Another piece of garbage.

“Stay with the guy, Lola,” I can’t help but mutter. “Give him another chance. Let the boy know his dad. And give the guy what he wants in bed!” Stupid bitch! Has a kid with the guy, then decides he’s no good. Probably plans on holding him up for ransom in the form of child support.

Something Camille would never do. She was nothing if not obedient and submissive. Oh, she had her hot streak; there was fight in her, just enough to keep the sex hot, the fire bright. Just at the thought of her, my dick twitches.

Never had a lover been so willing. So ready. So wickedly divine.

And now she was gone.

A mistake.

An evil, vile mistake.

I nick my hand with the beads, causing blood to bloom on one finger. I’d lost just a little of my dexterity along with a piece of my thigh in my unfortunate tussle with my pal Ipana.

Of course, Ipana lost that battle. I suck my finger, then find a bit of surgical glue before I finish filing. I tie off the last bead and I give a hard tug on my handiwork, a rosary like no other.

It holds.

Again I pull hard against the beads and the fastenings, but it’s strong.

And unforgiving.

Perfect.

I slip it into the pocket of my backpack, right next to my sunglasses.

The cassock is zipped safely inside.

As a fish jumps in the water far below my cabin, I know I’m ready. I snap off the radio, open the trapdoor, and carefully step down the ladder to my waiting canoe.

The boxes belonging to Camille were a bust.

At least as far as Valerie could see. All five were opened, their contents strewn over the living room floor.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

If anything, the memorabilia, clothes, and few pictures were examples of a very normal life. No burning love letters, no vivid diary of a woman who confused pain with pleasure, sex with torture.

Camille’s confirmation dress, the old pom-poms from St. Timothy’s where she’d been a cheerleader, even a framed photograph of their parents, but nothing that indicated a life that was anything out of the ordinary.

“You’re disappointed,” Slade said as he flipped on a light, the gloom of the evening seeping in through the windows.

“Extremely.”

“What did you think you’d find? A message with the killer’s name scrawled in blood?”

“I guess,” she admitted with a half smile. “Or something that pointed us in the right direction.” She discovered a rosary and picked it up, staring at the glassy beads and letting them slide through her fingers to pool, like a holy snake, on the floor, the cross as its head, the twined ropes of beads its body. “My money’s still on Frank O’Toole.”

“Even though he’s not the baby’s father?”