another pariah to stalk,” I said. “I’m going to put that assignment in your lap when we get home. You check with Bishop Deegan. I’ll bet he doesn’t know Zukov and just nodded to him because he spied the clerical collar and assumed he was a friendly spectator.”
“Sure, I can do that—if you shut yourself off for a few minutes. You’ll be no good to either of us if you’re all worn down.”
I rested my head against the hard wooden slats and closed my eyes. Just a fifteen-minute catnap might help refresh me.
I went out so fast and deep that I didn’t even hear my phone vibrating on the tabletop ten minutes later.
“Just a minute, Faith,” Mike said. It was his voice that woke me up. “I’ll put her on.”
He handed me the cell. “Are you all right?” I asked her, startled out of my short slumber.
“Yes. But I’ve just had a call from Jeanine Portland.”
I sat up. “Is she back on Nantucket? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, Alex,” Faith Grant said. It sounded like she was choking up as she tried to talk to me. “Chat called her.”
“When? Was that tonight?”
“No. I wish that were so. It was this morning. Late morning, maybe right after her call to me.”
“Why did she call?” The timing made it all the more likely that Chat had been abducted shortly after she left us with Faith at the seminary.
“Chat told Jeanine she needed to talk to her. You see—” Faith’s voice broke, and she took a few seconds to put herself together. “I didn’t know this. I feel like I failed my sister entirely.”
“You know that’s not true. Stay strong for us. Tell me.”
“After they met at Ursula’s play, in December, it seems Chat and Jeanine struck it off. She said she found it easier to talk to Jeanine than to me. That she was—well, less judgmental than I am.”
“That’s not about you, Faith. It was probably easier to unload some of her troubles on a person who wasn’t aware of the whole backstory. You’ve been Chat’s lifeline. You keep that going all through this night, you hear me? She’ll need you more than ever right now.”
“I so very truly want to believe that. I know I can give her all the love, all the support that she could possibly want.”
“You’re the only one who can,” I said. “Did Chat see Jeanine between Christmas and this week?”
“No. That’s why Jeanine said she thought the call was so strange. She went up to Boston yesterday, from Nantucket. She got the call today, saying Chat needed to see her. Urgently.”
“What about?”
“Chat didn’t say. Just that she needed help, and she couldn’t rely on anyone but Jeanine to give it to her,” Faith said. “She asked Jeanine to meet with her tonight.”
My head was pounding. “Where? Meet her where?”
“On the Cape. She told Jeanine she could get herself to the Cape. She asked her not to take the boat home to Nantucket, but to wait for Chat to arrive. There was a friend, Chat said to her—a man who needed help too.”
“And Jeanine? ...” It sounded as though Zukov was shooting for two victims, using Chat to draw Reverend Portland into the trap.
“Agreed to do it, of course. She told me—” Faith had dissolved into tears. I could hear the voice of a woman in the background trying to comfort her.
“Are you there?” I waited a few seconds before asking her.
“I’m all right. Jeanine told me that Chat sounded like she was in pain. I can’t bear to hear that, Alex. About the pain. You’ve got to find her.”
“We’re going to do that. I promise. Is Jeanine with the police?”
“Yes. The officers have her at a hotel room in Hyannis,” Faith said, sounding as though she had found something lighter to say. “She’s not terribly serene about that, Alex. She understands, but she’s not happy about it. We’re a stubborn lot.”
“That’s how you came to be ordained. I’m counting on stubborn to help us here. I’ll call her now, Faith. Get some rest, if you can.”
“The Reverend Portland?” Mike asked when I hung up.
“Yeah. I’ll call her to get more details. I say you ask the captain for a cruiser and we head to Hyannis right now. Scratch what I said about the perp heading south.”
“I’m on it, even though I gotta think the fishing is better in Florida this time of year.”
“You’re right, Mike.” I thought of the photograph of the four women, the third victim