The Narrow Gate Read online

  Alice pulled her focus back to the present, pursed her lips and let her gaze rest on the Constable before forcing herself to stride up the walkway to the front door and inside.

  Once inside, she went straight to the liquor cabinet and pulled out three glasses and the bottle of Old Bushmills. It was half-empty. She and George must have drunk more than she realized.

  Rafferty and Geri and the girls sat at the kitchen table, in the middle of eating dinner. “There’s plenty left for you,” Geri said.

  “Thank you, Geraldine. I am not hungry at the moment.” Alice set the bottle and glasses on the kitchen table and poured a finger into each glass.

  “What are we drinking to?” Rafferty asked.

  Alice met his gaze as she handed him one of the glasses. “George Talbot.”

  Rafferty glanced at Geri as Alice handed her a glass. “What’s up with George?”

  Alice’s gaze never left Geri. “George was always the most serious of my four boys. That is how I came to think of them. My boys.” She dropped her gaze to the whiskey in her glass. “George would debate endlessly if he was provoked and that often made for a great deal of laughter.” She smiled, still looking at the whiskey, and a tear trickled down one cheek. “George had the ghastly habit of dipping his biscuits into his tea. One afternoon, as tea and biscuits were served, Randy waited until George had his biscuit in his tea and then said, ‘Maybe Adolph ain’t such a bad guy, afterall.’”

  Alice chuckled and looked through her tears at Rafferty. “That was all it took to set George off. After he had finished his tirade, he lifted his biscuit out of his tea. All that was left was the bit of it he had pinched between his fingers. The rest was sludge at the bottom of his cup.”

  Rafferty and Geri both grinned and nodded.

  “As the rest of us laughed, Randy played an invisible bugle ‘to honor the loss’ of George’s biscuit.”

  Geri leaned forward and peered at her. “Alice? Is George...”

  Alice nodded. “He died.” She could feel the tears spilling from her eyes as she thrust her glass out in front of her and Rafferty and Geri lifted theirs toward it. They paused, all three glasses together, and looked at each other.

  Alice swallowed around the lump in her throat.

  Rafferty shrugged. “Here’s to George. A life well lived.”

  “A life well lived,” Geri said.

  Alice felt her chin quiver and knew she would not be able to echo the sentiment. She nodded sharply and gulped her whiskey down.

  Rafferty and Geri followed suit.

  “I’m so sorry, Alice,” Geri said.

  Alice met her gaze and nodded again. “If you will excuse me, it has been rather a taxing day.” Her voice was thick. “I believe I shall retire for the evening.”

  She doubted very much she’d actually sleep but perhaps lying back and closing her eyes would help her sort the thoughts flying around in her mind.

  “Is there anything you need, Alice?” Geri asked.

  “Pallbearers,” she threw over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs.

  *

  Someone’s in the room!

  Alice bolted awake, threw the covers back and was up, on the floor, in a combat stance, half-awake before she realized she’d simply been dreaming.

  She stood tense on the carpet beside her bed, bathed in sweat, in the near-pitch-black room, breathing heavily. Finally, she sagged and sat on the edge of the bed.

  She was stunned at how much George’s death had affected her.

  Clack.

  She straightened up on the edge of the bed.

  That was the sliding door in the kitchen. I am certain of it.

  She sprinted from her room on the balls of her feet, taking the stairs soundlessly, two at a time. At the bottom of the stairs she paused and held her breath, straining to hear movement in the kitchen.

  When she didn’t, she padded across the living room and stood staring at the sliding door. It was closed but the room seemed cold and foreboding.

  She strode to the sliding door and rested her hand on the lever, staring out into the darkness of the back yard. She detected no motion and nothing out of place. She glanced over her shoulder, quickly scanning the kitchen behind her and the living room beyond that.

  Nothing.

  So why was her heart pounding and the hairs on the back of her neck standing up? There was no one in the house and, apparently, the back yard was just as deserted.

  She tugged on the sliding door and it slid open easily.

