Текст книги "Thr3e"

Автор книги: Тед Деккер

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13

THE WAREHOUSE was less than a hundred yards from Kevin’s old house, two rows back from the road, an old wooden storage facility that had been white before flaking paint revealed its gray underbelly. From the side entrance, none of the houses on Baker Street was visible.

“This it?”

“It’s abandoned. Looks like it has been for a while,” Milton said.

“Show me.”

Two uniforms stood by the door, watching her. One of them handed her a flashlight. “You’ll need this.”

She took it and turned it on.

The warehouse smelled of a decade’s worth of undisturbed dust. Beyond the side door was a single stairwell descending into blackness. The rest of the three-thousand-or-so square feet of concrete sat vacant in dim light filtered by a dozen cracks in the walls.

“Don’t they tear these things down?” she asked.

“They used to hold all kinds of goods in these warehouses before the navy moved in just south of here. The government bought this land and hasn’t seen fit to rebuild yet. I’m sure they’ll get around to it.”

A lone cop stood at the bottom of the stairs, shining his flashlight on the threshold. “The door was locked from the outside—took some jarring to get it loose.”

Jennifer descended. A steel door led into a ten-by-ten room, concrete, empty. She played her torch over the pitted walls. Exposed floor joists held the ceiling. Most of it. One small section had rotted through.

“The blood’s over here,” Milton said.

Jennifer directed her light to where he stood looking down at two large dark stains on the concrete. She squatted and studied each.

“The splatter’s consistent with blood.” The basic position of the stains also matched Kevin’s story—both he and the boy had bled. “At this age we probably won’t get any reliable DNA evidence, but we can at least verify species. I knew Kevin was hiding something the first time I talked to him.”

She glanced at Milton, surprised by his tone.

“And this isn’t the last of it. I guarantee he’s hiding more,” he said.

Milton was a first-class pig. She stood and walked over to a small, almost unnoticeable hole in the ceiling. “The boy’s way out?”

“Could be.”

So, assuming this read as fact, what would it mean? That Kevin hadn’t killed the boy? That they had fought and that Kevin had locked the door from the outside, but then the boy had managed to crawl out through the rotting ceiling? Who knew why he hadn’t come back to terrorize Kevin until now?

Or it could mean that the boy actually had died in here, only to be discovered by some passerby years later, body disposed of. Unlikely. Unless a drifter or anyone else had reason to hide the body, it would have been investigated. She’d already run a search for reports and found none.

“Okay, we need to do a bloodstain distribution analysis. I want to know what happened down here. Assuming it is blood, did anyone lie in it? Any blood on the walls or up through the ceiling? I want species identification and, if possible, blood type. Send a sample to the FBI lab immediately. And this stays out of the press.”

Milton said nothing. He looked up at the corner and frowned. A shadow passed over his face. It occurred to her that she might actually hate the man.

“Don’t get any ideas, Detective. Everything goes through me.”

He looked at her for a moment and then walked for the door. “Sure.”

Kevin drove them along Palos Verdes Drive, west toward Palos Verdes. Slater’s bugged phone sat on the dash, turned off.

Sam stared ahead, eyes sparkling. “If Slater can’t make contact, how can he play the game? He’s driven by the riddles, but if we neutralize his ability to communicate a riddle, then there isno riddle, is there? At the least he has to rethink his strategy.”

“Or blow up another bomb,” Kevin said.

“We’re not technically breaking one of his rules. He detonates a bomb and he’sbreaking the rules of engagement. I don’t think Slater will do that.”

Kevin thought about Sam’s plan. On one hand, it felt good to be doing something—anything—besides waiting. The idea made sense on its surface. On the other hand, he didn’t trust Slater to follow his own rules. Sam knew him better, maybe, but it was his life they were messing with.

“Why not just turn off the phone and stick around?”

“He’d find a way to communicate.”

“He still might.”

“Possible. But this way we also get you out of there. The one thing we need now is time. A dozen new leads have surfaced in the last twenty-four hours, but we need time.”

There was the weword again.

“We should at least tell Jennifer, don’t you think?”

“Think of this as a test. We cut off all contact and then we gradually resume contact. Unless Slater’s following us now, he’ll be lost. His opponent will have disappeared. He may rant and rave, but he won’t play the game without you. We add some people to the loop and see if Slater suddenly knows more than he should. Follow?”

“What if he has the car bugged?”

“Then he did it today under the noses of the FBI. They swept it this morning, remember?”

