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Lloyd Murphy was my father’s former law partner and closest friend. He’d been like an uncle to me. Lloyd retired a few years ago and split his time between Helene and his home in Arizona.

“How awful,” I said. “Losing a child at any time would be terrible. But in the middle of all that strife as well?”

“Oddly, it brought them closer together,” he said. “Ed and Tina are still married to this day, I think.”

“How’d they figure out Derrek Sidney was the killer?”

“I wasn’t privy to the details. Sidney wasn’t my client.”

“Would you have taken the case if he had been?”

Dad’s expression hardened. “Back then? I don’t know. I’d have been tempted to take a look at it. But I only represented accused killers who were actually innocent, remember? Sidney had already been charged with several other killings by then.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” I said. “What was he doing in Helene? Geneva said she watched his execution for a pair of murders he committed in Ohio.”

“That was a head-scratcher. Sidney was smart. He tended to pick victims from states without the death penalty. I’m guessing the opportunity he saw with the Ohio girls was too good for him to pass up.”

“Have you ever gone to one?” I asked. “An execution?”

Dad sat back in his chair. “I have. Twice. I regretted it each time.”

I resisted the urge to ask him to elaborate. I could see from his eyes that they were memories he’d rather leave behind him.

“I remember there was a massive manhunt,” he continued. “They even searched out here on the island.”

“They thought you were harboring him?”

“No,” he said. “There was just some crackpot tip that Sidney had found his way out here. There were all kinds of wild rumors at the time. So why didn’t Geneva tell the cops about this phrase Sidney whispered to her? What was it again?”

“Atrō te benedicto,” I said.

“I bless you with blackness?” he said. Growing up Catholic pre-Vatican II plus his law school days gave him a decent Latin vocabulary.

“Blackness?”

“Hmm. The sinister kind. An abyss. A void. Nothingness. If she’s remembering it correctly, that’s bastardized Latin. Benedico, not benedicto. Did you look it up?”

“I threw it into a browser search the second Geneva left,” I said. “Nothing came up. Just more or less what you just said.”

“But she didn’t tell the police?”

I shook my head. “She says no. She says she was too traumatized. I got the impression she didn’t say too much to the police at all in the beginning.”

“I remember that too now that you say it,” Dad said. “It was in the papers. I think they used the word catatonic. They were saying Geneva might not survive either. How serious were her injuries?”

“We didn’t get that far into it. The rest of the girls were strangled to death. Garroted actually. Sidney used whatever was at hand. Sarah Duran was killed using an extension cord he pulled out of the wall. On Geneva, he used her own bikini top.”

“Efficient,” Dad said, irony dripping from his tone.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know. In all likelihood, she’s dealing with some sick troll. Somebody read something online. They’re getting their jollies out of tormenting a total stranger.”

“Right,” I said. “I’d have thought that too. Only Geneva swears the only two people who should know about that phrase are herself and Derrek Sidney. Sidney’s been dead for six years.”

“He obviously told somebody. Some prison yard brag. A CO. Who knows.”

“Maybe. I’ll admit. I’m intrigued. This feels like the kind of project I won’t be able to stop thinking about until I at least try to get to the bottom of it. I suppose the first step would be to try to trace the source of the voicemail. That shouldn’t be too hard.”