Page 43 of Saint of the Shadows

“No offense, but you’re all weird.” She studied the stick figures on the legal pad, remembering Annie rattling off the possibilities of her research. She recalled the snickers and raised eyebrows of the board members. All of them thought Annie was a joke. All but one.

“Which one?” Marisol nibbled her lip. “The board.” Marisol dotted above each stick figure. “Dad ‘Stache, Jowly Paunch, White Updo, Fluffy Brows, and the Skeleton.”

Vincent’s expression tightened as if he bit into something sour. He was obviously confused.

“I gave them nicknames. They all thought Annie was a crazy drunk — except one. I can’t even see his face.” But she could remember the way he made her skin crawl and shuddered. “I just see his terrible smile.”

Vincent frowned. “We’re not jogging your memory well.”

“Trauma’s turned my head into a fog. You were across the room. Anyone stick out to you?”

He closed his eyes. “I see it now.” Vincent held out his hand, spreading his fingers apart. “I’m in the ballroom, next to the French doors. Whit is across the room at the staircase, posing for more photos. My board, who have names because they’re human beings and not fairytale dwarves, is gathered around your friend. Wentworth, Edward, Hillary, Francis, and Ruthven. And then? I see something strange.”

Marisol ran a thumb over her knuckles, anticipating a clue that would bring her closer to finding justice. “What is it?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Shining, shimmering, silver. The most amazing woman in a dress.”

Marisol crumpled the yellow paper and threw it at Vincent. It bounced off his forehead, landing on the table. “Do you ever take anything seriously?”

“It’s my board. They’re not exactly criminal masterminds.”

Marisol hit her forehead on the table, punctuating her frustration with another bump.

“Give your memory time. It will come back to you. I’ll try to send a message to Quinlan about your hunch if I can get phone service out here.”

She really needed to punch something. “Great. I can’t wait to sit on my ass and twiddle my thumbs while the menfolk figure this out.” Marisol exhaled until the last of her breath cooled her lips. In another breath, she might settle for flicking something. “If I could get to the city, I’d tell him. The man who saved you? The real Patron Saint? I know him.”

Vincent rolled his eyes and tossed his pen on the table. “If you want justice, the courts should deliver it. Not some souped-up cop.”

“Maybe we need to fight crazy with crazy.”

“If he’s so great, you wouldn’t be here. He would’ve saved you and your friend.” Vincent crossed his arms and tensed his jaw.

Why does he seem so angry at him? It’s not like the Patron Saint could control the whole world. In Spanish, she repeated something Abuelita said fresh out of Mass: Bad things happen because people choose to do evil, not because good people can’t stop it.

“If evil is a choice, where does good even come from? How do you know if anyone, including him, is good?” Vincent asked, confrontationally, sounding like Marisol after Mass without the scolding pinch from Abuelita.

As with any existential question, Marisol didn’t know the answer. All she knew is that the Patron Saint sure as hell felt good. “I know he’s good,” she answered with a purr. Her memory of her last nightwith the Patron Saint on the rooftop spread heat across her face.

“You have feelings for him.”

“Jealous?” Marisol gulped, wishing she could take back the word because, in truth, she wanted him to be.

He stretched back in his chair and tossed the yellow wad of paper in the air. “I can’t be. He’s an idea. It’s like being jealous of Freedom.”

She certainly wasn’t attracted to an idea, but there was something in the way she wanted the Patron Saint to reach inside her and pull her darkness to the surface—to make her feel like she wasn’t holding back. “I think I’m made for someone unconventional.” Marisol snatched the crumpled paper from the air and crinkled it in her hand. “I’ve never been good at relationships. Too much work, they say. And he swoops in, takes my breath away, and disappears into the night. It’s—”

“Convenient.” Vincent enunciated the t at the end. The sound of his elocution lessons in his voice had returned.

Marisol held out the ball of paper to him. He reached for it, and she snapped it away just out of his grasp. She challenged, “Magical.”

“Give it a few days. A week. He’ll be a nice story you tell yourself when you look at the sky.” He yanked the ball of paper from her and tossed it like a basketball into the bin across the room. “With no danger in the equation, you’ll wonder what you ever saw in him.”

“It’s not like that. When I look into his eyes, I feel that… spark.” Damn, she got swept up in some unchecked earnestness. Marisol looked down at her hands, wincing. She braced for his inevitable wise-ass retort. Instead, silence. What was Vincent thinking? Marisol peered up from her hands, her eyes meeting his. His gaze searched hers as he inched closer to her. She tensed, transfixed by the shimmer in his eyes. Was there something on her face? “What?” she asked.

He laughed, mocking and haughty.

“Go ahead. You’re not the first person this week to laugh at my romantically challenged life. Annie said—” Marisol pictured Annie laughing and waving a finger at her the morning after she had met the Patron Saint. She would never see those teasing eyes behind those cat-eye glasses again. Marisol’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Annie said I have a mask kink—that I’m into masks because I lose interest easily. She said that in a mask, he can be whoever I want him to be.” Laughing at herself might fight back her tears, so Marisol pushed out a chuckle that came out more like a defeated sigh.

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