What he gave back was a stapler he’d lifted from Yadira, the woman who worked in the office next to his.He’d returned it with a sheepish smile, claiming that his wasn’t working, and he’d just forgotten about it.(A lie).Since taking it, he’d spent at least fifteen minutes a day admiring it where it sat in the bottom drawer of his desk.) Yadira had laughed and jokingly called him a thief before patting him on the arm and taking the stapler.
That was the only thing he gave back, and he had to resort to pinching himself to the point of drawing blood to keep from stealing it again.Hewantedto change.He just couldn’t.
Until Father Glover.When Father Glover arrived at his doorstep, smiling, his voice full of compassion, and asked if he could offer a confession or spiritual counsel, Bill broke down.He told Father Glover everything.
And Father Glover listened.Without judgment.Without disdain.Without ridicule.He listened, and when he was finished listening, he gave Bill the only advice that had ever worked, the only strategy that attacked the problem at its source.
Bill stole because it felt good to steal.So to stop stealing, he had to find other things that felt good, and he had to focus intensely on those things.His nightly glass of wine, a comfortable chair, a walk through the park while the river coursed to his right, the occasional phone call with Samantha, who didn’t love him anymore but still liked him enough to care.
And he had to return the stolen belongings.He had to make amends.
He’d made amends.He’d given everything back.Everything but that damned bird.
He lifted his wineglass, and a knock on the door caused him to stiffen.The wine splashed from the glass.A quick movement saved his chair cushion and t-shirt.Bill said a brief prayer of thanks for his laminated hardwood floors and got to his feet.
He looked through the peephole, and his heart leaped when he saw the kind eyes of Father Glover, so crystal blue they looked like they belonged in Heaven.
He opened the door and smiled at the Father.“Father Glover!What a pleasant surprise.I thought you had moved on.”
Father Glover returned his smile, his blue eyes soft and piercing at the same time.“I was in town again, and I thought I’d stop by to see how you’ve been doing.”
“I see.Well, come on in!”
“Thank you, Bill,” Glover replied.
There was just the slightest touch of a southern accent in Glover’s resonant baritone voice.Bill found it charming.He imagined Glover’s past as a rough-and-tumble farm boy and wondered what had occurred to shift his path into the service of the Church.
As he led the father inside, his eyes fell once again to the ceramic cardinal.His cheeks flamed, and in a rather small voice, he said, “Still need to get around to returning that cardinal.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Glover said.
There was a quality to his voice that Bill hadn’t heard before.If he’d had time to process that quality, he would have found it almost identical to the excitement he felt just before he took something that didn’t belong to him.
Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—his cognitive function ceased less than a second after Glover slammed something blunt and cold and hard into the back of his skull, too quickly for him to register the imminence of its cessation.His last coherent thought was that he was almost done, almost finished making amends.
He died one step away from the finish line.
CHAPTER ONE
Monday, November 30th
“How’s your sleep?”
Dr.Susan Okafor delivered the question with her typical innocent smile and piercing gaze.Kate Valentine absorbed the question with her typical urge to shove the pillow on the good doctor’s futon down the aforementioned good doctor’s throat.
I amnotgood at therapy,Kate thought morosely.
“Umm… good.”
Dr.Okafor stared at her, not replying, letting her eyes communicate her distrust.
“Yeah, I mean, sleep is always kind of sporadic when you work for the FBI.”
“Are you working on a case right now?”
Kate’s fingers tightened, making the knuckles stand out white on her knees.She wished she could control that reaction, but it was as involuntary as the tears that came every night after she came home from another day of barely talking to Marcus.If he was even there to talk to.
“No,” she admitted.“My boss has decided that I should take a step back from the Cox case.”