The place Kristi may have been conceived, if Shana McIntyre could be believed. There was a chance Shana was lying, of course, that she knew of this place from her own romantic trysts. Shana had never made any bones about the fact that she didn’t like him. She would thoroughly enjoy playing a sick joke on him, just to watch him squirm.

Almost smelling the odor of forgotten sex, he eyed a dusty bookcase that lined one wall. A few forgotten books were scattered on the shelf, their pages and covers yellowed. Other books had fallen to the floor, and from their mottled edges it appeared that something had been nibbling on them. He picked one up, a legal thriller from the nineties. A novel Jennifer had read. He remembered discussing it with her.

Her copy?

His throat went dry as he flipped through a few pages, then tossed the book aside, the ever-darkening room creeping into his soul.

Coincidence, nothing more.

And yet…

He felt as if she’d been here. Almost.

“Fool,” he muttered as his gaze landed on a desk. It had been pushed in front of the closet and was missing a few drawers. On the scarred top was the base of an old telephone, the receiver dangling over one side.

Had Jennifer really spent hours here? Nights? With James? He crossed to the French doors, the glass boarded over on the outside, many of the panes cracked. The doors had once opened onto a small, private balcony overlooking the courtyard. Thinking they might open inward, he tried the levers.

Neither door budged.

It was getting darker by the second, the room musty, dragging the breath from his lungs. He ran the beam of his flashlight over a worn chaise. Foam stuffing bloomed crazily from the frayed velvet that had once been ice blue and now was a dingy, dirty gray.

Bentz’s muscles tensed as he trained his small light on the bed, nothing more than a stained mattress on a rotting frame. It had been shoved into a corner beneath a broken stained-glass window, then forgotten.

Staring at the mess, cleaning it up in his brain, Bentz imagined what the room would have looked like nearly thirty years earlier. A time when Jennifer and James had first started their affair.

Don’t even go there, he warned, but couldn’t help imagining how the area would have looked. Surely a carpet would have covered the plank floors. The chaise, in a soft blue, would have been new and plump, the desk, a shiny rosewood antique. The bed would have been turned down and inviting, with smooth sheets and a cozy coverlet.

He thought there had been a desk chair, perhaps upholstered in the same blue as the chaise. He imagined a black cassock and clerical collar recklessly discarded over the chair’s back.

One fist clenched.