Devious (16 page)

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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: Devious
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“
S
o tell me again what your problem is with Slade?” Freya suggested as she bent over the stove, pulling freshly made blond brownies from the oven. The kitchen smelled like heaven with the scent of warm vanilla wafting through. Val’s stomach gurgled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten anything all day.
She found a glass and dropped some ice cubes from the freezer into it before finding the pitcher of lemonade in the refrigerator. “Can I get you some?” she asked Freya, who shook her head, then motioned to the counter where a large opaque cup sat near the window.
“Already got iced coffee.” She set the pan of blondies on the top of the stovetop’s iron grate. “And you’re avoiding the issue. I asked about Slade.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve got lots of problems with Slade,” she admitted. “Too many to count.”
“Hmmm.”
The back door was open, and through the screen door, Val could see the lump of fur that was Bo, sitting quietly on the porch, looking inside the kitchen. So intent was he that he didn’t notice the stray cat slinking across the yard. Merlin, a black tom with a long tail, disappeared around the hedge.
“You’re losing your edge,” Val confided in the dog. At the sound of Val’s voice, he cocked his head and hoisted himself to a sitting position for a better view.
“I see you,” she said, smiling.
God, she missed the old hound.
He thumped his tail on the painted floorboards as she walked outside, the screen door slapping loudly behind her. “You’re a good guy,” she admitted, scratching the hound behind his ears. “You know that, don’t you?”
From inside the house, Freya said, “He misses you.”
“I suppose.”
“I wasn’t talking about the dog.”
“Oh. Slade?” She shook her head. “I doubt it.” Val couldn’t imagine Slade missing anyone, especially not a suspicious wife who was intent on divorcing him.
“I know the signs.” Freya appeared at the other side of the screen, her oversized cup in hand.
“This from a woman who’s had two husbands.”
“And an extra fiancé.”
“And a live-in boyfriend.”
“Don’t remind me.” She walked outside and hoisted herself onto the railing. “But I know what I know, and I see how that guy looks at you.”
“Enough! I get it, okay?” Val placed her cold glass to her forehead to fight the headache that was beginning to form. She closed her eyes, blocking out Freya, Slade, and the whole damned world for just a few minutes. “Didn’t we have an agreement when I moved in that we wouldn’t put our noses in each other’s love lives?”
No answer.
“Freya?” Val prodded. “I distinctly remember—”
“Okay, okay, I’m just sayin’—”
“I know what you’re saying, and I hear you.” Opening her eyes, she sighed, then took a long sip from her glass.
“Want a vanilla brownie?”
“In the worst way. You?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be right back, and you can tell me what happened this morning.” She hopped off the rail and walked inside while Val, drained, thought about what she’d accomplished. It all added up to a great big zero. Father Frank had given her nothing, the mother superior hadn’t wanted to talk, and she’d missed Detective Montoya when she’d left the e-mail with his partner, who had been mum on the subject of Camille. And then there was Slade. . . . Oh, hell, how did she even begin to deal with him?
The pain and humiliation she’d felt two years ago came back in a wild rush with its own brand of familiar heartache. Now, looking back, she realized it had been a matter of “he said/she said,” and she’d trusted her sister that Slade had not just come on to her, but also had actually, at Christmastime, slipped into her room and her bed. According to Camille, “nothing had really happened,” but she’d said it so hesitantly, Val had doubted it. Seeds of suspicion had been planted and had quickly taken root. Slade had always liked Camille, and they had flirted. Oh, God, what was the point? It was over now. She was divorcing her husband and her sister was dead. Twisting her glass in her hands, watching the ice cubes dance, she wondered if she’d been too harsh on her sister, too rash with her husband, too damned ready to believe the worst.
The cop in you.
Yeah, well, that part of her life was over, too. She’d quit being a detective when she’d left Texas. At least officially. Until now.
Old habits die hard. Especially when your own sister is murdered.
Frank O’Toole had to be the killer.
Who else?
Her gut instinct told her to look no further.
Her head reminded her to see past the obvious.
She thought of her sister. Cammie had been troubled, no doubt about it. Though she hadn’t heard all the details of her sister’s death, she’d been told enough to convince her that Camille’s murder hadn’t been a random act. The bridal gown—had that been Cammie’s idea? Had someone else dressed her? Someone close to her? Her night-clothes had been in her room. Everything she knew about her sister’s murder made her think that someone close to Cammie had killed her.
She just needed to figure out who and prove it. Fast. Hours were ticking by, and it was a known fact that if a homicide wasn’t solved in the first forty-eight hours after commission, the chances of solving the case were cut in half.
Which meant it was time to pin down O’Toole. Though she had almost believed the priest when he’d said he’d been in love with Camille, she still felt as if he could have killed her.
An act of passion.
There had been signs of a struggle, the cops had told her, but they’d said nothing else about the crime. She knew from her own experience that the police withheld evidence to weed out the real killer, the only person who would have intimate knowledge of the crime. All she knew was Camille had been strangled in the chapel around midnight, nothing more. She still felt O’Toole was the most likely suspect for the crime, but she needed concrete evidence to tie him to it.
Or prove him innocent.
Was it possible?
If so, then who would hate her so badly to kill her?
Let the police handle it. Isn’t that your motto?
When she was with the sheriff ’s department, she’d hated it when novices got involved in her investigations.
But that was different. She wasn’t a novice, not by a long shot. She had investigative experience, and now her sister was the victim. She couldn’t sit around and wait for the likes of Montoya and Bentz to plod through their job.
No, Val had to take charge.
