I climbed the oval staircase, turning left and up. The ominous echo of old brick underneath my soles made the hairs on my nape stand tall. The lightbulb on the next level flickered, and I focused on the shifting shadow of the steps ahead of me. I wasn’t one to get scared easily, but even I was having trouble keeping my cool. I wondered how many people had passed this way before me. I touched the railing at the side and felt old dust transfer to my palms.

When I finally reached the top, I felt like I was in another world, and behind the wooden door I’d find Sleeping Beauty. I twisted the metal key in its lock and pushed the door open. The smell of age-old wood and paper, moss and musk overpowered the room. Across the attic, daylight shone through a single window, casting its perfect hologram in the disturbed dust.

I didn’t have to venture far to realize the task ahead of me. As I stared at the lines of cabinets, stacks of boxes, and stray papers everywhere, I was afraid that I’d need more than two lifetimes to find this… grain of sand in the middle of the universe.

The sound of footsteps shook the living ghost out of me, and for a moment I thought I was seeing a ghost, but then the shadow of a familiarly beautiful silhouette pushed up into the attic. It looked like my sleeping beauty was coming upstairs.

“Father Cameron?” Her voice stirred something inside of me, and my mind immediately flew to this morning when I’d seen her standing in that kitchen, completely soaked.

“Up here,” I called out, and then blew a breath of air over my face. The heat in this attic was squeezing the sweat out of my back.

A moment later, she stepped through the door. Dressed in tight jeans and a similar white t-shirt to the one she’d lent me, Kate took my breath away.

“You didn’t bring a flashlight?” I asked.

“No, but it looks like I should have. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“I’m just about to start, but I’m not really sure where the hell to start.”

She gasped.

“I’m sorry. It’s a joke. I didn’t mean real hell.” By the time I realized my choice of words, it was already too late. Kate was looking at me like she didn’t recognize me. She was looking at me as if I were a man, not a priest – and that was dangerous.

“Oh, I’m not that good at church jokes,” she said.

“Unless you have a tequila, right?”

“Now that one was funny.” She laughed and then crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing them. “I wish I could say I was here with no ulterior motive, but that would be a lie.”

Ulterior motive? That sounded more like a temptation.

“There’s a lot of dust here. You’re going to get dirty,” I said. “What’s the ulterior motive?”

“I’ve never been afraid of a little dirt.” She pulled her hand across her cheek, drawing a long smudge as she did so. Kate must have touched the dusty railing on her way up. She couldn’t have realized how cute she looked at the moment. I put my hands on my hips and once more scanned the long rows of cupboards.

“I just found out that my mother used to live in Pace,” she said, surprising me by the comment.

“And you didn’t know this before?”

“My mother never talked about her past. She never talked about my childhood, either, and there’s no record of her in the office files.”

“Wait – so you’re not originally from Pace?”

“No, of course not.”

“Where are you from, then?” I already knew the answer from my brother, but I wanted to hear it from her. “And if you didn’t know this was your mother’s home town, why are you here? Sorry. That sounded rude.”

“It’s all right. When my mother fell ill she also lost 99.999 percent of her speech capabilities. The only thing she said was ‘Jack Pace.’ You wouldn’t happen to know a Jack in this town, would you? Because I’ve looked everywhere.”

I shook my head. In a matter of five minutes, Kate had managed to derail my mission to find a clue about where the Cortez family could have moved to.

“I just want to make her happy, you know. It must be important if she keeps repeating his name. Well, at first I thought it was a man by the name of Jack Pace, but I’ve pretty much covered all of the country searching for him, and I couldn’t find him. Thinking that maybe she was talking about a man by the name of Jack, from the town of Pace, that’s how I got here.”

“That’s a pretty long shot.” I knew exactly what searching for someone felt like, but even I had a bigger lead on the woman we needed to find than Kate had on someone by the name of Jack.

“Oh, yeah? Then why does Father John have my mother’s picture in his bedroom? My mother was from Pace. There’s no question about it.” She bulged her eyes out at me.

“Really? That’s a coincidence.”

“No. That’s not a coincidence. Why wouldn’t she have told me about this place before? I feel stupid that it took me so long to figure it out.”

I could find a very good reason someone would want to forget about this town, and his name was Cortez.

“So where did you move from?” I asked again. “Brook mentioned you’re from the East Coast.”

“Originally Montana. I moved to Long Island for work, and now I’m on a personal leave, four months into looking for Jack Pace. I’m not doing that great, by the way, because I haven’t found any trace of him yet.”

I could stand there and listen to her talk all evening. It was… captivating.

“Well, given how Father John has her picture, do you think your mother could have meant John from Pace?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m sure she said Jack.”

“What are you going to do when you find Jack?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead. I’m assuming he’ll know my mother, so maybe he’ll give me the answers I’m looking for.”

“Well, let’s dig in, then.” I moved over to the first file cabinet and pulled it open. Disturbed dust swirled in the air, forcing a few coughs out of me. I didn’t notice when Kate stepped up behind me until I caught her alarmingly arousing scent.

