The bad feeling that had been with Montoya all day suddenly got worse. He was already reaching for his jacket when Brinkman added, “Claims he’s your brother.”

Val got it.

Standing in the heat of the noonday sun in the convent’s garden, she understood why women, including Camille, swooned around the priest.

Frank O’Toole was the cliché of tall, dark, and Hollywood handsome. With a self-deprecating smile, humor and intelligence sparking in his brown eyes, and a clerical collar that said “off-limits,” he was the quintessential forbidden fruit.

Sexy, but safe.

Yeah, right.

“I think we need to be alone,” he said to Sister Charity, who, lips tightening at the corners, hesitated, as if she were about to argue, then thought better of it.

“Of course, Father.” She whisked away, causing the honeysuckle to quiver as she passed. Wide double doors clicked closed behind her.

Once there was no one else in the garden, Father O’Toole indicated a short bench under the overhang of the cloister. “We can sit here,” he suggested, “or, if you’d rather have more privacy, we can go inside.”

“Here’s fine,” she said, but didn’t sit down. Instead she stood near the fountain where a sculptured angel spread her wings wide as she poured water from an urn to fill the surrounding pool. Goldfish flashed in the clear water.

Valerie and O’Toole were alone, it seemed. She gazed over the compound where her sister had lived, trying to imagine Cammie here. Though all the surrounding buildings were separate, the cathedral, smaller chapel, convent, and smaller brick buildings were connected by wide covered porches and walkways that surrounded the garden and effectively walled the parish from the city.

A few trees offered shade and privacy. Butterflies and droning bees flitted over the fragrant blooms.

It was peaceful.

Serene.

A place to meditate.

And yet, that same skin-prickling sensation that she was being silently observed stayed with her.

“So,” Father O’Toole said, “how can I help you?”

This was it. “Camille told me she was involved with you.” Father Frank’s jaw tightened slightly, and he looked away, ostensibly to follow the path of a wren as it took flight over the garden wall.

He folded his lips over his teeth for a second, then finally said, “I have a lot to answer for.”

“She told you she was pregnant?”

The priest sighed, his wide shoulders sagging as if from an invisible weight. “I . . . uh, we shouldn’t have let things get as far as they did.”

“I’ll say. And you’re the authority figure, the person she confided in, confessed to. You had no right—”