Devious - Lisa Jackson [16]
Maybe.
Her computer screen flickered to life, and she quickly went about opening her e-mail, searching through the spam until she saw it, a single posting from SisCam1. “Thank the gods of the Internet,” Val said under her breath as she clicked on the e-mail to open it.
“Okay, Cammie, what’s up?” Val said as the short message appeared:
Having second thoughts. Can’t take it anymore. Am leaving St. Marg’s. You know why.
“Oh, Cammie,” Val said, her heart heavy. Of course she knew why her sister was leaving the convent: Camille was pregnant.
CHAPTER 7
“You know Frank O’Toole and Camille Renard?” Bentz asked, his eyes narrowing on Montoya.
“Yeah. High school.” Montoya still couldn’t believe it. How did so many people he recognized from a small high school end up here at St. Marguerite’s, with the girl he’d dated for over six months dead at his feet? He swallowed hard as he glanced to the floor, where someone from the ME’s office was bending over the body. Montoya’s gaze found Bentz’s again. “And that isn’t all of it,” he admitted, not liking the turn of his thoughts. “That nun over there.” With one finger, he indicated the shivering Lucia Costa. “I didn’t really know her, but for a while she dated my brother, Cruz. He’s a couple of years younger than me. She was a few years behind him, I think. I was out of high school before she started her freshman year.”
“So it’s old home week?” Bentz’s eyes thinned speculatively.
“Beats me.” Scowling, stepping away from the body, he asked, “Who was the first officer to arrive?”
“Amos took the call,” Bentz said.
Montoya spotted the officer talking to the shivering girl. New to the force, Joe Amos was a six-foot black man with a wide girth and mocha-colored skin accentuated by a shotgun blast of darker freckles across his face. Montoya walked in front of the first pew to a pillar where Amos was listening to Sister Lucia.
“. . . and so Father Paul and Father Frank and I ran back here, to the chapel and—” she was saying, but her gaze strayed to Montoya and her chain of thought was interrupted. “And . . . Oh, dear God.” Her eyes rounded and she took a step back.
“And what?” Amos asked.
Lucia blinked, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “You’re Cruz’s brother,” she whispered, appearing as if she might faint.
“That’s right.”
Even more lines of worry showed between her eyebrows. “Raymond or . . .”
“Reuben. I’m with the local police department now. Detective.”
Amos pinned Montoya with a glare. “You two know each other?”
Montoya shook his head. “Went to the same high school. Years ago. She dated my brother.”
“You look a lot like him,” Lucia said, fingers pulling the cape closer around her body. “Like Cruz.”
“So I’ve heard.” Montoya couldn’t deny the obvious, having heard it for years—the family resemblance ran strong.
Amos held up a hand. “Okay, so let’s get back to your statement. Let’s see, you ‘heard something,’ you said. What was it?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” She swallowed hard. “Something sharp. It woke me and I felt troubled, like I needed to pray.”
“A scream?” Montoya asked. “Or a call for help?”
“No . . . nothing I can really identify.”
Really?
“But you left your room?” Amos pressed.
“Yes, as I said, I was upset, like I’d had a horrible dream that I can’t remember. I knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep, so I thought I’d go pray in the chapel. It’s calming sometimes.” Lucia looked frightened and small, as if she wanted to disappear into the shadows.
Amos glanced down at notes he’d scribbled in a nearly illegible hand. “So then you find the body, see someone leaving, call for help, meet up with Sister Charity, go to the office, make the call to nine-one-one, then run back to the chapel after waking the priests.