Free In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2 by Robert J. Crane

a deal breaker since I suspect I’m not done saying stupid stuff in her presence. “What about this priest?” she asks, probably reminded of our situation by the fact that there’s a black priest sitting at the conversion table. And because this is the Vatican, he is also playing on a cell phone. Seriously.
    “Well, I have a number for him,” I say, “but I don’t know if his phone’s turned off or what, because I can’t get through to him.”
    I see her eyebrow arch, barely, under the expansive sunglasses. She holds out a hand, palm up, and it takes a second for my slow-ass brain to interpret this as her asking for the number. I hand her the slip of paper and she continues to look at me, palm still outstretched, until I hand over my phone as well. With both in hand, she looks down and dials, her sunglasses still hiding any emotion her eyes might reveal.
    A sharp, surprisingly loud rendition of Pharrell’s “Happy” echo through the corridor and almost makes me snatch my phone out of Dr. Perugini’s hand in embarrassment. Then I realize it’s not my phone that’s making the sound.
    It’s the African priest’s.
    It takes a few seconds for it all to register with me—he apologizes to everyone around, profusely, embarrassed, in a low, sonorous voice with an accent that tells me he probably is from somewhere in Africa. He then puts his head down again, and I look back to Perugini.
    “Went to voicemail,” she says, and we both look at the priest. He’s fooling with the phone, but he’s plainly refused the call.
    “Dial it again,” I say, and pass by her to make my way—slowly—toward the table. I see her comply, and this time the air is filled with a low buzz before he rejects the call again and I feel a smile creep onto my face at the blind, beautiful luck that has finally—somehow—swept in on the winds.

15.
    “Father Emmanuel?” I ask, and he blinks twice in surprise and looks up.
    “Yes?” he asks, and I smile at this stroke of luck.
    “My name is Reed Treston,” I say, and pause. What the hell am I supposed to say next? I go for the crazy. “I got your name from a man named Giuseppe—”
    I don’t get any more out before a shadow falls down his features. “Not here,” he says quietly. “Not now.”
    “Uh, okay,” I say, and look around the hallway. There are tourists everywhere. “Where, then? And when?”
    He looks a few degrees down from panic, even as he remains seated with the cell phone clenched in his hands. “Two hours. There’s a café just down the Via della Conciliazione. A block from the Castel Sant’Angel.” He mentions the name of the café and then clams up. His expression is furtive, and I wonder what a priest in the middle of the Vatican has to be nervous about.
    Also, I dig his ringtone choice. I’ve been rocking the Pharrell ringtone for a while myself.
    “Two hours,” I say, nodding at him, and then head back down the hall. Dr. Perugini falls in beside me, and I can tell by her expression she overheard everything. “What do you think his deal is?” I ask, more rhetorically than anything.
    “He looked like he needed a change of undergarments after you spoke to him,” she observes. Her wry humor is the first hint of emotion I’ve caught from her.
    We finish the tour, meander around St. Peter’s square, but don’t go into the basilica. It’s a little crowded, but not too bad. I try to imagine the place on a day when the pope is doing something here, and I envision a crowd so intense that Sienna would lose her shit just from the sheer volume of people.
    Perugini leads the way and we walk from the square down the big damned street, the Via della Conciliazione. We make it almost to the end before I realize that the Castel Sant’Angelo is hiding behind some trees, directly ahead. It’s a fortress, a massive circular structure that towers over Rome. I saw it when we crossed the Tiber to get here, but I hadn’t realized how close it was to the