OBLIGATION 1/10
By MeridyM
meridym@home.com  

Distribution:  Just let me know where.

Disclaimer:  Nope, these characters aren't mine, except the 
ones you don't recognize--those came from my own 
imagination. 

Rating:  A strong R for violence, language, and sexuality.

Key Words:  Doggett/Other, Doggett/Reyes friendship, case file.

Classification:  A Doggett,/Reyes case file complete with
romance, magic, mayhem, friendship, drama, sex, angst, violence,
and...birds.

Summary: Face it, John: Normal life involves family.  It involves
recreation. It involves friendships with people you *don't* work
with. It involves companionship with the opposite sex.  And if you
were really lucky, it might even involve love.   He missed the man
he'd been.  That man would have kissed that pretty woman in a way
she wouldn't have forgotten.  Where the hell had he gone?

Feedback:   You know I love it!

Note:  This story is a stand-alone case file, but is also a companion
piece to the stories "Intuition" and "Empathy."   You can definitely
enjoy this story without having read those stories, but it would 
enhance your pleasure (ooh!) at least a little to have read them
first.

Special thanks to David Stoddard-Hunt and WJMTV for their
helpful comments, to Jo, Michele and Rina for bearing with
this long piece as a work-in-progress, and to Entil'zha
for letting me borrow a bit of his DoggettFic universe.

Author's notes are at the end of the Epilogue.


CHAPTER 1

Ft. White, Florida
June 

Carrying a bouquet of fresh wildflowers, the ruddy-faced 
man stepped carefully between the headstones of the old 
graveyard in Ft. White, Florida.  The sun was 
already fierce even in the early morning, the grass dry and 
brittle from the lack of rain.  His coppery hair was damp 
with sweat, and he wiped his forehead with the back 
of his hand.  He crossed a gravel path and walked over to a 
grave in the shadow of a towering cypress tree that was 
draped heavily in pale green Spanish moss.  

He sat down in the scrubby grass to the side of the grave 
and bowed his head for a moment.  He rubbed his hand across 
his mouth and spoke quietly, leaning over close 
to the gray marble headstone.

"I'm going to punish the people who failed you," he said in 
a slow north Florida drawl,  "and the ones who shouldn't 
have lived.  I owe you that."  He traced his 
fingers over the letters on the headstone, slowly, one by 
one:  N. . .O. . .R. . .A.  "They'll pay, all of them--the 
sorcerers, and the whoremongers, and the fearful, and 
unbelieving, and abominable, the idolaters, and all 
liars..."  His voice had become monotonous and singsong as 
he quoted from Revelation, and his fingers, trembling 
now, moved on the headstone again:   G. . .O. . .O. . .D. . 
.A. . .L. . .L.

"The doctor who didn't save you is dying.  God's justice is 
working.  But the others--" He stood up abruptly.  "I'll 
make them pay."  He leaned over and carefully lay the bouquet
on the grave and stood up.  He looked at the headstone for
another moment and then turned to leave.  He almost bumped
into the tall black groundskeeper who was trimming the wayward
grass around the headstones.  The man nodded to him, and he
wondered as always why they let a heathen like that work in a
good Christian place like this.  Then he walked away, heading 
east into the stark morning sun, toward the river.



               *         *          *


The Ft. White Methodist church sat back from a sandy lane 
lined with moss-strewn cypress trees.  The building was 
old, its whitewashed lumber fading from age and neglect.   
The minister's name in the display case out front read 
"erald P ice," the "G" and "r" in the name having fallen 
away long ago.  

The nearby streetlamp cast a weak glow over the front of 
the old church.  A beat-up pickup pulled around to the 
back, and a man slid out of the driver's seat and pushed 
the door shut behind him.  He walked with a still 
deliberation to the back of the truck and opened the 
tailgate.  Reaching inside, he dragged a garbage bag to the 
edge of the truck bed and strained to lift it out.  He 
hefted the heavy burden and half-carried, half-dragged it 
to the back door of the church.

Inside, the man lugged the bag past the door to the 
sacristy into the moonlit sanctuary.   He stopped at the 
front of the high-ceilinged room with its hard wooden pews 
and pulled his skinning knife out of its scabbard on his 
belt.  He bent over and slit the garbage bag completely 
down the middle and pulled out the freshly killed Nubian 
goat.  He inserted the knife at the notch of the sternum 
and slit the animal down the middle, opening up first the 
skin, then the fascia.  Then he hooked the barbed tip of 
the knife into the top layer of muscle and split the animal 
in two at the chest. 

"Damn!" he breathed, jumping back as the warm blood poured 
out over his feet and soaked into the old carpeting, a 
spreading stain.  He reached inside the hot carcass 
and carefully sliced the filmy serosa, loosening the 
intestines and pulling them out, slicing them free of the 
carcass.

His hands slick with blood, he carried the armful of goat 
intestines up to the altar, climbing the stairs slowly.  He 
dumped them without ceremony onto the old cherry wood 
altar, and began winding them around the altar, around the 
brass cross in its middle, and around the large leather-
bound bible.

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and 
murderers," he muttered as he wound the entrails,  "and 
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, 
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire 
and brimstone, which is the second death."  He walked back 
to the gutted animal and carried it to the front of the 
sanctuary and laid it on the carpet in front of the altar.  
He knelt in front of the goat and dipped his hands in the 
blood pooled in the animal's abdominal cavity, stood up 
again and splattered the blood over the altar, shaking his 
hands, watching droplets of blood fly and land on the pews, 
the pulpit, the carpet.  He did this again, and again, 
until he could get no more blood from the carcass.

Then he walked over to the split-open garbage bag, gathered 
it up from the floor, and walked back out the way he'd come 
in.  He tossed the remains of the bag into the truck bed, 
got behind the wheel and drove off.


Inside the sanctuary, the light of the full moon filtered 
through the stained glass in the windows:  Jesus feeding 
the multitudes, the Good Shepherd, the Resurrection.  It 
was quiet, except for the wind moving the cypress trees 
outside.  That, and a low sound almost like faraway cicadas 
or perhaps a generator, rhythmic, hypnotic.  There was a 
smell like ozone.

And then a light, that started out low and built to a 
brilliant flash that illuminated the entire sanctuary and 
all the darker corners of the foyer at the front of the 
church.  And a fire descended on the goat, the entrails, 
the blood, with heat that seared, burned, evaporated.

A tall black woman, the fire reflected in her dark eyes, 
stepped out of the sacristy doorway and watched the flames, 
her face unutterably sad.  She slowly turned and walked back
into the darkness.


             *           *           *


Gainesville, Florida
One Month Later
Wednesday

The bearded, dark-eyed man yawned and stretched his long 
legs as much as he could in the cramped airline seat. 
He was just glad to be on the ground, home again after a 
week-long business trip--an exhausting one, too, mostly 
spent putting out fires and holding clients' hands. 

He pulled his briefcase out from under his seat and set it 
on the empty middle seat next to him.  He looked again at 
the woman across the aisle in the opposite window 
seat, knowing that if he was going to make any kind of 
move, it was going to have to happen soon.  The plane was 
taxiing slowly to the gate, and soon everyone would be 
crowding into the aisle, grabbing things from the 
overheads, and squeezing to the exit, heading to points 
unknown. If there'd been an empty seat beside her during 
the flight, the move would have been a fait accompli.


He looked at her.  He'd been looking at her off and on for 
the last three and a half hours.  Right now she was turned 
to the window, but he'd had plenty of time to study 
her.  He'd surreptitiously watched her sleep, read a book, 
eat lunch, write in a journal.  She was slender but had a 
nice figure, shapely legs obvious in the sandals and short 
denim skirt, pretty breasts hinted at under a white shirt 
rolled to the elbows.  She had short glossy-black hair, 
falling loose from a big comb in messy curls.  A big watch 
on a black strap hanging loose on her fine-boned arm, no 
rings.  She'd looked his way a couple of times and had 
smiled at him once.  She had wide eyes that were a 
startling shade of light green.  A soft, full mouth with an 
easy smile.  Fair skin.  He bet she smelled good too.
 
He was definitely interested.

The plane pulled up to the gate, and people began standing 
up, gathering up their things.  The aisle filled up fast, 
and he straightened his tie and watched her.   She sat, 
quiet, holding her black leather shoulder bag in her lap, 
as the aisle filled up with waiting people.  She remained 
in her seat as they began filing down to the plane's 
exit.  

At last she stood up and squeezed her way out of the row of 
seats into the aisle.  He stood up, picked up his 
briefcase, and followed her down the aisle.  

"Thanks, y'all," she said to the flight attendants standing 
at the exit, and he heard the Southern voice.  She's home 
for a visit?  She lives here and was visiting in Denver?

He followed her down the bridge from the plane to the 
terminal.  There was a slight hesitation to her gait, 
almost but not quite a limp.  It made her body sway just 
slightly when she walked, and it was oddly attractive.

Finally, she turned and looked over her shoulder at him as 
she walked. "I'm not buyin'," she said.

"You married?"  He followed her closely. 

"Not anymore."

"Do you have a guy?"

"Yes."  She kept walking.

"Is he meeting you here?"

"No."

"Would you like to have a drink?"

The woman laughed, and glanced at him again, exasperated.  
"Mister, what part of 'I'm not buyin' ' is so hard for you 
to grasp?"   She pushed through the terminal door 
and began walking a little faster, scanning the crowd for 
the familiar faces that were supposed to be there.

"Mo!  Over here!"

It was her sister's voice, and she smiled, relieved, 
straining to find her in the sea of bodies.  Out of the 
corner of her eye, she saw the man hesitate, stop.  Then 
she caught sight of the two small women who were pushing 
their way through the crowd to her.   They both pulled her 
into a hug at the same time, and the three women, two 
short, one quite a bit taller, held each other in silence 
for a moment.

Then the younger, auburn-haired woman held her at arm's 
length and looked her up and down.  "Mo, you look good--
skinny, but a hell of a lot better than you did." 

Mo Dannah nodded.  The last time her sister had seen her, 
she *had* looked pretty rough. "I'm a whole lot better, 
Maeve.  Thanks."  She turned to her mother.  "Mama, 
how are you?"  She hugged the older woman, who patted her 
back.

"I'm holdin' up, sweetie," Ruth Dannah said in her soft 
Carolina drawl.  "Just a day at a time, you know?"

"Come on, let's go get your baggage and get out of here," 
Maeve said to Mo.  "Did you pick up a bird dog, Mo?"  Maeve 
gave her an amused glance as the three of them 
walked toward the stairs to the lower level.

Mo rolled her eyes.  "Oh, you mean that guy?  He was 
staring at me the whole flight.  I think he just wanted to 
ask me out, but it *was* a little creepy.  I mean," she 
looked at Maeve, "havin' a man think you're attractive is 
one thing, but a man actin' like a stalker is another thing 
altogether."

