He lifted a playful brow. “Antagonize them?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Something like that.”

“But you’re stopping, right? You said you’re stopping.”

“I’m stopping.”

I lay down beside him. “What happened when you pulled them onto holy ground? I mean, did they writhe in agony?” I bounced up. “Did they smoke like the ground was burning the flesh off their bodies?”

He tucked an arm behind his head in thought. “That’s just it,” he said, his voice curious. “It didn’t seem to faze them at all.”

“I don’t understand. The consecrated soil didn’t hurt them?”

He shook his head. “Not even a little.”

* * *

I lay awake, listening to Reyes’s even breathing, but I now knew he was faking it. Had been faking it for eight months. My right foot was more asleep than he was. His revelation about the hellhounds kept my mind racing in overdrive. If the ground didn’t hurt them, then why weren’t they crossing it to rip out our throats? Maybe it did hurt them, just not visibly. They were freaking hard to see. Perhaps they were more focused on tearing my husband apart.

Or maybe they were simply waiting, patrolling the border to keep tabs on us. But why? What could they be waiting on?

My phone rang, but due to the limited number of electrical outlets in the room, Piper, my phone, was way across the other side. True, the room was tiny, but I’d still have to get out of bed to answer her summons.

I tried to roll out of Reyes’s arms. He tightened his hold. I tried to lift an arm off me, but he clasped his fingers, essentially locking me in.

“Reyes,” I said, stifling a giggle, “I know you’re awake. You can give up the game.”

“Never,” he said into his pillow.

I laughed and leaned all my weight forward until he finally let go. By the time I got to Piper, my voice mail had picked up. It was Uncle Bob, so I put on my robe, tiptoed out of the room, and called him right back.

“Are you still at work?” I asked him, looking at the clock before I closed the door to a pretend sleeping Reyes. It was 1:32 A.M.

“We found him,” he said, his voice hurried. “You won’t believe this. He works for the Vatican.”

“No,” I said, adding a flare of astonishment to my voice.

“Freaking hell, Charley, did you already know that? Are you the one who called in with the tip?”

“No.” Though I sounded super convincing, Ubie didn’t buy it.

“Charley—”

“I suspected. It’s a long story. So, what’s going on?”

“We can’t hold him, hon. He says he had nothing to do with the murder. Says your dad was following him, not the other way around. But we do have enough to charge him with stalking if you will press charges. Just say the word, pumpkin.”

“Does he know anything about Dad’s murder?”

Uncle Bob let out a long breath. “He says no. Says your dad threatened him if he didn’t stop following you, then that’s the last he saw of him.”

“He’s lying.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, he wasn’t just following me. Look at the pictures in his apartment.”

“What pictures? There aren’t any.”

Damn it. He got rid of the evidence. Must have sent it all back to his boss at the Vatican. “He had pictures of Dad on his wall.”

“You’ve been stuck at that convent for eight months. How do you know that?”

“I’ve been working with someone on it.”

“Even after I asked you not to?”

“Kind of. He had pictures of Dad.”

“Well, we got nothing now. And because he checks out, I can’t hold him.”

An idea hit me hard. As well as the corner of a hutch as I tried to traverse the house in the dark. I walked into the living room to hang with Mr. Wong.

“Put him on the phone,” I said.

“Charley, I can’t do that.”

“Tell him who you’re talking to and tell him Father Glenn sends his love.” I’d suspected he knew Father Glenn, a man I’d helped with a nest of demons a few months ago, for a while now. He was the one who told me about the file the Vatican had on me. I wondered if they were connected somehow.

“Okay. Hold on.”

After a few minutes, a timid male voice came on the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, Blondie,” I said, “been stalking anyone I know lately?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Have you told the Vatican yet?”

“Told them what?”

“That your cover has been blown.”

“Again, I don’t know what—”

“How about we skip all this and get to the heart of the matter?” I didn’t give him time to respond. I was hoping to disorient him so he’d slip up. “You tell my uncle, and you know damned well he’s my uncle, who was following my dad. You had pictures of him and another man. Hand those over, and I won’t tell anyone at the Vatican what a royal fuckup you are, capisce?”

He didn’t say anything, which meant he was considering my offer.

“In turn, you can keep doing your Vatican crap, whatever the hell that’s all about, and just do a few side jobs for me every once in a while, starting with a nun that died at this convent. I want her name and what happened to her. I also want to know what kind of trouble the priest that vanished was in.”