Assume the worst, Søren had told Cyrus. What was the worst?

Cyrus felt his jaw tighten. “He was afraid he was going to…or he already did and thought he’d do it again.”

Chapter Forty

Doc refused to talk to them anymore. He looked old when they were done with him, old and tired and rung out. Cyrus knew how he felt.

“Guess Doc didn’t want to face that maybe he was helping out a rapist,” Cyrus said when he and Nora were back in his car. “One thing to not ask questions when someone comes knocking on your door. Another thing to know the answers and not tell anyone.”

Nora said nothing. She seemed lost in her own thoughts.

Cyrus hated to leave her there, lost and alone. “Nora? You okay?”

“Just wondering,” she said. “What I would have done?”

“If he’d gotten through to you?”

She nodded.

“You wouldn’t have really castrated the man, would you?” Cyrus asked. “Please say ‘no.’”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know how. I could find out how. I know someone who did it—don’t ask.”

She must have seen his mouth starting to open to ask that very question.

“I’ve left permanent scars on male clients. I’ve done branding, scarification. I once nailed a guy’s testicles—”

“Stop right there.”

“Sorry,” she said. “But actual castration? That’s major surgery. I could have killed him. But if he’d called me, I would have talked to him,” Nora said. “Tried to get him to talk to me. But it wouldn’t have worked, would it?”

“Why not?”

“This whole time, I thought he was one of us,” she said. “Kinky. But he wasn’t calling me for kink. He wanted surgery no doctor would perform—without a good reason anyway. What surgeon would castrate a healthy man for no medical reason whatsoever?”

“None in this country,” Cyrus said. “Not if they want to keep their license. Doctors are mandatory reporters, too. If a patient says, ‘Cut my balls off or I’m going to rape my neighbor tomorrow,’ somebody’s gonna make a phone call about that.”

“Right,” Nora said. She took a long deep breath, a long slow exhale. “Right.”

The car was silent except for Christian Scott playing through the speakers, low and sad and slow.

“Wait,” Nora said, turning to look at him. “You said rape his neighbor. Do you think that’s what he was planning?”

“Just a guess,” Cyrus said. “He was at that house on Annunciation, right? And the car was parked a few blocks away, like, I don’t know, like he was planning a getaway? And remember what was in the bag?”

“Rope,” Nora said. “Handcuffs and lube.”

“Rape supplies,” Cyrus said. “Kidnapping supplies. Somebody was supposed to get into his car. That’s why they had his keys. That’s why it was parked a few blocks away.”

“The Butterfly?” Nora asked.

“Gotta be her, whoever she is.”

The Butterfly. Not his mistress…his victim.

Father Ike had given her his keys. She must have thought they were going on a trip somewhere. Then he doesn’t show up at the car when he was supposed to…”