Kevin nodded. The idea was growing on him. “Just like that we’re gone, huh?”

She grinned. “Just like that.”

“Like sneaking out at night.”

It took them half an hour to reach the quaint hotel—an old Victorian mansion that had been converted and expanded to accommodate forty rooms. They pulled into its parking lot at ten after six. A cool, salty breeze drifted off the Pacific, half a mile down green sloping hills. Sam grinned and pulled out her overnight bag.

“Do they have rooms available?” Kevin asked.

“We have reservations. A suite with two bedrooms.”

He looked up at the hotel and then back toward the sea. A Conoco station with a Taco Bell stood a hundred yards to the north. Outback Steakhouse, fifty yards south. Cars drifted by, a Lexus, a Mercedes. The madness in Long Beach seemed distant.

“Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s settle in and get something to eat.”

Half an hour later they sat across from each other in a cozy café on the hotel’s ground floor, overlooking a dimming horizon. They’d left their cell phones, turned off, in the room. She still wore her office pager, but Slater had no way to reach either of them. It seemed that Sam’s simple plan wasn’t such a bad idea.

“What would happen if I just disappeared?” Kevin asked, cutting into a thick New York strip.

She forked a small bite of cheese-smothered chicken into her mouth and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Just up and leave until we find him?”

“Why not?”

“Why not. Leave him high and dry.” She took a drink of iced tea and cut another piece. “You could move up to San Francisco.”

“He’s ruined my life down here anyway. I don’t see how I can continue in seminary.”

“I doubt you’re the first seminary student to have his sins exposed.”

“Murder isn’t exactly your typical confession.”

“Self-defense. And as far as we know, he lived.”

“The confession sounded pretty ominous. I think I’m finished.”

“And how’s murder so different from gossip? Wasn’t that your point to the dean? You’re no more capable of evil than the bishop, remember? Murder, gossip—what’s the difference? Evil is evil.”

“Evil is evil as long as you keep it in the classroom. Out here in the real world, gossip doesn’t even feel evil.”

“Which is why any good detective learns to trust the facts over feelings.” She went back to her food. “Either way, I don’t think you can run. He’ll track you down. That’s how his kind works. You raise the stakes and he’s likely to come back with higher stakes.”

Kevin looked out the window. Darkness had all but swallowed the horizon. Jennifer’s words came back to him. Take him out, she’d said.

“Like a hunted animal,” he said.

“Except that you’re not an animal. You have the same capacities he does.”

“Jennifer told me that if I had the opportunity I should blow him away.” Anger boiled through his chest. He’d come so far, worked so hard, pulled himself out of the deepest despair, only to be hijacked by some ghost from the past.

He slammed the table with his fist, rattling the dishes.

He met the stares from an older couple two tables down. “I’m sorry, Kevin,” Samantha said. “I know this is hard.”

“What’s to prevent mefrom being the hunter?” he asked. “He wants a game; I’ll give him a game! Why don’t I throw out a challenge and force himto respond to me? Would you do anything different?”

“Fight terror with terror.”

“Exactly!”

“No,” she said.

“What do you mean, no? Maybe the only way to corner him is to play the game his way.”

“You don’t fight evil with evil; it just leads to anarchy. We have rules and we have scruples, unlike Slater. What are you going to do, threaten to blow up the convention center unless he gives himself up? Somehow I don’t think he’d do anything but laugh. Besides, we have no way of contacting him.”

The maître d’ approached from Kevin’s right. “Excuse me, sir, is everything all right?”

Someone had complained. “Yes. I’m sorry, I’ll try to control myself.” Kevin flashed him an embarrassed smile. The man dipped his head and left.

Kevin took a deep breath and picked up his fork, but his appetite was suddenly gone. The fact was, when he thought about what Slater was doing to him, he could hardly think of anything but killing him. Destroy the destroyer.

“I know it sounds a bit pretentious right now, but Slater doesn’t scare me,” Sam said, staring off into the darkness outside, wearing a coy smile. “You’ll see, Kevin. His days are numbered.”

“And mine might be as well.”

“Not a chance. I won’t let that happen.”

He wasn’t brimming with her confidence, but he couldn’t resist her infectious smile. This was his Samantha. G.I. Jane.

“Jennifer said that, huh?” Sam asked. “Blow him away.”

“Actually, I think she said ‘take him out.’ Makes sense to me.”

“Maybe.” She stared at him across the candle flame. “You like her, don’t you?”

