When their eyes met again, she spoke in a softened voice. “Being shot is a shock. Our minds keep reliving that moment, the threat, the impact. Our natural reactions are fear and anger. Most men would rather be angry than afraid. They find it easier to express anger. I think the discovery of your own vulnerability, the fact that you’re not perfect, not superman … has made you absolutely furious. And the slowness of your recovery is stoking that fury.”

Was this earnest psychologist as authentic as she sounded at that moment? Was she offering him her honest and caring opinion? Did she actually give a damn? Or was this another step in an increasingly ugly effort to make him question himself rather than the case theory?

Searching for the answer, he looked into her eyes.

Her intelligent gaze was steady, unblinking.

He started to feel the fury she had mentioned. It was time to get the hell out of there before he said something he’d regret.

Part Three: At Any Cost

Prologue

It had taken time to get the wording right, more time than he’d expected. There had been so much going on, so much to manage. But he was finally satisfied. The message finally said everything it needed to say:

Greed spreads in a family like septic blood in bathwater. It infects everyone it touches. Therefore the wives and children you hold up as objects of sorrow and pity shall also be cut down. The children of greed are evil, and evil are those whom they embrace. Therefore they, too, shall be cut down. Whomsoever you hold up for the fools of the world to console, they all shall be cut down, whether related by blood or by marriage to the children of greed.

To consume the product of greed is to consume its stain. The fruit leaves its mark. The beneficiaries of greed bear the guilt of greed, and they must bear its punishment. They will die in the spotlight of your praise. Your praise shall be their undoing. Your pity is a poison. Your sympathy condemns them to death.

Can you not see the truth? Have you gone blind?

The world has gone mad. Greed masquerades as laudable ambition. Wealth pretends to be proof of talent and worth. The channels of communication have fallen into the hands of monsters. The worst of the worst are exalted.

With devils in pulpits and angels ignored, it falls to the honest to punish what the mad world rewards.

These are the true and final words of the Good Shepherd.

He printed two copies to be sent by overnight mail. One to Corazon, one to Gurney. Then he carried the printer out in back of the house and smashed it with a brick. He gathered the pieces, even shards of plastic as small as fingernail clippings, and put them in a garbage bag, along with the remaining printer paper, to be buried in the woods.