Gnats came on men and animals.
When Pravus used his own blood to provide for his creation, the sweet, vicious agony of it actually kept the beast quiet. But as soon as he was done painting, the hunger grew again.
He studied the white gown she’d wear and fumed because he didn’t have time and he couldn’t bleed fast enough. He did what he could, but it was infuriating because he was denied her screams, denied her pleas for mercy.
The beast inside him prowled, hungry, prodding Pravus to do this right. Mocking him.
He hadn’t taken the right woman in Melody, and the end for LaToya hadn’t been right.
Pravus should never have run. What lived in him was powerful and dangerous. He should have turned it loose on the reverend and the detective. The beast had urged him to stay, fight, even to the death. But cowardice had won, and Pravus had abandoned his prize.
A quick glance at the newspaper told him the girl had died, and that had given him some shred of peace, but it had been haphazard, sloppy. And it warned him that the park was not a safe place to leave his creations. He was surprised that the police had been there waiting.
That was shrewd. But he was more shrewd.
Looking at the white gown, he saw that instead of the delicate precision of his usual painting style, he’d rushed this, he’d skimped. His child wasn’t perfect. He didn’t care for Melody Fredericks. He didn’t see how hurting her would hurt the reverend, and that was the point.
The hunger to inflict pain on the reverend rose and battered him. Then he had an inspiration and smiled. The risk was high, but it would be worth it.
A high-pitched sound reached Pravus’s ears. For a moment he thought the poor battered Mrs. Fredericks was laughing at him, mocking him, and Pravus turned to strike. But she wasn’t making a sound. That’s when he realized it was his own laughter. Or maybe the laughter of the beast.
Because it was so brilliant. He couldn’t contain his glee when he thought of how hard this would be on the reverend.
Delighted with his inventiveness, savoring the strength he’d honed his muscles to for just this purpose, Pravus waited, bided his time, picked his moment, and disposed of Melody.
When he was finished and back home, the satisfaction faded more quickly than it had before. Though he’d enjoyed it, the beast was starving. He looked around at what he’d created—his children, his people—and wanted them to be free. The reverend had stood in the way of their freedom and now he had to suffer.
He’d loitered at the mission and knew word was spreading that people connected to the Lighthouse were being targeted. And he could see the results of the warnings. No one walked alone except the mindless street people, and they weren’t who he wanted.
But neither was Melody Fredericks. Even though it had been brief, he’d gotten surcease from the appetite of the beast.
So he wasn’t going to be allowed to stalk and wait and choose with the care he preferred. That was a pity, because of them all, this was his favorite so far. The steady killing he’d done in the park. He’d spent days preparing for the plague of beasts. This gave him many chances to kill.
Accepting that wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. Even God had to compromise to achieve freedom for His people. Pravus compromised now because he needed someone new.
He needed someone now.
Paul spent so many hours being grilled, he almost turned into a T-bone.
He had never heard of Melody Fredericks. He’d never met her. He’d never seen her. He’d never eaten at her restaurant. The mission had never gotten a contribution from her.
Nothing.
When he wasn’t being questioned, he was poring over his old cases.
Keren filed her incident report and had a long talk with her lieutenant. She came out quiet, her blue-gray eyes more ghostly than usual.
“How’d it go?”
She sat down at her desk. “Later. I want to go over these files again.”
His interrogation, her interrogation, endless paperwork to comb, and through it all he kept thinking, Pestis ex culex. Plague of gnats. Then, Pestis ex rana. Plague of frogs. He could still feel those frogs crawling around inside his shirt.
He kept in touch with the hospital by phone. Every time he called he felt more detached from LaToya and his work as a pastor and more attached and comfortable as a cop. The drive to solve this crime and save Melody Fredericks overcame any need he felt to sit with LaToya. She was unconscious. She needed someone there, maybe. The doctors said talking to her might help. But why him? He’d forgotten how important police work was. All those years since his wife and daughter had died, he’d battered himself about how he’d put his job first. But back then he’d had a child who needed him. Now he had no one except the people he could save by catching a killer.
Anyone could sit at the bedside of an unconscious woman. Only he knew his cases and his people from the mission well enough to cross-reference the two groups and find the killer.
