I don’t know what to say. We never told him we found the Michigan warehouse. All this time he knew? He saw me sitting there and never set off the explosion? It has to be a trick. Why else wouldn’t he?

“Did I strike a nerve?” he asks. “Tell you what, if you can answer me one question honestly, I’ll do the same.”

I give him a cold stare.

“It looked like you were staring at something in the dark back in that warehouse, Jessica. For the life of me I couldn’t remember what was there. Then I realized it must have been something that wasn’t there. A person. Who were you looking at? In the darkness, who do you see?”

My mouth opens but I don’t have an answer.

“Their lives served a greater purpose. Where others had doubt, they now have certainty. We live in an age of miracles.”

“All you did was construct elaborate lies.”

“Isn’t that the root of all faith? The belief in something that isn’t true—at least something you have no reason to believe is true? And what do you know? Maybe I am a god.”

I raise an eyebrow at the holding cell. “So you’re here by choice?”

“Jesus could have escaped his Roman prison cell if it was necessary.”

I roll my eyes. The television is playing behind me at a low volume. He shifts his gaze from me to the screen for a moment.

“It doesn’t matter if you believe me. It only takes a few.” The last words come out slowly. He’s distracted.

“There’s a gift shop next to his cell in Jerusalem,” I tell him. “Do you think he planned on that? Think things got a little off-message after he died?”

Haywood is pretending to not watch the television set. “His disciples . . . they spread the word . . . they . . .” His words trail off as he tries to focus on the television. His fingers twitch as he thinks about turning the volume up.

I stare straight back at him and don’t acknowledge the television. Behind me the pilot, the man who tried to kill me on the Warlock’s order, is talking to a camera. Diagrams of the Empire State Building and medical reports flash on the screen. He’s exposing the charade.

“. . . I began to suspect it was all a lie . . . but I was too afraid . . .” says the pilot.

I give Haywood a thin smile of my own. “When Jesus died, Peter didn’t go running around calling him a fraud. Did he? That’s the real problem in being a god; you don’t get to control the message.”

Haywood’s facial muscles slacken for an instant, then grow tense. His wrists pull at the handcuffs fastened to the table.

Behind me the pilot continues the exposé, calling Haywood a charlatan; the whole thing a lie. Haywood is furious. His most trusted confidant is revealing everything. His Peter has become a Judas.