Funny, he thought now, how he’d been against having another child, how he’d argued with Olivia, but when she’d ended up pregnant, his life had changed for the better. Now he couldn’t imagine a world without little Ginny, fussy thing that she was. Blond, like her mother, her scalp visible through her wisping pale curls, her eyes wide and interested in the world, she was crawling all over the place, terrorizing Hairy S, their aging little dog—another animal inherited from Olivia’s favorite grandmother’s menagerie.

Bentz saw years of happiness on the horizon.

“Okay,” he said, “you win. You are the better parent.”

Olivia laughed and he walked into the den where he picked up the phone to dial his son-in-law. Maybe Jay could push things through a little faster on the Camille Renard case. They still needed a tox screen, and Bentz wanted to double-check the blood work on the unborn child against that of Frank O’Toole’s again, just to be safe.

An uncharacteristic pang cut through him as he settled into his worn desk chair. He thought of Camille and her baby, the child’s life cut off before it drew its first breath.

Little Ginny, free of her mother’s grasp, had made her way in that speedy crawl of hers into the den. She looked up at him and grinned, showing off two bottom teeth, obviously proud of herself to have located him.

Behind her, standing in the doorway, stood Olivia.

“Come here, you,” he said. Bentz grabbed his daughter again, kissed her tiny head, then plopped her onto his lap. While she was busy shredding a small notepad, he dialed Jay.

It was time to find out more about Camille Renard’s condition at the time of her death. Were there drugs in her bloodstream? What about the marks on her back?

And who, of all the men she knew, had a blood type that was consistent with that of her child’s father?

“Kinky stuff,” Slade said. He sat across the table from Valerie as they read the photocopied pages of Camille’s diary.

“It should be burned.” Valerie, her glass of wine untouched, flipped over a page and sighed. “Too personal.”

“The police will need it.”

“I know, I know.” She was resigned to the contents of her sister’s life, of her most private thoughts, being reviewed, studied, and noted, but it was difficult. He understood. Camille Renard was the antithesis to everything a nun should be. At least in his opinion.