“A lie.” Slade was stalwart. Didn’t flinch.
“You believed her?” Bentz asked Val as Montoya’s eyes narrowed on Slade.
“I did and I confronted Slade. He turned the story around.”
“I just told it like it was. No, I didn’t run to my wife and whine about her sister. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to do. Everything blew up around Christmas and Camille took off.”
“To a nunnery? Seriously? That sounds like something right out of the Middle Ages.”
“Camille was into high drama,” Slade said.
“When was the last time you saw her?” Montoya’s question was directed at Slade, but they both answered.
“The day she left the ranch in Bad Luck, Texas,” Slade said.
Val admitted,”I haven’t seen her since last month, when I stopped by the orphanage where she worked. We barely spoke. Then there was the phone call and finally the e-mail last night.”
“I’d like a copy of it, and any others you’ve got as well.” Bentz made notes and asked a few more questions.
For the most part, Montoya allowed his partner to take the lead. They told her that Camille had fought with her attacker at the scene of the crime but that there was no other sign of a struggle, other than in the chapel at the altar. Camille, it seemed, had gone into the chapel willingly. Val felt a chill again, cold enough to turn her heart to ice as she thought about her sister’s last minutes on this earth, but then all of this horror was strange. Eerie and soul grinding.
By the time they left the hospital, it was after ten and the rain had stopped, the clouds breaking apart, blue sky visible. A thick, dank mist rolled upward from the earth as Valerie walked through puddles to Slade’s old Ford. Slade had insisted on driving to the hospital, and she’d been so hell-bent to get to the morgue she hadn’t cared a whit how she’d gotten there. Now, as she climbed into the beat-up truck, she was acutely aware of the memories it conjured. The smell of old leather, dirt and sweat, the wreckage of a marriage.
The end of a life.
She shivered at the stark, irreversible realization that she would never see Cammie again.
It was an impossible thought. Painful.
And now, after the viewing, a cold, hard fact.
CHAPTER 13
It’s been so long.
And the promise I made myself years ago, the vow, is now broken. From the Moonwalk along the banks of the river, I watch the thick waters of the Mississippi roll past, cloudy and obscure. A freighter churns upriver. The air is warm and heavy with humidity, the sky somber, yet I slip a pair of sunglasses from my pocket and onto the bridge of my nose.
“Hello, Father,” a man says as he passes me quickly, catching sight of my clerical collar.
I smile.
Don’t answer.
He bustles away, and I turn from the river, its dank smell caressing my nostrils. With effort, I make my way over the steep levee, my right leg dragging ever so slightly, the old pain not quite gone and never, ever forgotten.
It’s a pain I can deal with.
And only in the leg.
I’m not winded, not even perspiring. I’ve kept myself fit. Honed.
Except for the right tibia.
Unfortunate, that.
A war wound.
I make my way into the park and keep moving, past a mime who tries silently to catch my attention. I refuse to glance his way, his sad white face of no interest to me. Instead, I stare across the park, past the statue of Andrew Jackson on his rearing horse to the spires of St. Louis Cathedral, rising upward, the cross atop the highest steeple seeming to pierce the underbelly of the dark clouds roiling overhead.
White and looming, the cathedral beckons.
And I, of course, resist.
For now.
Inside the truck, Val kicked against the tool belt near her feet and waited for Slade to slide behind the wheel.
“You okay?” he asked, closing the door.
“What do you think?”
“Okay, dumb question.”
“You got that right.” She stared out the windshield as he switched on the ignition and hit the wipers. With a squeak, they batted away the rainwater that had collected on the glass during the short storm.
“What about you?” she asked.
He scowled beneath the stubble of his beard. “I won’t be okay until they find the bastard who did this.” As he jammed the truck into reverse and hit the gas, the smell of dust from his ranch reached her nostrils.
“It’s O’Toole,” she said as the old Ford shuddered, then backed around an SUV taking up two spaces.
“He’s a priest, for God’s sake, Val. You know, a paragon of virtue—”
“He’s a man, Slade.” She slid a knowing glance his way and wondered if he read the silent accusations in her eyes. “No matter what kind of vows he took, how many confessions he hears, or how many times he gets down on his knees and prays, the bottom line is, Frank O’Toole is just a man.”
“Not necessarily a sinner.” Slade leveled his gaze at her, and in that heartbeat, she wondered if he was talking about the priest or himself.
His lips flattened as he nosed the Ford into traffic, leaving the looming hospital behind.
For a split second, she remembered a field of bluebells and Indian paintbrush, the feel of warm earth against her back, a sweet floral scent in the air. As honeybees droned and the sky stretched wide and blue above the Texas hills, she stared into Slade’s eyes, gray-blue and slumberous. His pupils dilated a fraction as he stretched his long, lean frame, all muscle, bone, and sinew over her. She’d felt a sizzle of anticipation; then his lips had crashed down on hers and she’d been lost.
“Damn,” she whispered, dispelling the image.
“What?”
“Everything.” Silently she chastised herself for her straying thoughts. She leaned back against the cracked seat, and though her eyes focused straight ahead, the image of Camille’s lifeless face was etched into her brain. Cammie was gone, and now Val was alone. No family left in the world.
