It was intriguing though thankfully the public knew few of the details of bridal dresses, bloodied necklines, orphans, secretive religious orders, and a madman on the loose again. A dead prostitute and a nun’s diary that read like a guide to kinky sex, the scenes so graphic he’d nearly ignored the little scribbles that had accompanied the text, notes he’d not understood.

Important?

He shrugged, as if someone had actually asked him the question. Weird numbers and symbols, hearts and arrows, like cupid encrypting a special message. All wrapped up in death.

A helluva thing when you thought about it.

The wheels of the bus go round and round,

Round and round, round and round.

The wheels of the bus go round and round

All through the town....

The childhood song ran through Lucia’s mind as the Greyhound’s tires sang over the pavement. How many times had she sung the lyrics along with making the hand movements with the kids at the orphanage at St. Elsinore’s?

She sighed, leaning her head against the window as the night rushed by. Tonight, she knew, was the auction for the building of the new orphanage, and a part of her longed to be there; just as a part of her longed to be with Cruz again.

Idiot!

That part of your life, with the orphanage, and certainly with Cruz, is over.

The bus was nearly empty. Besides Lucia, there was just an old woman with a child of around eight two seats back from the driver. The child was nestled in the woman’s arms; both were asleep. In the back was a twentyish man with a scar that ran down one side of his face and tattoos visible on his big arms. He was leaning back in his seat, plugged into an iPod, his eyes closed.

Lucia sat in the middle of the bus, on the opposite side of the aisle from the others.

Tonight she was dressed in street clothes again, though her hair was cropped short, compliments of her own hack job with a pair of scissors she’d stolen from the convent. She was traveling courtesy of Sister Camille, who had left her, along with her cell phone, a wallet filled with hundred-dollar bills. Fifty of them, to be exact.

A fortune to Lucia. She sighed, her breath fogging the window as she remembered Camille giving her the money.

“Just in case,” Camille had said when she’d tucked the thick leather billfold into the pockets of Lucia’s habit just two days before she was killed. “The Holy Father may want us to give up worldly possessions, but he surely doesn’t want us to be stupid.”

“But where did you get this?” Lucia had gasped, intending to return it to Camille.