Sister Eve and the Blue Nun Read online

  ACCLAIM FOR LYNNE HINTON

  “Hinton’s appealing, multidimensional cast and cleverly written mystery will appeal to both inspirational and secular genre fans.”

  —BOOKLIST REVIEW OF THE CASE OF THE SIN CITY SISTER

  “This sophomore series outing is a witty and delightful cozy that will enthrall fans of Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay’s Tenzing Norbu series about a Tibetan monk–turned–detective as well as readers who appreciate a different type of sleuth and a book with a faith-based flavor.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW OF THE CASE OF THE SIN CITY SISTER

  “A novel that has something for every reader—mystery, intrigue, murder—with well-thought-out characters who are willing to do what they need to help those who want answers to their family’s puzzles. The story line is plausible and has an understory for readers to discover. Hinton is an amazing writer and knows what makes a great mystery.”

  —ROMANTIC TIMES REVIEW OF THE CASE OF THE SIN CITY SISTER

  “A new contemporary mystery series has murder, mystery, laughter, and a crime-solving nun. Characters are well defined, charming, sweet, and caring. The story line is believable and flows evenly throughout the book. Lynne Hinton has written a mystery series with a new and refreshing twist.”

  —ROMANTIC TIMES REVIEW OF SISTER EVE, PRIVATE EYE

  “This great Christian mystery will leave readers wanting more!”

  —CBA RETAILERS+RESOURCES REVIEW OF SISTER EVE, PRIVATE EYE

  “Hinton will delight her longtime fans with the inaugural Divine Private Detection Agency Mystery … This well-paced, entertaining whodunit explores the complexity of family and the mysteries of faith while highlighting the beauty of the New Mexico desert.”

  —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY STARRED REVIEW OF SISTER EVE, PRIVATE EYE

  “Lynne Hinton grabs you and doesn’t let go until the last page is turned. I hope, no, I pray we haven’t heard the last from Sister Eve, private eye.”

  —PHILIP GULLEY, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HARMONY SERIES

  “Lynne Hinton has created a marvelous character in Sister Eve Divine. This nun-turned-detective will keep an enduring hold on your heart and mind long after the case is solved and the roar of her Harley fades into the desert air.”

  —MARK DE CASTRIQUE, AUTHOR OF A MURDER IN PASSING

  “Lynne Hinton’s reverently irreverent Sister Eve is my new hero. This is not just a well-crafted, page-turning mystery—this is a grounded, believable, and enlightened examination of family dynamics, internal emotional and spiritual struggles, and the choices human beings make. The characters are complex and multidimensional—readers will find themselves relating to them with ease. An absolute joy to read.”

  —MAGGI PETTON, AUTHOR OF THE QUEEN’S COMPANION AND HEAVEN’S DAUGHTER

  “In Sister Eve, Private Eye, Lynne Hinton has once again created a central character who is fascinating, flawed, funny, and compellingly human: Sister Evangeline Divine, the Harley-riding Benedictine nun … With her signature combination of warm, folksy characters and down-home style, Hinton strikes just the right note with Sister Eve—a blend of humor, suspense, wit, and incisive flashes of philosophical insight. Sister Eve is a winner.”

  —PENELOPE J. STOKES, AUTHOR OF THE BLUE BOTTLE CLUB, CIRCLE OF GRACE, AND SAINT SOMEDAY

  “Although Sister Eve, Private Eye is laced with humor, this eponymous nun neatly sidesteps the potential pitfalls of cuteness. Lynne Hinton writes with grace and compassion, and I look forward to learning where she’ll take Sister Eve next.”

  —MARGARET MARON, EDGAR AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE BOOTLEGGER’S DAUGHTER

  “With keen insight into the life of one who has used her life’s calling for God, Hinton paints a complex and realistic heroine who is sure to win the hearts of readers. Fans of the Mitford series and Murder, She Wrote are certain to soak up every page of this well-written and delightful novel. I can’t wait to read Sister Eve’s next adventure in this series.”

