“What?”
She nodded.
“Why not?”
“I thought about Jesus, and I realized how selfish I was being. Singing was a waste of time, but I didn’t think I would have the strength to turn down the part if they offered it to me. So I just never went back.”
A pang of regret crumpled Trent’s gut. “But you threw away your dream!”
“Don’t you see how it’s better this way? So many people are benefiting from my sacrifice and getting closer to God.”
“But … aren’t you unhappy?”
“So? I know the Lord will reward me in Heaven.”
“With what?” he demanded, not caring about his impertinence.
She looked at him crossly. “Eternal salvation.”
For a moment, Trent seriously considered the prospect of existing forever in some other realm that promised intangible paradise.
“What are you planning to do for all that time?” he asked, only half-joking.
She raised an offended eyebrow, a response she seemed to feel would suffice.
“So you don’t know, then,” Trent said, aware that he was pressing her for an answer she could not give him—that nobody could give anyone—and that the girl before him was a mirror of his future self, plunged irrevocably into a religious life she did not want—a living catalyst for the realization of a truth only his own reasoning mind could reach.
“She was right,” he breathed. “She was completely right about me.”
“Who was right about what?”
“I always did everything my parents and the priests said I should,” he said, ignoring her question. “Until lately, I barely questioned whether it was right for me. Or even right at all.”
“Well, only God knows what’s right for us.”
“But how do you know what He knows? Or that He’s right? Or” —Trent suddenly thought—“even exists?”
She looked disturbed. “What are you talking about? What else is there?”
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling his heart start to hammer, signaling the precarious loosening of the linchpin of his belief: blind faith. “But I know this doesn’t make sense. There has to be something else.…”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I have to quit the case,” he declared, marveling at the liberty of allowing himself to listen to the flow of his own, independent thoughts—as if from a repressed underground, they sprang, softly at first, and then louder, demanding to be heard, drowning out the impostor ideas he had for so long tried to believe were his own. One thought clamored above the rest, resounding with certainty throughout his entire brain: I love her.
I could never love a criminal, he reasoned, so there must be some terrible misunderstanding; she must be innocent, there must be a good explanation for everything. I’ll quit tomorrow, and then we can spend the rest of her days together.… She will never have to know who I was.…
“—you listening to me, Trent? I was asking what you do for a living?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, noticing her pout. “I’m really sorry. I have to go—but listen, here’s a hundred bucks. Get whatever you want and keep the change.”
He withdrew his wallet and slapped a bill on the tablecloth as he stood up. “Merry Christmas,” he said. “And do me a favor: Enjoy yourself.”
“What? Where are you—?”
But he was already heading toward the door. Before he turned the corner, he looked over his shoulder at her bewildered face and knew there was no language he could use to explain—none she would understand. But he still owed her something.
“And Emma?” he called back.
From the table, she raised her eyebrows.
“Thank you!” he yelled, and hurried out.
* * *
The next morning at work, Trent walked to Dopp’s office. He lifted his fist to the wood, silently rehearsing his excuse one last time. He could never tell Dopp the truth, which would mean expulsion from the department, immediate severance of pay and benefits, and probable criminal prosecution for sabotage. Exhaling a breath, he knocked.
“Come in,” Dopp called.
From the high pitch, Trent could tell he was in a good mood. He felt an ember of worry spark; the fall would be even steeper now. With a grim expression, he walked in and closed the door. Dopp was typing, and it took him a second to look up.
“Trent! I’ve been dying to know what happened after you left our house. Did she say anything?”
“No, nothing significant, but…”
Dopp swiveled in his chair to face him. “But what?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Do I not look like I’m listening?”
“The thing is … I think I’m doing too well.”
Dopp stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
Trent’s carefully planned sequence of words burst like confetti in his brain, leaving him to grope for coherent snatches of explanation. He licked the dry roof of his mouth.
“The problem is, she’s falling in love with me, and it’s going too far. It’s really making me uncomfortable; she’s dying, for God’s sake! And I think she would have confided in me by now, if anything was going on. But we still have no proof … maybe we should let this one go.”
Trent swallowed hard, already starting to doubt the persuasiveness of his words. Dopp rose and turned away with frightening calm to face the wall. Five seconds passed. Trent wished he would speak, yell—anything but the ambiguity of silence.
Then Dopp’s deep voice rumbled into the room. “Tell me, Trent, are you so incredibly fragile and important that you can’t tolerate discomfort for the sake of saving lives?” He spun around, glaring. “Is that how you really feel? Because the Trent Rowe I knew would have gone out of his way to do the right thing. The Trent Rowe I knew would never quit a job because he got uncomfortable or impatient.”
Trent looked at the floor, clinging to the hope that Arianna was not destroying embryos. Didn’t he love her? So how could she be a killer?
“Look at me,” Dopp commanded. “Do you think you are more important than the multiple innocent lives at stake?”
“No,” he whispered.
“What?”
“No.”
“Do you think that her disease excuses her from justice?”
“No. But if there’s something going on, why hasn’t she told me yet?”
“When someone has
