I blinked, for a second confused. “I don’t know. No one, I hope.” I studied her while I shoved my feet into running shoes. This was the second time in a week I’d woken to a disturbing call from Jung. It was getting old. I squinted at Barb. She looked not herself. “You okay?”

She eased in fully dressed, wearing worn jeans and a faded Pope Francis T-shirt, her athletic frame masked by both. She yawned. “I’m still on Tanzanian time. Up when everyone else is asleep, asleep when everyone’s awake. I was in the kitchen making a sandwich when the phone rang. Nothing good happens this early. What’s up, besides the two of us?”

I didn’t bother with shoelaces. They were still tied from the night before, so I jammed my feet in. “That was my client. He’s done something stupid. He says he didn’t, but I know he has. I’m headed out.” I scanned the room, looking for my bag.

“Anything dangerous?”

“Only to my overall health and well-being, I think.” I found the bag, headed for the door.

Barb smiled. “Mind if I tag along?”

I stopped, faced her, saying nothing. I was at that place again where I had to choose whether to involve family with the job. Mrs. Vincent had chided me for pushing my friends away, but I had a legitimate reason for doing it. I didn’t work in a bank or in a grocery store. I chased criminals for a living, and sometimes they took offense and chased me back. What kind of person would rope a nun into something like that? Even a nun, born and bred on the gritty South Side of Chicago, one raised in a family of battling Irish, one who could likely whip my ass.

“I’ll keep you company,” Barb said. “Watch you do what you do.”

She met my look straight on, unflinching. Barb was always unflinching. I could tell there was something on her mind, though. I’d known her more than half my life—Whip too—and they knew me right back. We were the same in many ways, which is what made it so weird that we’d each gone in such drastically different directions. I became a cop; Barb married God; Whip, until he got pinched and incarcerated, boosted cars for a living. I worried that Whip would revert to his old ways. He said he never would, but the streets, the lure of an easy score, had a strong pull.

Barb gave me half a smile, her green eyes keen. “I saw the letters.”

I bristled. The letters from my prodigal father were where I’d left them, unopened on the table in the entryway. The stack by now had to be at least a dozen high. “Is that what’s on your mind?”

She shook her head. “Just an observation. You’re not even a little curious?”