“His eyes,” Sandy said with conviction. “They were blue, but it wasn’t a normal blue. It was almost like his eyes were on fire.”

At that, Mann nearly dropped the phone. He remembered hearing that same conviction in Father Douglas’s voice. More importantly, he remembered those same words. The killer’s eyes were like fire.

“Charlie, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here,” he said absently, his mind racing through every possibility and finding none that made sense.

“Listen to me, Charlie,” she said in a voice that was quiet but firm. “No man’s eyes could have looked like that, no man could disappear like that, and no man could cross the city in five minutes, kill three people, and disappear.”

“So if he isn’t a man, what is he?” Mann asked. “I hear he says he’s an angel. And if I were you, I’d think about believing it.”

When Mann disconnected the call, a look of apprehension settled on his face. He was nervous about what Sandy had told him, but he knew that she believed it to be true.

He fiddled with his iPhone, Googling “angel” and “eyes like fire” until he narrowed his search to several Old Testament passages. As he focused on the chapter that contained all he’d heard that evening, he looked around at his cohorts and considered whom he should confide in first.

Lynch was huddled with the homicide captain, preparing to make a statement to the assembled media. Officers from the crime scene unit were bagging and tagging evidence. Fire rescue workers were preparing to remove the bodies.

Standing off to the side were Coletti, Smithson, and Father Douglas. The three of them were looking up at the crucifix that stood tall in the front of the church. Mann walked over and stood beside them.

“You know, I never really thought about angels until tonight,” Father Douglas said to no one in particular. “In my mind, they were just these beings who were there to praise God and protect man. But they never seemed real to me until tonight.”

Coletti looked at him askance. “Do you really think the man who killed these people was an angel?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Father Douglas said. “But he thinks he is.”

“Maybe that’s all that matters,” Smithson said. “He thinks he’s an angel, and that gives him the power to act like one.”

“He might be doing a little bit more than acting,” Mann said. “Sandy called me a few minutes ago. She saw a man fitting the killer’s description downtown around the time he was here.”

“That must’ve been somebody else,” Coletti said dismissively. “No one can be two places at once.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Mann said. “But then Sandy said the same thing Father Douglas did. She said he had eyes like fire.”