Devious - Lisa Jackson [89]
He groaned, hands splaying.
In a heartbeat, it was over.
She stiffened in his arms. “No!” she whispered, pulling away, staring at him in horror. “This can’t happen.” She backed up quickly as if stricken. “Oh . . . no . . .” She was shaking her head so quickly her veil trembled.
“Wait!” He wasn’t going to lose her again. Not when he still had so many questions, so many unresolved feelings. “Lucia—”
“I mean it.”
He grabbed the crook of her arm. “Then call me.”
“No.”
He rattled off his cell number, anyway, an easy one to remember, ending with the digits of the year she was born. “You won’t forget.”
“I will,” she said, and pulled her arm back, forcing him to release her. “Go away, Cruz, and don’t ever come back here! Never!” She nearly tripped as she scrambled away from him, running through heavy doors.
Cruz, his blood still pounding in his ears, turned to spy Sister Charity glaring down at him from an upper balcony. Her face said it all. Chalk-white against her black veil and twisted in disapproval . . . no, something more.
The paragon of virtue’s features were set into an expression of disgust, as if she’d just seen something so vile and repulsive she couldn’t speak.
As her eyes held his, she made the sign of the cross over her chest, leaving Cruz to wonder why the benign action seemed like a threat.
CHAPTER 29
It was late afternoon by the time Val and Slade headed to St. Elsinore’s convent. The sun, hidden partially by clouds, was hanging low in the sky, threatening rain again as Slade drove toward the parish where Valerie and Camille had been adopted.
Most of the day had been filled with taking care of paperwork, guest registrations, and Internet reservations and helping Freya in the kitchen and with the laundry and guest rooms that the part-time maid couldn’t get to. Though they didn’t serve lunch, there were evening displays of wine, cheese, and crackers, along with something special Freya baked. This afternoon, she’d whipped up batches of her signature pralines and ginger cookies. The aromas of ginger and vanilla seeped through the airy rooms.
Any other time, Valerie would have been tempted by the scents and tasted the warm cookies, but today she hadn’t been interested, and a part of her still couldn’t believe the world just kept on turning, people going about their lives, while Camille was now lying in a morgue, waiting for Valerie to make arrangements.
She just couldn’t go there yet, hadn’t totally accepted that she’d never see her sister again, never hear her laugh, never catch her eye at a private joke.
“Get over it,” she’d told herself, but the sadness was still with her, lying in wait on the fringes of her consciousness, ready to play havoc with her emotions.
So she’d kept busy.
Today, as she’d worked, her cell phone had been near and she’d kept checking, hoping Montoya had called to tell her that Cammie’s murderer had been caught.
But that was more complicated than she’d originally thought.
When she’d first heard about Camille’s murder, Val had been certain Frank O’Toole had taken her sister’s life, but the more she thought about it, the less likely she thought him capable of murder. She’d seen it in his eyes when she’d talked to him, his abject despondency at Camille’s death.
The priest had vowed he’d loved Camille with such fervency that though she hated to admit it, Valerie almost believed him.
Almost.
But if not Frank O’Toole, then who had hated Camille so intensely as to kill her in the chapel, dressed in a wedding gown?
Someone with intense hatred.
Someone with a point to make.
Someone with access to and knowledge of the parish buildings.
Someone who could make Camille do his bidding.
Someone strong enough to control her.
“Damn it all to hell,” she whispered as she considered the fact that with each passing minute, she believed the killer was getting farther and farther away. She couldn’t let it happen. She had to be proactive in finding Cammie’s killer.
Now Slade drove his truck out of the city on I-10, heading northeast, across the smooth