"Hey, maybe a man is what you need."  Maeve laughed.  "Not 
necessarily that one, though."

Mo put her arm around her mother and smiled down at her, 
then over at her sister. Maeve had that right:  A man was 
exactly what she needed.  Damn, was it that obvious?



Outside, the heat hit Mo in the face, like the fiery 
assault when you open an oven to check on what's inside.  
She gasped.  

"Not like this in Boulder, huh?" Maeve said with a smile.  

"My God, no," Mo said.  "Mama, how long's it been since it 
rained?"

"A good long time, darlin'," Ruth Dannah said.  "Seems like 
a couple of months.  There've been wildfires not too far 
south of us.  They had to carry some folks from 
Judson and Trenton over to Gainesville a while back."

"There's the car," Maeve said, and pushed the button on her 
key to unlock the doors.  

"Here, Mama, you sit up front where it's comfy--I'll take 
the back," Mo said, opening the door for her mother.  

"Sweet darlin'," Ruth said, reaching up and hugging her 
older daughter.  "It's so good to see you, Morgan.  I'm so 
sorry it has to be for somethin' like this."

Mo just held her mother, and helped her into the front seat 
of the new model Stratus coupe.  Then Mo climbed into the 
back seat and fastened her seatbelt.  Meave got in 
and gunned the car and pulled out of the lot.

"Is this your car, Mevvie?" Mo asked.

"Well, it is for the next few days," Maeve replied, 
following the signs for I-75 north.

"A rental.  I thought it was awfully clean."  Mo smiled.

"Oh, har," Maeve replied, throwing her sister a look.  

"Mama, are all the arrangements made?  Do you need me to do 
anything?" Mo asked her mother.

"Sweetie, about the only thing we really need is some help 
with the food on Saturday, at the wake," Ruth said.  

Mo leaned back in the seat and pressed her fingers to her 
eyelids, suddenly realizing how tired she was.  "I'll help 
do whatever you need, okay?"

"Are you gonna tell her about the weird stuff, Mama?" Maeve 
asked, "Or do you want me to?"

" 'Weird stuff'?" Mo sat up straighter.

Ruth shook her head.

"Mo, someone's been desecrating local churches," Maeve 
said, catching her sister's eye in the rearview mirror.

"How?  Who?"  Mo frowned.  "Do the police know anything?"

"Well, if they do, they're playing it close to the vest," 
Maeve said.  "The press has been having a royal field day, 
as you can imagine.  There were animals sacrificed, 
blood everywhere.  The press is saying it's a devil cult of 
some sort."  She glanced over to Ruth.  "Mama didn't really 
want to tell you, Mo, well, because of the whole 
cult angle."

Mo sighed, not sure whether she should feel angry or 
grateful.  "I appreciate your concern, but what happened to 
me was quite a while ago now, and I'm not as fragile 
as y'all seem to think."

Maeve glanced at her mother but didn't say anything.

"What churches were desecrated?" Mo asked.

"The Calvary Baptist at the end of town, the Lutheran 
church, and the Methodist church."

"The Methodist church behind grandmama's house?" Mo was 
shocked.  "That's scary." She stared out the side window at 
the fields and the billboards rolling by on I-75.  "How
long has this been going on?" 

"Seems like it started about a month ago, honey," her 
mother put it.  "I don't think it's anything you need to 
worry about."

"Yeah, she has other things to worry about," Maeve put in, 
smiling wickedly.  "Like the fact that Max is coming 
tomorrow."

"Max?" Mo laid her head back against the seat and sighed.  
"Oh, Jesus God," she muttered.  Max definitely wasn't the 
man she had in mind.


          *           *           *


Jimmie Lee Carlson shifted his ample behind on the hard 
seat of the weathered wooden skiff and hocked a big one 
into the brown water.  Was there, he wondered, 
anything better than this? Unless it was doin' the naked 
pretzel with a pretty little thing, he couldn't think of 
anything.

Yep, it was hotter'n a bitch, but here on the river at 
least there was a breeze.  He had to hug the shore to fish 
under the vegetation there.  The river was low 'cause of 
the damn drought, lower than he'd seen it in an age, but 
the guys at Stu's Live Bait and Tackle had told him the 
redfish and mullet were biting close to shore--and if you 
were lucky you might find y'self some cats or some bass. 

He cocked his head to one side.  Goddam, what the hell were 
the birds goin' on about?  Crows, from the sound of 'em.  
He wiped the sweat off his face and neck with a large red 
bandana and pulled his white mesh cap off.  His curly blond 
hair was plastered against his skull in soggy ringlets.  He 
fanned the cap in front of his red face, and reached into 
his cooler for another cold Busch. 

As he pulled the wet can out of the cooler, something on 
the shore caught his eye, over amidst the pines.  He shut 
the cooler and squinted at the line of trees, trying to 
make out what it was.  He popped the can open and took a 
deep swig.  The cold beer felt good going down.  

Huh, Jimmie Lee huffed to himself.  It was a man.  Sitting 
under a friggin' pine tree.   It was a damned odd place for 
a picnic--not that the guy looked like he was takin' the 
air for pleasure.  He was sitting stiff and still, bolt 
upright against the tree trunk, like he had a stick up his 
ass. 

Jimmie Lee took another drink of the beer and set the can 
down on the seat beside him.  He slowly reeled in his line, 
watching to see if anything dragged on it.  Jack 
shit.

Jimmie Lee looked back over at the trees, feeling like 
something cold was touching his spine.  The man hadn't 
moved a muscle.  He reeled his line in all the way and 
fastened it to the rod.  He laid the rod and reel in the 
bottom of the skiff and pulled on the oars for a few 
seconds, propelling the skiff a little closer to shore.  

"Fuck me," he breathed, peering at the man through the 
pines again.  Whoever the hell it was still hadn't moved.

Jimmie Lee climbed out of the skiff and splashed through 
the shallow water, pulling the boat after him and beaching 
it.  He walked up the bank and, slowly, over to the 
stand of pines.

The birds had gone quiet, and Jimmie Lee could hear his 
footsteps in the sandy soil, crunching pine needles 
underfoot.  He stopped, feeling his stomach dropping out 
from under him at the sight of the man propped up against 
the pine tree in front of him.

It was a big black man, dressed in what looked like some 
kind of drab gray uniform.  He was staring, sightless, 
right at Jimmie Lee's midsection.  The man's body was 
sliced open from his chest to his crotch, and his 
intestines had been pulled out and twined around and around 
and around the tree, effectively binding him to the trunk.  
He had bled out into the sandy soil below the tree, stained 
a deep red, starting to turn brown now.

Jimmie Lee fell to his knees and got rid of the fried steak 
and collards he'd had for lunch, and then kept vomiting 
until there was nothing left in his stomach.

The crows in the trees began calling to each other again, 
first one, then another, and then the air was full of their 
hoarse cries.  The only other sound was the quiet retching 
of the man crouched next to the dead man, and the buzzing 
of the flies.


CHAPTER 2

Alexandria, Virginia
Thursday Noon

Monica Reyes grabbed the carton out of the fridge and 
poured some of the orange juice into a glass on the 
cluttered kitchen counter.  Barefoot, she carried it out to 
the empty flagstone patio.  She looked around and sighed, 
returned to the kitchen and hooked the step stool there 
with one hand and carried it back outside. It had rained a 
few hours before, cooling the city down for about a 
heartbeat. D.C. was oppressively hot, stiflingly humid, and 
staying inside in the air conditioning would have been 
smarter.

But she wanted a smoke, so she sat on the step stool in the 
middle of the patio and pulled a cigarette and lighter out 
of the pocket of her shorts and lit up. She smoked and 
slowly sipped the juice, thinking about how perfectly 
innocuous things become habits.  There was no reason on 
earth why she couldn't smoke inside, but going outside for 
a smoke had been drummed into her over the years.  And she 
had to admit that maybe she didn't really want to smoke 
inside her new place anyway.

Her life was ass-over-teakettle right now. Essentially, her 
life was in boxes, or half in and half out of boxes, 
scattered all over this strange new apartment in this 
strange new city. She didn't do chaos well. Having a 
tendency to feel too much from the get-go anyway, when 
things were turned upside down she felt totally ungrounded 
and found it hard to think straight. But she wasn't a space 
case; it was just that, because of the things she was able 
to perceive, she often knew things other people didn't--and 
she wasn't afraid to mention it right out loud.  She knew 
damn well it was one of the reasons why she sometimes 
seemed a trifle, well, flaky to people. 

She drew the smoke into her lungs and wondered for the nth 
time if she'd made the right decision, leaving a city and a 
job she knew well for a job in a small, less-than-
prestigious division of the Bureau, even if it were in 
Washington, D.C. On top of it, she'd be working with a man 
who, she was fairly certain, viewed her with a conflicted 
mixture of fondness and dread. She smiled ruefully. If 
"conflicted" wasn't the right word for John Doggett, she 
didn't know what word was. 

But it wasn't like he didn't want her to work with him--
*he'd* asked *her*, after all. She crossed her long, 
slender legs and pinched her lower lip in thought. She 
liked to keep an optimistic attitude; she'd found it worked 
far better for her than the opposite, despite the 
"Pollyanna" label it had earned her from some of her 
colleagues.

And it wasn't as if John wasn't a good man and a superior 
agent, one of the best she'd ever known. He was 
intelligent, fair, meticulous, indefatigable, stubborn, 
hard. But also, under the flintiness, he could be 
thoughtful and gentle and kind, with a deep lode of 
melancholy--not that he would ever consciously let most 
people in on the secret. He was that type of man, kind of a 
throwback. Monica liked him for it, though he could push 
her buttons faster than almost anyone she'd ever known. She 
was pretty sure she had the same effect on him.  More often 
than not, she could see right through him, and she knew 
that unsettled him, though he tried not to show it.

Monica stripped the elastic out of her messy ponytail and 
ran a hand back through her dark brown hair. She took 
another drag of the cigarette, another sip of the orange 
juice. Well, if the cases John had already involved her in 
were any indication, at least this new assignment wouldn't 
be boring. Weird as hell, but not boring. But then, she 
*did* do "weird" pretty well--had quite the reputation for 
it, in fact. She shook her head and stood up, grabbed the 
stool, and walked back into the messy kitchen. She had 
about four days before she actually started official work 
on the X-Files. It wasn't much time to get her house in 
order. 

She tucked the stool up under the breakfast bar and looked 
around for the ashtray she'd just unpacked. Damn, it was 
there just a minute ago. Her cell phone trilled. She 
rummaged around in the stuff on the breakfast bar and 
finally found the phone--and the ashtray--underneath a 
towel. She picked up the phone.

