The one glaring omission was Father Thomas. No blood had been taken from the priest, as he’d been away from St. Elsinore’s more often than not.

Odd, that.

Still, Montoya thought wryly, he was doubting Thomas as the father. He smiled at his own little joke, then angled off toward the coffee shop where he usually picked up his regular cup of joe. At the coffee stand, he paid for his black coffee, got a cup of water for the dog, and left change in the tip jar for Jessica, the barista, a pillowy African American woman with silver hair. He sipped from the steaming paper cup as he walked back to the house and stretched his muscles. Hershey, finally tired, his tongue lolling out of his mouth, followed.

All part of his usual routine.

Except that now a killer was stalking the streets of New Orleans, his town, once again.

First Sister Camille and then Asteria McClellan. The two, as far as Montoya could tell, were only linked because of two parishes: St. Elsinore’s, from which they’d both been adopted, and St. Marguerite’s, where they lived and planned to take their vows.

As different as night and day, his mother would have said. Sister Camille, outgoing, spontaneous, a flirt, and, it turned out, someone who didn’t take her vows of chastity seriously. Sister Asteria had no tell-all graphic diary. No pregnancy. Was still, according to the ME, a virgin.

Both women, though, had been drugged, traces of Rohypnol in their bloodstream. The date-rape drug—used on nuns. What the hell was that all about?

There wasn’t any info yet on Grace Blanc, and the testimony of the old Italian lady, Mrs. Rubino, about seeing a priest through her fish-eye peephole was sketchy at best. She was partially deaf, and her eyesight wasn’t near 20/20, so if she were ever put on the witness stand, assuming the police made an arrest, her testimony would be torn up by any defense attorney worth the cost of the ink on his diploma.

What a mess! Montoya drank his coffee and cut across the lawn to the house. On the porch, he stretched his hamstrings and quads, then finished the last swallow before crushing his cup. The neighbor’s dog, Apollo the dalmatian, whined from the front porch, wriggling at the sight of the Lab.

“No!” Montoya said before Hershey even looked up at him or dashed inside. “Sit!”

He stripped out of his T-shirt, then wiped the Lab’s paws with it while Hershey wiggled impatiently on the porch. “Hey! Give me a break.” Once the Lab’s feet were a little cleaner, he opened the door and the dog streaked inside.

“Trying to win brownie points?” Abby asked. She was in her bathrobe, her hair piled onto her head, standing at the kitchen sink and cutting up fruit while the coffee brewed and Benjamin slept in his infant seat on the counter.