  The Constable always checks this door is locked before he goes to bed.

  The light breeze from outside wafted the curtains back from the sliding door. The cool air breathed over her bare feet. The moonlight gave the yard an unearthly appearance, reflecting off the girls’ swing set while the breeze stirred the grass and the leaves on the trees.

  She stuck her head out the door and glanced down to the end of the deck.

  Empty.

  And yet, she could not shake the feeling of intrusion...and menace.

  She stood watching and listening for a few minutes. Nothing moved. All she heard was distant traffic. Yet something didn’t feel right.

  She slid the door closed, locked it and stared at the yard again. Then she gave her head a shake. “He probably just forgot to check it,” she muttered. “You are just being silly, Alice. Go back to bed.”

  After one last glance over the back yard, she turned and strode out of the kitchen and across the living room. She settled herself into the armchair in the farthest, darkest corner where she could still see the sliding door but anyone outside wouldn’t see her.

  “Just being silly,” she muttered again. “It was just a dream,” she said as she settled in, her gaze on the darkness in the back yard.

  *

  When the hand touched her shoulder, Alice was awake, up and out of the chair and into a combat stance in the blink of an eye.

  Rafferty backed off, hands raised in surrender. “Easy there, slugger.”

  Alice blinked, surveyed her surroundings, confused.

  “What are you doing down here?” Rafferty asked.

  Alice eased her stance, straightening up. “Oh, Constable, I am so sorry to startle you.”

  “Not a problem, Alice,” Rafferty threw over his shoulder as he strode into the kitchen. “Want coffee?”

  “Please.” She stretched and yawned and walked stiffly into the kitchen. “That chair does not make the most comfortable bed.”

  “I have no doubt.” He pulled the coffee can and the box of filters out of the cupboard. “And you were sleeping on it, why?”

  Alice sat at the kitchen table. “In the middle of the night, I awoke from a dream absolutely sure there was someone in my room. There was no one, of course. Then, I heard a noise down here I would have sworn was the sliding door as it shut.”

  Rafferty glanced at the door.

  “I stole downstairs but still found no one. However, the sliding door was unlocked.”

  Rafferty’s gaze narrowed. “I’m sure I checked it before I went to bed.”

  Alice nodded. “As I suspected.” She shrugged. “But I could not very well wake you to confirm the fact. As I was unable to shake the feeling that someone had been in the house, I positioned myself where I could watch the door and yet remain unseen from outside.”

  The floor above their heads creaked and they both looked up.

  “That’ll be Geri,” Rafferty said. “How ‘bout we keep this just between us for the moment, hm? No sense worrying her if we don’t have to.”

  “Agreed, Constable.”

  A few moments later, Geri ambled into the kitchen. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Geraldine. How did you sleep?”

  Geri’s hair was askew, her arms clenched tightly around her torso like she was worried her housecoat would fly off at any moment. Her eyes were little, puffy slits in the bright kitchen light.

  “Ah. Like a log, I see,” Alice muttered.


  Rafferty brought each of the women a fresh, steaming cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table with his own. “What’s on your agenda for the day?” he asked Alice.

  Alice sipped her coffee. “I am meeting with Lord High Constable Talbot. George had the key to a safety deposit box passed on to me by the nurse’s aide at Caremore House. We are opening the box this morning at the bank.”

  *

  The woman at the bank placed the safety deposit box on the counter in the private room and shut the door behind her on the way out. Alice and Talbot both stared at the box for a moment.

  “Do you have any idea what might be in there?” Talbot asked.

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Whatever it is, he wanted you to have it. That much is clear. But the lawyer wants me to take custody of it until the will is probated.”

  “And so you shall.” Alice stepped forward, lifted the lid on the box and stood on tiptoes to look inside. Talbot craned his neck to peer at the contents.

  Alice lifted out a rectangular wooden box. It bore a coating of dust and a crest was burned into the wood on the front of the box. “Based on the dimensions, I would guess it is a bottle of some sort. Clearly,” she brushed the dust off the crest, “it has been here for quite some time.”