"Monica Reyes," she said into the phone, stubbing out the 
cigarette in the ashtray.

"Mon, what the hell you doin' in D.C., gal?"

Monica frowned, confused, until she placed the honey-
magnolia drawl with the right face. 

"Why, Everett Clyatt, how are you?"

"I'm just fine, hon. I spoke to Sid this mornin', and he 
said you'd taken an assignment there in D.C.  When'd you 
leave N'awlins, anyway?"

"Just a few days ago, actually, Ev. It all happened pretty 
fast," Monica moved a box off one of the dining room chairs 
and sat down.

"Well, I was wonderin' if y'all might have time to give me 
a hand with somethin', just a consult, mind you."

"Are you still down in Jacksonville, Ev?"

"Yes, ma'am. There's been some weird shit goin' on down 
here in a little bitty town, Ft. White, not too far from 
Gainesville." 

"What kind of weird are we talking about, Ev?"

He chuckled.  "You know, your name came up in the database 
search when we input 'weird.'  No, seriously, there've been 
a series of church desecrations, sacrificed animals, blood 
chucked around.  There were threatening messages left in a 
couple churches.  In one, the bastids left a dead dove. And 
there's been a murder--body was found yesterday by a local 
man who was out fishin'.  Looked to be dead five, six 
hours."

"Is it related? Was it ritual too?" Monica asked, intrigued 
now.

"There was another dead dove, and the man was gutted just 
like the animals in the churches, with the same exact type 
of  blade. M.E. used the word 'eviscerated.' I'm sure y'all 
know what that means."

Monica felt her stomach take a little lurch, and she took a 
deep breath. "Yeah," she said. "Do you have any leads? Any 
ideas about motive, who could be doing this?"

"The Gilchrist County Sheriff seems to think it could be 
tied to a Santeria cult in the area. The dead man was a 
Santeria priest."

Monica frowned, doubtful.

"Mon?"

"Yeah, I'm still here."

"There any way you could help us out?"

Monica looked around the room at the half-unpacked boxes, 
the out-of-place furniture. Then she laughed to herself.  
John will just *love* this, she thought. She glanced at her 
watch. It was just a little after 1.  "Sure, Ev," she said 
into the phone. "When do you want me?"  

"When's the next plane to Gainesville?"


            *            *            *


The little bungalow just off the road to High Springs was 
quiet.  Its weathered boards normally vibrated with music
and energy and laughter.  Now its silence felt like anguish.
It felt like death.

The front room was carpeted with a remnant bought at
Discount Carpet Warehouse  in Gainesville several years
before.  It hadn't held up very well, and the thin spots
were beginning to show up as pale patches in the otherwise
dark blue.  The walls were covered with brilliant West
African hangings, family photos, and musical instruments--
a mbira from Zimbabwe, a kora from Senegal.  The furniture
was old but comfortable, an overstuffed red sofa overlaid
with colorful throws, a wooden chair, a large armchair, an
old floor lamp.  It was a welcoming room, rich in color and 
warmth.

Deborah Boadu sat down at the kitchen table with the glass 
of iced tea she'd poured--a habit she'd picked up since 
living in north Florida, where everyone seemed to have a 
jar of it in the refrigerator year-round.  A tall, stately 
dark-skinned woman with a head full of long black braids 
caught back in a cloth, she wasn't used to feeling as lost 
as she felt right now.  Normally lively and optimistic, she 
hadn't felt anything remotely like this since she had left 
Lagos with her late husband Jaime and her young son  and 
came to live in the U.S. with her brother-in-law Enrique.  
That was 17 years ago.

How could it be that long ago already?  She had been so 
much younger then!  Stephen had only been 6 when they'd 
moved here and didn't really remember Africa very well.  He 
was truly American.  She had always tried her best to be 
American, and she thought she'd succeeded fairly well.  She 
seldom wore African dress, just the occasional color-
drenched headcloth.  But she and her family were Lucumi, 
and it had been very hard to fit in at first.  Their 
religion was suspect; their ways were mocked.  She had 
learned to be very circumspect over the years.  She had 
even taken a job as caretaker at the local Methodist Church
in an attempt to continue to reassure the rest of Ft. White 
that Lucumi, or Santeria as they insisted on calling it, 
had nothing to do with their Christian devil or his 
worship.  Why they would even assume that was hard for her 
to understand, but that was the way it had always been, 
here and everywhere--even in Africa, among fearful 
Christians and Muslims.

She smiled bitterly and sipped the cold tea.  But as lost 
as she had felt when she first came here, a young Nigerian 
wife and mother transplanted to Florida, it was nothing 
compared to the horror of her husband's brother being 
murdered.  That she was quite certain she knew who had 
killed him made it ten times worse.  

The screen door opened and slammed shut, and Deborah slowly 
got up and walked into the living room.  

"Stephen, what have you found out?" She asked the tall 
young man who stood, very still, in the middle of the room.  
A much smaller, much older man stood next to him.  What the 
man lacked in size, however, he more than made up for in 
substance and powerful dignity.  

"The police and the people at the morgue say that we can't 
have Uncle Enrique's body for another day, because he was a 
murder victim," Stephen sank down into the armchair and 
looked up at his mother and the other man.  "They say they 
need to do more tests."

"You told them that we need to prepare his body for ritual 
and burial?"  Deborah asked.

"Of course I did, Mama."  Stephen wiped his damp forehead on 
the rolled sleeve of his work shirt.

"The authorities here have their rules," the old man spoke 
up.  "We have no choice.  And they do not understand our 
ritual."

"But they will let us have him tomorrow?"  Deborah asked, 
feeling a knot grow larger in her stomach.  "We can go to 
Gainesville and get him?"

"That's what we were told," Stephen said.

Deborah looked at the old man.  "Old Owdeye, I have to go 
to the police and tell them what I saw, what I know," 
Deborah said to him.

"Deborah," the old man said, his eyes intent on her face,
"the alejo justice cannot be trusted.  The police, the
ashelu, they do not need to be told.  We must trust Olorun. 
He will take care of us." 

"You know that I trust and honor the orishas.  But if this 
man is doing what I think he is doing, he may come after the
rest of us too."  She stood very still.  "We can't let that 
happen, and you need to know that right now.  If I have to, 
I will take care of it my way."


             *            *            *


"Mon, thanks again for comin' down on such short notice."  
Everett Clyatt glanced over at Monica Reyes, who turned 
away from the car window to smile at him. 

"Oh, Ev, no problem.  I don't have to start my new job till 
Monday, and I didn't want to unpack right now anyway."  
Monica uncrossed and recrossed her long legs, feeling 
fidgety sitting in the hot sun that was beating in through 
the windshield.  They were on their way down Route 24 from 
the Gainesville Airport to the Alachua County Sheriff's 
department.  

Ev Clyatt really was a lovely man.  He'd worked with Monica 
and her former partner on a couple of cases before, in 1996 
and 1997.   He'd been in the New Orleans field office for 
14 years before he was transferred to Jacksonville in 1999.  
He was tall, starting to go to fat now that he was past 40, 
his dark hair thinning and combed over in that ridiculous 
thing balding men sometimes do.  Come to think of it, Ev 
couldn't be a whole lot older than John Doggett.  She 
raised her eyebrows at the thought.  John still had plenty
of hair--albeit short--and a midsection you could serve dinner
from. There wasn't a lot of comparison in the looks department,
that was for sure.  But at least Ev was less likely than John
to think she was, well, flighty.  

John Doggett.  She smiled to herself just a little.  He'd 
probably be more convinced of that than ever when he got 
wind of this.  Somehow that gave her a perverse 
satisfaction.  She really did like and respect John, but 
sometimes he could be awfully fun to tweak.

"Ev," she said, "I'll need to see the body of the murdered 
man."

"Sure, Mon.  Sheriff Ritch'll arrange all that stuff."

"And this might seem like an odd request, but I'd also like 
to take a look at the dead dove that was left next to the 
body."

Clyatt glanced over at her skeptically.  "Well, I don't see 
why you can't do that."  He didn't ask why.

"And fill me in:  You were brought into this case why--?" 
she asked, smiling.

"The county authorities were scared shitless of the hate 
crimes statute.  Simple as that."

"Because the murdered man was Lucumi?"

"You got it."  Clyatt turned left onto Hawthorne Road.  
"Everybody's nervous about that crap nowadays."

"And it's about time," Monica said.  


             *           *           *


The first thought that came to Monica when she and Ev had 
walked into the Alachua County Sheriff's office was that 
Sheriff Al Ritch was one big fellow.  Monica figured he'd 
probably always been the biggest kid in his class, even in 
grade school.  Had to shop at the Big and Tall Men's stores 
and remember to duck going through certain doorways.  She 
realized that she literally had to look up at him, and she 
wasn't exactly petite.  He was the classic cinema Southern 
lawman, 40-ish, slow-moving, sunglasses hooked in his shirt 
pocket, face sun-blasted and crinkled, voice a slow drawl
that stretched each vowel to its breaking point. 

And right now he was standing with her and Ev in the County 
Morgue.

"Whoever killed this guy had to be higher'n a Georgia 
pine," Sheriff Ritch said to Monica.  "I mean, the man was 
still alive when the sumbitch gutted him, pulled out his 
insides.  It's enough to make y' lose y' lunch."

"Well, I understand that the man who found him did just 
that," Monica put in gently, leaning over the body of 
Enrique Boadu and squinting prettily.   Whoever had done 
the autopsy had done a fine job of stitching up a body that 
had been opened up from the pubis to the sternum.  Monica 
swallowed hard.  The man was tall and sturdy and had been 
strong and vibrant once, of that she was certain.  Ev had 
told her Boadu had been a priest, but she would have known 
that without being told.  There was. . .something about 
him.  She couldn't put her finger on it, but this man had 
been a powerful presence.  Some of that power lingered 
still, despite the death of his body.

The infamy of the murder brought sudden tears to her eyes, 
taking her by surprise, and she blinked hard to keep them 
at bay.  There was no way she'd let Sheriff Ritch see her 
cry.  She took a deep breath and turned around to face the 
big man.

"Tough sometimes, ain't it, gal?"  His shrewd brown eyes 
studied her not unkindly.

She met those eyes, ready to reject what sounded like 
condescension, but saw something else in his face.  
Understanding--*real* understanding.  The corners of her 
mouth quirked up.  Damn, sometimes irony just reared up and 
smacked you.  He only *looked* like a Central Casting 
redneck.

"Yes, it is," she said simply.  "Sheriff Ritch, I was led 
to believe that the motive was rivalry within the Santeria 
community, not drugs."

"Yeah, that's true.  I guess I just have a helluva time 
believin' that anyone not totally whacked out could do what 
was done to that poor bastid."