He didn’t get back to the hospital all day and it didn’t matter, because LaToya didn’t wake up. They returned to the ICU waiting area at ten o’clock that night. Paul glanced at Keren walking beside him. She must think she was doing guard duty. As she strode along, even her walk screamed cop—impressive, considering the argument she lost just last night with a sedan. Purposeful, fast, long strides, going somewhere. Paul was walking just like her.
Rosita was waiting in the intensive care lounge.
“How many hours have you spent here today?” Paul settled into a utilitarian gray chair in the waiting room and caught himself fidgeting, impatient with the long, wasted night ahead. Giving himself a mental shake, he groped around for peace, and it proved elusive.
“I didn’t count.” Rosita rose from the chair where she’d sat reading.
His conscience pinged. “I didn’t mean for you to end up sitting here all day.”
“It don’t matter.” Rosita frowned. “LaToya is still unconscious.”
Paul leaned forward in the chair beside Rosita. “I’m not worrying about LaToya—well, that’s not true, I am—but I’m talking about you. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being taken advantage of.”
Rosita waved a book in the air. “C’mon, Pastor P, I been sittin’ readin’ all day. Closest I ever come to a vacation. It was great.”
Paul relaxed. “I really appreciate it. I just don’t want her to wake up and be all alone.”
“I know how it is to be alone. I’m glad to do it.” Rosita stood and began to pull on a jacket that lay in a chair nearby.
“You’re not going home alone, are you?” Paul stood, ready to hold her there by force if necessary.
“She’s not if that’s Manny.” Keren pointed toward the exit.
Rosita looked down the long hospital hallway and lit up when she saw a man standing at the end. “Manny said he’d come and sit with me when he got done with work today.”
Paul waved at the silhouette, and Rosita hurried off with a wide grin on her face.
“You’re a nice man, Pastor P.” Keren settled into a chair beside him.
Paul sank back and tried to let go of the driving need to be doing something. “I don’t feel very nice lately. “He looked sideways at Keren. “I wanted that gun from you last night.”
Keren shrugged.
“I wanted to hurt that guy. Kill him.” Paul wanted Keren to admit she was shocked and disappointed in him.
“There’s always a tug-of-war inside a person.” Keren shrugged her brown suit jacket off and began rolling up the sleeves of her yellow button-down shirt.
Paul noticed her scraped-up hands and saw her move her aching joints gingerly. He still wanted some time alone with Pravus.
“Wanting to catch Pravus is the right instinct. Your human side also wants revenge. That’s perfectly normal. The part of you that is ruled by God actually goes against human nature. So, yes, you wanted my gun. Yes, you saw yourself making Pravus pay for the harm he’d done, but God has a nice firm grip on you. You’d have done the right thing in the end.”
Paul eyed the nasty bruise on her forehead, almost covered by the hair that had escaped her barrette, and felt himself sink deeper into cop mode. “How’d it go with the investigation into the discharged weapon?”
“I told my story, told the truth.” Keren exhaled slowly, maybe with relief. Maybe her ribs hurt. “But I didn’t tell all of it. I can’t decide if I feel right about it. Am I denying God when I deny this gift?”
Paul tried to shift into pastor gear. This would be an excellent time for that. All he could do was remember how badly he’d wanted that gun. “You did right. They wouldn’t have understood if you’d talked about discerning spirits.”
“But there’s no law that allows me to shoot at a person I can’t see, can’t identify, but ‘know’ in some spiritual way is the right man. “
“Tell that to Spiderman.”
She slugged him but there was no force behind it. There was an extended silence before she added, “They seemed to accept my story and be okay with it. They didn’t take me off the case, so that’s a good sign. But it’s by no means settled.”
“If I were still on the force I’d probably be making an example of you right now.”
Keren scowled at him, and he smiled right into her bared teeth. She couldn’t sustain any true anger, but Paul suspected that was mainly because she was tired.
“You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever pulled the trigger on my gun outside a shooting range.”
Keren ran her hands through the wild curls that rioted, trying to escape the bun on her head. She rescued her barrette and replaced it with graceful efficiency.
Paul wanted to offer to help. Having his hands in her hair was very tempting.
“Part of me feels like a failure because I didn’t stop him. But then, the other part of me is horrified that I could have killed a human being. The part of me that’s horrified seems like the Christian part, but I’m not sure it is. We have to stop this guy. I may have no choice except to kill him before this is over.” She had her hair back under control long before Paul had himself under control. She leaned forward, forearms on her knees, and turned to look at him.
