He puffed his cigarette once more before flicking the butt into the toilet and flushing away the evidence of his one-cigarette-a-day habit. Splashing his face with cold water, he looked at his image in the mirror that hung haphazardly above the sink.

At a stocky five-foot eleven, with a craggy face and ample lips, he was almost, but not quite, handsome. His features were dark and distinctly Mediterranean, from his brown eyes and sculpted nose to his curly mop of salt-and-pepper hair. His body wasn’t as hard as it had been when he was younger, but his jaw, lined with stubble, was just as rugged.

As he stared into the mirror at the wear and tear of fifty-eight years, the light struck the tiny gold crucifix dangling against his chest, and his tired eyes wandered to his slight paunch. Coletti looked a mess. He didn’t care, though.

He wasn’t looking for a woman. After thirty-one years on the force, his job was his mistress. He’d be leaving her in less than a week. After that, he planned to spend time with the only other companion that mattered: himself.

Coletti looked away from his image and began brushing his teeth while relishing the thought of being alone. Then he heard something on the television that stopped him cold.

“The Pennsylvania supreme court has refused to hear defrocked priest Thomas O’Reilly’s final appeal in the Confessional Murders,” the newscaster said in a tone of mock concern. “That means O’Reilly, who has always maintained his innocence in the decade-old triple murder, is scheduled to face execution this Friday—three days from now. In the words of his lawyer, ‘Only a miracle can save him.’”

Coletti wiped his mouth with the back of his hand as a sick feeling bubbled in his gut. He remembered being the first cop to arrive at the cathedral. He remembered taking the weapon from the priest’s quivering hands. He remembered hearing O’Reilly’s repeated claims of innocence. Most of all, he remembered trusting fingerprints over feelings.

Now the priest who’d haunted his dreams for a decade was scheduled to be put to death the day Coletti was to retire.

As the lightbulb in his bathroom began to flicker, Coletti fingered his crucifix and wondered if the priest’s execution would make the nightmares stop. Or if perhaps, like O’Reilly, Coletti would need a miracle, too.

At 7:00 AM, a well-dressed man stepped onto the platform of the Chestnut Hill Regional Rail station in Philadelphia’s diverse and affluent Northwest. He looked to be about twenty-five, and he carried an almond-colored briefcase that was monogrammed with the letters CLM.

Standing on the crowded platform in the cool of the morning with his neat black dreads and sleek, athletic build, Charles Leonard Mann looked every bit the young businessman. He had finished graduate school five years before, so the persona fit him, but it was just a charade.