questioned it. God, Ben, I never thought to verify with headquarters. It was Lou.”
“We’ve got to find him.”
She grabbed Ben’s arm before he could push past her. “Georgetown Hospital. He told her you’d been taken to Emergency.”
Nothing else was needed to have him streaking down the steps to his car.
Tess pulled up in the parking lot after a frustrating twenty-minute drive. The roads were all but clear, but that hadn’t stopped the fender benders. She told herself the good part was that Ben was already fixed up and waiting. And it was over.
Slamming her door, she dropped her keys into her pocket. On the way home they were going to pick up a bottle of champagne. Two bottles, she corrected. Then they were going to spend the rest of the weekend in bed drinking them.
The idea was so pleasant, she didn’t notice the figure melt out of the shadows and into the light.
“Dr. Court.”
Alarm came first, with her hand flying up to her throat. Then, with a laugh, she lowered it and started forward. “Detective Roderick, I didn’t know you’d-”
The light glinted on the white clerical collar at his throat. It was like the dream, she thought in a moment of blank panic, when she’d thought herself only a step away from safety only to find her worst fears confirmed. She knew she could turn and run, but he was only an arm’s span away and would catch her. She knew she could scream, but she had no doubt he’d silence her. Completely. There was only one choice. To face him.
“You wanted to talk to me.” No, it wouldn’t work, she thought desperately. Not if her voice was shaking, not when her head was filled with the rushing echo of her own fear. “I’ve wanted to talk to you too. I’ve wanted to help you.”
“Once I thought you could. You had kind eyes. When I read your reports, I knew you understood I wasn’t a murderer. Then I knew you’d been sent to me. You’d be the last one, the most important one. You were the only one the Voice said by name.”
“Tell me about the voice, Lou.” She wanted to back up, just edge back one foot, but saw by his eyes that even that small movement would trigger the violence. “When did you first hear it?”
“When I was a boy. They said I was crazy, like my mother. I was afraid, so I blocked it out. Later I realized it was a call from God, calling me to the priesthood. I was happy to be chosen. Father Moore said only a few are chosen to carry out the Lord’s work, to celebrate the sacraments. But even the chosen are tempted to sin. Even the chosen are weak, so we sacrifice, we do penance. He taught me how to train my body to fight off temptation. Flagellation, fasting.”
And one more piece to the puzzle fell into place. An emotionally disturbed boy enters the seminary, to be trained by an emotionally disturbed man. He would kill her. Following the path he saw laid out for him, he would kill her. The parking lot was all but empty, the doors of the Emergency Room two hundred yards away. “How did you feel about becoming a priest, Lou?”
“It was everything. My whole life was formed, do you understand? Formed. For that purpose.”
“But you left it.”
“No.” He lifted his head as if scenting the air, as if listening to something only for his ears. “That was like a blank spot in my life. I didn’t really exist then. A man can’t exist without faith. A priest can’t exist without purpose.“
She saw him reach in his pocket, saw the snatch of white in his hand. Her eyes were almost as wild as his when they met again. “Tell me about Laura.”
He’d come a step closer, but the name stopped him. “Laura. Did you know Laura?”
“No, I didn’t know her.” He had the amice in both hands now, but seemed to have forgotten it. Treat, she told herself to hold back a scream. Treat, talk, listen. “Tell me about her.”
“She was beautiful. Beautiful in that fragile way that makes you worry if such things can last. My mother worried because Laura enjoyed looking at herself in the mirror, brushing her hair, wearing pretty clothes. Mother could sense the Devil drawing, always drawing Laura into sin and bad thoughts. But Laura only laughed and said she didn’t care for sackcloth and ashes. Laura laughed a lot.”
“You loved her very much.”
“We were twins. We shared life before life. That’s what my mother said. We were bound together by God. It was for me to keep Laura from spurning the Church and everything we’d been taught. It was for me, but I failed her.”
“How did you fail Laura?”
“She was only eighteen. Beautiful, delicate, but there wasn’t any laughter.” The tears began, sobless, to glisten on his cheeks. “She’d been weak. I hadn’t been there for her, and she’d been weak. Back-street abortion. God’s judgment. But why did God’s judgment have to be so harsh?” His breathing quickened and became painfully loud as he pressed a hand to his forehead. “A life for a life. It’s fair and just. A life for a life. She begged me not to let her die, not to let her die in such sin that would send her to Hell. I had no power to absolve her. Even as she lay dying in my arms, I had no power. The power came later, after the despair, the dark, blank time. I can show you. I have to show you.”
He stepped forward, and even as Tess’s instincts had her pull back, he slipped the scarf around her. “Lou, you’re a police officer. It’s your job, your function to protect.”
“Protect.” His fingers trembled on the scarf. A policeman. He’d had to drug Pudges coffee. It would have been wrong to do more, to hurt another officer. Protect. The shepherd protects his flock. “I didn’t protect Laura.”
“No, it was a terrible loss, a tragedy. But now you’ve tried to give something back, haven’t you? Isn’t that why you became a police officer? To give something back? To protect others?”
“I had to lie, but after Laura it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe with the police I could find what I’d been looking for in the seminary. That sense of purpose. Vocation. Man’s law, not Gods law.”
“Yes, you swore to uphold the law.”
“The Voice came back, so many years later. It was real.”
“Yes, to you it was real.”
“It isn’t always inside my head. Sometimes it’s a whisper in the other room, or it comes like thunder from the ceiling over my bed. It told me how to save Laura, and myself. We’re bound together. We’ve always been bound together.”
Her hands clenched over the keys in her pocket. She knew if the scarf tightened, she would use them to gouge his eyes. For survival. The need to live surged through her.
“I will absolve you from sin,” he murmured. “And you will see God.”
“Taking a life is a sin.”
He hesitated. “A life for a life. A holy sacrifice.” The pain rushed through his voice.
“Taking a life is a sin,” she repeated as the blood pounded in her ears. “To kill breaks God’s law, and man’s. You understand both laws as a police officer, as a priest.” When she heard the siren, her first thought was that it was an ambulance coming into Emergency. She wouldn’t be alone. She didn’t take her eyes from his. “I can help you.”
“Help me.” It was only a whisper, part question, part plea.
“Yes.” Though it trembled, she lifted her hand and placed it on his. Her fingers brushed over the silk.
Doors slammed behind them, but neither of them moved.
“Get your hands off her, Roderick. Take your hands off her and move aside.”
Keeping her fingers around Roderick’s, Tess turned to see Ben no more than ten feet behind them, spread- legged, his gun held in both hands. Beside him and to the left, Ed mirrored his position. Sirens still screamed and lights flashed as cars poured into the lot.
“Ben, I’m not hurt.”
But he didn’t look at her. His eyes never left Roderick, and in them she saw that core of violence he strapped down. She knew if she stepped aside now, he’d cut it loose.
“Ben, I said I’m not hurt. He wants help.”