“Wait. I know what I’m looking for; but what are you looking for? You mentioned older records?”

When I turned around and saw her standing in a ribbon of light, I lost my thoughts. She looked stunning. “I want to acquaint myself with the town’s history and organize these records.”

Did Kate just shiver? Her skin was peppered with goosebumps. She stepped sideways and pulled out another drawer. “I’ll start with this one, then.”

Dust floated around her and she looked more beautiful than ever. I reached inside the top drawer of the cabinet in front of me and skimmed my fingers over the files. “It doesn’t look like it’s organized by year.” I pulled my fingers across the second row. “And not by last name either.”

“Well, two pairs of eyes are better than one, right?” She smiled. “How about you let me know when you find the W’s? What letter are you looking for?”

“C’s. That sounds like a good plan, detective.”

“What?”

“I said, sounds like a plan, detective.”

“I heard what you said, but why would you say that?”

“I don’t know, it’s just a figure of speech.” I leaned my head to the side, scanning her shocked face. “Kate, were you a detective on Long Island? Because your search for Jack Pace would make a lot of sense then.”

She sidestepped nervously as if contemplating whether she should answer me.

“Yeah, I am. Or I was. I’m not sure if I want to go back. I know I’m not ready now and… it’s just that… there’s just a lot to think about before I make the decision.”

“And you chose to spend your time in a dark attic with a priest, searching through thousands of files.”

“Can’t think of a better place to be. You know, I’m glad you’re doing this.”

“You are?”

“Yes, I always tell everyone that this parish looks out for them. I mean, Father John is always telling the kids stories of good winning over evil and small people taking down armies. He never loses hope. That’s part of the reason I became a detective. We can’t ever lose hope.”

“I never want to lose hope either. What else does he say?” Maybe I should have had a longer chat with him? Maybe he was my key to finding Cortez. Thankfully Kate was feeling quite talkative today.

“He mentioned the mafia, drugs, violence, and sex trafficking. Right here in Pace. Can you believe that?”

When I caught her gaze, her mouth opened by a fraction, like she was trying to solve a mystery. Again, the level of her cuteness had no limits.

“Where have they all gone?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” I answered honestly.

“Is there a specific last name I should be looking for?” she asked.

The name was a popular in the southern states; I couldn’t see any harm in allowing Kate to help me.

“Cortez.”

She stilled.

“You know a Cortez?” I asked.

“I used to go to school with a girl…” Her gaze shifted from left to right, then back left again. If I were a betting man, I’d say that she was lying.

“What was her name?”

“Sara. Sara Cortez.”

“You wouldn’t be lying to a priest, now, would you?”

“No, of course not, Father.”

I hadn’t used the priest card before, and now I was ashamed that I had. Kate was one of the most honest women I’d ever met, and her care for those around her truly came from the heart. Yet when I looked at her, something wasn’t right. She no longer appeared as eager to help as she had been before.

“You came across the name in your detective work?” I asked, and she nodded.

“I’m sorry I lied about Sara. It’s just… the Cortez family is dangerous, Father.”

If there was anyone aware of the danger, it was me; and Kate was the last person I wanted to tangle into my mess.

“It’s pretty hot up here, Kate. You don’t have to do this with me.”

“I owe you. After that water accident, I have a feeling that I’ll owe you for a long time.”

That water accident was way more than an accident. I found it difficult to look into Kate’s eyes each time the image of her hardened nipples flashed through my mind.

“Don’t worry, Kate. If Cortez ever plans to come back, I’ll be the first to know.”

“How?”

“I will trust God’s guidance.”

That was much better than telling her that I had intel, wasn’t it? Besides, Kate had a ghost looking out for her as well; and as much as I wanted to know why someone needed to protect her, I’d promised my brother I wouldn’t interfere.

“Oh. Hey, why are all the G’s in one spot?” she asked.

For a moment, I thought she mentioned the G-spot, and it took a few seconds before her question made sense.

“I don’t know.” I pulled open another drawer, in a different cabinet. “This one has all the R’s.” I then yanked another one open. “Scratch that, both of these are full of R’s. Kate, this is going to take a while.”

“Have you seen the W’s?” she asked again.

I turned around the room and began pulling out one piece of paper after another, all from different drawers, until I finally found it. Luck must have been on my side with this one. Now, if I could only find the C’s. Her hands flew to one side of the cabinet and she started flipping through the files. “Search for Joanna Williams, born in 1960.”

Her chest was falling and raising quicker. It was as if she were on a different mission of her own, and for the first time since meeting Kate, despite the number of times we’d talked, I realized that I didn’t know much about her past.

“Joan… Williams….” My gaze fixated on the printed letters. “Joanna Williams, 1960. Here it is.” I pulled out the file, and Kate immediately grabbed it from me. She ran to the spot in the attic where more light was shining through the window, splayed the papers out on a cabinet, and in the dim light, began reading through them.

