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“That’s one of the names that’s been mentioned. Dennison is in New Orleans now, you know.”
“I didn’t.” Kristi was surprised. “I thought he lived around Atlanta somewhere.”
“I thought so, too. But it’s always been a guessing game with him. Ever mysterious our boy Dennison, but I think he moved in the last year or so. A colleague mentioned it; he’s friends with Dennison’s agent, who doesn’t let much out about his client. It’s all part of the ‘Dennison mystique,’” Zera added sarcastically, and Kristi imagined the agent making air quotes around her phone.
“Save me.” Kristi rolled her eyes. “That might have flown years ago, but in the age of the Internet, with Facebook—oh, excuse me, Meta—and Instagram and Twitter and book lovers’ groups and mystery blogs and podcasts and whatever, it seems impossible.”
“I’m just saying,” Zera said. “And he’s not the only one who is talking about a new book on Rosary. I even heard a whisper about a movie. Made for TV.”
Kristi should have been enticed. She wasn’t. “That’s already happened. They can dust off that old made-for-TV thing.”
Zera snorted. “An episode of a cheesy true-crime cable show. This would be different.”
“If you say so.”
Zera continued, “I’m telling you, Kristi, the vultures are circling. If you don’t do this, half a dozen other authors will.”
“I hear you.”
“Good. So just send me something!”
“I will.” It was a lie. Kristi knew it as she disconnected. Zera would be pissed at her, okay, but if Kristi figured out who was behind the attack on Jay—yes, possibly Father John—there would be a whole new story to appease her agent. A sequel toThe Rosary Killer? She wasn’t certain of that, but both she and Zera knew that from her unique perspective of victim and new widow due to the attack, she would be able to get a publisher interested in the story, no matter what or who the competition.
If she could put the pieces together.
And if she didn’t get hurt or killed while doing it.
Absently, while the kitten hopped onto the windowsill, Kristi rubbed her shoulder where her assailant had thrust his blade, just before killing Jay. “I’ll get you, you son of a bitch,” she said under her breath. “If it’s the last thing I do.”
“No, Kris. Not the last thing.”Jay’s voice again, ringing in her ears. Reprimanding.
“What?” she bit out angrily, mad that he wasn’t here, that he was haunting her instead.
“The baby. You have to think first about the baby.”
Oh, God. She let out an exasperated breath as Lenore stepped onto the top of Kristi’s messy desk. Jay was right, of course. She couldn’t put herself into any kind of danger, not now. Though reckless when it came to her own safety, she couldn’t, wouldn’t, place her unborn child in peril.
Frustrated, she threw her pencil and startled the kitten, who leaped straight up and landed back on Kristi’s work space, her back arched, her needle teeth exposed as she hissed. “Oooh. Sorry.” Kristi reached for her, but Lenore scuttled behind the stack of books Kristi had pulled from the shelf and left on a corner of her desk. Copies of the same books she’d given to Montoya.
Kristi paused. Studied the spines of the hardbacks.
Was Montoya right? Could Jay’s killer be tucked into the pages of the books she had written over the years? What were the chances of that?
Not great, but better than the odds of some family member hiding in the shadows of St. Louis Cathedral, pouncing and committing assault and murder as Montoya had suggested. Ridiculous, though she supposed he couldn’t know that. Still, the idea rubbed her the wrong way, that anyone in her family or Jay’s was homicidal.
So who was behind the attack, then?
Who hated her so much as to try and murder her?
“Not just you, Kris. It could be your Dad who is the ultimate target.”Jay’s voice again. “He’s made more than his share of enemies in the course of his career, and what better way to get back at him than to hurt you? Do your research. Think with a clear head. If you’re going to do this—and you know you will—then do it right.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, her lips curving in the hint of a smile as she remembered saying the same thing jokingly to her husband when they’d argued and she’d ended up realizing he was right.
Twirling the wedding ring on her finger, she sighed. “I do miss you,” she admitted, and felt her throat close. Again. Before allowing herself to devolve into tears, she blinked rapidly, then picked up the first book in the haphazard stack on her desk:The God Complex and Murder.“Hamilton Cooke’s story,” she said to the room, and saw Dave perk his head up from the dog bed she had placed under a window. She smiled and rolled her chair over to the bed and scratched the dog behind his ears. “I’ll tell you about it sometime,” she said, and Dave’s tail wagged.
Kristi remembered interviewing Cooke, a supposedly brilliant surgeon and a total egomaniac. Cooke used his status to his advantage, creating an alternate personality, always keeping people guessing, forever in the news and the subject of Internet, television, and radio interviews and speculation, while behind bars and especially since he’d been out. He’d become a quasi-celebrity of sorts and seemed to revel in all the attention.
“Dr. Ego,” she whispered under her breath.