“I say fresh-baked goodies can cure just about anything,” Freya called through the screen door as she appeared with a small plate of blondies, which she set on the short table beside her chair.
Although Val appreciated the gesture, both women knew there was no way to soothe the loss of a sister, the end of a life. And when murder was involved . . .
Freya bit into a square and declared, “Oooh. Maybe my best batch ever.”
“Modest, aren’t you?” Val took a bite of the warm confection, and immediately bits of chocolate melted in her mouth, pecans crunching between her teeth. Bo, with his big, sad eyes, began to drool.
“Here ya go,” Freya said, and reached into her pocket for a dog biscuit, which Bo licked with an obvious lack of enthusiasm.
It was so like Freya to have something to appease everyone. “So now, Val, all old, ridiculous promises aside, let’s hear it. Why the hell is it that you think the hunk you’re married to is evil incarnate?”
A few blocks off the river at a watering hole in the French Quarter, Slade worked on his second beer. He’d spent some time familiarizing himself with the city, figuring it was good to avoid the bed-and-breakfast for a few hours and give Val some space after their last confrontation at the cathedral.
He’d even driven as far away as St. Elsinore’s, the parish on the other side of the bridge that spanned Lake Pontchartrain. Built of stucco, its once-white exterior had darkened from years of grime. Giant willow trees draped over the walls guarding the orphanage, convent, and parochial school attached to the church. Not an inviting place, it looked deserted, closed for the day.
But there had been one door left ajar for a maintenance man, and Slade had slipped into the cool, dark interior and walked the mostly empty hallways, acquainting himself with the layout. A few doors were locked, of course, and he avoided areas where he heard voices, but he did get a general feel for the place, had taken note of the office for the parish and the orphanage. He’d seen evidence of children, a few toys and artwork on the cracked plaster walls. He’d seen a flyer taped to the windows announcing a charity auction and the fact that the building was about to be condemned, the orphanage moved. The disrepair was palpable—cracks in the walls, stains near the ceiling, the smell of mold beneath the stringent odor of disinfectant. Like St. Marguerite’s, St. Elsinore’s appeared antiquated and dark, in its death throes.
He’d climbed the creaking stairs to the second floor, then hurried down an outdoor stairwell, studied the sorry playground and layout of rooms, the connections between the buildings. He’d even tried a few locked doors but hadn’t taken the time to try and break any dead bolts.
At least not yet.
He hadn’t stayed at St. Elsinore’s long, hadn’t wanted to be confronted and forced to answer awkward questions about why he was there. He really couldn’t explain it. Yes, there was a need for a glimpse of the crumbling building and grounds, the place where Valerie and Camille had lived for a short while before the Renards had adopted them, but there was more to it than that. Camille had worked at St. Elsinore’s recently, had taken a job with the children in the orphanage, a place Val had rarely spoken of.
What was the deal with that?
After the trek across Lake Pontchartrain to St. Elsinore’s, Slade had returned to the city and driven straight to St. Marguerite’s, clocking the miles and time. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he had a gut feeling that whatever Camille had been doing at St. Elsinore’s had been important. What had the big nun who’d worked with her—Louise—said? That Camille liked to work with kids? That she’d been searching for her roots?
When she supposedly knew all about her life.
Val had been stunned.
Worth looking into.
Once he’d checked the mileage to St. Marguerite’s, he’d driven through other parts of New Orleans, some still scarred and abandoned, as empty as an evacuated war zone, the resulting destruction of Hurricane Katrina years before.
He’d taken the time to familiarize himself with the city where his wife had grown up and now called home.
That thought stung like a bitch, and he wondered, in light of Camille’s murder, if Val would ever return to his ranch near Bad Luck.
Probably not.
Once he was finished with his tour, he’d wound up here in the Plug Nickel, a honky-tonk that was about as glamorous as its name.
The bartender swabbed down the scarred bar, revealing tattoos that seemed to be inked on every inch of her exposed skin. Her over-processed hair was piled high on her head and tied with a red scarf. A tank top and shorts gave ample view of the body art that was scrolled on her arms, legs, and neck. So far, the spiderweb that climbed up her throat hadn’t reached her face.
A good thing, in his estimation.
“You need another?” she asked, offering him a bright smile as she replaced his nearly empty bowl of salty Chex Mix with a full one.
“Still workin’ on this one.”
“Just let me know.” She took a drag on her cigarette, then jabbed the filter tip out in an ashtray near the soda gun and moved down the bar to wait on other customers. Two women in their twenties laughed over a couple of glasses of wine. Farther down, another single guy nursed a scotch while surreptitiously watching the female patrons’ reflection in the mirror that ran along the wall behind the bar.
Bottles glistened like jewels in the soft light, and pool balls clicked as a couple of guys in jeans and T-shirts played a game of Nine Ball at one of the two pool tables.
A television mounted high in the corner had been tuned to a local station. The five-o’clock news was just airing the big story: nun murdered at St. Marguerite’s.
Oh, hell.
Every muscle in his body tensed.
The volume on the television was set too low to hear much over the conversation in the bar, but Slade caught the drift. A male reporter stood in front of the cathedral, explaining details of the crime. A close-up of the crime scene tape around the doors of St. Marguerite’s gave way to an image of Camille. In the photograph, she wasn’t dressed as a nun. It was a photo Slade recognized, a posed senior portrait, which was over five years old. The same photo Valerie had displayed on the mantel at the ranch when they’d lived there together.
Slade’s jaw slid to the side as the screen changed to a series of black-and-white photos of nuns as the reporter quickly went through some of the history of St. Marguerite’s.

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