The short drive to St. Marguerite’s Cathedral seemed to take forever, and as she nosed her little car into a parking space on the street, the church bells were tolling again. She realized it was noon, barely twelve hours since she’d stood at her kitchen window, worrying about Camille, sensing something was wrong but not knowing that at that very second she might have been on the verge of death, drawing her last breath. In her mind’s eye, Valerie saw the image of Camille’s motionless, draped body lying on a cold slab in the hospital’s morgue, a picture she prayed would fade with time.

She steeled herself as she rolled up the window.

This probably wasn’t going to go well.

That was just too damned bad.

After locking the Subaru, she jaywalked across the street to the looming edifice, a stone and brick building whose spires rose as if in exaltation to the heavens. The main part of the cathedral was well over two hundred years old, having withstood wars and storms and scandal. Rimmed by expansive grounds and guarded by a wrought-iron fence and gnarled live oaks, St. Marguerite’s Cathedral was a reminder of ages past, a society locked away, a world unto itself.

There were no news vans parked along the street, and if the police were still on the premises, Val didn’t see any of their vehicles. However, the massive doors of the cathedral were sealed with yellow crime scene tape strung through the handles, and the trampled grounds were evidence of last night’s assault by hundreds of feet during the start of the investigation.

Of Cammie’s murder.

Oh, God.

She followed the wrought-iron fence that guarded the church grounds, heading toward a back alley and a gate that Cammie had mentioned once, an entrance used by delivery trucks and the few nuns who occasionally left the convent.

She found it next to a solitary oak.

Locked tight.

An eerie feeling washed over her, a breeze that tickled the hairs of her neck and caused her to look upward toward the dark windows of the building. Like soulless eyes, they seemed to stare down at her, almost daring her to enter.

Being here, she had the sense that she was trespassing, that if she ever walked through these locked gates, she would be treading where she shouldn’t.

So what? Could anything be worse than Cammie’s murder? Pull yourself together!

A raven flapped his black wings and cawed before landing upon a gargoyle shaped like a snarling demon, and Val told herself it wasn’t an omen.

Just a coincidence, imagery from too many horror movies that had terrified her as a child.

Just like the monster with hot eyes and tiny teeth who creeps through your nightmares?

She gave herself a quick mental shake, located a buzzer, and jabbed it with her finger.