“I shot a man while I was a cop.” Paul remembered the price he’d paid.
“Killed him?” Keren asked, watching him closely, like a good little investigator.
Paul matched her pose and noticed his face was really close to hers. Well within kissing distance. Talking about killing someone put a damper on his wayward thoughts, though. “It was my third year on patrol. I don’t think, even now, that I had a choice. He was out of control, unloading his gun in every direction. He’d already hit a couple of bystanders. He put a bullet into me before he was done.” Paul rubbed his shoulder and felt the old scar under his T-shirt. “Of course, I acted like it was nothing. I was at my very macho best. I never admitted to anyone how torn up I was inside. I’d only been married about a year when it happened. I didn’t talk to my wife without biting her head off for six months. I got drunk every Friday night for a year. That was the first time she left me.”
“Didn’t you go to the department shrink?”
“Yeah, they required it. I went and didn’t tell the poor woman anything. I was too tough to even admit to myself how scarring it was to take a life.”
“You’re talking about it now,” Keren said.
“Yeah, I am.” Paul leaned toward her slightly, just to see if she’d stay put or move away. “I like talking to you, Detective Collins.”
“I like talking to you, too, Pastor P.” She didn’t move much, but a little, and definitely in the right direction.
Before Paul could close the last few inches, a nurse came out of the IC unit. “I can let one of you go in for five minutes this half hour and the other go in next half hour. You can do that all night if you want to. Like I told the other lady who was here, don’t ask her questions about the attack. Even in the coma it could be upsetting to her, but go ahead and talk to her. It definitely helps our patients to hear a familiar voice.”
Keren never took her turn—since Paul’s was the only familiar voice—but she stayed. He never suggested she go home. She might not be safe at home. She never suggested abandoning him. Instead, she stretched out on a hard vinyl sofa and slept.
Keren woke in the first light of dawn as Paul came back from sitting with LaToya. His hair was curling and messy. His clothes looked slept in. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was cradling his arm to his chest, reminding Keren that a building had fallen on him just recently.
“How is she?” Keren sat up on the vinyl couch, aching in every joint from the car wreck and the uncomfortable bed.
“No change. Still in a deep coma. But the nurse said her vitals are strong. They’re really hopeful she’ll wake up and be okay.” Paul’s smile was weak, but it was there.
Keren ran her hands into her hair and realized her barrette was gone. She looked around.
“This what you’re after?” Paul dangled it from two fingers. “It fell out in the night.”
“My barrette never falls out. That’s why I love it.” She stood, suppressed a groan of pain, and snatched it away from him. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “How’d you get it?”
“You really don’t like your hair?”
“Of course not.”
“Because it’s about the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen.” Paul’s eyes flashed as he studied her corkscrew curls, made more awful by a terrible night’s sleep.
“You have really bad taste.” She began finger-combing her hair into a ponytail. “You probably get all bothered by clown wigs on Halloween.”
Paul laughed. It was a great sound.
Higgins came striding into the waiting room. “Is she awake yet?”
“No, sorry.” Keren looked at Higgins, immaculate as ever. A few nights sitting up with one of his vics might do him a world of good. Might help him remain a human being. “What have you discovered about the people you had up on the wall yesterday?”
“I left a report in triplicate on your desk,” Higgins said.
“Why don’t you just phone next time?” Keren asked. “Save yourself the drive over.”
“It was on my way, and I wanted to make sure Pastor Morris came in early. I’ve got a long list of questions about the people we’re investigating. A few minutes talking with you, Pastor, might save us hours.” Higgins gave the door to the intensive care unit a disgruntled look, like the room was committing a crime by keeping LaToya from him.
“We’re taking a lot of heat over Melody Fredericks. Any second now, the press is going to connect these killings and go ballistic.”
“I’m coming in as soon as someone comes to sit with LaToya. I expect her any minute.”
Higgins glared as if he was tempted to arrest Paul and drag him into the station house. But finally he left, alone.
Keren pulled on her blazer and checked her gun, tucked in a holster at the small of her back. It hadn’t helped with her night’s sleep, and the hospital wasn’t real happy about her wandering around armed, but she wasn’t going anywhere without it.