“Who, Jennifer?” He shrugged. “She seems like a good person.”

“I don’t mean in a ‘good person’ kind of way.”

“Come on, Sam. I hardly know her. I haven’t dated anyone for years.” He smiled sheepishly. “Good night, the last girl I kissed was you.”

“Is that so? When we were eleven?”

“How could you forget?”

“I haven’t. But you do like her. I can see it in your eyes when you say her name.”

Kevin felt his face flush. “She’s an FBI agent who’s trying to save my neck. What’s there not to like?” He looked to his right and caught the continuing stare of the older couple. They looked away. “She reminds me of you.”

“Really? How so?”

“Kind. No-nonsense. Pretty . . .”

“Like I said, you like her.”

“Please—”

“It’s okay, Kevin,” she said softly. “I want you to like her.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I approve.” She grinned and placed the last small bite of chicken in her mouth. Even the way she chewed her food was nothing less than spectacular, he thought. Her chin and cheeks were so smooth in motion.

“What about . . .” He trailed off, suddenly self-conscious.

“What about us? That’s very sweet, my knight, but I’m not sure we could ever be romantically involved. Don’t get me wrong, I love you dearly. I’m just not sure we want to risk what we have for romance.”

“Great things always come at great risk,” he said.

She stared at him with those intoxicating eyes, caught off guard by his forward statement.

“Isn’t that right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“So then don’t say we could never be romantically involved. I kissed you once and you sent me to heaven. Didn’t you feel something?”

“When you kissed me?”

“Yes.”

“I was floating for a week.”

“You never told me that.”

She grinned, and if he wasn’t mistaken, now she was embarrassed. “Maybe I wanted you to make the next move. Isn’t that what a knight does for his damsel in distress?”

“I guess I never was a very good knight.”

“You’ve turned into quite a dashing one,” Sam said with a twinkle in her eye. “I think she likes you.”

“Jennifer? She told you that?”

“Woman’s intuition. Remember?”

Sam set down her napkin and stood. “Would you like to dance?”

He glanced around. No one else was dancing, but several colored lights turned slowly on the tiny dance floor. Michael Bolton crooned over the speakers.

“I . . . I’m not sure I know how to—”

“Sure you do. Just like when we were kids. Under the moonlight. Don’t tell me you’ve never danced since then.”

“No, not really.”

She looked at him gently. “Then we definitely should. Will you?”

He smiled and dipped his head. “It would be my pleasure.”

They held each other gently and danced for several long minutes. It wasn’t a sensual dance or even romantic. It was just the right thing to do after ten years of separation.

Slater did not call that night.

14

Sunday

Morning

THE WALL IS DARK BROWN, almost black, and pitted. Slightly damp in spots, leaking an odor of mold and mildew and something else he never has been able to place. A single incandescent bulb glows in the bathroom, casting just enough light into the main basement for Slater to see the darkness of the wall.

These are the things he likes: cold, dark, wetness, mildew, and chocolate sundaes with equal portions of ice cream and fudge. Oh, yes, and he likes fascination. In fact, he likes to be fascinating above everything else, and really, in order to be properly fascinating, he has to dispense with the expected and deliver only what they don’t expect. This is why confused teenage boys pierce their eyelids and tattoo their foreheads, and why girls out to impress them shave their heads. It is all a pathetic, hopeless attempt to be fascinating.

The problem with doing something so senseless as piercing an eyelid is that it reveals your intentions. Here am I, a poor teenage slug who requires your attention. Look at me, see how I resemble a puddle of dog vomit? Won’t you please throw your fingers to your teeth and be wildly fascinated by me?

The pitiful first gropings of the dark man.

But Slater knows what they do not. He knows that the dark man is most fascinating when he moves in complete obscurity. Hidden. Unknown. That’s why he is called the darkman. That’s why he has started in the dark. That’s why he does all of his best work at night. That’s why he loves this basement. Because for all practical purposes, Slater isthe Dark Man.

Someone famous should write a comic book based on him.

Slater stands from his stool. He’s been looking at the pitted wall for over an hour without moving. He finds it fascinating. Darkness is always fascinating. He’s never quite sure what he’s looking at, unlike a piece of white paper, which only grows fascinating if he puts a black pen to it.

It’s light outside—he knows this because of the single crack in the corner. Samantha has taken Kevin and gone into hiding. Which means that after all these months, she’s learned something new.

