“And who’s them?”

“The people who killed my mother!” He said it with twisted lips, bitter beyond himself. “Do you know the CIA ordered it? To give that man in the jungle a place to grow his drugs?”

“But you don’t just kill! That’s why we have laws. You’ve become like them.”

He spoke quietly now, trembling all over. “My law is Sula.”

The name echoed through her mind. Sula. The god of death. The spirit of the witch doctor.

“I will do anything to destroy them. Anything! You have no idea how long I’ve planned this.” Spittle flecked his lip. “And you have no idea how sick they are.”

She blinked. “What are you saying? How can you say that? You’re insane!”

“They killed my . . . our parents!” His face was twisted into an ugly, terrifying scowl.

“How could you do this to me?” she whispered.

“I’ve done nothing to you!” Shannon said. He turned from her and strode for the door. Without looking back, still wearing only his pants, he stepped from the room and shut the door.

Tanya backed to the bed in shock. She sat heavily, hardly able to form coherent thoughts now. When one did string through her head, it said that this was madness. That the world had gone berserk and she along with it.

She lay back, acutely aware of the afternoon silence. Outside, horns honked and pedestrians yelled muted words. She was alone. Maybe even God had deserted her.

Father, what’s happening to me? I’m losing my mind.

Then Tanya began to cry softly on the bed. She felt as abandoned and destitute as she had those first weeks after her parents had been killed.

Will you die for him, Tanya?

For him? Shannon.

She curled up in a ball and let the grief swallow her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“YES, THAT’S right, Bill; we don’t have a clue what’s going on down there. But whatever it is, it’s changing the world.”

“I’m preparing for my Wednesday evening teaching at the church, my son is at soccer practice, and Tanya is down in the jungle changing the world.”

“Yes. She’s loving and she’s dying and she’s changing the world.”

“And who’s she loving?”

“The boy.”

“Shannon. So he is alive?”

“I think so. I think that she was called down there to love him.”

“How does that change the world?”

“I don’t know. But it’s all I get now. To pray for her to love the boy. In fact, I really think that’s what this is all about. Tanya loving Shannon. I really do think maybe Tanya’s parents were called down there twenty years ago so that Tanya could fall in love with the boy.”

The line was silent.

“And I think Father Petrus was brought to the jungle years ago for this day.”

“Important day,” he said.