“I know what she needs.” And these had been the truck driver’s last words to him.

A metallic sound called Paul Magritte back to the real and solid environs of a Texas church, where he worked his own rosary and incantations, whispering the magic words, not asking forgiveness or relief from pain; he only wanted to stave off his growing fear. He was not alone in this place, and escape was not possible anymore, not by any door in the present or in his past. His skin prickled. He held his breath.

Which one would it be?

“Who are you praying for, old man?”

“For you.” This was a true thing, and he said it with awe. His movements were slow and full of pain as he rose to his feet and turned to face Detective Mallory with a smile of thank God. It was the first time any prayer of his had been answered, and his new name for this young woman was Deliverance. With another sort of smile, a foolish one, he looked down at the rosary in his hands, saying, “Candles, hocus-pocus and magic beads. This must fit your idea of the average witch doctor.”

“Oh, but you’re more than that, Dr. Magritte.” She sat in the first pew, arms folded against him and daring him to tell a lie. “Did they throw you out of the priesthood? Or was it your idea to leave?”

Mallory’s leather knapsack sat on the floor at her feet. His own sack of light nylon rested on her lap. The zipper was undone, and that must have been the noise that had frightened him so.

“You look worried, Magritte. You shouldn’t be. I don’t have a warrant.” Mallory reached inside his sack and pulled out an ancient revolver. “So I can’t seize this. FBI agents are searching all the cars.” She held up the gun. “I don’t think this is what they’re looking for… so that’s not why you’re hiding out in this church.”

“That was my grandfather’s revolver,” said Paul Magritte. “My inheritance if you like. It’s all he left behind. That’s why I kept it.” Oh, fool, he was making a liar’s worst mistake-overanxious to explain in detail, and now he found that he could not stop himself. “I’m afraid I never took proper care of the gun. Rusty, isn’t it? I very much doubt that it would work. Just as well. It’s not loaded. I wouldn’t even know how to load it.”

Mallory hefted the weight of the weapon, and then examined it more closely. “A twenty-two.” This was said with mild derision. And now she held up a small blue pouch that was also his property. “And this? Another souvenir? It wasn’t very smart to keep it.” She emptied the contents of the pouch into her palm, then closed her fist on the tiny bones of a child’s hand.

Struck dumb, he could only stare at her.

“I’ve got a few possibilities here,” said Mallory. “Did you murder all those little girls?” The detective dangled the little blue pouch. “Or did somebody plant this for the feds to find?”

She had actually provided him with a possible way out. Or was it the way into another trap? In the stillness of the church, he could hear the little bones rattle as she slipped them back into the blue velvet pouch.

“Oh, wait,” said Mallory. “I’ve got one more theory. Did this little bag of bones come in the mail with a note? Something like-oh, how does it go?” She produced a slip of paper yellowed with age-another theft from his knapsack, and she read the words, “ ‘Father, forgive me for I have sinned.’ ” The detective rose to her feet, holding his gun in her right hand, the blue pouch in her left, and she seemed to be weighing them, one against the other, but her eyes were fixed upon him. He imagined another sort of creature might look at its next meal this way, while the prey still breathed and writhed under one clawed paw.

“You could help me find him,” she said. “But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

He shook his head.

“The law won’t protect you, Magritte. You’re not a priest anymore.” She waved the yellow paper like a small flag. “And this note wasn’t written inside a confessional.”

He kept his silence.

“Thank you,” said Mallory. “So now I know you’ve got a long history with this freak.” She looked down at the old note and its words of confession, then slipped the small piece of paper into the pouch with the bones. “When the feds see this, they’ll take you away. Who’s going look after your parish on wheels?”

You will.

He had such great faith in Detective Mallory even as she planned to bring him down.

“It’s too bad Special Agent Berman never saw you as a suspect,” she said. “He might’ve run a better background check. Now me-I suspect everybody. When you were with the Church, I know you treated other priests. Does that narrow down my list? Am I looking for an ex-priest like you?”

He finally understood the intensity of her eyes as she stared at his face: she was looking there for tells and tics and other signs of truth or lies.

“Don’t s mile at me, Magritte.”

He had not meant to do that. “I’m so sorry.” He held up his hands in supplication to tell her that he was helpless, as if she did not already know that-on several levels. And now she seemed to tire of playing with him.

Oh, no-not quite yet.

She raised his grandfather’s rusty old gun, aimed at the altar and fired. The air exploded. The vase shattered, water splattered, flower stalks went flying, and-in a special little moment of horror-he fancied that he could hear torn petals softly falling on the stone floor. And then the silence was absolute. All his bones were shaking, legs failing him. He sank to his knees-alone again.

Mallory was gone.

Agent Christine Nahlman was waiting beside the open door as Mallory left the church.

The detective handed her the blue pouch of bones and Magritte’s nylon sack. “Satisfied? Now feed him to Dale Berman. They deserve each other.”

“Wait,” said Nahlman, but Mallory waited for no one, and now the agent followed her down the church stairs, saying, “You know the old man’s not guilty.”

“Yes, he is.” The detective paused on the bottom step and turned around. “He’s holding out on me. So arrest him and charge him with obstruction. Keep him in custody till this case is wrapped.” Mallory snatched the pouch from the agent’s hand and removed the confessor’s note. “There,” she said, handing back the pouch with only the bones inside. “That should make it easier to hold Magritte for a while. Now you can nail him as a murder suspect. He’ll never make bail.”

“Mallory, I can’t-”

“You can’t do anything, can you? If the feds had only cooperated with the Illinois cops, this case would’ve been wrapped by now. Kronewald’s a good detective. But your boss is just a jacked-up PR man-worthless out in the field. And what’s your problem, Nahlman? Are you just too damn polite to stomp Dale Berman into the ground?”

“I was assigned to work on-”

“Don’t feed me any lines about following orders. I robbed your laptop, remember? I read your personal case notes. One of the Illinois graves was deeper than all the rest-very deep. You knew that one had to be his first kill. Kid stuff. He was so afraid of getting caught-he couldn’t bury that little girl deep enough. So you know the perp started young-when he lived near that road. With Kronewald’s help, you would’ve had a name for him by now. Fledgling killers have comfort zones-close to home. He was still murdering kids when he moved away from Route 66. And then, when he was old enough to drive, he went back there and replanted those kills on that road. And that’s why you found two different types of soil in some of the Illinois graves-the shallow ones.”

“You gave all of this to Kronewald?”

“You know I did. He’s working the data now. All the missing little girls from Illinois won’t be in a federal database. The FBI just can’t be bothered with every lost kid. But Kronewald’s got access to all of them, decades of missing little girls. Feeling the pressure now, Nahlman? Maybe it’s time for you to take charge of this mess.”