So I walked down hallways, going nowhere in particular, just being careful not to pass too near any equipment that might be busy keeping someone alive at the moment.

I wound up sitting down in the hospital chapel.

It was the usual for such a place; quiet, subdued colors and lights, bench seating with an aisle in the middle, and a podium up at the front—the standard layout for the services of any number of faiths. Maybe it leaned a little harder toward Catholicism than most, but that might have been only natural. The Jesuits actually had a chaplaincy in residence, and held Mass there regularly.

It was quiet, which was the important thing. I sank onto a pew, aching, and closed my eyes.

Lots of details chased their way around my head. Michael had come in with gunshot wounds. The cops were going to ask lots of questions about that. Depending on the circumstances of the helicopter’s return to Chicago, that could get really complicated, really fast. On the other hand, given the depth of Marcone’s involvement, the problems might just vanish. He had his fingers in so many pies in Chicago’s city government that he could probably have any inquiry quashed if he really wanted it done.

Given what he’d been saved from, it would be consistent with his character for Marcone to repay the people who bailed him out with whatever aid he could render in turn. It irked me that Marcone could ever be in a position to offer significant aid to Michael, regardless of the circumstances.

Of course, for that to happen, Michael would first need to survive.

My thoughts kept coming full circle back to that.

Would he be in danger right now if I hadn’t insisted that he put on that harness? If I hadn’t shoved him onto that rope ahead of me, would he still be up there under the knife, dying? Could I really have been that arrogant to assume, based on one glance at Gard’s face, that I not only knew the future, but had the wisdom and the right to decide what that future should be?

Maybe it should be me up there. I didn’t have a wife and a family waiting for me to come home.

I’d expected Charity to scream and throw things at me. Maybe I’d even wanted that. Because while I intellectually understood that I’d had no way of knowing what was going to happen, and that I’d only been trying to protect my friend, a big part of me couldn’t help but feel that I deserved Charity’s fury. After all, it reasoned, I had gotten her husband killed as surely as if I’d murdered him myself.

Except that he wasn’t dead yet—and thinking like that was too much like giving up on him. I couldn’t do that.

I looked up at the podium, where Whoever would presumably be when someone was there delivering a sermon.

“I know that we don’t talk much,” I said, speaking out loud to the empty room. “And I’m not looking for a pen pal. But I thought You should know that Michael makes You look pretty good. And if after all he’s done, it ends like this for him, I’d think less of You. He deserves better. I think You should make sure he gets it. If You want to bill it to me, I’m fine with that. It’s no problem.”