Monica nodded.  "And  I have a hard time believing that any 
practitioner of Lucumi would do something like that."

"And why's that?"  Ritch leveled his sober gaze at her.

"Just my past experiences--not that you won't find crazy 
people in any faith," Monica hastened to add.

"And there was the bird," Ev prompted.

Monica nodded.  "The dove that was left at the scene-
there's no way Lucumi would have killed the bird that way."

Ritch squinted at her skeptically.  What the hell did *that*
mean?

"A dove is a common sacrifice in the religious practice of 
Santeria, but to the people who practice Lucumi, a 
sacrifice--whether it's fruit or a dove--is always a symbol 
of love and devotion to God.  The bird would never be 
gutted like that one was.  It would have been killed as 
gently as possible and offered to whatever orisha was 
receiving the sacrifice."

Ritch didn't look convinced, but he was clearly not going 
to argue with her, the reputed expert on all such things.  
"So what're you sayin', Miz Reyes?  That whoever did this 
was tryin' to make it look like it was the Santeria folks?"

"Well," Monica said, "that's one possibility.  I'm sure 
you've already thought of it," she added. She walked away 
from the priest's body and back over to Ev, who was 
standing by the wall, letting her take the lead.  "From 
what I know about Lucumi, I'm just suspicious, that's all."

Sheriff Ritch joined her and Ev, and they walked out of the 
bay and into the hallway.  "Am I assumin' rightly that 
you're gonna want t' see the murder scene and the churches 
too?"

"Sheriff Ritch, you're assuming just right."  Monica smiled 
at him.

"Well, then, y'all may as well come on with me."  Sheriff 
Ritch settled his hat on his head and pointed the way.  "We 
can take my truck."


             *            *            *


The old clapboard house had stood there in the little town 
of Ft. White since 1927, when Gerald Dannah, his wife, 
brother, cousin, and various friends had built it.  It was 
a comfortable but modest house for its time, and downright 
small for the 21st century, with its modern motto of bigger 
is always better.  But the house had seen three children, 
seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, at least 16 
cats and seven or eight dogs arrive and thrive and move on 
over the seventy-some years it had been there, and it still 
felt like home to the various Dannahs who visited it, and 
to the two who had come to stay several years earlier.

When Gerald Dannah's widow had passed on in 1997, their son 
Jack and his wife Ruth had sold out their business and home 
in South Carolina and had moved everything down to Florida, 
ostensibly to retire.  But neither one of them liked 
retirement.  Ruth found herself playing piano at local 
nursing homes, and Dr. Dannah  ended up practicing medicine 
the way he always had, taking patients who couldn't afford 
to pay most of the time.  Ruth kept telling him to slow 
down, but he was as hardheaded as their two daughters, so 
she just watched him and smiled.  She told herself it was 
why she'd fallen for him all those years ago, anyway, so 
why complain now?

When they found his cancer two years later, he still didn't 
want to slow down, but eventually his body made it clear to 
him that he had to, and, grudgingly, he did.  Eventually he 
became too weak to do much of anything, and that had been 
the worst time of Ruth Dannah's life.  


Mo Dannah pulled on her mother's old gardening gloves and 
sat down cross-legged on the spiky broad-blade grass in the 
side yard.  Her mother's flower beds needed some serious 
help.  Her father's final illness had taken a toll on her 
mother, on the house, and on the yard.  Mo wanted to do all 
she could to get things ready for the wake on Saturday, 
just two days away.  She had already watered the three 
parched beds here on the side of the house, to make it 
easier to get the weeds out and then put in some new 
flowers she'd just bought at the nursery outside of Lake 
City.

She adjusted the sun hat on her head and gave silent thanks 
for sunblock.   The afternoon sun was fierce today and 
could bake her fair skin well-done.  She dug into the soil 
with the garden fork and loosened some of the more stubborn 
weeds.  Her mother's four o'clocks were wilted, the cosmos 
barely holding their own.  Some new petunias and pansies 
were just the ticket.  

A shadow fell on her, and she looked up to see Maeve 
standing there, extending a glass of iced tea her way. 
"Thought you could use a cold drink."

"Thanks, sweetie, it's just what I need," Mo said, taking 
the glass from her sister.  

Maeve settled herself in the grass next to Mo.  

"What's Mama doin'?" Mo asked her.  She took a grateful sip 
of the cold, sweet tea.  

"You know, right now she's actually lyin' down.  I 
practically had to force her.  But I convinced her that you 
and I can take care of gettin' the house ready and that she 
really *could* relax a little bit."

"Good," Mo said, hollowing out a space for a pansy.  She 
put the plant into the soil and patted the brown earth back 
on top of it. 

"So, Mo, how've you been? I mean, really." Maeve sat back 
and wrapped her arms around her drawn-up knees, studying 
her older sister.   She loved her sister Morgan to 
distraction, but they were so different it was hard to 
believe they'd grown up in the same house.  Where Mo was 
medium-tall and slender like their father, with the same 
black hair and green eyes, she was like their mother:  
little, rounded, auburn-haired, and brown-eyed.  She was 
outgoing, had dated the football captain in high school, 
led the debate team, majored in political science and had 
become a lawyer.  Mo was quieter, hadn't gone out much in 
high school, had hung with the drama crowd, studied classical 
ballet and modern dance, and made intuitive healing her 
life work.   

Mo glanced at her sister, wondering if it was a loaded 
question.  "I've been okay.  I've been working pretty hard 
since I went back full-time."

"When was that?"

"I think it was about four months ago," Mo replied.

"Any guys?  I mean, you haven't really talked about anyone 
since. . ."

"Since Max and I split?  Yeah, well, there haven't been 
too many guys--or at least not too many who meant anything.  
One or two.  You know what it's like.  Once you've been 
divorced, it's not easy to climb back into the saddle."

"So to speak," Maeve said dryly, grinning.  "There's no one 
special though?  Mo, you're too young to turn into a 
celibate.  I can't believe there aren't any guys you're 
interested in."

"Well, there're a couple I've seen in the last year or so.  
There was a guy named Chris who I saw for a while.  He was 
sweet, but that didn't really go anywhere.  That ended last 
winter.  And there's a guy I've spent a little time with.  
Nothing too serious. I hardly ever see him." Mo's voice was 
carefully casual, which immediately alerted her sister.  

"Really?  What does he do?"

Mo gave one of the weeds a particularly savage prod with 
the garden fork.  "He works in law enforcement."  She dug more 
earth out of the way, this time for a petunia.

Maeve stared at her sister, and then laughed.  "Sorry, Mo.  
No offense--a cop?  You?"  Maeve was thoroughly amused.  
"The Hippie Healer and the Lawman.  They could write a 
Harlequin romance about you."

Mo laughed gently.  "I guess it *is* pretty odd.  But it's 
not like we're an item.  Like I said, I don't see him very 
often.  He lives out of state."

Maeve gave Mo a long, appraising look.  It was clear to 
Maeve that her sister was lonely.  Maeve might not have the 
intuitive abilities Mo had--she couldn't "feel" other 
people in the same way--but she could read people, and she 
knew Mo like a favorite novel.  Even though Mo's divorce a 
few years back hadn't embittered her--well, at least she never 
spoke ill of her ex-husband--Maeve knew Mo's heart had 
taken a beating when her bittersweet marriage had ended and 
her photographer husband had left town pretty much for 
good.  Maeve also knew that Mo spent far too much time 
taking care of other people, and there just didn't seem to 
be many people in her life right now who were taking care 
of *her*.  Maeve found herself wishing she could do or say 
something to help.

"Mo, I--" Maeve started to say, when they both heard a car 
drive up, a door open and slam shut, and a deep voice call 
out:

"Hey!  Anybody home?"

It was a familiar Carolina drawl, and Mo stopped her 
weeding mid-pull.  "Oh God," she said. "It's Max."

"Over here, Max!" Maeve yelled, and the tall man shortly 
followed the deep voice.

Mo took a deep breath.  She hadn't seen him in almost two 
years. 

*Oh, God.*

He was even more gorgeous than she'd remembered.  He was 
older, but he was still probably the best-looking man she'd 
ever known, tall, lean, well-muscled, with black hair and 
dark blue eyes and lips that. . .well, they were really 
nice lips. 

She stood up as he walked over to her and Maeve.  Dressed 
in khaki cargo shorts and a white muscle shirt, his bare 
arms and legs tanned and strong, he stopped in front of 
them.  His black hair was shorter than Mo remembered--and 
was that a little gray in that hair?--but those blue eyes 
were still kind and compelling.

"Hey, Mevvie," he said softly, bending to give Maeve a kiss 
on the cheek.  Then he turned to Mo with a small smile that 
got wider as he looked at her.  "Mo, honey," he said and 
gathered her into a hug that almost lifted her off her 
feet.  

He released her, and Mo smiled up at him, blinking a little 
in shock, just grateful that he hadn't kissed her.  

"How's the job?  How's Kyoto?" Mo asked him, trying to 
think of something innocuous to say.

"It's good.  The assignment's really challenging, but I'm
havin' a great time," Max said.  "Incredible photographic 
opportunities there, but it's been an adjustment, I can tell
you.  Can you imagine me living with the Japanese?" He laughed
softly. "I've been there three months, and I haven't met
anyone yet I can look in the eye."

"You don't find that many people in the *States* you can 
look in the eye," Mo said, and he grinned.  "Max, thanks 
for coming all this way.  It means a lot to us," she added, 
her hand on his brown forearm.  

"Mo, your dad meant a lot to *me*."  Max ran a hand back 
through his thick, dark hair and looked at her.  "You look 
good."  

Mo laughed.  "Yeah, sure," she said.  "I'm all dirty and 
sweaty."

"You always did look good, girl," he said softly, closing 
his big hand over her fingers.

"What *is* this?  Visiting hours at the asylum?" Maeve 
muttered, and Mo and Max turned.  A 4 x 4 was moving slowly 
up the lane toward the house.  They walked around to the 
front of the house to see who was going to get out of it, 
Mo leading the way. 

The muddy Blazer pulled up in front of the house, and both 
doors opened.  Two men and a woman climbed out and walked 
toward the three standing by the porch steps.  The driver, 
an imposing man who had a good two inches on the 6-foot 4-
inch Max, stuck his hand out to Mo.

"Ma'am, I'm Al Ritch, Alachua County Sheriff's Office," the 
big man said, taking Mo's hand in a surprisingly gentle 
grip.  "These two folks are from the FBI.  Are you the 
property owner here?"

Mo shook her head.  "No, my mother lives here.  She's 
inside, resting." She glanced at Max and her sister.  "This 
is my sister, and my ex-husband.  We're here for my 
father's funeral on Saturday."

