He dropped to his knees as grief overwhelmed him. Though he pursed his lips and squeezed his eyes shut, neither gesture could hold the pain inside. Tears poured down his face and he screamed in anguish as the reality of the moment set in.

When the police arrived, he deliriously whispered that the gunman was the angel of death. They took the gun from his hands and lifted him to his feet. They shook his shoulders to stir him from the shock. However, the more they tried to rouse him, the deeper he seemed to fall. It was as if the floor of the sanctuary had opened and hell had risen up to swallow him.

He cried out to God as he fell into the enemy’s hands. He yelled for his Father to save him from the torment he faced. He looked up to heaven as the tears poured down his cheeks. Then suddenly, someone reached down and snatched him up.

That’s when Michael Coletti awakened. As always, the nightmare left the detective disoriented. He looked around expecting to see the cathedral, but there were no marble statues, no magnificent arches, and no stained-glass windows. There were only the threadbare furnishings of his one-bedroom apartment and the odors of stale smoke and sweat.

He ran his hands over his face and felt the wetness of the tears he’d cried in his sleep. He wondered what had snatched him from his nightmare and transported him back to his own reality. More importantly, Coletti wondered if being saved had done him more harm than good.

Pushing his sweat-soaked hair back from his face, Philadelphia’s most senior homicide detective flipped the covers off his naked body, propped himself up on his elbow, and looked at his alarm clock. It was 5:30 AM, August 25, 2009. Summer would be over in twenty-eight days. His career would be over in three.

He grabbed his Marlboros from his nightstand and lit one with shaking hands. The hiss of the burning tobacco filled the room as Coletti pulled the smoke into his lungs. He exhaled slowly and reflected on the things he’d seen in his years on the force: crime scenes covered with the blood of children; women brutalized by men who claimed to love them; adulterous lovers shot dead in the throes of passion. None of it had affected him like the Confessional Murders.

For ten years, his dreams wouldn’t let him forget the crime. He wasn’t dreaming now, though, so Coletti did what he’d done every day for the last decade. He went on with his life.

Groaning as he got out of bed, he turned on the news, tramping through the pile of dirty clothes that led to the bathroom. Once there, he pulled the string that lit the lavatory’s single lightbulb and absently listened while a weatherman predicted a breezy late summer day with temperatures reaching the mideighties.