  Talbot nodded. “As soon as the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed on George’s will, it’s all yours.”

  *

  Alice clenched her hands around the Tanfoglio as she crept carefully through the mist surrounding her. The sleeves of her Armani suit had pulled back to reveal the cuffs of her shirt.

  Her heart pounded, her breath came in short pants. She could feel the rough dirt floor against her bare feet. She knew beyond a doubt that it was, in fact, a floor, not a trail through the bush, despite the fact that she couldn’t see it through the mist.

  The Tanfoglio with the suppressor led the way as the mist thinned. Alice tensed. If the mist was clearing, she would be as visible to her quarry as he would be to her. Her heartrate climbed.

  She glanced behind her but the mist there was still too heavy to see through. Ahead of her, a hallway became visible with doors on either side.

  The Priory! She was in Amesbury Priory.

  She trained the big butcher knife held out in front of her on the nearest door. The door to her room.

  Butcher knife? What happened to the Tanfoglio?

  Alice looked down at herself and saw she was wearing her habit from when she was fifteen years old.

  She pressed herself up against the wall next to the door to her room. “There is someone in my room,” she whispered.

  She crept closer to the doorway, butcher knife held ready. “Someone is in my room.”

  The door burst open.

  Someone’s in the room!

  Alice sat bolt upright in bed with a gasp.

  The shadowy figure at the end of the bed tensed, frozen in place for a brief moment. Then it sprinted out into the hallway and turned toward the stairs.

  Alice threw the covers back, leapt to the floor and dashed after the intruder.

  Already at the top of the stairs, whoever it was glanced over their shoulder before barreling forward.

  Alice sprinted down the hallway. At the top of the stairs, she launched herself into the air feet first. Both feet hit the prowler between the shoulder blades. Alice landed on her back on the stairs and her breath burst from her lungs.

  The figure shot forward and slammed into the half-wall at the living room landing with a loud crash. They tumbled over the half-wall to the foyer at the front door.

  “What the hell was that?” Alice heard Rafferty’s tension-filled voice from the Rafferty’s bedroom.

  The intruder scrambled to their feet and dashed for the kitchen.

  “Alice!?” Rafferty yelled. Alice heard his bedroom door hit the wall as he threw it open.

  Alice jumped up and darted after the figure. “Downstairs, Constable!”

  The person skidded to a stop at the sliding door, threw it open and dove into the darkness.

  Alice slid to a stop just inside the doorway, hands braced against either side. The intruder had been dressed all in black. As dark as it was outside, Alice had little chance of finding them.

  “You have another dream?” Rafferty rushed up behind her, a baseball bat clenched in his hands.

  “I did, in fact. This time, when I woke, the intruder was still in my room.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Rafferty peered out into the darkness and ignored Alice’s admonishing glare.

  “Whoever it was ran the instant I woke.”

  “Huh. Okay, they’re gone now, right?” Rafferty’s gaze swept the back yard.

  “Quite so.”

  He reached over top of her and slid the door shut, flipping the latch in place.

  “That will not stop them, Constable.”

  “Nope.” He set the bat down on the kitchen table and strode into the pantry. Alice heard the main door to the garage open and slam shut. She watched out the sliding door, checking for any movement.

  The main door opened and slammed shut again and Rafferty strode back through the pantry. He held one of the vacuum cleaner wands in his hand. At the sliding door, he bent and laid the wand in the track behind the door. Then he unlocked the latch and tugged on the sliding door. It moved a couple inches,banged into the vacuum wand and stopped dead. He tried it a couple more times. Satisfied, he closed and locked the sliding door once again.

  “That should do for tonight, anyway,” he growled.

  *

  Rafferty trudged in the front door the next evening.

  Alice sat at the kitchen table while Geri was making dinner. “Constable, you look tired. Long day at the office?”

  “Long day since three this morning.” Rafferty sighed and plodded into the kitchen. He kissed Geri as he passed her on the way to collapsing into a chair at the table.

