In silence, she and Slade followed the two detectives down a staircase to the lowest level of the hospital. Val’s stomach clenched as they made their way along a short hallway and through double doors.

Inside, the morgue was cold.

Even though she stood behind a thick glass window, Valerie felt the chill of the area beyond the pane. She braced herself but couldn’t help listening to that disbelieving voice in her head: There’s been a mistake, a misidentification. Cammie is not dead. She can’t be. Not beautiful, bright, high-spirited Camille. No way!

When the attendant slipped the sheet off Cammie’s face, Val’s knees nearly buckled. Cammie’s perfect face, bluish in death, looked upward.

Val let out a squeak of protest.

Slade’s strong arm was instantly around her waist, holding her up as she stared at the woman on the slab, her only sibling, so young . . .

“Oh, God,” Val whispered. The truth was a razor through her heart, all remnants of denial seeping from her. Tears stung her eyes and her insides trembled. For a second she thought she might be sick.

“Son of a bitch,” Slade muttered. His ghostly reflection appeared in the glass, his determined, unshaven jaw, blade-thin lips, narrowed eyes overlapping the stronger image of her dead sister.

How ironic was it that Slade was here, his image superimposed over Cammie’s dead, draped body?

After all they had been through. All the lies. The accusations. The heartache. Val couldn’t help but wonder if Slade felt a smidgeon of guilt for Cammie’s death.

He should.

As Val did. They were both integral in the contribution to her downward spiral.

“I should have done something,” she whispered.

“Like what?”

“Protected her.”

“Impossible.” Slade nodded toward the attendant, and the sheet was pulled back over Cammie’s face. He shepherded Val away from the window and through a door to where the two detectives waited.

How many times had she, in her years as a cop, been in their position, waiting to question the loved ones, trying to root out information while the family was torn by grief?

“We can talk to you here, or if you’d prefer, down at the station,” Bentz said.

“Here’s fine.” Val found some grit.

“Okay, there’s a room, just down the hall.” Bentz led them along a carpeted hallway to a small room with three chairs and a dying potted palm positioned near the window, a place where doctors spoke with patients or loved ones. Outside, the sky was now a sea of gray, threatening rain.

Bentz motioned them into chairs, took one himself, and waited as Montoya closed the door behind him and stood near the ill-fated tree.

“So let’s get started. Tell us what you know about the affair between Father O’Toole and your sister.”