"I'm sorry, ma'am."  Sheriff Ritch said.  "Could we talk to 
your mother for a few minutes?  And to y'all?"  He looked 
at Max and Maeve, then back to Mo.

"Sure," Mo said.  She looked from him to the other, shorter 
man and the tall, dark-haired woman.  "Is--is this about 
the man who was found yesterday?

"Yes, ma'am," Ritch confirmed.

"I'll go tell Mama," Maeve said.  She headed up the steps.

Max stood next to Mo, protective, silent.  

"Come on inside.  I'll get y'all some tea," Mo said, and 
motioned for them to follow her.  

The dark-haired woman was staring at her with a look of 
uncertainty, almost of wonder.  As they walked up the 
steps, Mo glanced at her.  She was a little taller, a 
little thinner than Mo.  She smiled at Mo almost shyly and 
continued to study her.

"I'm sorry," Mo finally said.  "But have I met you 
somewhere?"

Monica held out her hand.  "No, I'm pretty sure you haven't.
I'm sorry if I was staring.  I don't mean to be rude.  But
you. . .remind me of someone.  I'm Monica Reyes."

Mo took her hand, nodding.  "I'm Morgan Dannah.  No, it's 
okay--I was just wondering because, well, of the way you 
were looking at me."  She held the screen door open for the 
other woman.

As they went inside, Mo tried to remember why the name 
"Monica Reyes" sounded familiar.

CHAPTER 3

Alachua, Florida
Ramada Inn
Thursday Evening

Monica Reyes pushed the shower curtain aside and reached 
for the towel she'd left on the back of the toilet.  She 
grabbed it and wrapped it around her wet hair.  She 
stretched her long arm out and pulled the other bath towel 
off the towel bar and wrapped it around her slender body, 
tucking it up over her left breast.  She bent over and 
rubbed her wet hair with the thick towel, trying to get the 
excess moisture out of it.

It was only about 8:45 p.m., but she was tired.  Ev Clyatt 
had headed back to Jacksonville about an hour ago.  Before 
he left, he'd treated Monica to dinner at a little place 
just up 163rd from the motel.  He'd watched her, slack-
jawed, as she'd eaten two helpings of fried snapper with 
hush puppies and butter beans, muttering something about 
where the hell she put it in her skinny little body.  
Monica smiled to herself, remembering his expression.

She walked out of the steamy bathroom into the air-
conditioned motel room and shivered.  She finished drying 
off and pulled a T-shirt and a pair of panties out of her 
suitcase.  She slid them on and wrapped the towel around 
her hair a little tighter.  Grabbing a little bottle of 
Scotch out of the mini-bar, she poured it into a plastic 
motel cup and sat down on the bed.  She pulled the extra 
pillow behind her, and sighed as she sank back onto them.  

She crossed her ankles, wiggled her toes, and sipped the 
Scotch.  Not the best Scotch, maybe, but it would do.  What 
a day!  It was hard to believe that only six hours ago 
she'd been boarding a plane for Gainesville.  What she'd 
seen today had thoroughly puzzled her, intrigued her, and 
frightened her, just a little.  She knew now that she had 
to call John.  Between what she'd seen at the morgue, at 
the Dannahs' house--and especially at the Methodist Church
--it was clear to her that more was going on here than 
anybody had clue one about.

She took another sip of the Scotch, liking the way it bit 
at her tongue, and closed her eyes.  As she knew it 
probably would, the scene in the Methodist Church replayed 
behind her eyelids.  She stood in the aisle of the little 
sanctuary with Ev and Sheriff Ritch.  The Sheriff was 
speaking, describing where the sacrificed goat had been, 
how the entrails had been wound around the altar, how it 
all had been burnt.  His voice began to fade away, and 
everything slowed. . .way. . .down.  The Sheriff's mouth 
continued to move as if he were talking, but she couldn't 
hear his voice.  Instead, she was hearing a sound, like a 
distant hum, or a faraway motor.  And then a brilliant 
flash of light, and the fire fell and burned the animal and 
the viscera. . .but nothing else.  

Monica opened her eyes and set the glass down on the 
nightstand, her hand shaking a little.  She had seen that 
this afternoon--she *knew* she had!  But neither Ev nor 
Sheriff Ritch had any idea what she was talking about when 
she asked them if they'd seen it too.  

Sheriff Ritch's eyes had gotten that look in them that 
she'd seen in John's a few too many times:  an odd mixture 
of hard skepticism, concern that she was off her nut, and a 
grudging desire to believe.   Because she'd been a trifle 
white-faced and shaky afterward, Ev had stuck close to her, 
his hand on her arm.  But, knowing Monica considerably 
better than Sheriff Ritch did, he hadn't said much at all 
beyond making sympathetic noises.

She picked up the TV remote and punched the "ON" button.  
VH1's "Behind the Music."  Great, it was the one on 
Aerosmith that she'd already seen.  Figured.   A stupid 
sitcom.  Some old Kathleen Turner movie.  Benny Hinn 
healing the true believers.  A rerun of "Saturday Night 
Live" from an earlier century.  Shit.

She got up off the bed and went over to the desk, where her 
jacket was draped over the back of the chair.  She fished 
her cell phone out of the pocket of the jacket and stared 
at it, biting her lip.  

John probably wasn't going to like this.
 

           *             *             *  


Falls Church, Virginia

John Doggett glanced up at the sky. The darkness was 
starting to close in, and he was going to lose his light if 
he didn't get this job wrapped. Looking over at the 
upturned bicycle on the deck, he snagged the Sam Adams off 
the redwood table and upended what was left of it down his 
throat. Sweet fucking Jesus, it was hot. He rubbed the 
chill bottle down his damp cheek, sighing.

He wanted to get this thing done so he could ride over the 
weekend, but he was bone tired. It had been a crazy week--a 
solo assignment in West Virginia that had teamed him with a 
hapless local sheriff and had run him ragged.   The past 
four days had been even more nuts than your average week on 
the X-Files, and he had never missed Scully more than he 
did right now.

What was it Fox Mulder had told him, a while ago now? 
"You'll get used to chasing shadows, Agent Doggett, and 
driving yourself crazy trying to solve cases that can't be 
solved. After a while, it'll pass for normal life."

It was what he was afraid of, that this fucked-up stuff 
could possibly start passing for normal. That what had 
always been "normal" to him would gradually start becoming 
less and less important. That normal life wouldn't seem 
that way anymore.  After a year on the X-Files, he was 
beginning to wonder if it hadn't already started happening.  
There just didn't seem to be a whole lot of normal left.

Face it, John: Normal life involves family.  It involves 
recreation. It involves friendships with people you *don't* 
work with. It involves companionship with the opposite sex.

And if you were really lucky, it might even involve love.

Do you realize how long it's been since you had a social 
life?  Since you even *kissed* a woman? Well, yeah, there 
*was* that pretty redhead that Davis in VC fixed you up 
with, what, a month or so ago? You took her out for drinks, 
and when you pulled up in front of her apartment and she 
leaned over and kissed you goodnight, you let yourself 
enjoy it for about a nanosecond, then stammered out some 
bullshit excuse and went home by yourself. The poor woman 
must have thought you couldn't stand her, for all the 
interest you showed in her sexually. Or maybe she thought 
you were studying for the friggin' priesthood. Or maybe--
and this was the most likely scenario--she just thought you 
were an asshole.

He missed the man he'd been.  That man would have kissed 
that pretty woman in a way she wouldn't have forgotten. 
Where the hell had he gone?

He spun the wheel of the bicycle, squinting at it. It 
dragged against the brake pad, making a telltale hissing. 
Yeah, the thing was definitely out of true. He rubbed his 
finger across his upper lip and picked up the spoke wrench 
he'd laid on the step, started adjusting the spokes, one by 
one.
 
*Really* kissing a woman, making love to a woman?  He 
hadn't done that since Mo Dannah's visit, going on four 
months ago now.  The first woman he'd let himself get close 
to in a long time, she'd stayed seriously on his mind long 
after she'd left that last time.   Maybe, in the long run, 
it was a good thing she lived so far away and that they 
didn't talk very often. He had a feeling that if she lived 
closer he would have been completely undone by now--and he 
knew that loving a woman was the last thing he needed.   Or 
more accurately, the last thing a woman would need.

How many times had he been injured since he'd been assigned 
to the X-Files? He'd lost track. Yeah, that was a swell 
thing to ask a woman to deal with.  And, even though he 
knew that Mo, being who she was, would be open to the 
weirdness of the job--a whole lot more open than *he* was, 
he realized with amusement--laying a load of insomnia-
inducing worry and paranoia on her was just bullshit.  She 
needed a good man who would love her and treat her right 
and come home to her at night with no worries about whether 
or not he was going to make it through the next day in one 
piece.  She deserved that.

She didn't deserve what he could offer her.  No woman did.

Or was that just an excuse?  Was he just afraid?

He spun the wheel again, savagely, and lifted the wrench to 
the spokes again and made some more adjustments.

His cell phone rang from inside the house.

"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. He slid open the 
screen door to the kitchen, padded inside barefoot and 
grabbed the phone off the breakfast bar.

"John Doggett," he said, more tersely than he'd intended.

"John, hi, it's Monica," the voice in his ear said. 

Monica.  Jesus, he'd completely forgotten about her.   He'd 
just returned from West Virginia that afternoon, and his 
head was still spinning.  But, damn, he should have called 
her.  Starting Monday, he was going to be working closely 
with her, and he may as well start acting like it.

"Monica," he said, trying to sound a little less testy, not 
that it really mattered.  He knew he didn't intimidate 
Monica anyway--at least, not anymore.  But Monica had been 
there for him those years ago, and she really didn't 
deserve attitude from him.  "How you doin'? You getting 
settled in okay?"

"Um, yeah," she said, and he knew that something was up.  
He could almost see her pacing, twisting a strand of hair 
around a finger.  "Actually, John, I'm in Florida."

"Florida?"  Doggett stepped back out onto the deck, waving 
away a mosquito.  "What the hell are you doing in Florida?"

"Well, actually," she said, "I got a call today from an 
agent in Jacksonville, a guy I used to work with at the New 
Orleans bureau, and he wanted me to come down for a short 
consult."

Doggett frowned at the phone.  "Are you sure that's the 
wisest thing you could be doin' right now, Monica?  I mean, 
it's your life, but you start a new job in, what, three or 
four days?  And you just moved into a new place."

"Yeah, I know all that," Monica replied.  "I thought about 
that."

"Well, it's your decision," Doggett spun the bicycle wheel 
again, studying it intently.  Monica didn't say anything 
for a few seconds.  "You still there?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm here.  John, what's going on down here is an X-
File," she said.  "I think you should come down."

