“I thought maybe if you had time to meet, but that’s okay, it’ll keep.”

This was it, I thought. She was finally ready to tell me why she was suddenly back from Africa. I checked my watch. I really needed to keep going. The longer Jung wasn’t where I could see him, the greater the chance he was doing something dumb. “Where?”

“The church.” She didn’t have to say which one. I knew. “I know,” she said in answer to my silence. “But it’s this place I want to talk about. If you want to meet somewhere else, we can.”

“It’s raining like crazy.”

She paused. “The sun’s already peeking through over here. I’m taking it as a good sign.”

I descended the last few stairs, flicked up the hood on my jacket, and pushed through the lobby door out onto the sidewalk. “I’m on my way.”

* * *

Sure enough, the sun was out by the time I pulled to the curb in front of St. Brendan’s. I parked and sat there for a moment, peering through the window, watching Barb pace the small courtyard, the top of her wild red hair moving left, then right, and back again over the top of the shrubs. I eyed the rectory, the gray stone church, an overwhelming ache of absence echoing through me. It was like coming home and not finding a single thing there you loved anymore; and though every brick and window sparked a fond recollection, the place felt hollow, foreign, no longer mine. I got out of the car, headed over, flexing my hands to warm them. It was June, but my hands were like ice.

“Told ya. No rain. You made good time.”

I shrugged, my eyes on hers, not on the church, not on the rectory. “It sounded important.”

Barb tilted her face skyward, saw the sun, unzipped her yellow slicker. We might have talked about the weather, but Barb had as little patience for small talk and circuitous conversation as I did. If we had something to say, we said it . . . usually, which was why her secretive behavior over the last couple days was so out of character. I gave her the room, though it wasn’t easy. Obviously, now she no longer needed it.

“I owe you an explanation,” she said.

“Okay.”

She rocked on the soles of her feet, watching, stalling. “How’s your case?”

“Someone sent me a dead man.”

She started to laugh, then realized I wasn’t joking and went ghostly pale. “What?”

I shrugged. “I’m over the shock of it.”

Her mouth twisted into a pained grimace. I waited some more, by all outward appearances patiently, though my insides would tell a different story. I could tell Barb was thinking about the dead guy, but I needed to move things along. Jung was out there somewhere stuck on stupid.

“You had something to tell me,” I prodded gently.