He nodded weakly. At least investigative journalism had been a service to society, while personal writing was selfish, he realized, the very opposite of the self-sacrifice he had always been told was right.
He suddenly laughed out loud at the bizarre notion that she could be a murderer.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, smiling.
For the first time, he seized her cheeks and kissed her, trying, through his lips, to communicate the one truth he could not disguise—perhaps the only truth of which he was certain—that he wanted her mouth, her body, her mind; to be close to her, to know everything about her, as a lover and not an investigator; to shed the skin of that person whom he had blindly impersonated for so long. His kiss was fierce as his fingers buried into her hair.
Stop, his mind roared. Remember yourself!
He pulled away with dogged effort, like a magnet repudiating its pole. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this here,” he muttered.
Arianna looked worn out from the exertion. “You wouldn’t believe how wiped I am from this trip.”
“It’s the cold,” he said quickly.
“And your family loved me like a daughter.” She flashed him a glimmer of a smile. “Listen, I would invite you back to my place, but I need to sleep.”
“That’s fine,” he said, feeling clashing tides of relief, disappointment, and guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “About my family.”
“Don’t be. You are not your family.”
His smile quivered as he grasped her small hand—it seemed incapable of the forceful handshake he remembered from their first meeting. “I’m sorry you’re tired.”
“Me, too. Thanks for being so patient. I know most men aren’t.”
“No problem. I’m not in a rush if you’re not up for it—that’s not why I’m here.”
She smiled gratefully.
At least, he thought sadly, it was the truth.
* * *
After they parted in front of Penn Station an hour later, anticipation quickened his pulse as he hailed a cab. He couldn’t wait to get back to the alley, and twenty minutes later, he was standing at the threshold.
It was darker than before, blanketed in the shadows of adjacent buildings. No streetlights reached into its depths. Trent looked around—the only person in sight was a bum slumped across the street.
He stepped across the threshold, keeping his elbows close to his body. Though it was below freezing outside, the alley felt colder. He stopped and looked behind himself, knowing that he was being paranoid; Arianna was on her way home, not here. About thirty yards away, the church’s tall steeple beckoned. He pulled out his phone and shone the electric blue light on the ground. Trash had pooled there: yellowed wrappers, cigarettes, decaying food. He tiptoed over it, shivering. The air was fetid with the scents of urine and dirt, and he held his breath until he reached the black railing under the steeple. Ten concrete steps led down to a steel door.
He scanned the empty alley behind him before climbing down the steps—large, steep blocks. He breathed in sharply when he reached the bottom. The stench had disappeared, replaced by floating dust he had kicked up on the stairs. Up close, he could see the door was scratched and dented, but no less impervious to being opened. Above and below a brass knob, there were two keyholes. Trent grabbed the knob and tried to twist it as hard as he could. It didn’t budge. He let go. What was this damn place? Why was she hiding it from him?
With a grunt, he kicked the door, sending a shock of pain through his toes.
Why did he care so much?
Again he kicked the door, taking satisfaction in the release of incongruous emotions that had been mounting all night.
“Who’s that?” growled a male voice from behind the door.
Trent froze.
“Hello?” prompted the voice.
Trent did not dare breathe.
“If you’re a hoodlum, you better get lost,” the voice snarled. “You don’t want to deal with me.”
Images of gunshots and slaughter skipped through Trent’s mind with terrifying plausibility; he was unarmed, in the middle of a squalid alley, and alone with a threatening voice. He turned and scampered to the top of the stairs, tripping over the steep blocks as fast as he could, before sprinting back to the edge of the alley, stepping carelessly on the pools of debris. Under the streetlamp, the sidewalk gleamed with alluring beauty.
TEN
The confessional booth in the back of Trent’s church smelled like musty wood. He closed the door behind him and knelt in the cramped space to avoid revealing his identity to the priest on the other side of the screen. Hammered into the wood above the screen was a bloodred cross. On the kneeler was a plaque with the Act of Contrition engraved on it. Trent skimmed the words, feeling guilt and despair mingling in his gut:
“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because of thy just punishment, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen.”
Guilt, because the words meant nothing to him—despair, because he wished they did.
“Hello, there, my child,” came the priest’s gentle voice. “What is it you would like to confess on this Christmas morning?”
“Merry Christmas, Father.” Trent paused, suddenly reluctant to confess anything at all. It was obvious what the priest was going to tell him—and who was he to dictate the terms of Trent’s life?
“Merry Christmas to you, my son. What’s on your mind?”
But whom else could he turn to? “I have a problem,” he started.
“Go on. You are in the right place.”
“Well, I’m confused about my work. I’m on a big case, a criminal case. There’s a lot of pressure on me to solve it, but…”
“Yes?”
“I might be falling for the woman I’m supposed to be investigating.”