At that, he stood up straight and raised his eyebrows.  
"Oh, you do? Can you give me one good reason why?"  

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds while, 
Doggett assumed, Monica marshaled  her forces.  "Okay, yes, 
I think I can, John.  Do you have a minute?  I can explain 
a little about the case."

Doggett scowled at nothing in particular, then looked over 
at the bike.  "Yeah, go ahead," he said into the phone.  He 
sat down in the wooden glider on the deck, pulled his bare 
feet up, and got comfortable.  He listened to her as she 
told him about church desecrations, a particularly grisly 
murder that had even him wincing a bit, and about something 
that had happened at the Methodist Church that afternoon.

"Sorry--you what?" he asked, afraid that he'd actually 
heard what he thought he'd heard.

"When I was at the church this afternoon with Ev Clyatt and 
Sheriff Ritch, I saw it, John.  The fire."

"You *saw* it," Doggett said, leaning back into the glider 
and rubbing his eyes.  

"I did," she said simply.  "You can call it a vision, or 
whatever you want, but I *saw* it.  And I heard a sound, 
almost like a motor or cicadas or something--a hum.  And I 
smelled ozone. It was pretty odd, John."

"Well, I'd say stop the presses, but, Monica, you seein' 
odd things isn't exactly news.  I'll ask you again:  What 
makes this an X-File?"

"You know I don't make these things up, John," Monica said. 

The sad thing, Doggett thought, is that he *did* know she 
didn't make the stuff up.  Her "hunches" had played out 
right on a number of occasions, and he did tend to trust 
her instincts, grudgingly. . .unless her instincts had 
something to do with him.  Then all bets were off.

"It might make a difference to you that police and FBI 
forensics weren't able to find any trace of an accelerator 
that could have started the fire that burned in that church 
last month.  And," she hastened to continue before he could 
interrupt, "nothing else in the church was burned.  Just 
the animal sacrifice."

At that, Doggett sat up.  "You mean nothing the burned 
parts contacted was burned?"

"Right.  The altar wasn't even singed.  The carpet was 
fine, aside from the bloodstains."

"How do we know the animal sacrifice wasn't burned before 
it was brought to the church?"  Doggett stood up to walk 
back and forth on the deck, running his hand back through 
his hair.

"That's been thoroughly investigated," Monica said.  
"Forensics says it's pretty clear that the dead goat was 
brought into the church in a plastic trash bag and was bled 
and eviscerated in the middle of the sanctuary in front of 
the altar before any burning happened." 

"And in your. . .vision," Doggett said, "how did the 
burning happen?"  He couldn't believe he was even asking 
the question.

"It just fell, John.  It just fell from somewhere."  
Monica's voice was quiet.  "Would you come?  I know there's 
more going on here than the police want to look at."

And who the hell could blame them for not wanting to look 
at the stuff Monica was implying?  He sighed.  "Monica, 
what makes you think I'm gonna want to look at it either?"

"Because deep down, John, you know I'm not full of it.  And 
because it's your job."  

He could hear the satisfaction in her voice, and he shook 
his head.  "I'll think about it," he said.  "I'll call you 
in the morning if it looks like I can come down." 

"Well, thanks for at least thinking about it," Monica said.  
"It really is a weird situation down here. Oh, and I almost 
forgot," she added,  "there's a woman down here I think you 
need to meet."

Doggett blinked, sure that he couldn't have heard her 
right.  "Monica, don't *even*.  I'll call you in the 
morning."  Doggett turned off the phone and laid it down on 
the glider.  All he was going to do tomorrow was catch up 
on reports anyway.  He *could* go down for a couple of 
days.   It was feasible. 

He shook his head again.  John, you're due for a mental 
health evaluation.  

He picked up the spoke wrench and slid it into his pocket.  
He turned the bike right-side up, wrestled it back into the 
kitchen and propped it against the wall.  It was too damn 
dark out to do any more tonight.  He shut and locked the 
door.

A woman.  Jesus Christ.   He walked upstairs to shower.



           *              *              *


Alachua, Florida
Friday, Early Afternoon

John Doggett set his suitcase on the motel room bed and 
then stood there for a minute, looking around him.  It was 
Classic American Motel:  brown tweedy carpeting, white 
walls with dark paneling, a desk, table and chairs, with a 
blindingly white-on-white bathroom off to the right and a 
queen-sized bed that took up most of the middle of the 
room.  It was no different from the scores of motel rooms 
he'd slept in during his career, on the road by himself or 
with a partner.  There was something reassuring about that, 
and at the same time something a little depressing.  He 
rubbed his hand down his cheek, a bit stunned to find 
himself in room 18 of the Ramada Inn on 163rd Lane in 
Alachua, Florida.  Of his own free will.

"Everything okay, John?"  Monica walked through the open 
door into the room to stand next to him.  She watched him 
but didn't say anything else.  She just waited.

"Yeah, fine."  He looked at the card key he held in his 
hand for a second and then slid it into his breast pocket.  
He glanced at Monica, who was looking at him a little too 
intently for comfort.  "You're next door?" he asked.

"Yep, room 16."

Doggett nodded, seeming to shake himself out of whatever 
reverie he was in.  He turned to Monica.  "We may as well 
do this," he said. 


~~~~


"I'm coming!" Deborah Boadu called out as she walked from 
the kitchen through the living room to answer the door.  
She saw the strangers standing on her porch through the 
patched screen and slowed her pace, wary.  More police?  
Why won't they leave us alone?

"Yes?" She peered through the screen at the tall, dark-
haired woman and her stern-looking male companion. 

The woman on the porch held up what looked like an 
identification badge.  Deborah strained to read it.  "Mrs. 
Boadu, hi," the woman spoke, in a gentle voice to match her 
smile.  "I'm Monica Reyes, and this is John Doggett.  We're 
from the FBI.  Could we please talk to you for a minute?" 

Deborah unlatched the screen door and opened it.  The man 
held it open for the woman, and then followed her inside, 
nodding to Deborah politely, though she noticed he didn't 
have the easy smile of his companion.

Deborah latched the screen door and turned to the two 
agents.  "May I get you anything?  Iced tea?  A glass of 
water?"  She may not want to talk to these people, but she 
would be polite.  

The man shook his head, and met her eyes with a softer 
expression, not exactly a smile.

"No, but thank you, Mrs. Boadu," Monica Reyes said.

"Then, please, sit."  Deborah gestured to the living room. 

Deborah watched the man sit down in the wooden chair.  The 
dark-haired woman chose the large armchair, unconsciously 
smoothing her fingers over its soft, colorful throw as she 
sat down. 

"Mrs. Boadu," Monica said, "we just need to ask you a few 
questions.  I don't think it'll take too long."

Deborah looked at her steadily, and then glanced at the 
man, whose watchful blue eyes, she noted, missed nothing.  
"All right.  Although, you know, I have spoken to the 
police on two different occasions."

"Mrs. Boadu," Doggett spoke up, "do you have any idea who 
might have killed your brother-in-law?"

Deborah's lips curved upward just slightly.  A man of few 
words, this one.  She felt as if he could almost read her 
thoughts.  The woman, in contrast, was all heart. 
 
"Agent--" She'd forgotten his name.

"John Doggett, ma'am," the man said.

"Agent Doggett," she said, "I know of no one who could do 
such a thing.  What was done to Rique crossed every human 
boundary."

The dark-haired woman nodded her head slightly.  "Yes," 
she said.  "But, Mrs. Boadu, is it possible that someone 
was jealous of Enrique, or had a grudge against him for 
some reason?  Or would stand to benefit from his death?"  

Deborah shut her eyes for a moment.  "There was no reason 
for anyone to be jealous of Rique.  He had no power that 
anyone would have wanted for themselves."

The sharp-eyed man leaned forward in his chair, put his 
hands on his knees.  "Did he have any enemies, anyone who 
might've felt he'd done something to hurt them in the past, 
any business dealings that went bad, any former lovers he 
was on bad terms with?" he asked her.

Deborah met his steady gaze with her own.  "Agent Doggett, 
when you are Lucumi in this country, there are always 
people who are afraid of you.  But Rique didn't have any 
enemies that we were aware of.  No bad business.  No 
scorned women."    

"The local cops seem to think that someone in your group is 
responsible for the church desecrations that have been 
goin' on," Doggett said.  "Y'know, it's really not too big 
a stretch to think your group might have something to do 
with the murder too."

Deborah pushed down the anger his words stirred in her.  
She knew that he was a federal policeman, that he was only 
doing his job, that he was trying to find out information 
any way he could.  She breathed in hard through her nose 
and exhaled, looking away from him to the woman, who sat 
quietly, very much with the man but extending something to 
Deborah, too.  

"Mrs. Boadu," the woman said, "is it possible that someone 
is trying to make the police *think* that the local 
practitioners of Lucumi  are the ones behind all the 
crimes?"

Deborah stopped breathing for an instant.  Could this FBI 
woman know something?  Her question didn't indicate that 
she really knew anything for sure, but it was close to the 
mark.  That hugely tall sheriff who had been here yesterday 
seemed to sense something as well.  And this man, here now, 
he seemed to know more than he was letting on too.  

"Yes," Deborah said at last, very softly.  "I think it is 
possible."

"In that case," Doggett put in, "any ideas who?"

Deborah looked at him, shaking her head.  "No, Agent 
Doggett.  I only hope that anyone capable of doing what was 
done to Rique is not a member of our community."

Doggett held her calm gaze for a moment, then nodded.

Monica handed Deborah a card.  "Thanks for your time.  
Would you please call us if anything else comes to you?"

Deborah nodded slowly, looking at the card.  "Monica 
Reyes," it read.   It had several telephone numbers on it.  
"I will.  If anything else occurs to me, I will call you."

The two agents stood up, and the three walked to the screen 
door.  Doggett and Monica stopped and turned to Deborah.

"I'm sorry for your loss, ma'am," Doggett said to her 
quietly.  "We'll find out who did it."

Deborah looked into his eyes for a long moment, seeing 
something genuine there that she hadn't seen before, and
then he turned away and walked out onto the porch.

"Thanks, Mrs. Boadu," Monica said.  "Please call me any 
time."  She caught up with Doggett.

Deborah stood at the door and watched them as they walked 
to their car.  

Monica slid into the car and shut the door.

"What do you think?" she asked Doggett. "Was she telling 
the truth?"

"Not a chance," he said, and put the car in gear and headed 
back onto Highway 27, toward Ft. White.

                                                                      
               *              *             *


"So, who we gonna see now?" Doggett asked dryly, glancing 
over at Monica.

"I'd like you to talk to Ruth Dannah.  She owns the 
property where Enrique Boadu's body was discovered on 
Wednesday afternoon.  Mrs. Dannah's husband died on Monday, 
and they're burying him tomorrow."

Doggett frowned in thought.  " 'Dannah.' " He blinked.  "Do 
you think his death has any connection with the case?"

Monica watched the pine trees and wooden houses roll by the 
car window.  "No," she said, finally turning to look at 
him.  "I don't get that feeling.  Though I don't think much 
about this case is as straightforward as it seems."

"So this Mrs. Dannah lives on the property across the river 
from the old cemetery?"  When Monica didn't respond, he 
looked over at her.  "I mean," he went on, "that's where 
the body was found, right?  By the river, across from the 
cemetery."

Monica was staring out the windshield at nothing, her mouth 
open.  

"Monica?"  Doggett said.  "Hey, you there?  Don't get all 
weird on me, now."

She blinked a few times and turned to look at him.  "John, 
there's something about the cemetery that's important."

He frowned and looked over at her.   "Monica, what--"

"Okay," she said to him, turning her body toward him in the 
car seat.  "Just listen for a minute.  In  religion and 
folklore, water--especially running water--always seems to 
signify purification, truth.  This might sound odd, but no 
one's been able to come up with any reason at all for Boadu 
to have been murdered where he was."  

"Well, maybe that's 'cause there *isn't* any," Doggett put 
in dryly.  "What are you suggestin', that somebody killed 
him across the river from the cemetery for a reason?  And 
that would be because--?"

"Because the cemetery is hallowed ground, and that murder 
was anything but holy."  Monica raised her brows and looked 
at him.  "It could mean that the murderer has something to 
do with the cemetery, or is religious in some way."

He shook his head.  "I think you're reachin', Monica."  

She shrugged.  She'd heard him say that before.  "It beats 
not having a clue, doesn't it?"

"Depends on your point of view," he said.  "Where to?  This 
is Ft. White."

"Right at the stop sign, then another right at the first 
little lane."

Doggett drove the rented Taurus sedan slowly down the old 
macadam road, and turned right onto the sandy lane, through 
the tall moss-hung trees.  

"This is it," Monica said, pointing to the weathered wooden 
house.  

Doggett stopped the car.  He looked at Monica.  She smiled 
and opened her door. 

Doggett got out of the car, shut his door and looked 
around.  The rural deep South was a place he hadn't been in 
a long time.  He took in the barbed-wire fence, the old 
wooden house on stilts, the sandy soil and the tough grass 
with the prickly sand spurs, the gnarled pecan tree full of 
big black birds.  He took a deep breath of the humid, spicy 
air and remembered being a barefoot kid running wild in 
just this kind of baking heat, heat that would soak your 
shirt through in five minutes.  He envied Monica her 
sleeveless blouse.  He'd left his jacket in the car.  Screw 
protocol--it was just too fucking hot for a coat.  Or even 
shirtsleeves, for that matter.  

Monica joined him, looking at the house. "How old do you 
think it is?" she asked.

He threw her a glance.  "I dunno, the '20s, '30s maybe." It 
looked like they were renovating it slowly, though the 
porch didn't look like it had changed any in decades.  He 
didn't think the old swing had ever been replaced.  

Monica walked up the steps to the front door.  

"Monica," Doggett said quietly.

She turned back to him.

"I'll be right there.  I saw something around there." He 
gestured to the side of the house.

Curious, he walked around to the side yard.  He'd seen 
motion, a flash of white.

It was a woman he'd seen.  

Wearing shorts, a white halter top, and a big sun hat, she 
was sitting in the scrubby grass maybe 30 feet away,  
pulling weeds out of a flower bed, her arms working hard to 
get the stubborn weeds out of the ground.  At the sound of 
Doggett's footfalls in the dry grass, she looked up, 
startled.

Mo Dannah watched as the man slowly walked toward her:  
dark dress pants, a white shirt with rolled sleeves, a big 
watch on his right wrist, a somehow-familiar odd, loose-
limbed gait.  He reminded her of John Doggett. . .  But 
that was crazy.

The man ran his hand back through his hair, an unconscious 
gesture.

**Oh my God.**

It *was* John Doggett.  

She stood up, hoping her legs would hold her, and pulled 
off her sun hat and gloves.  As he came closer, she could 
see him clearly and wondered if she looked as dumbstruck as 
he did.

Then a smile spread over his face, and he closed the 
distance between them and wrapped her in his arms, 
enveloping her in his strong hug. He rested his cheek 
against her hair and held her tightly, rocking her back and 
forth.  She could smell his aftershave, the familiar scent 
of his skin.  She hoped he couldn't tell how fast her heart 
was hammering away in her chest.  

He held her away from him by her arms, smiling at her in 
wonder.  "Mo, what the hell?" Then some sort of 
understanding dawned in his eyes. "Is this your mother's 
place?  Is it *your* father who's passed on?"

She nodded, a small motion, never taking her eyes off his 
face. "The funeral's tomorrow."

"Ah, sweetheart, I'm sorry," he said softly, laying his 
hand gently against her cheek.  "I'm so sorry."

She smiled, a little in shock, just happy to see him. 