  —MICHAEL MORRIS, AUTHOR OF MAN IN THE BLUE MOON

  OTHER BOOKS BY LYNNE HINTON

  THE DIVINE PRIVATE DETECTIVE

  AGENCY MYSTERY SERIES

  The Case of the Sin City Sister

  Sister Eve, Private Eye

  Welcome Back to Pie Town

  Pie Town

  Friendship Cake

  Hope Springs

  Forever Friends

  Christmas Cake

  Wedding Cake

  The Things I Know Best

  The Last Odd Day

  The Arms of God

  Meditations for Walking

  The Order of Things

  WRITTEN UNDER THE NAME JACKIE LYNN

  Down by the Riverside

  Jacob’s Ladder

  Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

  WRITTEN UNDER THE NAME LYNNE BRANARD

  The Art of Arranging Flowers

  Copyright © 2016 by Lynne Hinton

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-7180-4167-0 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hinton, Lynne, author.

  Title: Sister Eve and the blue nun / Lynne Hinton.

  Description: Nashville : Thomas Nelson, [2016] | Series: A Divine Private Detective Agency mystery ; 3

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015045317 | ISBN 9780718041885 (softcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Nuns—Fiction. | Women private investigators—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Conceptionists—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3558.I457 S56 2016 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045317

  16 17 18 19 20 21 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Kelly Middlesworth and my friends at Heartland Hospice. Thank you for your many acts of kindness. I am honored to have worked with you all.

  CONTENTS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Fourr />
  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Sources Cited

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ONE

  The tea had arrived on a simple wooden tray and was left outside Dr. Kelly Middlesworth’s room without a note or card but announced by a soft knock. The young woman now stood inside with the answered door held only partially open. She was wearing her nightgown and robe, having changed for the evening, and was hiding behind the door, assuming her night attire would be disconcerting for the monks.

  One of the residents at the monastery, after all, was who she expected to see. It would be Father Oliver, she thought, or Brother Gary, who earlier in the week had brought her clean towels and a blanket; the youngest of them could never quite look her in the eye.

  More than anybody else, however, Kelly expected, or rather hoped, it would be her sibling, Brother Anthony, who knocked so late. She knew he would still be observing the evening silence, but she hoped he would stop by and at least demonstrate an effort to make amends for the argument they’d had earlier at dinner. She hated that things were left as they were and she knew she was to blame, but she still hoped he would make the first move and come around to offer his forgiveness.

  It had been strategy on her part to wait until the last minute to tell him, knowing that after dinner he was required to go to the service of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at seven, followed by compline at seven thirty. Once those services in the monastery chapel had been completed, she knew the monks would enter into Grand Silence, which meant he would be unable to speak to anyone until after breakfast, and by that time it would be too late. She would have already made her presentation; she would have already made his discovery public.

  The truth was that she had broken her promise not to tell days before, right after he had shown her the discovery, by calling a colleague at the university to tell him of the unusual finding. She had spoken to Professor Peter Pierce five or six times in the last four days, only to find out during the last conversation that he had done some checking and had been given an amount, the real value of the discovered treasure.

  When she leaned forward, getting a better look outside the door, she glanced to her right, noticing the tray sitting on the small table that was situated between the two hardbacked chairs in front of the window that looked out onto the parking lot. There was a simple pot and one cup on a saucer, a small spoon, and a little pitcher of honey, the only thing she liked in her tea. There were also two strings with tiny pieces of paper attached at the ends and hanging from the pot, tea bags, green tea or mint, she assumed, two of the favorites that she and Anthony enjoyed together every evening just after dinner when she came to visit him at the monastery. She smiled, understanding that the tea was a way for Anthony to say that everything really was all right between them. It was the perfect peace offering.

  The young professor stepped out of her room to pick up the tray, and when she did she saw several additional cars parked in front of the long building that made up the guest quarters where she stayed. She guessed others had arrived for the conference. She knew some of the attendees had gotten to the monastery earlier in the day; she had even met a few, mostly professorial types, but also a few nonacademics, including Sister Eve, a local nun who came roaring up to the monastery grounds around lunchtime on a motorcycle.

  A close friend of Kelly’s brother, Eve was a colleague she had met before who had apparently left the community, according to Anthony, and was not wearing the traditional habit when they met. The two women had spoken previously on a number of occasions about their interest in and devotion to Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda, and Sister Eve had seemed quite excited about the keynote address Dr. Middlesworth was scheduled to make at the early-morning session. She had even expressed her hopefulness that this conference about the venerated nun would finally bring news that progress had been made in Sister Maria’s beatification process.

  Of course, Kelly knew there was no such actual news of forward progress in the beatification process to share, but she hadn’t told the nun. And with the news of Anthony’s discovery that she was planning to introduce at her keynote, Dr. Middlesworth was actually just as hopeful that what they all wanted might finally come to pass.