O’Shea arrived with Rosita. They’d convinced her to wait for O’Shea, rather than take the bus or the El.
“Buddy’s back,” she announced cheerfully. “Louie showed up for his shift just as I was leaving and Murray was already at work on breakfast. They’ll keep things running at the mission so I’m free to be at the hospital.”
“I’m going to get some coffee in the lounge. Anyone else want a cup?” O’Shea rubbed his face, looking like he’d slept about as well as Keren and Paul.
“Is hospital coffee as good as mission coffee?” Rosita asked.
O’Shea shrugged. “Probably about the same.”
Rosie shuddered. “I’ll take a cup.”
Keren and Paul passed. O’Shea wandered off in search of caffeine.
“You haven’t told anyone what you’re doing, have you, Rosita?” Keren asked.
“No. Not too many of them remember LaToya—she’s been off the street for a while. So it’s not like they’d want to take a turn sitting with her. I told them a friend of mine is in the hospital, and that’s not a lie.”
Paul smiled at this former crack whore, who now worried about telling a lie. “Thanks. We’ve got to keep working on catching this maniac.”
“I’m rooting for you, Pastor P. I’m glad to do anything that will get this nut off the streets.”
They walked toward the exit door. Keren said, “I should go to the mission. I’d probably be able to eliminate Murray and Buddy just by meeting them.”
Paul nodded. “And I need to go over those pictures again with Higgins and see what he’s come up with.”
O’Shea came down the hall, handed Rosita her coffee, and headed after Keren and Paul. “Any change in the vie?”
Paul shook his head.
“She’s shown no signs of regaining consciousness.” Keren shoved her hands in the pockets of her slacks. “Paul’s going to go with you and get to work. I’ll be right behind you. I’ve got to run an errand first.”
“You’re not going home, are you?” Paul asked. “You know Pravus is paying attention to you now.”
“I’m sure I’d be fine. Pravus works in the dark. But no, I’m not going home.”
“Keep in touch and don’t take too long,” O’Shea said. He and Paul went one way, Keren another.
It was a wasted trip. There must have been some morning break, because there was almost no one at the mission, except a woman in the kitchen who wouldn’t speak to Keren or make eye contact. But she was baking bread that smelled like heaven. Hunting in the back rooms of the mission, Keren found a group of ladies from a local church who were stuffing envelopes.
“Where is everybody?” Keren asked the group of gray-haired worker bees.
One of them smiled at her from behind her trifocals. “It’s the first of the month.”
“What’s that have to do with anything?”
“Welfare checks, social security checks, disability checks all come out today. Most of the people here will have money for the next few days. It gets pretty quiet.”
Frustrated, Keren headed for the station.
When she got there, O’Shea had more details. “We’ve narrowed the type of chisel down to a very specific artist’s tool.” He started talking before she had a chance to stick her purse in her desk drawer. “Only a half-dozen stores in the metro area handle them. The one Pravus threw was old, but we’re hoping he might be compulsive enough to need one exactly like it, so we’re monitoring the stores and any mail-order businesses that sell them.”
“Sounds good,” Keren said as she settled in. “What about the frogs?”
“The frogs were really interesting.”
Keren exchanged a look with Paul. He shrugged. “I thought they were pretty interesting when I was picking them out of my clothes.”
Keren shuddered, remembering. “How so?”
“Well, they’re not a usual kind of frog. They’re a really small tree frog, native to the southern part of the United States, mainly Louisiana. They can also be purchased in pet stores, but no stores would carry that many. The medics estimated there were over a hundred frogs crawling on LaToya and scads of them were hopping away in all directions. They got twenty in the ambulance with them because they seemed to kind of cling.”
“Tell me about it.” Paul rubbed at his stomach as if he could still feel the little wrigglers inside his shirt. “I’m going to go home for the night. I hope a shower helps me forget just what special little frogs they were.”
Paul nearly staggered as he climbed the stairs to his apartment that night. He would have gone back to the hospital directly from the station house, except he hadn’t showered or changed clothes since Sunday morning—two days ago. He was starting to disgust himself. A shower, a change of clothes, and right back to LaToya.
He opened his apartment door, jogging straight for the shower. The apartment smelled stale, like it had been closed up for too long, which it had. He felt like a jerk, leaving LaToya all day. As her pastor and her friend, not to mention the catalyst of this mess, it was his duty to be at her side. He rushed through his shower and pulled on a pair of blue jeans, a sweatshirt, and running shoes; then he ran to his tiny spare bedroom to snag his jacket.
