“Stay away from me,” Monica said.

Nothing mattered more to her than getting the hell out of there, but she would have to pass by the living room to get to the front door. She hobbled as fast she could along the entry hallway. One of her house slippers had fallen off. The knife swung loosely in her clammy hand.

Someone sat in a wing back chair in the living room.

Monica had to look, had to shout at this person that Grace was crazy and dangerous and they had to get out while they could, that no matter how beautiful and charming Grace seemed it was all a trick. She staggered toward the visitor. It was a man, and he looked familiar.

“Reverend McBride?” Monica said.

McBride sat in the chair, head sagging against his chest. He looked as if he had dozed off, but he wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing.

The doctor in her compelled her to touch his hand, to check his pulse.

His skin was cool. She didn’t need to feel for a pulse to know he was dead.

“Say hello to your father, child,” Grace said, sweeping past Monica to stand beside the chair. She seized a wisp of McBride’s hair and jerked his head upright. The reverend’s lifeless eyes regarded her. “He wanted you to know the truth of your parentage and I thought it would be kind to fulfill a dead man’s final wish.”

Monica screamed.

55

At Dunwoody Guns & Ammo, Troy purchased a firearm. It was a surreal experience, as he was no one’s soldier of fortune. He’d never bought a gun and had fired one only once in his entire life, while hanging out with some buddies from med school. He was amazed at the fluid ease of the purchase process: after a quick criminal background check run through the computer, he was allowed to acquire his weapon of choice that very day.

He bought a Sig Sauer P226, a nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol with a fifteen-round magazine capacity. The sales guy, an older tanned gentleman with white eyebrows and a mane of thick black hair so out of place it had to be a toupee, boasted that it had long been the preferred weapon for Navy Seals.

If it was good enough for special ops, it was more than adequate for his purposes.

He bought five magazine clips of ammo. A consultant at the store led him to their on-site firing range. He demonstrated to Troy how to load and unload the pistol, and Troy practiced the process. He fired several practice shots at a cardboard target, missing badly with most of them.

“Aim for center mass, and you’ll be fine,” the consultant said. “Perfect head shots between the eyes happen only in the movies.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”