No. There he was, fighting feebly against the brawny arms that pinned him. His hair was much the same, no longer, no cleaner, no drier than the last time I’d seen him, and he hadn’t gained a pound. Blond stubble burst from erratic patches on his chin and cheeks, and his eyes had new, blue circles drooping below the bloodshot globes. He looked old and tired and weak, except for the total madness he exuded with such rapacious enthusiasm.

“Bars cannot stop the wrath of God. God finds a way. They tried to stop this, the agents of Satan, but that old devil cannot prevail. He cannot prevail against the Lord my God, and now His purpose is served. I don’t care if they put me away again. I’ve done my work; I’ve done the Lord’s work. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be . . . His name.”

His conviction was horrifying.

I approached him with fascination diluted by the dawning astonishment that he thought he’d killed me.

Drunk or not, I managed to be insulted, though that was possibly unfair. He hadn’t seen me in fifteen years, and Terry and I . . . well, to the passive, uninformed observer she and I had more in common than I liked to think. We were about the same age, and could have reasonably been of the same ethnic extraction. She was not ugly, and she carried herself with the same lazy air of a fat, spoiled Persian cat. As a card-carrying Leo, I like to consider myself feline in grace and appearance and, to tell the truth, if I were seven or eight sizes larger she and I could have passed for sisters.

Okay.

I can understand why Malachi mistook her for me after all the time that had passed since I’d last seen him. And that is as kind to the dead as I’m prepared to be.

Malachi watched me walk towards him, his babbling face revealing nothing beyond his blubbering triumph. I should have stayed back. I should have let him live with the illusion of his victory, but in all likelihood he would have learned of his error anyway. I don’t believe it would have made any difference, and now that he was safely restrained, I was angry.

Astounded and angry. Genuinely, blindly seething.