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Re
What if Da
"Jesus!" he said aloud in his car.
It didn't explain everything. Nobody—nobody—was ever going to give Re
And suddenly all the pieces started falling into place.
The priest had spent every waking hour by the kid's side, even slept in a chair in the boy's room. Re
And there was more! The priest had been fighting the endless round of tests and procedures all the docs wanted to perform on the kid. Re
Maybe to finish him off.
Shit!
Re
"He took the boy!" the shorter one said.
"Who?"
"The Jesuit! He took the boy!"
"You saw him?"
Before the little guy could answer, the bigger wino pushed forward.
"Are you the one?" he said, staring into Re
Re
"I want an APB on a Father William Ryan. He's a Jesuit priest but he probably won't be dressed like one. He's wanted for kidnapping and for attempted murder. He'll have a sick seven-year-old kid with him. Get his picture out of the file now and get it to all the papers and all the local news shows. Do the usual bridges and tu
Re
How could he have been such a jerk? The cardinal rule in this sort of crime was to put the first heat on the people closest to the victim. The esteemed Father Ryan had been the closest but Re
I'm so fucking stupid!
Well, no more. Ryan wasn't getting out of this city tonight. It was New Year's Eve and the shift was spread a little thin, plus the usual bunch of cops was tied up doing crowd control at Times Square, but Ryan wasn't getting away. Not if Re
He was hurt, dammit.
Something cold and wet landed on his cheek. He looked around. It was begi
We're go
St. A
… bury me… in holy ground…
Now as he drove the deserted street ru
Consecrated ground, he thought. What does that mean?
A week ago he'd have had no trouble answering the question. Now the whole concept struck him as senseless.
But then, nothing made sense anymore. His whole world had been turned upside down and ripped inside out during the past week. He could smell the rot in the very foundations of his faith, could feel them crumbling beneath him.
Where are you, Lord? There's evil afoot here, pure distilled evil that can't be explained away by happenstance or coincidence or
natural causes. This isn't fair. Lord. Give me a hand, will you?
Only one other time in his life had he come across anything even remotely resembling what had happened to Da
He'd explained that away by telling himself that if doctors had had a chance to examine Emma while she was lying on the rug with the ax protruding from her skull, they would have found that she only appeared dead, and that whatever spark of life was left in her had flared long enough to allow her to finish what she'd started just before she was killed.
But an entire medical center staff had had a week with Da
Just like Emma Stevens. Except that Emma had hung on for only a few minutes. Da
Bill wondered if there could be a link between what had happened to Emma and what was happening to Da
He shook himself. No. How could there be? He was grasping at straws here.
He pulled to a stop in the deep shadows under a dead street lamp. Dead because he'd killed it. He'd bought a CO2 pellet gun yesterday, come out here last night, and shot the bulb out. Took him a whole cartridge before he finally scored a bull's-eye.
And earlier tonight, shortly after dark, he'd returned to this spot with a pick and a shovel.
Bill leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. Tired. So tired. When was the last time he'd had two consecutive hours of sleep? Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a little while here he could—
No! He jerked his head up. He couldn't hide from this. It had to be done and he was the only one to do it, the only one to realize that this was the only thing anyone could do for Da
He'd heard it from Da