  She picked up the tray and turned back to reenter her room but glanced around once more at the parked cars, wondering if Dr. Pierce had left Austin, if he was somewhere close to New Mexico. In their last conversation he had said that he was taking a late flight out of Texas to Albuquerque, without his wife, Kelly recalled him saying, and was not scheduled to arrive until sometime around midnight. He had promised to meet her first thing the following morning; he would call and then stop by her room, and that way she could show him the pages before she gave her address.

  She couldn’t help herself and smiled, thinking about her colleague, thinking about how thrilled he was to hear about the papers, how he’d promised to host a great celebration party when they returned to the university, and how he had also shared the news that he was now ready to file for divorce. Kelly couldn’t decide what made her happier, the discovery of writings by Sister Maria or that she was finally going to be able to marry the man she loved.

  She felt her face flush with excitement as she turned to walk back inside and then stopped just as she entered, sticking out her right foot behind her to close the door. She walked all the way inside the small room and set the tray next to her laptop computer on the desk. When she did so, she pushed aside a stack of books, which consequently slid down, ultimately exposing the thick, unmarked brown envelope that had been placed underneath them.

  Kelly looked first at the envelope and then back at the door, thinking about locking it, and then remembered that there were no locks on the doors at the abbey. She sighed, tugged her long, curly brown hair behind her ears, turned back to the desk, and lifted the lid off the teapot to make sure the bags were steeping. As she sat in the chair by the desk, she thought once again about her brother and particularly the argument they’d had in the dining room earlier that evening.

  She recalled how Anthony had slammed down his dinner tray when she explained her plan to share the news in her keynote address, how he stormed out after she confessed to him that she had already told someone else. She thought about the awkwardness that remained in the dining room and how she sat alone at the table while the others sitting near her stopped talking and watched until she finally got up from her seat, left the main house, and hurried back to her room. It had been terribly embarrassing, and as she glanced at her watch, realizing it had been several hours since dinner, she could only hope that none of those at the evening meal would bring up what happened at her all-important morning presentation.

  She breathed out a long breath, knowing that she needed to make things right with her brother. Even Peter had mentioned that she should try to make amends when she told him earlier about the argument, and she hoped that the tea meant Anthony had forgiven her. She reached for the envelope and pulled out the papers to examine them once again, still in shock that she had such a thing in her possession. It was hard to believe that Anthony had just happened upon something so valuable while visiting the little church south of Albuquerque. His discovery consisted of pages from the 1600s written by Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda during an event of bilo
cation with the Jumano Indians. Kelly put the writings down and picked up the pot and poured the tea, still in disbelief that Anthony had kept the historical and religious artifact for her, hid the writings under his robe, and brought them back to the abbey to give to her when she arrived. She took a few sips of her brother’s gift, recalling how he’d acted when he handed the pages to her, how clumsy and sweet he was, making her promise that she wouldn’t tell anyone, explaining that he had to give the writings to Father Oliver, but because of their bond and her passion, he wanted her to see them first.

  When she heard the door open, she jerked up, startled, almost spilling her tea and ruining the pages. She put down the cup, noticing as she did a slight sense of vertigo. When she looked away from the desk and over to the door, she was unable to make out who was coming in. Her vision had become blurred and her heart rate quickened. As the person entered and then closed the door, she assumed it was Anthony, assumed her brother had decided to reunite with her, but with the blurred vision she couldn’t tell. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach, nauseous and dizzy as she fought for her next breath.

  She watched without speaking as the person who had entered her room took a seat on the twin-sized bed that was situated beside the desk. She tried calling out, thinking that her brother would surely help, thinking that he would do something, but as she spoke his name, he never moved in her direction. Rather, he just sat and watched her as she grabbed her throat, trying to breathe. She pushed aside the tray on the desk, the teapot, cup, and saucer sliding across the tray but not falling off, searching for her phone to make an emergency call as she continued to struggle to breathe.

  “It’s easier if you just relax,” the voice spoke. “It can be like a vision, really.” There was a pause. “You know all about those, right?”

  The young professor felt her legs weaken as she slid off the chair, dropping to the floor. She never saw the night visitor get up from the bed and move in her direction, but as she lay on the floor, looking up, she thought she saw a cape, a blue one, as she watched the figure standing over her, the face veiled, gloved hands moving across the desk until they stopped at the brown envelope. She tried to cry out as the person placed the pages back inside the envelope and stood over her holding it. She felt her throat tighten and was unable to make even a slight sound as the person knelt down beside her.