Inside was warm and smelled of incense and lemon floor polish. The place was huge, with hundreds and hundreds of pews spanning out in three directions from where the altar was.

Matthias didn’t make it all the way to the back. He collapsed in a sit about halfway down the side aisle, all but falling onto the wooden bench.

Moving his cane between his knees he looked up at the crucifix . . . and began to cry.

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 36

After he cut off the communication with Matthias, Isaac shoved the Life Alert transmitter into his sweatshirt. What he wanted to do was put it on the granite counter and smash it with his fist. Then maybe light the pieces on fire.

Bracing his hands on the kitchen sink, he leaned into his shoulders and stared out at the back garden. Almost eight a.m. and the place was all but pitch-dark because the houses in the neighborhood were packed so closely together. No clue whether Jim’s buddies were still back there. No word from Jim.

But Isaac had other problems right now.

Shit. All things considered, the fact that Matthias was savvy enough to be suspicious wasn’t a news flash. But the nail-on-the-head component to what was hopefully just speculation put Isaac in a tight one. If he left now, he ran the risk of Grier and her father getting slaughtered. If he stayed . . . they were probably going to be made to watch him die.

Mother. Fucker.

“They got in touch with you.”

He looked over his shoulder. Grier was fresh out of her shower, her hair down and drying naturally.

“Isaac.” Her face grew tight. “Did they get back to you?”

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

To make the lie stick, he pulled out the transmitter and let it dangle, banking on the fact that she wouldn’t notice that the light was now off.

“Is that thing working?”

“Yeah.” He put it away as she came over. “How’s your father?”

“On the phone again in the bathroom.” She glanced at the clock. “God, I thought last night would never end.”

“I just want Jim to show,” he said as she started to make coffee by the sink.

“Do you think . . . he really is dead?”

At this point—maybe. “No.”

Sitting down on one of the stools, he watched her pop the top off the Hills Bros can and put the filter into the maw of the machine. As she went through the routine task, the sunlight on her face made him want to weep, she was so beautiful.

On some level, he couldn’t believe he’d been with her—and not as in the he-wasn’t-worthy shit. Duh, that was self-evident. But all that pounding, hot-and-heavy sex seemed like a dream. She was all cleaned up, smelling like shampoo instead of his sweat, her hair smooth, her face unflushed.