  “How’s the case of the dead priest?” Geri asked.

  Rafferty pursed his lips. “Well, there’s good news and bad news. We found fingerprints at the scene that we can’t account for and we’re running them through the system. Hopefully, they belong to the killer and their prints are already on file.”

  “One presumes that is the good news. What is the bad news?” Alice asked, sitting forward.

  Rafferty blew his breath out. “We caught a second body. Another priest. Same as the first.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Rafferty raised his brows in acknowledgement. “Yeah. We’re hoping the killer was just as careless at that scene and we’ll find the same person’s fingerprints there, as well.”

  “I shall pray for your good fortune, Const—” Alice trailed off.

  Rafferty stared at Alice. “You know you didn’t finish your sentence, right?”

  Alice’s gaze was on the sliding door. “Fingerprints.”

  “What about them?”

  “Do you think our late-night visitor might have left any?”

  Rafferty sat up straight and glanced over his shoulder at the sliding door. He nodded. “It’s probably worth a shot. Lemme make a call.”

  An hour later, just as they were finishing dinner, the doorbell rang.

  Christine and Susie’s faces lit up. “Auntie Rachel!”

  “I don’t think so, girls. I think that’s daddy’s friend from work.”

  “Sean Murphy,” Rafferty said as he put his knife and fork together on his emptied plate.

  Alice looked delighted. “A good Irish name.”

  “Yeah, you bet,” Rafferty chuckled as he strolled to the front door.

  “Hey, Raf,” a man’s voice said.

  “Mickey, thanks for coming.”

  The two men sauntered into the kitchen. Murphy was as tall as Rafferty but much slimmer and clearly younger. His skin was as dark as Rafferty’s was pale. His sidearm sat in a holster on his left hip and he carried a toolkit with his right hand.

  “Mickey, this is my wife, Geri,” Rafferty said, holding his hand
out in Geri’s direction.

  Geri reached out to shake Murphy’s hand.

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Murphy said.

  “Our two daughters, Chrissy and Susie.”

  Sean smiled at the two girls as they scrunched themselves shyly together.

  “And our...boarder, Alice Fisher.”

  As Alice shook Murphy’s hand, Rafferty said, “Ladies, this is Sean Murphy.”

  “And why do they call you ‘Mickey’, Constable Murphy?”

  He looked at her deadpan and shrugged. “Because I’m Irish.”

  Rafferty and Murphy broke into laughter.

  Alice looked nonplussed. “Because of your red hair and freckles?”

  “Exactly,” Murphy said. He and Rafferty laughed again.

  After their laughter had died down, Rafferty explained. “He plays center field as well as Mickey Mantle. That’s why we call him Mickey.”

  Alice nodded. “Ah, of course. That would have been my next guess.”

  “Mine, too,” Geri added.

  “Sure, sure,” Rafferty said.

  “So, where’s this door, Raf?” Murphy asked and held up the toolkit.

  *

  The next morning at breakfast, Rafferty was pouring coffee when his cellphone rang. He snatched it off his belt, checked the screen and looked up at Alice. “It’s Mickey.”

  He thumbed the screen. “What’s up, Mick?” He listened. “I didn’t figure they would be back, yet.…A match? For what?…Are you fucking kidding me?…Jesus Chri—” Rafferty’s gaze flitted to Alice. “I mean, oh, wow. Thanks, Mickey. Lemme know as soon as you’ve got something, huh?…Yeah, a rush would be a good idea. Thanks.”

  Rafferty hung up and clipped the phone back on his belt. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck while his gaze strayed to the sliding door.

  “What is it, Constable?”

  “So...he said the prints he lifted from the sliding door had a distinctive pattern to the whorls and a small scar on the right index finger.”

  “Excellent,” Alice said. “The perpetrator shall be easily identified then?”

  Rafferty pursed his lips. “He thought they looked familiar, so he checked. The prints he lifted from our door are a definite match to...” He blew out a breath and rested a hand on the butt of his Glock.