty-mile route from Jerome to Payson many times. The fifty miles on the far side of Camp Verde were dicey under the best of circumstances. Snow and ice could make those miles downright treacherous. And then to have to turn around and reverse course the next morning to drive all the way to Flagstaff? No wonder Sister Anselm wanted to stay over.

“You’re in luck,” Ali told her. “Mr. Brooks looked at the weather forecast last night and told me that if a winter storm was coming through, today would be a ‘cassoulet kind of day.’ ”

“Cassoulet, really?” Sister Anselm asked. “You know what a treat that is!”

Although Sister Anselm had been born in the United States, she had spent decades of her life living in a small convent in France. Ali already knew that Leland Brooks’s cassoulet was one of the good sister’s all-time favorite meals.

“I’ll go out to the kitchen right now and ask him to set another place,” Ali told her. “When will you be here?”

“In about an hour,” Sister Anselm answered. “The snow is due to start any minute. I want to be off the mountain before that happens.”

The mountain in question was Mingus Mountain, which marked the far western end of the Verde Valley.

Once off the phone, Ali headed straight to the kitchen. Leland Brooks greeted her news about their unexpected guest with a confident grin.

“In that case,” he said, “I’d best set about mixing up a batch of corn bread to go along with the cassoulet. As I recall, the last time Sister Anselm had some of that, she referred to it as ‘heavenly.’ ”

“That’s because it is,” Ali assured him.

“And I’ll set the dining room table for two, then,” he added.

When Ali and Leland were at home alone, she often joined Leland in the kitchen at mealtimes, but she knew his sense of decorum would preclude serving company there.

“I hope you’ll join us,” Ali said.

“No, thank you,” Leland replied. “Will you be having wine?”

“Sister Anselm is partial to Côtes du Rhône Villages,” Ali answered.

“Very well,” Leland nodded. “I’ve had my eye on a particular bottle of a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I’ll bring that one in from the wine cellar.”

With that settled, Ali ushered Bella outside for a walk. They had installed a fully fenced dog run outside the back door and a doggie door as well. The latter Bella stubbornly refused to use. She no longer had to be on a leash to do her duty outside, but she needed someone outside with her holding a leash even if it wasn’t attached to her. It was a

Back in the house, Ali returned to the library and cleared her desk, then she went to her room and changed out of her sweats into something a little dressier. When the doorbell rang, Bella and Leland went to answer it. By the time Leland escorted Sister Anselm into the library, Ali was there as well, seated in front of the fire, with a copy of Pride and Prejudice open on her lap.