threatened. But … that was just crazy.
Wasn’t it?
At the next stoplight, she dragged her bag over and searched through it … and as she found what she was looking for, she couldn’t believe she was thinking about calling that psychic, the one whose business card she’d taken from the corkboard at the theater.
Focusing on the address, she mentally mapped out a route. She’d never been to anyone like that before, and had no idea what to expect—or what she could possibly get out of it.
The only thing she was sure of was that a kind of … crossroads … seemed to have appeared before her, and she wanted some sort of confirmation that the direction she intended to go in was the correct one.
Couldn’t hurt, right.
Hitting the gas, she got lost in images of the two men, anxiety sharpening the pictures to an almost painful degree…
When Cait’s car stopped again, she was barely aware of having hit the brakes. And … wait a minute, this was not the grungier end of Trade Street. In fact, it was…
Where the hell was she?
Too much grass to be downtown.
She was about to pull a U-ey when she saw the stray dog. Small, low to the ground, and scruffy as a floor mop, it was seated on the broad stretch of lawn and staring right at her.
Cait got out. “You okay there, boy?”
Somehow she knew it was a boy. No collar, though. Poor thing.
As it lifted its forepaw, she was compelled to go around the front of her car—and that was when the place she’d arrived at came into her consciousness.
Not the psychic’s, no. Try church and steeple.
It was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the grande dame of all Christian houses of worship in Caldwell, the one with the Gothic spires, and all the saints, and the stained glass that looked like jewels.
Where Sissy Barten’s funeral was going to occur.
How had she ended up here?
She turned back to see the dog, but he was gone. “Where are you?”
Cait looked all around, pivoting in a circle—he’d disappeared, though.
Following a long moment, and for no good reason she could think of, her feet decided to take the term
There was no other purpose for her to come here. In fact, she hadn’t been in a church since she’d moved to Caldwell—unless she’d gone home and been dragged to services. And she certainly wasn’t Catholic, all that regal tradition antithetical to the pine-floored, white-washed, garden-flowers-on-the-altar simplicity she was used to, and had revolted against.
Inside, she had to close her eyes and take a deep breath. Oh, wow, did that smell good—incense and old wood and beeswax.
She was in a side vestibule, as it turned out, and as she walked across the polished stone floor, her footsteps echoed forward into the vast expanse of the nave. Stone block walls rose to seemingly incalculable heights, the buttresses flying like the wings of angels at every juncture, depictions of holy men and women marking the corners and the straightaways, different chapels running down the longest length from the incredible entrance to the beautiful altar.
So many pews, stretching out on both sides of the bloodred aisle—and she pictured them filled with people, grown-ups and children, grandparents and teenagers. All the stages of life—
“Hello.”
Cait nearly lost her footing on the slick marble. “Oh! I’m sorry.”
An old man dressed in a mucky green janitor suit smiled as he put his mop back in his rolling bucket. “Don’t apologize. You’re welcome here.”
“I’m not Catholic.” She winced. “I mean—”
“It doesn’t matter. Everyone’s welcome here.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, I didn’t come to worship. I don’t go to church anymore. Ah, actually, I’m … I’m bringing some paintings that Sissy Barten did? You know, for her funeral? I thought it would make sense to check out things beforehand?”
“Oh, of course.” He moved his pail out of the way. “Her family has been really involved here over the years— there’re going to be a lot of people. I think you should plan on setting it all up in the narthex. That way there’s enough space so her work can be seen well. Come this way.”
As he started to walk away from the altar, she paused and looked back at the crucified Jesus on the cross that was the focal point of the entire building.
“Are you coming?” he said gently. “Or would you like a moment here?”
“Oh, no. I’m fine.” Except she didn’t turn around. Didn’t move. “I’m not Catholic.”
“You don’t have to be.” When she still hesitated, he dropped his voice. “You know, the truth is, it’s all the same.”
“I’m sorry?”
He leaned in and put his hand on her arm—and oh, God, the moment the contact was made, she felt suffused by something she’d never come close to before … grace, she supposed her parents would have called it, that transcendental glow that supposedly came with revelation.
But he was just a janitor…
“It’s all the same. No matter the vocabulary, it’s all the same.” He patted her. “I have to head to the office for a minute. I’ll come back in a bit and show you where to go.”
“I’m okay.”
“I know you are. Sit down and soak it all in. I’ll return soon.”
Left alone, she told her feet to get moving again. Instead, she ended up doing what he said … sitting down, putting her hands in her lap, and staring up, past the pews in front of her, to the majesty and the power before her.
In the kind silence that surrounded her, Cait discovered she was really glad she’d come here. Even if she hadn’t meant to.
Who knew what the psychic would have told her. But she never did find out.
Destiny, she would discover, took care of itself.
Chapter
Forty-one
Up in the attic, Sissy stood behind Adrian—who was not looking at her. Or refusing to look at her was more like it. Fine. She was just going to keep talking to his back as he sat cross-legged in front of that shrouded figure.
“Except you must know more, right? There has to be more.” She passed an eye over the deceased, and felt a stab of guilt. But whatever, she needed the help and he was the only one around. Jim had left without a goodbye, or an I’ll-be-back-when—so it was just her and Adrian.
And her frustration.
She threw her hands up. “I’d go to the Internet, but you can’t trust anything on it. And like the Caldwell Public Library is going to cover this?”
She could also wait and go to Jim—except for the fact that one, the guy didn’t seem to know as much as Adrian; and two, she had the sense he wanted to keep her out of the war.
Whereas she was ready to get into it.
Adrian rubbed his jaw—like it was either that or start screaming. “You are a pain in my ass. No