Unless you counted a soon-to-be-ex-husband and a droopy-eared hound.
Slade had the good sense not to make conversation as he drove through the narrow streets leading to the bed-and-breakfast. She tried and failed to give herself a swift mental kick; no one would be helped if she shut down, sitting around and wallowing in grief. It wouldn’t bring Cammie back.
“So you know the cop?” he finally asked as he turned onto the side street that ran past the house.
“Went to school with him.”
“And O’Toole?”
“Yep,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she thought about it. “It’s like a Saint Timothy’s reunion.” She frowned.
“What’re the chances of that?” he asked, voicing a question that had been nagging at her.
“We all grew up around here,” she said, but it was odd; they both knew it. She and Cammie had left New Orleans after high school, and she’d thought O’Toole had, too. It seemed strange that he would go to seminary nearby and end up at St. Marguerite’s. Usually priests moved around. Then again, maybe his father had bought him a spot near home; churches had been known to swing things for generous donors.
As for Reuben Montoya, she had not run into him since Catholic school, but it was a surprise to learn he’d ended up a detective with the New Orleans Police Department. She would never have pegged him for becoming a cop; if anything, she’d thought he might turn up on the other side of the law. And here he was, a detective. Maybe a lifelong resident of New Orleans.
Slade parked nearby in a small lot dedicated to Briarstone House. This time he had the grace not to block her car.
“It’s all pretty strange,” Slade thought aloud.
“Very.” She didn’t put a lot of stock in coincidence. She’d spent too many years as a cop to be that naive. She’d learned to see past the obvious, beneath the veneer of what appeared to be the truth.
And one of the things that bothe
red her now was the fact that Slade had appeared on her doorstep not long before she learned about her sister’s murder.
Another coincidence.
She slid him a look as he cut the engine.
“So what’s your story, Cowboy?” she asked, reaching for the door handle. “Why are you here?”
One side of his mouth curved up into that crooked smile that she’d once found so breathtaking. “I thought I already told you,” he said with an irritating confidence. “I’m here to talk you out of the divorce.”
“And didn’t I tell you to take a hike? It’s over.” He started to open his mouth, and she held up a hand. “And look, I—Okay, we’ve been through a major shock here, but I’m not going to let you use Cammie’s death as an excuse to stay. I can handle this, Slade.” When he again seemed to protest, she reminded him, “I was a cop.”
“This is different and you know it.”
“Just leave.” She opened the door of the cab. “But the dog stays. Thanks for bringing Bo.” She climbed out of the truck and heard him do the same. As she pushed open the gate, he was at her side, walking with her stride for stride to the front door of the inn.
“I’m telling you. Bo stays with me.” His boots clambered up the two long steps in tandem with hers.
“You’re not taking the hint.” She turned as they reached the door and for the first time noticed his backpack. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Registering.” He opened the door and held it open for her. “I’ve got a reservation here.”
“No way,” she said.
“Way. I talked to someone named Freya? She booked me for a week.”
“But you said that you slept in the pickup because you didn’t have a reservation.”
“That was for last night. I think I’m booked in the Garden View Room tonight.”
“Forget it. There’s a Motel Six across town!”
“Sorry, darlin’,” he drawled. “Don’t want to lose my deposit.”
“I’ll give it back to you. Full refund!” God, he couldn’t stay here.
“Too late.” He was already reaching for his duffel bag.
“No way,” Val said, but a sinking sensation rolled over her. Hadn’t Freya pushed to tell her something “important”? Something about Slade. “Look, this isn’t going to work. I don’t care what happened, but you can’t stay here,” she said just as she noticed a television van for a local TV station turning down the street. “Oh, no.” Somehow the press had sniffed out that she was a murder victim’s sister. Already. “Oh, great,” she muttered under her breath, and stepped inside where a few guests hovered in the lobby.
One man in his eighties with a big, toothy smile waved at her.
“Good morning,” Val said, though it was anything but.
“Morning!” His wife, a little, birdlike woman who wore visors in her perfectly coiffed white hair, grinned widely and slipped a pair of pink-rimmed sunglasses onto her nose. “We’re off to the French Quarter!”
“Enjoy.” Val forced a smile she didn’t feel as the couple walked out the front door, and Freya swept into the foyer. One glance to the front walk caused her to grimace.
“Oh, God, Val, I’m so sorry.” Her face was a mask of sadness, and she threw her arms around Valerie.
“Thanks.” Val fought an onslaught of tears and the need to collapse as the doorbell rang. “Oh,” she groaned, assuming some perky reporter was on the other side of the vestibule.
“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it.” Slade dropped his bag near an umbrella stand, walked to the door, and opened it, filling the doorway with his long frame.
“Brenda Convoy with WKAM. I’m looking for Valerie Renard.” An evenly modulated woman’s voice slid through the crack, and Val caught a glimpse of a slim, twenty something woman with a wedge of short black hair and big doe eyes.
“She’s busy,” he said, not budging.
“And you are?”
“Her husband.”
