… another hand… and this one with a short pinkie as well… an old amputation.

Jamie Grant… they'd killed her, drowned her in concrete last night… and Christ, he'd stood outside and watched the whole thing. That little leak he'd noticed along the seam… had that been Jamie trying to break out? Had she worked her fingers to the edge before her air ran out?

Jack felt a pressure build in his chest. He pounded his fist against the pillar's cold rough surface below the hand.

He'd failed her.

If only he'd known. Maybe he could have saved her… or at least tried. Maybe…

The sound of a car engine outside stopped the growing string of maybes and pulled Jack to his feet. He looked around at one of the windows and spotted a car pulling up. He jumped down from the truck bed and hid himself behind an array of metal drums stacked against the wall.

The frustration at being unable to locate Jamie was gone, overwhelmed by a black rage that pounded against the inside of his skull. He hoped, prayed this was Brady or Jensen—or, better yet, both. He could hear his molars grinding. He wanted to hurt someone connected to the Dormentalist Church. And the higher up, the harder the hurt. Give him the right guy and he might not be able to stop once he got started. Might hurt them to death. Which wasn't so bad. Certain people had it coming.

As he peeked between a pair of drums he saw two men push open the big doors at the opposite end. It wasn't Brady or Jensen, or any of the other four he'd seen up on the catwalk last night.

Shit.

These two didn't look like Dormentalists of any stripe. In fact, Jack thought he recognized the one on the right, the guy wearing the cowboy hat.

Then he remembered. The cowboy was the big-gutted driver of the sand hauler that had damn near killed his father down in Florida. He hadn't been behind the wheel when that happened; his job had been to drive a load of Otherness-tainted sand from the Everglades nexus point to this plant… sand that Jack was sure had been used to make the concrete that entombed Jamie.

Jack reached back and removed the Glock from his SOB holster.

Only two of them. He could take them, even if they were armed. But were they the only ones here? Could be a couple more outside.

He decided to wait and see.

Turned out to be a short wait. The two guys climbed into the truck cab, started her up, and pulled the truck outside. One jumped out to close the doors, and then they were driving away.

Jack eased back outside. The Suburban they'd pulled up in was empty. Just two of them.

He waited until the truck rumbled up to the road and disappeared, then he headed for his car at an easy trot. No need to rush. That big rig couldn't move fast on these winding back roads, and it sure as hell wouldn't be hard to spot.

Jack wanted to see where they intended to inter Jamie Grant. And then they were going to have to answer some tough questions.

5

"Body of Christ," Sister Maggie said as she took the host from the gold-lined pyx and, holding it between her right thumb and forefinger, raised it before Amelia Elkins's wrinkled face.

Amelia responded with a hoarse Amen and opened her mouth.

Maggie placed the wafer of bread on her tongue, and then they said a prayer of thanksgiving together, Amelia in her wheelchair, Maggie kneeling beside it.

Genny Duncan, the Eucharistic Minister who usually brought Holy Communion to the parish's shut-ins, was ill today, so Maggie had offered to take over for her. She was tired after the long day of working over the ovens and steaming kettles in the Loaves and Fishes, but that didn't mean these poor homebound souls should be denied their weekly communion.

When they finished the prayer, Amelia grabbed Maggie's hand as she rose.

"Can I fix you some tea, sister? I have some brownies my daughter dropped off. We could—"

Maggie patted her hand and smiled. "I wish 1 could stay, Amelia, really I do, but I have another stop to make."

"Oh. Yes, of course. I'm not the only one who needs communion, I suppose. I was just hoping…"

Poor thing, Maggie thought as she replaced the cover on the pyx. So lonely.

"Tell you what I can do, though," she said. "I can stop by tomorrow around midday and we can have lunch together. I'll bring—"

"Sunday lunch!" Amelia said, beaming. "And you won't bring a thing. I'll fix us some nice sandwiches. Do you like tuna fish salad?"

Maggie wasn't fond of anything made with mayonnaise, but she put on a brave face. "I'll bet you make a delicious one."

"I do. These old legs may be unreliable, but I can still whip up a mean salad. What time can you be here?"

"How does one o'clock sound?"

"One o'clock it is!" She looked years younger. "I'll have everything ready when you arrive."

A few minutes later Maggie was hurrying down the rickety stairway from Amelia's third-floor apartment, wondering if she might be spreading herself too thin. She had such trouble saying no to people in need.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked around. The light faded so early these days. She checked her watch. Just five o'clock and already the sun was down.

Well, only one more stop to go. She checked her list. Mr. Whitcolm lived just a few blocks away. Wonderful. She'd be back at the convent in time to set the dinner table.

She took two steps toward Fourth Street, then stopped.

"Thank you, Lord," she whispered. "Thank you for this second chance to do Your will, and to help those who can't help themselves."

As she started walking again a car pulled into the curb beside her. She angled closer to the buildings. The neighborhood was a lot safer than it used to be, but still had more than its share of drug dealers and other unsavory types.

"Miss?" said a man's voice.

Maggie slowed but didn't stop. She saw only one person in the car. A very large man, taking up most of the front seat as he leaned across from the driver's side. His features were indistinguishable in the waning light, his face little more than a pale moon floating just inside the front passenger window, but she was sure she didn't know him.

"I'm lost. Can you help me?"

The car wasn't flashy like the ones the drug dealers drove, and not a rattletrap like some of their customers'. Just a normal, everyday, respectable-looking Jeep. A family car.

Still, you had to be careful.

"I've been driving in circles down here," he said, a plaintive note in his voice. "All I need is someone to point me in the right direction."

She'd had to say no to Amelia. The least she could do was help out this lost man. She stepped closer to the car.

"Where do you want to go?"

"One of the housing projects."

"Which one? Jacob Rüs? Lillian Wald? There's more than one down here."

"I'm not sure. My wife wrote it down for me but she has terrible penmanship." He thrust his arm out the window. A slip of paper fluttered in this hand. "Can you make sense of this chicken scratch?"

Keeping her distance from the car, Maggie pulled the slip from his fingers and squinted at it in the twilight. He hadn't been exaggerating about the penmanship. It was terrible. Obviously his wife hadn't attended Catholic school. She thought she could make out an uppercase M and T on two adjacent words.

"It might be Masaryk Towers."

"That sounds right. Where are they?"

"Farther downtown. Are you sure…?"

"Something wrong?"

She'd never been inside the Masaryk Towers but had heard them referred to as a "vertical ghetto." It did not seem the kind of place a middle-class white man would want to go.

"Well, it has a rough reputation."

"Really? Maybe I'll just drive by. If it looks too rough I'll just keep on going and come back during the day."