The sweat was causing his palms to slide down the wall behind him.
He drew a shaky breath as he realized that the child had now vanished. When her mother had followed Father Barnabas into the church, she had faded away. The threat was gone… for now.
Why had she followed him here? How had she known he was going to see the priest?
But she had not seemed to be aware he was here. She had not turned to him, called his name. She had spoken to Eve Duncan, then gone away.
Perhaps he had not been the child’s target. She had seemed to only want to be with her mother. When they had been speaking, the two had been totally absorbed, and even he could see the intense love that radiated between them.
He felt a jolt of pain as he remembered the way they had looked as they gazed at each other. Loneliness.
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
But it did no good to have regrets. The child would not accept it. She would keep coming until she got what she wanted. She would torment him until the day he died.
I’ll give it to you, he thought in agony. Anything you want. I just have to go to Father Barnabas and have him help me find out what it is that you want. Stop following me and let me alone.
He suddenly stiffened as a thought occurred to him.
Follow?
He inhaled sharply as the thought began to grow and formulate.
Yes, that was it!
That had to be it.
He had been wrong. It wasn’t the Delilah demon he had to kill at all.
The great load was being lifted from him.
He pushed away from the wall and opened the door of the garden house. He didn’t have to wait to see Father Barnabas. He had the answer now.
The little red-haired girl had not been in pursuit, following him to this garden.
She had led him here.
FATHER BARNABAS WAS NO longer with Gallo when Eve came into the sanctuary.
Gallo whirled to face her as she came toward him. He was clearly not pleased. “What the hell? I couldn’t do anything with Donnelly. He’s hard as nails.”
She nodded. “Frustrating. And I’m sure I didn’t find out anything more than you did. I was hoping that he might lean a little toward confiding in you since he has a relationship with your uncle.” She grimaced. “And it’s not as if we can physically ‘persuade’ him to tell us anything. He’s presumably doing what he believes is right. It’s his duty to keep his silence.”
“Presumably. Providing he’s not more of a criminal than my uncle. And if he is doing what he thinks is right, hell, someone may get killed while he does his damn duty.”
She tilted her head as she gazed at him. “You’ve been fighting desperately against believing that your uncle is guilty. Now you’re suddenly worried that he may go on a killing spree?”
“I’m still fighting,” Gallo said. “Father Barnabas said that he’d had years when he’d lived a good, productive life. Jacobs was a son of a bitch. My uncle may have had reason to kill him.”
“And the man at the alligator farm?”
“It was a struggle. Maybe it was self-defense.”
“And he was close to murdering Catherine.”
“What do you want me to say?” Gallo said tersely. “So it looks like he’s not sane. I can’t give up on him until I find him and know for sure.”
“He spoke to the priest about a child.”
“He wouldn’t kill an innocent child. He wouldn’t kill Bonnie.”
“You’re sure. I can’t be certain of anything connected to him. I was hoping that we’d be able to persuade Donnelly to break a rule of confidentiality when we found him.” She added dryly, “But that rule of confidentiality has suddenly become almost impossible to breach for more reasons than one.”
“We’ll get beyond it.”
“Maybe we should call Catherine back.” Her lips twisted. “She could probably get a very sophisticated truth drug from her friend, Hu Chang. It’s a thought.”
He suddenly went still. “Not a bad one.”
She quickly shook her head. “I was joking.”
“I’m not. We get what we want. If Father Barnabas is telling the truth about his devotion to his vows, then his soul and conscience would be clear. He couldn’t blame himself.”
“How do you know? He might feel as if he should be able to resist the drug.”
“He’s a priest, not a saint.” He paused. “And he might not be doing a good job at being either one.”
“No, Gallo,” she said firmly.
“Catherine would agree with me.”
Eve knew he was probably right. “Then you won’t ask her, will you?”
He was silent. “It would be the most efficient way to handle it.”
“Gallo.”
“I’ll think about it.” He looked at her. “If you can suggest another way that we can get what we need from him.”
“He seemed confident he could reach Danner. We keep close to him and follow him.”
“But he said he didn’t know for certain where my uncle was.”
“Then he might be expecting Danner to come to confession. We just have to be patient for a little while.”
“With the emphasis on little,” he said. “I’ll play it your way for now, but if it appears to be going nowhere, I’ll call Catherine and ask if Hu Chang has given her anything that would be-”
“No.”
He smiled faintly. “I may not have to call her or do anything at all. When I talked to her on the phone, she said she and Quinn would be on their way here. She’ll analyze the situation and make her own decision.”
Eve should have expected that to happen. “You told her that we had a lead on Donnelly.”
He nodded. “They had already found out that Donnelly had become a priest at that college in Valdosta and taken the name of Father Barnabas. We just combined info and came up with this church as a reasonable meeting place. Quinn is going to be very suspicious. He isn’t going to be any more inclined to understanding the priest’s reluctance than I am.”
No, three warriors with a practical mentality about getting what they want. She might be fighting this battle alone. There was a certain logic to their argument, and she was tempted to go along with their reasoning.
But she had promised Bonnie that she would be careful with Father Barnabas. In her daughter’s eyes, that would include the possible disturbance of the priest’s conscience.
“Then I’ll have to explain my point of view.” She met Gallo’s eyes. “We have to find another way. There has been enough hurt to the innocents. I’m just as eager as you to find Danner, and we will.” She added crisply, “Now what’s the most efficient way for surveillance of Father Barnabas?”
He frowned. “I don’t like-” He broke off. “The most practical method is observation and maybe to bug his car.”
“And how can we do that? Where can we get the equipment?”
“We can call Quinn and get him to contact the local police and get them to help.” He shook his head. “But that would probably mean dealing with red tape. It would be quicker to get the equipment ourselves from one of those local spy-and-surveillance stores you see in some of the malls.”
“They can’t be that popular. Do you think they’d have a store here in Rome?”
He shook his head. “I’ll check on the Internet, but a small town would probably not be worrying too much about spying on nannies or checking to see if their kids are on drugs. But they’d have them in Chattanooga, and that’s right next door.”
“Then go get what we need.”
