a compromise between his father’s dubious Catholicism and the strict Southern Baptist upbringing his mother had been forced to endure. He and his sister had attended church and Sunday school as children, but no one in the family had ever taken their religious activities seriously, and their attendance had tapered off over the years.
Donovan’s tenuous belief in a higher power had been hammered out of him after his sister’s suicide and his days working Special Crimes. The evil he’d regularly witnessed had convinced him that no God could possibly be watching over us. The Founding Fathers had been right. Mankind had long ago been abandoned and left to fend for itself.
Yet, as he sat behind the wheel of his Chrysler, clutching the Lisa Simpson key chain, watching rain splatter the windshield, he sent up a prayer.
“If you are there,” he said quietly, “bring her home to me. Please bring her home.”
Leaning back in his seat, he closed his eyes to make it official, but he heard no voice in return, was given no sign that his message had been received. Despite the effort, his heart didn’t fill with joy or hope or the promise of a new day.
Which didn’t particularly surprise him.
What kind of God would let an innocent fifteen-year-old be snatched away like this? What Benevolent Power would stand idly by as a good, honest man was ripped to shreds by a land mine? What Heavenly Father would let a jackass cop destroy the only chance they had of finding a little girl?
Donovan felt nothing but fury. Toward himself, toward Gunderson, Fogerty, and toward a neglectful God who would never answer his prayer.
He sat up and started the engine, resisting the urge to jam his foot against the gas pedal and plow through anything that got in his way. There was a tap on the passenger window and Sidney Waxman stood outside, gesturing for him to roll it down.
Donovan did.
Sidney leaned in, dripping rain. “CPD’s been all over those tunnels. We got bupkis.” He paused. “You all right?”
Donovan just stared at him.
“Okay, dumb question. What’s our next move?”
“Pray forensics finds something in the Suburban,” Donovan said. “In the meantime, get CPD and the team topside, walking a grid, six-block radius, then expand from there if you have to.”
“What exactly are we looking for?”
“Any patch of earth you can find that’s big enough to hold a coffin. And don’t stop digging until you’re sure you’ve come up empty.”
“That’s a pretty tall order, Jack, especially in this rain. We’re gonna get a lot of flak.”
Again, Donovan just stared.
“Okay, okay.” Waxman raised his hands in surrender. “Anybody complains, I’ll break his balls.”
“See that you do.”
“And while I’m having all this fun, what’ll you be up to?”
“Driving,” Donovan said, and popped the Chrysler in gear.
So he drove, and drove fast, knowing that on these rain-slicked streets, every turn was an invitation to disaster. But driving was his therapy, always had been, even with cases that weren’t so personal. He’d reach a dead end in his mind and feel compelled to jump behind the wheel and drive for hours, endlessly circling the city as he worked the puzzle, looking for the break that eluded him.
But this time he had no desire to sift through evidence. All he wanted was to make his mind a blank, to forget he even existed in this screwed-up world where Evil was the true God.
He took a sharp right, splashing through a puddle, hearing the shouts of a cluster of angry streetwalkers as water sprayed over them. Traffic had slowed up ahead-late-night partyers on the way home-so he took another turn, a left this time, and found himself on a long, empty stretch of road; a stretch of road that would allow him to pick up speed.
He punched the gas pedal, the Chrysler’s beefy engine roaring. A VW Bug turned off a side street and pulled in front of him, going way too slow, and he swerved around it, angrily honking his horn.
He knew this was wrong, knew that he had to regain control of himself, but the fury he felt wouldn’t allow for compromise. All good sense had been abandoned to raw emotion.
Despite his best efforts to make his mind a blank, thoughts of Gunderson and Jessie continued to tumble through his head.
Taking out his cell phone, he speed-dialed Rachel’s direct line.
After two rings, she answered.
“It’s Jack.”
“Oh, God, I heard. I’m so sorry. I don’t know if Sidney told you, but a couple of guys from Washington have been hanging around and-”
“I know all about it. Right now I need your help.”
“Anything.”
“Transfer the Gunderson files to my laptop and meet me at my apartment in twenty minutes.”
“Why? What are you looking for?”
“Something we missed. Gunderson was smart, but he wasn’t exactly tight-lipped. Somebody else knows about Jessie, and that somebody is in those files.”
“I hope to God you’re right.”
“Twenty minutes,” Donovan said, and hung up.
He took another turn, onto a four-lane highway that stretched back toward the Chicago River. A sea of taillights confronted him, but he didn’t slow down. Instead, he weaved in and out of traffic, making a game of it.
A woman with one face-lift too many throttled the horn of her BMW as he breezed past her and cut in, narrowly missing her front bumper. Another driver showed him the finger as Donovan switched lanes and cut him off, kicking back a torrent of rainwater.
No matter how he tried, he couldn’t get the image of that Polaroid out of his head-Jessie looking so helpless, so vulnerable. The sight of her lying there exposed to Gunderson’s camera made him sick to his stomach. What kind of animal would subject a child to that?
What kind of devil?
Snapping to attention, he realized he was coming up fast on a lumbering SUV. He braked and looked to the right, but the lane was jammed tight. No way to force himself in. Craning his neck, he looked to the left, past the SUV, checking the opposing lane for a break in the oncoming traffic. The river was directly ahead now, cars braking slightly as they approached the bridge that spanned it.
But again Donovan didn’t slow down. Spotting his break, he whipped the wheel, cutting across the double yellow line, letting his fury blind him to the risk he was taking. Picking up speed, he pulled onto the bridge, rainwater spraying out from beneath his tires as he again tried to block the image of Jessie from his mind.
Then, without warning, a large container truck changed lanes up ahead and barreled straight at him, headlights blazing. Donovan gripped the wheel, ready to cut back to his side of the road, but there was no room-he hadn’t yet cleared the SUV.
The truck was coming up way too fast. Donovan hit the brakes and — there it was, a gap in his lane — but just as he turned the wheel, the bottom seemed to drop out of the Chrysler. It hit a puddle and hydroplaned, sending him into a rudderless swerve.
The truck’s horn blasted mournfully as Donovan pumped his brakes and fought the wheel. He struggled to regain some traction, but the street below him seemed to have vanished.
The Chrysler washed diagonally across the oncoming lanes. A chorus of horns blasted through the rain as Donovan spun toward a guardrail. Seeing what was coming, he threw his arms up as if to ward off evil spirits. With a deafening, metallic crash, the Chrysler smashed through the rail and plummeted.
The next thing Donovan knew he was vertical, headed nose first toward the icy blackness of the Chicago River. The surface of the water rose toward him like a wall of cement, shattering the windshield as he hit.
Donovan had just enough time to suck air into his lungs as what felt like subzero water flooded in,
