He knew what she meant. The sexual acts, more dark than loving in Camille’s descriptions, didn’t fit with the man who helped the sick in hospitals, spent time with children in St. Elsinore’s orphanage, gave of himself to help build homes for the needy here in New Orleans after Katrina and in other places as well. Her lover had been strong. Sexual. And, it seemed, had a sadistic bent that was more cruel than kind.

Frank O’Toole?

But who really knew what a person was capable of?

Outwardly normal, inwardly twisted and dark.

He’d once seen a picture of a prim little churchgoing woman in her fashionable skirt and suit jacket. Her hair had been a blondish white and perfectly coiffed in the little-old-lady helmet style, her smile as sweet as Georgia peaches. She had to have been pushing eighty. But the next shot was of her naked, tattoos and piercings over every inch of her skin, her nipples pierced, her pubic hair shaved, her look turned raggedly sexual. It wasn’t her placing body art all over her body that he found so odd; it was the fact that she’d allowed the picture to be taken and placed on the Internet.

Maybe it had been Photoshopped.

Maybe she hadn’t allowed it.

Maybe her head had been put on someone else’s body.

It didn’t matter. The image stayed with him and reminded him that no one really knows what goes on in someone else’s head. Otherwise, why would there be so many confused neighbors who couldn’t believe the man next door had been a wife beater, a pedophile, or a murderer? Too many times he’d witnessed people convinced that the accountant next door had been the perfect neighbor.

So Frank O’Toole, priest or not, could certainly be the man who liked to bind Camille’s wrists to an iron bed as he poured oil over her body and the man who had found ways to keep her aroused far into the night with objects that tickled, delighted, and caused just a tiny bit of pain. O’Toole could be the lover who had spread her arms and legs and flogged her back, getting hard before thrusting into her from the rear, waiting as she arched up to him, her desire more acute with the threat and sizzle of torment. He could also be the man who would ultimately be proved to be Camille’s killer.

“Sick son of a bitch.” Valerie rinsed out her glass, absently patted Bo’s head, and walked into the living room, where she sat in her favorite chair. She looked up at Slade still seated at the table. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice thick. “For doubting you. For taking her word over yours.” She laced her fingers and unlaced them again. “I was wrong.” Her voice was an awkward whisper.