Slater hums softly and walks toward a small vanity. The secret of being the Dark Man is not looking like a dark man at all. That is why the world looks at stupid little teenagers with rings in their noses as idiots. It’s like walking around school, stripped to the waist in a Charles Atlas pose all day. Please. Too obvious. Too stupid. Too boring.

Now the angel of light routine—those who pile on the white to obscure the Dark Man, like Sunday school teachers and clergy, like priests—not a bad instinct really. But these days, a white collar is no longer the best disguise.

The best disguise is simply obscurity.

Slater sits and tilts the mirror so that it catches enough light from the bathroom to cast his reflection. You see, now there is a Nobody. A strongly built man with blond hair and grayish eyes. A wedding band on his left hand, a closet full of pressed shirts and Dockers and a silver Honda Accord out on the street.

He could walk up to any Betty in the mall and say, “Excuse me, do I look like the Dark Man to you?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” she would say. Because she wouldn’t associate him with a name like Dark Man. She, along with ten thousand other mall flies, would be fooled. Blind. Shrouded by darkness.

That is his secret. He can walk under their noses without the slightest hint of guilt. He is virtually transparent, for the very reason that he is so much like them. They see him every day and don’t know who he is.

Slater frowns at himself and wags his head in mockery. “I like you, Kevin. I love you, Kevin.” Sam can be such a cockroach. He should have killed her when he had the chance, long ago.

Now she’s in the thick of things again, which is good because he can finish the job, once and for all. But her audacity makes him nauseated.

“Let’s run away and play hide-and-seek,” he mocks again. “What do you take me for?”

The fact is, Sam knows more about him than any of the others. True, her little disappearing act will gain them nothing, but at least she’s made a move, which is more than he can say for the rest. She’s trying to flush him out. She might even know that he’s been under their noses all along.

But the Dark Man isn’t that stupid. They can’t hide forever. Kevin will eventually stick his slimy head out of his hole, and when he does, Slater will be there to bite it off.

He leans the mirror against the wall and crosses to the room he’s prepared for his guest. It is slightly larger than a closet, encased in concrete. A steel door. Leather restraints lay on the floor, but he doubts he’ll need them. The game will end here, where it’s been designed to end. The rest of this cat-and-mouse foolishness is only a smoke screen to keep them in the dark, where all good games are played. If the newspapers think they have a hot story now, they are about to be reeducated. The occasional destruction of a car or bus by way of explosion a story hardly makes. What he plans will be worthy of a book.

“I despise you,” he says softly. “I loathe the way you walk and the way you speak. Your heart is vile. I will kill you.”

The anger had worked its way up to a seething through the night. Kevin tossed and turned in a fitful attempt at sleep. Sam’s optimism sat like a light on the horizon of his mind, but as the night wore on, the light grew dim until it faded altogether, obscured by bitterness toward the man who had stomped into his life uninvited.

Furywas a good word for it. Rage. Indignation. They all worked. He relived that night twenty years ago a hundred times. The boy sneering at him as he turned the knife in his hands, threatening to shove the blade through Sam’s chest. The boy’s name was Slater—had to be. How he’d escaped was beyond Kevin. Why he’d waited so long to come after him made no sense either. He should have killed Slater then.

His pillow felt like a wet sponge. His sheets clung to his legs like mildewed leaves. He couldn’t remember a time when he was so upset, so distraught, since the boy had first threatened him so many years ago.

Sam’s plan was brilliant, except for the obvious fact that it only delayed the inevitable. Slater wasn’t going away—he would wait out there in the dark, biding his time while Kevin slowly dehydrated beneath the sheets. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t just wait and waste away while Slater chuckled under his rock.

The idea ignited in his mind with the sky’s first graying. Buy a gun.His eyes sprang open. Of course! Why not? Become the hunter.

Don’t be absurd.He closed his eyes. You aren’t a killer.The discussion with Dr. Francis was one thing—all that talk about gossip and killing being the same thing. But when it came right down to it, he could never kill another human. He couldn’t line up a man in the gun’s sights and send a slug through his head. POW!Surprise, creep.

Kevin slowly opened his eyes. Where would he get a gun anyway? A pawnshop? Not with today’s laws. Not legally, anyway. On the other hand, for the right price . . .

Forget it. What was he going to do, shoot the phone if Slater called again? The man was too good to walk into danger. How could he lure Slater into a confrontation?

