“I couldn’t judge his reaction,” she admitted, though just the thought turned her stomach. “But it was obvious she was in love with him. She handed him the flower and seemed to bathe in just being around him.” Hearing herself, she shuddered. “Sorry. I maybe way off, but that’s the way it appeared to me.”

“You were the only one there?”

“The mother superior, Sister Charity, she’d let me into the garden where they were meeting. And probably Sister Zita; she was the first one I talked to.”

“She’s the African American nun.”

“One of them—maybe the only one,” Val said, nodding.

Montoya didn’t appear to like the connection to O’Toole again. Val read the disbelief in his dark eyes. Frowning, he asked, “Was Asteria close to your sister?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

Montoya persisted, “Did she ever mention her?”

“Maybe . . . but just in passing.” She shook her head, honestly perplexed.

“They weren’t close?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, then glanced at the bag in his hands. “But then there are a lot of things I didn’t know about Cammie.”

“You should have left this where you found it,” he said, indicating the ziplock and diary. “Take anything else?”

“That’s all there was,” Slade said.

“Have you looked through the diary, Detective?” Val asked. “You might be interested in the fact that it pretty much lists all of her lovers, starting with her first. Not hard to figure out.”

To her surprise, Montoya flinched a bit, almost imperceptibly, but it was there just the same.

“Does it list O’Toole?”

“Camille was discreet—didn’t name names.”

She noticed Montoya’s tense shoulders sag a bit at the news. For that, she didn’t blame him. They all hoped that the book would be key, that it would point out the person who had killed Camille.

“I didn’t recognize him, if that’s what you’re getting at, but I’m sure he’s there along with a list of others.”

“So you went through this page by page?” Montoya accused.

Slade said, “We used gloves.”

Montoya’s lips were white as they flattened over his teeth. He was trying and failing to rein in his anger.

Bentz, from his spot near the door of the small room, asked, “Did you recognize anyone in the pages?”

“Not really. Just put two and two together.” She swung her gaze back to Montoya and saw a tired, angry man. “You know, you’re pretty good at pointing fingers and telling me what I shouldn’t do, but do you really think you should be investigating Camille’s murder since it’s pretty clear that you were lover number one?”