He pushed the door open and the air hit him in the face. It was thick. It was alive. His mouth filled with choking dust that crawled down his throat.
Then the smell hit him.
Choking and covering his mouth, he fumbled for the light switch on the wall. The bare bulb was almost snuffed out by the swarms of gnats.
He could just make out the body on the floor. Covering his mouth and nose with one hand, he knelt and virtually pushed aside a solid wall of bugs. He felt for a pulse. There was none. The body was stone cold. She was long dead. But the smell of death had told him that before he’d touched her.
Gnats covered her body. They clustered on the hideous rust-brown painting on her death shroud. Paul lurched to his feet, suddenly remembering he was invading a crime scene. He backed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him. He ran into his bathroom and spit gnats out of his mouth, clawed at his face to wipe them away, then pulled out his cell phone and called Keren as he rushed out into the hall.
O’Shea beat Keren there. Paul was leaning against the wall outside his door, posting himself as guard. He’d been thinking like a cop. Call it in. Preserve the crime scene.
“Where is she?” O’Shea pulled out a handkerchief and reached for the doorknob.
“No.” Paul moved to block O’Shea from going in. He wasn’t sure if it was to protect the crime scene or O’Shea. “It’s bad.”
“Melody Fredericks?” O’Shea didn’t protest.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure it’s her, but I couldn’t see her really.”
“Why not?”
There was an extended silence. Finally, Paul said, “Gnats.”
Keren emerged at the top of the stairs as Paul spoke. She grimaced.
Paul repeated his orders to stay out. The three of them stood waiting.
When Higgins got there, Paul said, “Wait a minute.”
“I’m allowed in.” Higgins reached for the door.
Paul grabbed his arm. “You’re going to run into a million gnats when you get in there. Cover your mouth.”
“I’m not afraid of a few bugs.” Higgins looked at them like they were wimps.
Paul almost let him go in without further warning. “You’ll need to cover your mouth to breathe. There’s a small bedroom on the right, beside the kitchen. The body is in there.”
Higgins looked at Paul for a long second and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. Then he went in. He was back out in thirty seconds, with his mouth and nose covered.
“She’s been dead at least twenty-four hours.” Higgins swatted at the bugs all over him. He muttered, “Crazy freak. Where did he get all these gnats? When were you last in there?”
“I left here Sunday morning after church and I haven’t been back. I’ve been at the hospital.” Paul could hear himself talking like a cop, reporting the facts in a brisk, no-nonsense voice. “She may have been here since then.”
Higgins looked up and down the hall. “We’ll need to question the staff. Aren’t there offices on this floor?”
“Yes,” Paul said in the clipped tone he couldn’t shake. “But they’re closed today. It’s always quiet around here on the first. Welfare checks.”
“With this case, I didn’t expect it to be easy,” Higgins said sardonically. “I opened a window to thin out the gnats. I don’t think we need to keep them all as evidence.”
“You’ll need to get face masks before you can go in there and get her out,” Paul said through his tensed jaw.
Higgins didn’t even debate it. He placed the call and settled in to wait with the rest of them.
Paul’s phone rang.
He flipped his phone open without a second thought.
“No,” Higgins hissed, “wait for the trace.”
Paul wasn’t thinking about anything else, except who would be calling him. He knew.
“Are you expecting a package to arrive momentarily, Reverend?” the silky smooth voice asked.
Paul waved at them to pay attention. O’Shea immediately started recording. Higgins gave Paul a disgusted look and began the process of having the call traced.
“You ruined things for me last time,” Pravus crooned. “This time I don’t think I’ll give you a chance to spread my message. But you will find a carving in the room with pretty Melody.”
“I didn’t ruin things,” Paul said. “I gave them your message and they heard. That’s why the bomb didn’t go off. They listened to me. They let your people go.”
Pravus hesitated. “No one as evil as they are would accept the message I sent. You’re lying.”
Paul was lying, and he had the strange idea that he shouldn’t be. In fact, he decided in a split second that he wasn’t acting at all the way he should be. Whether that was God’s inspiration or his own temper, he couldn’t be sure. “All right, Pravus, you want the truth? The truth is no one is going to listen to your message because they know the message is being sent by a coward.”