Kevin rolled over and tried to put the idea from his mind. But now the notion began to grow, fed by his own loathing. In the end Slater would kill him—nothing else made any sense. So why not take the fight to him first? Why not demand a meeting? Face me, you slime bucket. Come out of the shadows and look me in the eyes. You want a game?

Suddenly the thought of anything less seemed weak. He had to at least try.

He wrestled off the sheets and slid to the floor. Sam wouldn’t agree. He would do this without her, now, before she awakened and stopped him. He quickly pulled on his jeans and a T-shirt. The details didn’t seem so critical at the moment—where he’d find a gun, how he’d hide it, how he’d use it. With enough money . . .

Kevin grabbed his wallet off the nightstand and fumbled through it. It would have to be cash. He’d stuffed his emergency cash, the four hundred dollars from under his mattress, into his wallet before leaving the house. Still there. Surely with that much he could buy a gun on the black market.

Kevin eased out of his room, saw that Sam’s door was still closed, and walked for the door before pulling up. He should at least leave a note. Couldn’t sleep, went to put a slug in Slater’s head, be back soon.

He found a pad of paper with the hotel’s insignia stenciled across the top and scribbled a note. Couldn’t sleep, went for a drive, be back soon.

The morning air felt cool on his clammy skin. Six o’clock. The underworld was undoubtedly still stirring. He had to get out before Sam awoke or he wouldn’t be going anywhere. She would worry if he didn’t return quickly. As soon as the night crawlers made their appearance, he would pull over and ask one of them the dreaded question: Where can I buy a gun to blow away the man who’s after me?

He started the car and headed south.

And what if the night crawler recognized him? His face had been plastered on the news. The jarring thought made Kevin flinch. He swerved. A white sedan on his tail flashed its lights. He quickly pulled over, as if it had been his intention all along. The car sped by.

Maybe he should have brought a sock to pull over his head. Kmart special over here—one bad man with a stocking over his head, holding up a night crawler with a wallet. Give me your gun, buster.

Twenty minutes later he emerged from a 7-Eleven with a pair of dark glasses and an orange Broncos baseball cap. With a day’s stubble, he looked nothing like the man he’d seen on television the previous day. But he decided to take the drive up to Inglewood just to be sure. Probably more guns to be had up there anyway.

An accident on 405 stretched the hour trip into two hours. It was eight-thirty before he’d pulled onto Western Avenue in Inglewood. He had no idea where to begin looking. Sam would be up now.

He drove aimlessly, palms sweaty on the steering wheel, telling himself he had no business asking anyone where to buy a gun, much less buying one. If he headed back over to Hawthorn and headed south, he could be back in Palos Verdes in under an hour.

But Palos Verdes was within spitting distance of Long Beach. And Slater was waiting in Long Beach. He had to find himself a gun. Maybe a knife would be better. Definitely easier to find. Then again, killing with a knife somehow felt more evil than killing with a gun, and harder, assuming he could do either.

What would Jennifer say to this sudden madness that had overtaken him? Take him out. No, that was figurative, Kevin. He swallowed, suddenly swamped with the foolishness of what he was doing. He didn’t even have a plan! God, help me.

For someone studying to be a priest, he sure hadn’t prayed much in the past two days. He’d been too busy confessing his sin to the world. He wasn’t sure he even believed that God couldsave him. Could God really reach in and save his people? He imagined a huge finger flicking the head off Slater’s shoulders. For that matter, what did it take to become one of God’s people? How was the soul truly regenerated? Through the sinner’s prayer? Take my heart, take my soul; wash my mind as white as snow. And if anyone comes after me with a gun, please put him in a place where there is no sun—preferably six feet under in a concrete tomb.

He’d never really prayed like that. Oh, he’d prayed plenty in church. He’d committed himself to vocation and to ministry. He’d said what he needed to say to become who he was trying to become, and he was doing what he needed to do to help others become like him. But he was no longer sure what he’d become. He’d broken with his past and started fresh.

Or had he?

Sure he had. Out with the old, in with the new, yippee-kie-ay, yabba dabba doo. Are you regenerated, Kevin? Are you saved? Are you worthy of feeding at the trough with the others in the flock? Are you fit to shepherd the sheep grazing in God’s green pastures?

I was three days ago. At least I thought I was. At least I was successfully pretending to think I was.

Praying to a heavenly Father filled his mind with images of Eugene, dressed in his riding boots, issuing commands in a phony English accent. Fathers were silly men who went about pretending they were important.

