“Blood?” Bentz asked.

“Looks like.”

Bentz said, “Could be a print.”

“Got it.” Montoya wasn’t messing with the seal. Saliva, the blood, or fingerprints could be on the envelope. Using the thinnest blade of his utility knife, he sliced one thin end of the envelope and flexed it open to retrieve a single sheet of paper, a letter, written only to “My Beloved” and signed by “C.”

The paragraphs between the greeting and single-letter signature were written in a cramped, seemingly hurried hand, and they described in graphic detail what the writer, a woman, wanted from her lover. Rather than flowery and sickeningly romantic, this letter was a demand for sexual favors, specific in their intent, all indicating bondage was involved.

Even Montoya, a seasoned veteran, was surprised.

“Is this Sister Camille’s handwriting?” he asked, and the mother superior, her lips drawn together as if by purse strings, scanned the note with disgust.

“It could be,” she admitted. Then her veneer of revulsion gave way to pity, and she made the sign of the cross over her chest. “Camille was a tortured soul.”

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 23

Val sat in her favorite chair, her legs tucked beneath her, notes about Camille on the nearby table. A solitary lamp burned as the night encroached, and the television, tuned to an all-news station, was flickering quietly while Bo lay snoring in a tight little ball on the floor at her feet. She’d just hung up with Detective Montoya and was still processing the information when the dog, lying near the French doors, lifted his head and growled low in his throat.

“Stop it,” she said, but Bo climbed to his feet and pressed his nose to the paned glass. Again he growled, a deep, warning rumble.

“Hey!” she said. “Knock it off.”

But the hound’s gaze was glued to the window, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose, his lips curling.

“What is it?” she asked, and snapped off the light beside her so that she wasn’t backlit as she walked to the window and cautiously peered outside and into the darkness.

The grounds were illuminated by the porch light and a few dim landscape bulbs that cast bluish pools over the walkways that spanned the grass. Oak trees cast weird shadows, but nothing seemed out of place. Warm lights glowed in the windows of Freya’s rooms and the main hallway, even one of the guest rooms, though the uppermost floor, where Slade was staying, remained dark.

“It’s nothing,” she told the dog, and tried to convince herself that he’d only caught the scent of a marauding possum or raccoon or maybe a neighboring cat.

And yet she, too, was a little jittery, her nerves still on edge as she snapped on the lights and made her way into the kitchen where she heated water in the microwave, then found a tea bag.