~~~~

Monica walked back down the old wooden steps and picked her 
way quietly through the yard to the side of the house, 
where she saw Doggett in conversation with a woman.  She 
stopped still, suddenly feeling like an intruder. Doggett's 
hands were on the woman's upper arms.  The woman was 
smiling at him.  It was Morgan Dannah.  

Monica raised her eyebrows, turned around, and walked back 
to the porch to wait.
 
~~~~

Doggett still couldn't believe she was standing there in 
front of him. "God damn, it's good to see you.  Are you doin' 
okay?"  He looked her up and down, from her head to her 
bare feet, his eyes lingering on her sunburned arms, her 
bare midriff, her slender legs.

"I'm fine.  How are *you*, John?"

"I'm good."

"You're here about the murder?"

Doggett smiled wryly and gave a shake of his head.  "You 
could say I got called in on it, yeah."  That reminded him:  
Monica.  He gently let go of Mo's arms and looked back to 
the front of the house.  Where *was* Monica?

"John," Mo said, and he turned back to her.   "Are you here 
to speak to my mother?"  She wanted him to touch her again, 
but she was sensing his need to be circumspect.  

"Yeah," he said.  "Agent Reyes is here with me.  She wanted 
me to see your mother."

"John, my mom's not here right now.  Max and Maeve took her 
into Lake City to do some shopping.  There's going to be a 
wake here tomorrow morning."  They  slowly walked together 
to the front of the house.  She looked up into his face.  
"They should be back in a couple of hours, if you can come 
back."  

Monica was sitting in the porch swing, watching them.  "So 
I guess I don't have to introduce you?" she said as they 
walked up the porch steps.  

Jesus Christ.  Doggett rubbed his ear, looking away.  Then 
he turned back to Monica.  "Mo was involved in a case 
Scully and I handled in Colorado last winter," he said.    

Monica got up out of the swing.  She smiled at Mo.  "It's 
good to see you again," she said. 

"You too," Mo said, smiling back.  "My mother's not here 
right now, Agent Reyes.  But she should be back in a while.  
Could I get you two a glass of water, or some iced tea, 
anything?"

"Some water would be great, thanks," Monica said.  

Mo looked at Doggett, her brows raised. 

"Sure," he said.  "Thanks."

Mo went into the house, and Monica and Doggett were left 
alone on the porch in awkward silence.  

"She was involved in a case in Colorado, you said?" Monica 
finally spoke.

Doggett looked at her.  "She was abducted, by a crazy-ass 
son of a bitch.  It was a cult thing.  She almost died--to 
this day I'm surprised she didn't."

"She had more to do," Monica said.

"Monica, don't even start that with me," Doggett said, 
wearily.  

"Why is it so hard for you to hear that sort of thing, 
John?" she asked him gently, though she pretty much knew 
why it was so hard for him.  "Maybe she didn't die because 
she wasn't through doing what she came to do."

He didn't say anything.  He didn't want to think about Mo 
dying.  He didn't really want to think about what had 
happened to her at all; it had been too close a thing.  But 
Monica didn't need to know any of that.

Monica smiled at him.  "John," she said, "you remember I 
told you over the phone that there was a woman down here 
you really needed to meet?"

He stared at her, knowing what she was going to say.

"It was her," Monica said quietly.

Somehow she'd known something.  Monica usually did.  He 
wasn't sure if he loved her or hated her for it.

Mo came back out onto the porch and handed the two agents 
tall glasses of ice water.  They drank in grateful silence, 
while Mo watched them.

After a few moments, Monica handed her the empty glass. 
"Thanks, that was just what I needed," she said.  Mo took 
Doggett's empty glass with a smile, looking into his eyes, 
not saying anything.

"If you can come back in a couple of hours, I'll make sure
my mom's available," she said to the agents.

She watched as they walked down the steps and back to the 
car.  She raised her hand to them as they got into the car 
and drove off.

Then she sat down on the porch steps and just looked off into
the distance for a while.  Life is just getting stranger and
stranger, she thought, wondering what could possibly happen 
next.

CHAPTER 4
 
The ruddy-faced man with the coppery hair smiled at the 
elegant shrub in front of him.  It was his wife's prize 
rose bush, a vital and exquisite La Reine Victoria, its 
classic pink blooms a lush contrast to its green leaves.  
He'd learned over the last year how to prune it, though the 
first time he'd stood over it with shears he'd been afraid 
he'd kill the shrub and, with it, another part of his wife.  
But the bush was forgiving, and it had thrived despite his 
initial ineptitude.   He shut his eyes and breathed in the 
heady fragrance of the blossoms.   The rose bush was a 
thing of beauty in so many ways, he thought, and it helped 
keep his wife alive for him.  He felt the familiar angry 
tightening in his gut as he thought of his wife, his Nora.

It was too bad that he wasn't as forgiving as the rose 
bush.

The sound of a car moving slowly down the lane drew him 
back to now.  He stood up and turned away from the bush, 
taking a deep breath.  A dark late model sedan pulled up in 
the lane and stopped in front of his little house.  He 
stood still where he was and watched and waited.  
Strangers. 

The car doors opened, and a man in shirtsleeves and a 
willowy, dark-haired woman got out and walked over to him.  
They looked like they had business with him, or thought 
they did.

"Hugh Goodall?" the man asked.  His voice was deep, his 
presence no-nonsense.  Goodall looked him over.  He'd seen 
men like this one before--he had "cop" written on him in 
big letters.

"Yes," Goodall answered.  "May I help you folks?"

John Doggett held up his credentials.  The man's eyes 
flicked quickly to them, then back to Doggett's face.  
"Could we ask you a few questions?" Doggett asked.

"Yes, sure," Goodall said.  "Come on inside."  He turned 
and opened the door for the two agents, noticing the quick 
look the two exchanged before they moved to come inside.

They walked into the house's narrow front hallway.   As 
Doggett followed Goodall down the hall, he took unconscious 
inventory, his eyes moving from a small mud room (boots, shoes,
a yellow rain slicker, an umbrella, a fishing rod) to a table
(keys, binoculars, a neat stack of white envelopes), to a hall
closet, its door ajar (too dark to assess).  He felt Monica 
close behind him.  Goodall led them into his living room.

"Please, sit down.  Can I get you anything to drink?"  
Goodall asked. "I know how hot it is outside."

"No, thanks," Doggett said, sitting down carefully in a 
delicate upholstered wing chair.  He looked around.  The 
decor of the house was almost suffocatingly feminine.  The 
room was a hodgepodge of houseplants, chintz slipcovers, 
embroidered pillows, knickknacks, and warring wallpaper 
patterns.  He glanced at Monica, who sat down on the 
flowered sofa and raised her eyebrows at him, smiling just 
slightly.  

"Mr. Goodall," Monica said, after Goodall sat down in the 
chair opposite Doggett, "we just have a few questions for 
you.  I know you've already given your statement to the 
police."

"Yes," Goodall drawled. "I've talked to them twice now."  
His gray eyes were intent on her face.

"Mr. Goodall," Doggett said, "how long have you been the 
sexton at the Methodist Church here?"

Goodall turned to Doggett, frowning.  "It was three years 
in May, I think.  Yes, three years."

"You were the one who reported the desecration at the 
church last month, right?" Doggett asked.

"Yes," Goodall said with a nod.  "I found the sanctuary 
that way in the morning when I went over to check on the 
church.  I usually check in once or twice a day, sometimes 
more often." 

"You didn't hear anything in the night, see anything 
unusual?" Monica put in.

"Well, I did tell that sheriff--the one from Gainesville?--
that I heard a vehicle pull through the lane late the night 
before.  It sounded like a truck, but I'm not sure. That's 
about it, though.  I didn't see anyone, or hear anything 
odd."  Mr. Goodall shook his head.  "This is just all so 
awful, all of it.  I'm just glad my wife isn't here to see 
any of it."

Doggett's eyes narrowed.  "Your wife?"

"She passed away a little over a year ago," Goodall said, 
quietly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Goodall," Monica said gently.  "I have just 
one more question.  To your knowledge, how has the 
relationship been between the congregation here and the 
local Santeria practitioners?" 

"I've never seen any problems with anyone, he replied.  
"There's a woman who takes care of the church, nice woman, 
Deborah Boadu.  She's Santeria.  She's a fine lady."

Doggett stared at Goodall for a long moment.  "Mr. Goodall, 
