“Father!” she cried, shivering in the pale glow of the priest’s porch light. “Please! Father! There’s been . . . an accident!”

Over the drip of rain, she heard footsteps behind her, the scrape of leather against wet stones. From the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the shadows, a dark figure emerging through a garden gate. She gasped, stepped back, and nearly tripped on her own hem as a large man appeared, his face white and stern, his eyes sunken and shadowed in the night.

“Father Frank,” she whispered, recognizing the younger priest. She had clasped her hand over her breasts and suddenly realized that the cool rain had soaked her cotton nightgown, which now pressed flush against her skin. The fabric clung to her body, hiding nothing in the watery light. “There’s been an accident or . . . or . . .” She swallowed hard, aware of the secrets that Sister Camille had shared. Secrets about this tall man standing before her. “It’s Sister Camille, in the chapel. . . . She . . . she . . .” And then she saw the blood leeching from his cassock, running in red rivulets onto the smooth, shimmering stones of the pathway.

“She’s dead,” he said, his rough voice barely audible over the gurgle of rainwater in the gutters, his gaze tortured. “And it’s my fault. God forgive me, it’s all my fault.”

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4

“Still up?” Freya’s voice cut into her fantasy.

“Always.” Val tried to ignore the worries about Camille. She tossed the tea bag into the sink and glanced over her shoulder toward the archway leading to the main house. When they’d bought this old inn, Val had been attracted to the small living space of the carriage house, while Freya took over the private quarters just off the main kitchen. Freya, all tousled reddish curls and freckles, appeared in shorts and an oversized T-shirt. She was cradling a cup with whipped cream piled so high it was frothing and running over the lip of her mug. Somehow, Freya managed to lick up the drip before it landed on the cracked linoleum.

Freya was five-three and still had the honed body of the gymnast she’d been in high school and the metabolism of a girl twenty years her junior.

“You look like hell,” Freya observed.

“Thanks.”

“Really, you should try to sleep.”

If only. She turned and leaned her hips against the counter. “Insomniacs R Us.” The inability to sleep was something she and Freya shared in common.

Freya toasted her friend. “Mine is decaf. Though it doesn’t mean I’ll actually fall asleep anytime soon.”