Kevin cleared his throat. “God, if anyone ever needed your help, I do. However you do it, you have to save me. I may not be a priest, but I do want to be your . . . your child.”

Tears filled his eyes. Why the sudden emotion?

It’s coming because you never were anyone’s child. Just like Father Strong used to say. God’s waiting with outstretched hands. You never really took that seriously, but that’s what becoming a child is all about. Trust him at his Word, as the good reverend would say.

Kevin pulled into a Burger King. Three young men walked out in baggy jeans with chains that hung from their belt loops to their knees.

A gun. Right now he didn’t need God’s Word. Right now he needed a gun.

Jennifer picked up her phone, dialed Kevin’s number, and let it ring a dozen times. Still no answer. He’d been gone since five o’clock last evening, and she had hardly slept.

They had set up audio surveillance with a single laser beam, which when placed on any one of Kevin’s windows could turn the glass into an effective diaphragm for sounds beyond. Slater had probably used a similar device. The problem with the laser technology was that it picked up sounds indiscriminately. A digital-signal processor decoded the sounds and filtered voice, but the settings had to be adjusted whenever the operator changed windows, or when conditions—such as the closing of drapes—changed sufficiently to interfere with the acoustics of the room. For some reason Kevin had decided to close the drapes just before his departure.

A young agent named McConnel was resetting the laser receiver when Kevin had come out. McConnel said he heard a barrage of static in his earphone and looked up to see the garage door open and the rented Ford Taurus pull out. He’d reported the incident immediately, but his hands were tied. No following.

The fact that McConnel had heard nothing resembling a phone call before Kevin’s departure was somewhat comforting, but the call could have come while the agent was adjusting the receiver.

Jennifer had tried to reach Sam at the Howard Johnson hotel, on the whim that she might know Kevin’s whereabouts. No luck. The agent wasn’t picking up her cell and the hotel clerk said that she’d checked out yesterday morning. She remembered Sam because she’d been tipped twenty dollars. Any agent who’d leave a tip for a desk clerk was unusual at the least.

Jennifer only hoped that Slater would have as much difficulty reaching Kevin as she did. If so, the disappearing act might actually offer some benefits. No bombs. So far. Hopefully the statewide bulletin on the Taurus wouldn’t trigger one. She wasn’t sure why Kevin had left—most probably a reaction to the stress—but in doing so he may have inadvertently stalled Slater.

Jennifer called the agent on duty by the house and learned, as expected, nothing new. She decided to try the dean a few minutes early.

Dr. John Francis lived in an old brick house on the edge of Long Beach, two blocks west of Los Alamitos. She knew that he was a widower with doctorates in both psychology and philosophy who’d lived in the same house for twenty-three years. Other than that all she knew was that he had taken Kevin under his wing at the seminary. And that he liked to drive fast, judging by the black Porsche 911 in his driveway.

Five minutes after pulling up to his house, Jennifer sat in a cozy living room, listening to quiet strains of Bach, nursing a hot cup of green tea. Dr. Francis sat opposite her in an armchair, legs crossed, smiling without trying to. He was quite distressed over all the news he’d heard about his student, but she would never guess it with a glance. The professor had one of those faces that couldn’t help but reflect God’s goodness, regardless of what might be happening.

“How well do you know Kevin?” she asked.

“Quite well as far as students go. But you must understand, that doesn’t qualify me to pass any judgment on his past.”

“His past. We’ll come back to that. This may sound like a simple case of revenge based on what the media is pumping over the air, but I think it’s more complicated than that. I think whoever’s after Kevin sees his life as it is now and takes exception to it. That’s where you come in. It appears that Kevin’s a quiet man. Not a lot of friends. In fact, he evidently considers you his best. Maybe his only, other than Sam.”

“Sam? You mean his childhood friend, Samantha? Yes, he’s spoken of her. He seems quite taken with her.”

“Tell me about him.”

“You’re looking for something in his life today that might elicit anger in someone from his past?”

She smiled. The psychologist in him was speaking. “Exactly.”

“Unless Kevin comes forward with his confession, which he did, the man will extract a price.”

“That’s the basic story.”

“But the confession missed the mark. So now you dig deeper, in search of that which so offends this Slater.”

She nodded. Dr. Francis was a quick study. She decided to deal straight with the man. “On the surface it seems obvious. We have a student pursuing a holy vocation. As it turns out, his past is filled with mystery and murder. Someone takes exception to that dichotomy.”

“We all have pasts filled with mystery and murder,” Dr. Francis said.