Keren’s hand clamped on his forearm in warning.
Paul ignored her. “Everybody knows you’re a fool who says he speaks for God but really only speaks for himself. I’m sick of your threats. I’m sick of listening to a weak little piece of slime who thinks his pathetic imitation of God’s miracles makes him equal to God. Read the book of Exodus, Pravus. Over and over Pharaoh’s magicians do their little tricks to try to copy the plagues. They’re trying to prove Moses is just doing tricks, too, but they can’t prove it, because Moses is doing the work of God. Well that’s all you’re doing, Pravus. A bunch of sneaky, little tricks. You say you hate me, but you’re too much of a crawling worm to face me and take out your anger where it belongs. So instead you hurt innocent women.
“You’re the fool, Pravus. You’re so weak that you have to use women to act out your hatred for me. What did I do to you when I was a cop, anyway? I’ll bet whatever it was, you deserved it.”
“I killed the dancer and her mother. They beheaded the voice in the wilderness. And you were too blind to see it. I was too smart for you then, and I’m too smart for you now. Why do you think I picked her? Why do you think I put pretty Melody right under your nose? So that this time, even someone as stupid as you could see my creative brilliance. I’ll make sure the whole world knows they should have let my people go.”
“Pravus—” A sharp click told Paul the call was over. He looked up at Higgins.
Higgins shook his head in frustration.
“Why isn’t the sign out here in the hall?” O’Shea asked. “And where’s the threat against some larger group?”
“He’s changed his pattern. It doesn’t make any sense.” Higgins stared at the cell phone number on the caller ID. “It’s a new number. We’ll track down the number, but it’ll be another stolen cell phone.”
“Don’t serial killers usually follow rituals?” Paul crossed his arms, stared at his closed apartment door, and realized he wanted to go in and examine the body more closely. The thought didn’t scare him a bit.
Mark Dyson spoke from behind them, “Only some of them.”
They all wheeled around, surprised to see him. Paul thought the guy was spooky. Now he was moving like a spook, too.
Dyson stuck his hands deep in the pockets of his blue jean jacket. “Some serial killers are incredibly hard to find, simply because they don’t follow rituals. There is speculation that only about thirty percent of serial killers ever get caught. The rest of them travel around, kill one or two people, and move on. They change their method of killing. They don’t keep souvenirs. They choose street people and runaways who won’t be missed. They’re very smart and they learn about police procedure so they can be careful not to leave evidence or, even better, they plant misleading evidence that manipulates a crime scene.
“That’s the second time he’s said, ‘The dancer and her mother.’
I wonder what it means to him,” Dyson said.
Keren started pacing. “Pravus said, ‘They beheaded the voice in the wilderness.’ John the Baptist was the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”
Paul was suddenly excited. “Yes, and Herod had him beheaded.”
“Herod ordered it, but do you remember why?” Keren said with growing excitement.
“Sure, Herod’s wife had her daughter… dance!”
“That’s right.” Keren lengthened her stride as she walked back and forth in front of Paul’s door. “The dancer and her mother. They are regarded as particularly evil, especially the mother. Even Herod, who was a nasty guy, wanted to spare John the Baptist, but his wife wanted him dead.”
“So how can that have anything to do with Pravus’s grudge against me?”
“He thinks everyone is evil but him,” O’Shea said. “So we don’t need to necessarily try to find some mother-and-daughter team in your case files who did something shady.”
“Like ask for someone’s head on a platter?” Paul asked cynically.
“Especially if he was first starting out,” Higgins said. “He said they were his first, and you missed it.”
“We’ve been over those files a dozen times now.” Keren slapped her hand on the dingy walls of the hallway. “There is no mother-daughter murder in any of them.”
“Not even an older woman and younger woman. I don’t see what he’s getting at. The only mother and daughter deaths I can think of are…” Paul quit talking suddenly. It was odd. He was being a cop again and liking it. He’d been good at it. Then, because he was thinking like a cop, his logic drew him to a conclusion that knocked him back into a pastor. His vision narrowed and sound faded. He took an unsteady step back and stumbled against the wall.
“Who? You thought of someone, Paul? What mother and daughter?” Then Keren knew, too. She whispered, “Oh no. It can’t be.”