Nora crossed her arms over her scrawny bosom and leaned back against the wall with an air of superiority that she liked to remind him was born, not bought. The rich dark hair that had been her only notable attribute would once have blended into the black walnut wood that paneled his office. But she'd started to gray and never lifted a finger to halt the change. She, like Daddy, was a dried-up old prune. "I thought as much," she said curtly. "Big man going to tell the stupid principal how to run his school." She shook her head. "You are so full of hot air, Victor. You make me ill."

"That makes two of us," he muttered into his glass.

"Excuse me?"

Victor looked up and focused his eyes on hers, saying nothing until she paled. There was more than one way to deal with Nora when she got too nasty for her own good. He rarely had to carry through on his threats. She usually backed down before he had to rouse himself into enough of a rage to raise his hand to her. Although the satisfaction at seeing her cowed and silenced was always well worth the effort. After the first time, years ago, he'd waited for Daddy to send a couple of thugs to put him in perpetual traction, but the thugs never came. Not that time, nor the times after. Victor guessed there were some things even Nora didn't tell Daddy. He cleared his throat.

"I said, that makes two of us. I did visit the school today for your information. I might have gotten your son reinstated this afternoon if he hadn't been such a fucking idiot."

Nora frowned. "What do you mean?" she asked, her tone now significantly less belligerent.

"I mean, your idiot son pushed the wrong teacher. He handed in a test on which he'd written only his, name. That and the smirk on his face are making his teacher dig in her heels. I gave the principal a week to fix this."

"And if he doesn't? What then?"

"Then we pull Daddy's funding of Blackman's new stadium."

Nora smoothed her hair away from her face, one of her many nervous gestures. He knew every last one. Every last one drove him nuts. "Not everyone is motivated by money, Victor."

Victor drained his glass. Not motivated by money. Hah. Only a person who'd grown up wanting nothing could actually believe that. "Of course they are. They just don't always know it."

Friday, September 30, I1:55 P.M.

The church's old door handle was cool under Steven's sweating hand. They didn't make handles like this anymore. Doors either, Steven thought, feeling the cool night air on his hot face. Both were vintage 1923, as was the rest of the church. He'd lost track of how long he'd been standing there, telling himself to either go in or go home.

Hours of paperwork hadn't cleared his mind, just served to stave off the worry gnawing at his gut for just a few more hours. He'd left his office and driven around aimlessly, not really surprised when he stopped in the parking lot of the old parish.

His old parish. He'd grown up here, served as an altar boy, been confirmed. Taken his first communion and planned to study the priesthood himself. His grip on the door handle tightened. Then his life had taken a sharp turn after a single night of… What would he call it, looking back now? Certainly not passion. They'd been seventeen in the back of his father's Olds. Passion it certainly was not. Experimentation? It was that. Folly? In many ways it was that as well. Melissa had turned out to be the greatest folly of his life. Brad, on the other hand… He could never call creating his oldest son a folly, no matter how troubled Brad was at the moment.

Conceiving Brad that night in the back of his father's Olds made him change his life path. Gone were plans for the priesthood, which had broken his mother's heart until she'd held her first grandson in her arms. Steven had gone to college, become a cop. He and Melissa had two more beautiful sons. They'd been a happy family for a time. Melissa may have even been happy… for a time.

And look at me now, he thought. Successful career. Disastrous marriage. Unhappy children. A lonely widower. Lonely and… scared.

No, he was terrified. For years after Melissa died he'd held his family together. But now his family was unraveling and he had no clue what to do about it. The idle promise to confess the lie he'd told Helen pricked at him all night, bringing back a host of memories about this place, about the peace he'd always felt here. He tried to remember how long it had been. It hadn't been a watershed moment, but a gradual thing. Week after week he sat in the pew, feeling the priest's eyes on him, his priest's disapproval of what he'd done. Knowing just as clearly there was not one iota he'd change. The cycle of guilt continued until he'd started finding all the reasons he couldn't go to Mass. Then he just stopped going altogether.

So here he stood. "Go in or go home, Thatcher," he said harshly.

God knew he didn't want to go in. Devil of it was, he didn't want to go home even more.

So he yanked at the heavy door and slipped inside. He'd known it would be open. It always was. He hesitated for a moment before pushing himself to the altar. He hesitated even longer before dropping to his knees. Crossing himself.

Opening his heart.

He'd lost track of time, deep inside himself until a noise behind him brought his head up and his hand to the weapon in his holster.

"I wondered when you'd come home, Steven."

Slowly standing, he turned and regarded the man sitting in the pew two rows back. Noted the silver at his temples. He was older now. They both were. They'd been children together, served in this very parish together. Been best friends together. Until four years ago when everything changed.

Four years ago when Melissa died and Steven found himself confessing one of the greatest sins of his life to the only man he knew he could trust to keep it secret. To the man sitting in the pew two rows back whose white collar was a stark contrast to the tanned column of his throat.

Steven swallowed. "Mike."

Mike raised a bushy black brow. "That's Father Mike to you." He smirked. "My son."

Steven felt the smile bending his lips despite the turmoil within him. "Stick it. Father."

Mike shook his head in mock chagrin. "I should order you to say five Hail. Marys for that."

"For 'stick it'?"

"No, for the impolite words you really wanted to say."

Steven met his friend's eyes and both sobered. "I should say a whole lot more than five."

"Why are you here, Steven?" Mike asked softly, his voice carrying in the quiet of the church.

Steven looked away, turned around to focus on the statue of the Madonna and Child. Tried to figure out the answer himself as he gazed on the serene countenances, so at odds with how he felt inside. "I don't know," he finally answered. "I guess I couldn't think of anywhere else to go."

"That's as good an answer as any," Mike said. "I've missed you, Steven. I thought I might see you after the trouble with Nicky last spring. I called… a number of times, but…"

Steven listened as his friend's voice trailed away and Mike wasn't Father Leone anymore, but the best friend of his heart. A friend he'd wounded through neglect. "But I didn't return your calls," Steven finished, dropping his chin to his chest. "I'm sorry, Mike."

"I'm sorry, too. I should have tried harder. I should have come to you."

Steven lifted a shoulder. "I don't know that it would have done any good. You know."

Mike sighed. "I'm sorry about that, too. How are they?"

Steven looked over his shoulder to find Mike in the exact same position. That was one of the things Steven had always admired about his friend-his calm patience that seemed to settle the most anxious parishioner. "I wish I could say they're fine, but they're not. Of the three, Matt is the most normal."