A postcard slipped out from between the junk mail as she was tossing it into recycling. She bent to pick it up off the floor.

For weeks now, she’d been receiving postcards from her lover. It was the only communication either she or Kingsley had received from him on his trip. No calls, no texts, no emails, no letters. Nora had simply woken up one morning a month ago to find her bed empty. Two days later, she received a postcard from Texas with nothing written on the back but her name and address in Søren’s handwriting.

Nora had no idea what specifically set Søren off on a cross-country road trip without so much as a goodbye kiss, but she planned on asking him—loudly. After he fucked her, of course.

Why couldn’t Søren have a normal midlife crisis like every other man she knew? She’d much prefer he buy a sports car and get a twenty-two-year-old girlfriend than simply disappear on them. He could have at least written something on the postcards. Something like, I love you. I miss you. I wish your vagina was here.

For a month, she’d been sneaking to St. Mary’s at night to pray for Søren’s return. And for a month, Søren was getting further away from her, not closer. She had over a dozen postcards now—Houston, Austin, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Denver, Wyoming, South Dakota, Montana, Salt Lake City. The last one was a photo of Hells Canyon in Idaho. A week ago. She assumed the next postcard would come from Oregon or Washington, maybe even Canada.

Instead, the postcard was from, of all places, a French Quarter hotel right here in New Orleans.

When she flipped it over, she found a message this time.

Suite 301. Key at the desk under your name.

Søren’s handwriting. No stamp or postmark.

Nora took a deep breath. Her head fell back and she closed her eyes.

“About God damn time.”

Then she sent Kingsley a quick text message.

Søren’s back.

Kingsley replied in typical Kingsley fashion.

Thank fuck, he wrote, which was the closest Kingsley Edge ever got to saying a prayer.

Chapter Eight

Priority number two was figuring out why Father Ike killed himself. Priority one was getting Paulina’s mind off Father Ike until Cyrus could. And he knew just what to do. He ordered take-out—Honduran food from Los Catrachos—poured cocktails, hit Play on his favorite jazz album, and put Paulina on the love seat. Although not a cure for sadness, Christian Scott’s trumpet was a highly effective treatment. And if that didn’t work, a kiss or two or ten thousand. As many as Cyrus could get away with.

He slid his hand across Paulina’s stomach, soft and trembling under the lightweight linen of her blouse and held her by the hip. She turned her face to meet his eyes. There was no woman in the world who had eyes like Paulina. They reminded him of sepia photos, pale brown, and out of another time and place with lashes almost long enough to tickle his cheeks. But even more, they were honest eyes that hid nothing, nothing at all from him and asked him to hide nothing, nothing at all from her. So he didn’t hide a thing from her. He let her see how much he loved her, adored her, treasured her, wanted her, and then he kissed her on her soft full lips to make sure she got the message.