T he double doors of the student union clanged shut behind Lucretia, then opened again as a wave of students, talking and laughing, dripping from the rain, pushed their way inside and headed for the counter to order.

Wasting no time, Kristi gathered her notebook computer and purse, then hurried outside and down the steps as the bells from the church tower began tolling off the hour. “Great,” she muttered, noticing how few people were still hurrying across the quad.

Because everyone’s already in class.

Even Lucretia, who had left just moments before Kristi, was nowhere to be seen, as if she’d vanished into the gloomy day.

This is no way to start the term, she told herself as she half ran along a brick pathway that led out of the quad and cut past the chapel and around Wagner House, the two-hundred-year-old stone mansion where the Wagner family, who had donated the land for the college, had once lived. Now a museum, and rumored to be haunted, the towering manor rose three full stories and was complete with mullioned windows, gargoyles on the downspouts, and dormers poking out of the steep, ridged roof.

Raindrops began to fall as Kristi dashed past the wrought-iron fence that separated the gabled house from the edge of the campus, then cut behind a science building. She rounded a corner and nearly crashed into a tall man dressed all in black who was standing with his back to her. He held a hand to his forehead, as if protecting his eyes from the rain. He was deep in discussion with someone Kristi couldn’t see, but as she dashed by, she caught a glimpse of his white clerical collar and etched, grim features. He was talking to a small woman in an oversized coat. Her face was turned up to him as she lowered her voice when Kristi passed, but Kristi recognized Lucretia’s friend, Ariel. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail, she was holding a bag of books, her glasses were splattered with rain, but even so, she looked as if she were on the verge of tears.

“…I…I just thought you should know, Father Tony,” Ariel said, flipping the hood of her jacket over her head.

Father Tony. The priest Irene Calloway had griped about being too hip. Kristi had seen his name in the school catalogue, where he’d been listed as Father Anthony Mediera. In the All Saints information packet the priest had been smiling and calm, wearing a cassock as he stared into the camera with large eyes. Now those blue eyes were dark and guarded, his jaw set, his thin lips flat in repressed anger.

“Don’t worry,” he said with the hint of an Italian accent, also lowering his voice as Kristi passed. “I’ll handle it. Promise.”