The motorcycle was conspicuously missing, probably lost in an all-night poker game.

“Trouble?” Montoya asked as Hershey climbed to his feet and nudged his leg for a pet.

“Nothin’ I haven’t faced before.” Cruz looked up and sighed. “Boy, did I fuck up,” he said.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Hell, no!”

Montoya sat on the stoop beside him and waited. Cruz crushed his cigarette under the heel of his boot; then reluctantly, pissed as hell at himself, he told his brother about his night.

Sister Charity was beside herself.

Two nuns missing this morning? Two?

She swept down the hallway, the skirts of her habit rustling, her rosary beads clacking, her hem brushing across the floor.

Oh, Holy Mother, be with me.

They had searched the grounds and the rooms, but nowhere could she find Sister Lucia and Sister Louise.

Where could they be?

Worry ate at her, causing her stomach to burn with acid and her mind to travel to dark places inhabited by Lucifer himself. Don’t go there, she silently reprimanded herself as she walked through Sister Lucia’s room one last time. It was empty, all her earthly possessions gone, the bed neatly made.

Sister Louise’s room, however, was just the opposite. It looked very inhabited, the impression on her mattress visible still, the sheets rumpled, the covers thrown off. But the bed was cold to the touch. Cold as death.

Charity’s heart constricted. Fear seeped into her soul, and even the corners of her eyes felt tight, as if pulled by imaginary strings.

Thankfully, she thought, no bodies had been found.

Maybe they left.

Together.

The difference in their rooms mere indications of their different personalities.

Perhaps fear had driven them away. And what part of that fear could she ascribe to herself, forever clucking after them like a mother hen or guarding over them like a hawk? Had she been kinder, wiser in her administration, more loving and less rigid, perhaps she wouldn’t be looking for them now.

Forgive me.

She’d spent the very early hours of the morning praying, searching and telling herself she was panicking for no reason, that the frantic drum of her heart was an overreaction; but now she was convinced. All her rules, the extra security, the new locks and police driving by St. Marguerite’s was to no avail.

She walked into her office and realized she’d received a message, one that came in, according to the recorder, a few minutes after five a.m., a time she was never at her desk.

Clicking the PLAY button, she heard a voice she recognized, one she’d prayed she would hear again.