“I wish I knew, but maybe it has something to do with Camille’s diary. He took it. Maybe there’s something condemning in it, something that would tie him to her.”

“Maybe,” Bentz said, taking notes. “But I agree. You’re the target of his threat.”

Montoya nodded. “We’ll put a detail outside,” he said, “to watch the place.”

She was nodding.

He continued. “And we’ll want to go through all of Camille’s personal items, take ’em with us.”

“Okay.”

“I want to take a look in the attic,” Bentz interjected. “See for myself, in case she left anything that wasn’t boxed up.”

“I’ll take you out there,” Slade said, and he pulled a flashlight from a drawer. For a man who’d come to New Orleans to patch things up with his wife, he seemed to know his way around her house. And the antagonism Montoya had sensed between them in their first interview, here at the house, then at the hospital, that invisible current of discord, seemed to be missing.

“Anything else you want to add?” Montoya asked. “Anything else unusual?”

He wasn’t surprised when she nodded again. “Yeah. I got a couple of calls this afternoon. Hang-ups. No caller ID,” she admitted.

“We’ll need your phone.”

“But—” she started to argue, then said, “Sure.”

“And we’ll need to take this.” He motioned to the BlackBerry, but Valerie was already nodding. She looked Montoya straight in the eye. “You knew my sister, Detective,” she said, her chin quivering despite the fire in her gaze. “Get the guy who did this to her. Nail his hide to the wall.”

“I will,” he said, knowing he was promising what might turn out to be the impossible but saying the words anyway. He caught a warning glance from Bentz but ignored it as he scooped the BlackBerry into his pocket and headed out the back door and into the night.

They asked more questions, checked the grounds, talked to Valerie Houston’s business partner, Freya Martin, and five groggy guests. A married couple from Maine were in their seventies, and the wife claimed she never heard anything but her husband’s snoring as he had dozed off. Three women from Oregon, all in their late forties, were on a “girl-cation away from the husbands and boyfriends” and hadn’t noticed. Freya had heard the dog bark, but that was it. No sound of footsteps, revving engine, screaming . . . no one looking out the window and seeing someone dash across the lawn.

All in all a bust, Montoya thought as he returned to the Crown Vic. Over the echo of his own promise to “nail the bastard” who had killed Camille Renard rattling through his brain, he heard the eerie peal of distant bells, the midnight chimes tremulously counting off the hours.

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 42