“A new baby, how nice,” Sana said, without the excitement most young women would have expressed. Nor did she invite mother and baby. “Surely she won’t begrudge you an evening with your old college buddies.”

“It’s more complicated than you might think,” Jack explained, not wanting to be more specific.

“Well, we’ll understand if you can’t come,” Shawn said. “But we do hope you can. What we’ve found in the ossuary is incredible, and I’m going to enjoy riding His Excellency James.”

“Please don’t overdo it,” Jack said. “He’s really upset about this whole thing and its potential repercussions.”

“He should be,” Shawn said.

“I wouldn’t be so blithe,” Jack warned. “James is married to the Church. If nothing else, he is fearsomely loyal.”

Their mission to Home Depot accomplished, with what seemed like a ton of glass panes in a taxi’s trunk, Jack again tried to encourage Shawn to go easy on James that evening, reminding him that he had a long way to go before he could prove he’d discovered the bones of the Virgin Mary.

“I haven’t proven it,” Shawn agreed, “but it is coming whisker-close, wouldn’t you say, old boy?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” Jack replied.

“Let’s put it this way. If I were to take this story as we know it today, combining Saturninus’s letter with the fact that the ossuary was right where he said he’d put it, and it hadn’t been touched for almost two thousand years—what if I were to take the story, the letter, and the ossuary to Vegas and ask the bookmakers if I had the Virgin Mary in the box. What kind of odds do you think they’d give me?”

“Stop it!” Jack snapped. “This is all ridiculous supposition.”

“So that’s how it is!” Shawn said suddenly. “You’re on James’s side, just like you always were in college. Some things never change.”

“I’m not on anybody’s side. I’m on my side, right in the middle, always trying to keep the peace between you two hard-asses.”

“James was the hard-ass, not me.”

“Excuse me. You’re right. You were the airhead.”

“And you were the asshole. I remember it well,” Shawn said. “And as the asshole, you were almost always on hard-ass’s side, just as I’m beginning to think you’ll be tonight. I’m warning you that tonight I’m looking for a bit of payback. During all our debates over the years, we’d always get to a point where James would throw down his trump card: faith! How can you debate that? Well, tonight we’ll revisit a couple of those debates, only this time I have facts on my side. It’s going to be entertaining. I can promise you that.”