“Is that your mother?” I asked, but she ignored my question and kept going through the papers, one after another, and then stopped. I saw the blood drain from her face and her lower lip quiver. She lost her balance for a moment, but she grasped the edge of the dresser to support herself. I wanted to help her. I wanted to hold her under her arm and tell her that whatever was happening here, that we could get through it together. Except there was no we. There never could be. To say that my life was complicated would have been an understatement, and to pull someone else along into my world would be close to sinning in its purest form. I couldn’t let anyone else get hurt because of me, especially someone as innocent as Kate. Sometimes I wondered whether I had blinders on when I looked at her, because truthfully, when I looked at her, I couldn’t see past her beauty and good heart.

“I had a brother,” she finally said. “He was killed here in Pace when he was two.”

Her hands were shaking.

“Kate, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I already knew my brother died; I just didn’t know it was here. His grave must be in the cemetery behind the church.”

I wondered why Joanna would have hid this information from her daughter who was a detective. Mothers usually hid information from their children to protect them. Was Kate really in that much trouble?

“I don’t know why, but I’m beginning to have that twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach – and I haven’t been drinking, in case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t,” I chuckled. “That’s your instinct, Kate.”

“I just don’t know what my gut’s trying to tell me. It’s… confusing.”

Why did it feel like I was the one confusing her?

“I’ve been here for four months, and I didn’t even know this was my little brother’s resting place.” Her eyes glossed over, and I pulled away from the files I was sifting through.

“Do you know how he died?”

“No, my parents never talked about it. It was a bad time in their lives.”

“So maybe she sent you here to find other family members? Maybe this Jack is another one of them, I guess.”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” she asked with hope. “Jack must be a relative.”

“Or John.”

“No, she said Jack.”

I resumed flipping through the files when a familiar name flashed by.

“I think I found something,” I said before thinking. I should have kept my mouth shut and burned those papers. I should have done something… anything from revealing this to Kate. I didn’t want her afraid while she was trying to find her family roots.

“Mateo Cortez.”

She gasped and backed away from the dresser so quickly that all the papers spilled from its top.

Fuck!

Something crashed to the floor. Actually, it was someone. When I turned around I saw Kate lying unconscious on the dirty boards.

“Whoa! Kate!” I ran to her side and lifted her feet up on top of a box, then fanned her face. She had a pulse and she was breathing on her own. Feeling drops of sweat trickle down my back, I realized that maybe we’d spent too much time in the hot attic. Her head moved slightly, and her eyes fluttered. I felt instant relief.

“Kate?”

“What happened?”

“You fainted. Come on, it’s too hot up here. We need to get you to a cooler spot.” When I tried to lift her, she pushed my hand to the side, rolled over, and got up on all fours, after which she began to crawl toward the spilled papers.

“No. I need to find out.”

“Kate, it doesn’t change anything. They’re long gone.”

Despite my words, I couldn’t feel that same conviction in my chest.

Kate held the papers in her trembling hands. She sat on the dirty floor, crossed-legged. When I reached her and saw her fear stricken face, I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her. Her cheeks were smudged with dirt, and the corner of her forehead illuminated with a tiny hint of light from the window.

She looked like a mess, but it was the most beautiful mess I’d ever seen.

“Father John wasn’t exaggerating. It’s true, then. Mateo Cortez lived in Pace.”

“Yes, apparently the entire family did. They left town over twenty some years ago.”

“Why did they leave?”

“I don’t know,” I lied to her once again. It was more difficult to do so each time I had to, but I didn’t want her afraid. I didn’t want to tangle her into my problems. I took her hand into mine and carefully softened my voice. “Kate, why are you so afraid? They’re not here, and I wouldn’t let them hurt you if they were.”

Why was she so invested in this?

“Ahm… like I said, I came across the name at work back home. Cortez is dangerous, Father. They’re… they’re one of the most powerful cartels in the country. If Cortez used to live here, he could come back.”

He or they? Was she referring to a specific Cortez? And if so, why? Her trembling body stole my attention. She blinked repeatedly as if trying to plan an escape route in her mind.

“Kate, there’s no need to be afraid.”

How could I explain to her that if Cortez was planning to return, I’d be the first to know? Brook would warn me if they came close to town.

“We can always notify the appropriate authorities.”

“Wait – not the authorities.” Her fear twisted into full-blown distress. Her hands shook.

“All right. Not the authorities. Not until we have more information at least, all right?”

She nodded.

“The retreat is next week. It will give us time to clear our minds.” She reached for my forehead with her hand and I stilled. A small skim of her fingers near my hairline and I was gone. I could feel her heat. I sensed the urgency of her shallow breaths and saw her eyes spark with juicy lust.

God help me.

“You had a feather in your hair.” Her whisper held seduction and need.

A feather?

“I’m not sure where it came from,” she explained.

“You’re right. The retreat will take our minds off this attic.” I wasn’t sure where the feather had come from either. But what I was sure about was that Kate’s life was becoming as complicated as my own. My only fear was that I was beginning to need her for much more than a crying shoulder to lean on. I was beginning to crave her much more than a priest should.