She brightened. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a few questions about a story we’re following. One of the nuns at St. Marguerite’s Convent was killed last night—”
Val crossed the foyer to stand next to Slade. “I’m Valerie Renard,” she said, “and I’m going through a difficult time. I have no comment. Thank you.” With that she closed the door, locked it, and wondered how much of the aborted interview the cameraman, standing on the front porch, had caught. Not that it mattered. The bell rang again, but she ignored it. All of the guests had been issued room keys that unlocked the back door. For once she was grateful that there weren’t that many paying customers; at least she’d have a little more privacy.
Back to that.
She turned and faced Freya. “I take it Slade renting the Garden View Room was the reason you wanted to talk to me last night.”
Freya was nodding, standing near the window. “Yeah.” She sighed as she stared through the glass. “Now they’re taking shots of the house. Great. I guess we’ll chalk it up as free publicity.” She turned to Val. “Anything I can do?”
“No,” Val said, and with a glance at Slade said, “But the next time one of my ex-husbands calls to rent a room, hang up.”
“I’m not your ex yet,” Slade said.
“Soon, Cowboy.”
“We’ll see about that.” He grabbed his beat-up duffel in one big hand. “Why don’t you show me which room is mine?”
“Gladly,” she mocked, and found Freya already holding out the key. “Fabulous.” She snagged the key, then headed up the stairs with Slade one step behind in his dusty boots. A door on the first floor opened, and she heard a sharp bark, then the sound of scrambling paws on the marble floor of the foyer. A second later, Bo bounded up the stairs. “This is low, Slade, even for you,” she said as she followed the fading carpet runner to the second floor, then turned upward again. “Calling Freya behind my back.”
“Would you have seen me?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“Then I guess I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“There are always choices,” she said on the top floor.
They reached the third-floor landing where Bo was waiting, bottom wiggling, tongue lolling from one side of his mouth. Black lips pulled back, he appeared to smile as she reached down and petted his head. “I have missed you, you miserable mutt,” she said with a chuckle, and the dog whined as if he understood. “Someone better be treating you right.”
“Spoiled rotten.”
“Just as it should be.” Straightening, Val walked to one side of the landing, where an etched brass plate read GARDEN VIEW ROOM and the crystal doorknob twisted easily. She let Slade step inside the cozy room with its red oak floors, sloping ceilings, and painted tile fireplace. Double doors opened onto a private deck that did, indeed, have a view of the herb and flower garden as well as the roof of the attached cottage Val called home. It was all a little too close for comfort.
“Nice,” he said, then tossed his backpack toward a closet as Bo sniffed the perimeter of the room.
“We have a no-pets policy.”
“You gonna make him sleep in the truck?”
“I should. But I guess I’ll make an exception. He can sleep with me.”
His lips twitched.” If anyone complains, let me know.”
“If anyone complains, I’ll handle it,” she said. “And if you need anything?”
“Yeah?”
“Call Freya.” She walked out of the room with Bo, then closed the door behind her. Slade’s deep-throated chuckle followed her all the way to the first floor.
Freya was at the sink when Val breezed through the swinging door separating the kitchen from the dining area. Stacks of dishes rose from the sink, soaking in sudsy water, and apples simmered on the stove, the scent of cinnamon mingling with the Lysol Freya used to clean the floor earlier in the morning.
She opened the dishwasher and began loading. “You okay?” she asked, looking over her shoulder. “Hey
—dog out of the kitchen!” Suds dripped from the freshly washed plate that she stacked on the lower rack.
“Definitely not,” Val said, and with an authoritative snap of her finger, sent Bo to the other side of the door. He left, tail between his legs.
“Oh, God, I feel like an ogre,” Freya said.
“He’ll get over it.”
“I suppose. How about you? Need a drink?”
“It’s not even noon.”
“That’s why Bloody Marys were invented.”
Val shook her head and heard the lonesome call of a whip-poorwill slipping through the open window. Its cry, rare now, caused a shudder to slide through her. “I think I’ll pass. Or at least take a rain check.” For now she had too much to do. She wanted to forward all of Cammie’s e-mails to Montoya, then start her own investigation of her sister’s murder. Her heart twisted again, and she blinked back tears at the realization that, along with the investigation, she would inevitably have to plan a funeral and lay her sister to rest.
If that were possible.
Would Camille find eternal peace and pass through the gates of heaven?
Or was her soul forever damned?
CHAPTER 14
“What the hell’s going on here?” Bentz was agitated and didn’t try to hide it as Montoya drove the Mustang away from the hospital. Leaning his elbow on the open window ledge of the sunbaked car while the air-conditioning struggled against the heat, he let fly. “It feels like I was your date at a damned high school reunion!”
“Yeah, right.”
“Come on. First, what’re the chances of you knowing the victim?” Bentz asked, raising his index finger. “And then the nun who found her?” Another finger shot skyward. “Not to mention the priest she was allegedly sleeping with.” The third digit joined the first two. “Did I forget anyone?” Bentz groused.
“Not so far.”
“Humph!” Bentz was clearly annoyed, and probably tired as hell. The case had kept them up most of the night, and Bentz, too, had an infant at home who wasn’t yet sleeping through the night. His daughter, Ginny, born last Halloween and now nearly eight months old, had been colicky from the get-go.