"How about the injured men she was driving?"

Alta bent over her computer. "The unconscious-with-contusion's been admitted for observation overnight." She looked up at Clare. "Routine. Checking for symptoms of concussion." She straightened up. "The abrasions-and-contusions got patched up and was R.O.R. 'bout half an hour ago. I have no idea where he is now."

"You just let him go?"

Alta looked over her shoulder and beckoned to Clare. Bemused, Clare moved in closer. "An agent from Albany showed up."

"An agent?"

"ICE." Alta rolled her eyes. "Formerly known as INS. Some twenty-five-year-old with an MBA probably told them to rebrand themselves." She dropped her voice. "So, anyway, I gave the guy ten bucks and the homeless shelter pamphlet. Don't know if it'll do him any good, since he didn't speak English, but-"

"The hospital reported these guys?"

Alta drew herself up to her full five feet two inches. "Of course not! Someone at the accident site called it in, apparently."

One of the MKPD? No. None of Russ's officers would make a call like that without his say-so. Now John Huggins-that was a whole 'nother kettle of fish. "What about the third man?" she asked Alta.

"The broken arm? He's getting casted. He'll be ready for release as soon as Dr. Stillman clears him."

"So soon?"

Alta gave her a glance that said, And your medical knowledge is…?

"It's just that when Chief Van Alstyne broke his leg last year, he went into surgery and had to stay overnight."

"The chief"-was it her imagination, or did Alta put a peculiar spin to those words?-"had an open fracture requiring pins. The illegal has a plain-as-vanilla greenstick fracture. Slap some fiberglass on it and he's done."

Clare found herself looking over her shoulder just as the charge nurse had. "What's going to happen to him? When he's discharged?"

Alta threw up her hands. "Lord knows. The lady from the ICE already looked at his papers." She shook her head. "All the way up from Albany for three farmworkers. I wish the government had moved that fast when my ex-husband was skipping out on child support. Their sponsors are on the way over to talk with her."

"Their sponsors?"

"The folks who hired 'em. They're responsible for their work permits. Leastways, that's how it was explained to me."

Sponsors. Would that be the business that arranged the paperwork and the transportation? Or would that be-

The Emergency Department's old-fashioned swinging doors thumped open, admitting Russ Van Alstyne. He didn't look happy, and his frown grew even deeper when he caught sight of Clare.

He strode up the institutional green hallway toward the waiting room. An anxious-looking man with more hair in his mustache than on his head entered in his wake, along with a rangy blond woman who looked enough like a female version of Russ to be his-

– sister. Oh.

"What are you doing here?" Russ demanded. "I thought I told Knox and Kevin to take you home after the search."

She squelched the first reply that came to mind: You're not the boss of me! "Don't blame them," she said instead. "They tried."

The doors to the examination and treatment area clunked open. A white-coated doctor stepped inside, headed for Alta's desk. He paused when he saw Russ, and opened his mouth, but the chief of police went past him without a second glance and stopped in front of Clare. "Oh, I don't blame them, believe me."

Clare did a lot of counseling as a priest, and she was good at it. She recognized the weapons of grief: anger, lashing out, keeping the world at bay. She knew the postures of guilt: bending over, ducking away, doing almost anything to avoid confronting the festering wound to the heart. She recognized. She knew. And it didn't do her a damn bit of good, confronted by Russ Van Alstyne acting as if she had somehow done him wrong.

"If you have a problem with me, spit it out," she snapped. "Otherwise, get out of my face."

"A problem with you? A problem with you? How about the fact that you're once more elbowing your way into police business that has nothing to do with you-"

"I am here to visit Sister Lucia! It has nothing to do with you."

"-despite the fact that the last time you decided to get involved-"

"Don't you say it."

"-it ended in a bloody mess, you-"

"Saving your life, you-"

"-idiot woman!"

"-overbearing jerk!"

They both stopped at the same moment, breathing heavily. If this were a movie, they would have grabbed each other, but Clare had never felt less like throwing her arms around Russ Van Alstyne. Unless it was to knock him to the floor.

Someone coughed.

Oh, my God. She saw realization replacing rage on his face. They had played the whole scene out in front of an audience.

"Chief Van Alstyne?"

Russ closed his eyes for a moment, then turned. The doctor who had come in earlier was looking at them with one hand resting on Alta's desk phone. Ready to call security, no doubt.

"Dr. Stillman." Clare could hear him forcing his voice into its normal channels. "Hi."

"Uh… hi. How's the leg?"

Russ looked down at his ancient jeans, as if it hadn't occurred to him before now that there was something holding him up. "Fine. Just… fine."

"Great. Uh-" The orthopedist's gaze strayed to Clare. He stared. "Reverend Fergusson? Is that you?"

She smiled weakly. "Nice to see you again, Dr. Stillman." He let go of the phone and crossed to her, peering at her patches in the same way she had seen him peering at Russ's X-ray last year. "National Guard? Great! Me, too. What unit?"

"Uhm… the 142nd Aviation Battalion."

"Are you their new chaplain?"

Russ rolled his eyes.

"No," she said. "I'm their new Black Hawk pilot."

"Excuse me." A new voice, from behind her, startled Clare. She and Dr. Stillman both turned. A very tall and very erect older woman had emerged from the hallway leading to the elevator banks. She had silver hair cut towel-dry short and the professorial air of someone who has been telling people what to do without much back talk for the past forty-some years. "I'm Paula Hodgden, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement." She folded her hands over a clipboard. Her measuring gaze took in the whole waiting-room tableau. "Is one of you the sponsoring employer of the nonresident aliens?"

"Oh!" The mustachioed man tore his eyes away from the Russ-and-Clare show. "That would be me. I mean, me and my wife." He nudged the woman by his side, who was still contemplating the two of them with a look of deep amusement.

"ICE?" Russ said. "Not to be rude, but what are you doing here?"

"And you are…?"

"Russell Van Alstyne, Millers Kill chief of police."

She flipped her clipboard open and made a notation. "Ah. It must have been your department that handled the accident."

"An accident in our jurisdiction. Why are you here, Ms.-uh-"

"Hodgden," Clare said under her breath.

"I received a report that a vanload of possible undocumented aliens had been in an accident."

Russ frowned. "Who reported it?"

Ms. Hodgden looked at him evenly. "I don't think you expect me to divulge that, do you? I will say it was not, as it should have been, your department."

Russ crossed his arms, a move that emphasized his departmental hardware and patches. "We don't go around checking people's papers here in Millers Kill. It's not a damn police state."

Clare had to hide her smile.

"But you and I are in the first line of defense against possible terrorists, aren't we?" Ms. Hodgden gestured toward Clare and Dr. Stillman. "Surely, we do our job so they might not need to do theirs."

Russ glanced at Clare, and she knew, without a doubt, what he was thinking: This lady has read too many official government pamphlets.