could I use your facilities?"

"Of course--just down the hallway we came through, on the 
right."

Monica watched Doggett walk out of the living room, her 
face thoughtful.  



Doggett walked directly to the hall closet and carefully 
pulled the door open wider, thankful that it didn't make 
any noise.  He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, 
or why the hell he was even looking in the closet, but 
something was drawing him there.  He pulled his little 
Maglite out of his pants pocket and clicked it on, shone it 
over the interior of the closet.  A vacuum cleaner, a pair 
of black shoes, a beige cardigan sweater, a blue work 
shirt, a straw sun hat, puffy dust bunnies that skittered 
away to the back of the closet when he opened the door.  
And in the back of the closet, a pair of brown lace-up 
boots, one laying on its side against the back wall of the 
closet as if thrown inside in haste.  

Doggett bent over and pulled the boots to the front of the 
closet, playing the Maglite's beam over them.  They were 
both stained with something dark, dried now, cracked.  

It was blood.  He didn't know why, but he was as sure of it 
as he'd been of anything in his life.  

He pulled his pocket knife and a plastic evidence bag out 
of his pocket, smiling slightly. You're just a regular 
walkin' hardware store, aren't you, John?   He knelt down 
and scraped at the stained area of one boot, then the 
other, catching the flakes of the dried substance in the little 
bag.  He closed the bag and tucked it and the knife back in 
his pocket, along with the flashlight.  He replaced the 
boots at the back of the closet and stood up and closed the 
door, leaving it a little ajar, the way it was when he'd 
opened it.  He crossed to the bathroom and flushed the 
toilet, turned the sink tap on, and put his hands under the 
cool water. He dried his hands on the towel there and left 
the room, walked back down the hall to the living room.

Monica looked at him as he came into the room, questions in 
her eyes. 

He looked from her to Goodall.  "Sorry," he said and sat 
down again in the wing chair.  "Mr. Goodall, are you an 
outdoorsman?  

Goodall looked a little blank.

"You know," Doggett persisted, "do you hunt?  Fish?"

"Oh, yeah," Goodall replied.  "I've been fishin' since I 
was old enough to hold a rod, and my daddy took me hunting 
for the first time when I was about 10."  Goodall stared at 
Doggett.  "Why do you ask?"

"Just curious," Doggett said.  "I noticed the rod in your 
entryway, there."  He held Goodall's stare with his own.  
"I'll bet you're good with a knife," he added, pushing it 
just a little.  Go ahead, he thought.  Try me.  I'm in 
just the right mood.  "I mean, you need to be, to hunt and
fish, and all."

Goodall nodded.  His breathing had changed,  become a 
little more shallow.  "Well, sure, I can clean fish, skin 
animals," he said.

"That all you can do?" Doggett watched as the other man 
went white around the nostrils.  **Careful.  Not too far
now.**

"Are you implyin' somethin'?"  Goodall's voice was very 
still.  " 'Cause if you are, you should just say it 
outright."

"No," Doggett said, just as quietly.  "I'm not implyin' 
anything."  A beat.  "Not a thing."

Monica Reyes sat straight and motionless, looking from one 
man to the other.  She took a breath.  "Mr. Goodall, I 
think that's all we need from you right now.  If we need to 
talk to you again, we'll give you a call."  She stood up, 
eyeing Doggett pointedly.  He arose from his chair, still 
looking at Goodall.  

Goodall got up out of his chair then, and the three stood, 
awkward, for a moment.  Then Monica held her hand out to 
Goodall, who took it.  "Thanks, Mr. Goodall," she said.  
"We appreciate your time and attention."

"Yeah, thanks," Doggett said, with a half-smile.  

They walked back down the hallway to the door, and Goodall 
walked out with them, standing in front of his door.  He 
watched them get into the car.   He rubbed his hand across 
his mouth and wondered if he might have to do something he 
hadn't planned.



               *          *          * 


Monica looked over at Doggett as he steered the car slowly 
back down the lane.  

"What was that all about, back there?" she asked.  

He glanced at her.  

"And don't say 'what?', because you known perfectly well 
what." There was nothing about her tone or expression that 
wasn't serious.

"Oh, you mean me and Mr. Friendly?" Doggett said with the 
hint of a smile.

"As if *you* were Mr. Congeniality.  John, I'm serious.  
What was going on?"

Doggett realized that Monica could do that tight-lipped 
thing better than almost anyone but him.  He decided to 
play straight with her, knowing that when she got into this 
mood, any other approach just made her dig in her heels.  
"Something about that guy just didn't ring true to me.  I 
don't know what or why," he said.  "I think I just wanted 
to push him a little, see which way he'd jump."

"Well, he looked like he wanted to jump all right--straight 
down your throat," Monica said.  "But, you know, he did say 
that he heard a vehicle the night the church was 
vandalized--didn't he say he thought it might have been a 
truck?  And there's nothing in his statements to that 
effect."

"There's just something about him.  I don't know," Doggett 
said again, realizing that he'd been saying "I don't know" 
way too much lately.   He glanced at Monica.  "I don't know 
about you, but I'm wondering what Hugh Goodall's been 
watching through those binoculars of his.  I didn't exactly 
get the chance to ask him."

"Well, this may sound a little too obvious, but he could be 
a bird watcher," Monica said.  "There sure are plenty of 
birds around."

Doggett laughed dryly.  "Maybe so." He didn't sound as if 
he believed it. "But those were mighty powerful 
binoculars." He pulled the car back onto Highway 27, 
heading southeast.

"Where are we going?" Monica looked at him.

"We have time, right?  I'm going back to Alachua.   I have 
something for the lab." 


               *            *            *


Doggett pulled the Taurus sedan up in front of the old 
Dannah house and shut off the engine.  Squinting through 
the dusty windshield, he took in the house, the front 
porch, the woman sitting there in the old wooden swing, her 
arm over its back and her bare feet on its armrest.  He 
could tell by the way she was looking at the car that she 
had a pretty good idea who was behind the wheel.

He could feel Monica's eyes on him, and he glanced over at 
her.  She was sitting, very still, her dark-hazel eyes 
calmly scrutinizing him--not judging, not questioning, just 
watching.  One thing could be said for Monica:  For all her 
out-there theories, you could count on her to be there with 
you when you needed her.  As for staying out of your 
business when you *didn't*--well. . .  At that thought, a 
smile came, unbidden.

Doggett opened the car door and got out, walking slowly 
over to the steps.  Monica followed quietly. He watched the 
woman on the porch, saw her straighten up in the swing, her 
eyes on him.  He and Monica walked up the steps to the 
porch.

"You go on in.  I'll be right there," Doggett said quietly 
to Monica, who blinked once and then nodded.  She knocked 
at the screen door, opened it and, at the "Come on in" 
shouted from inside, walked into the house.

Doggett crossed the porch and stood in front of Mo, who 
smiled up at him tentatively.  He looked at her for a 
moment and then sat down next to her in the swing, saying 
nothing.  They sat together in a charged silence, neither 
of them quite knowing how to act.  

"My daddy grew up here, in this house," Mo said softly at 
last.  "I used to pick pecans from that tree, and I played 
out in the lane--I used to use my grandmama's spoons to dig 
holes in the sand."  She smiled, looking away across the 
field toward the little town.  "There's wicked mean cactus 
out in the lane, too." She looked down at their feet:  hers 
slender and bare, his in big black shoes.  Then she glanced 
over at him.  "And I'm talking too much."  She turned her 
face away, a little abashed.

Doggett pushed his feet against the boards of the porch, 
setting the swing into motion.  She fell against him at the 
unexpected movement, and he caught her arm to steady her.  
The accidental touch inevitably reminded her of the strong 
body that was underneath that white dress shirt, and she 
felt a sudden shock to her middle that made her a little 
dizzy.  It was desire, pure and simple, and she felt an 
embarrassed warmth creep up her neck.

He looked down at her. "How's Marian?" he asked.

"She's good.  She asks about you."

"Does she still think I'm dangerous?" His mouth quirked up 
in a half-smile.

Mo smiled back.  "No.  She wonders why I haven't gone back 
to see you." She touched his hand.  "I wonder that too, 
sometimes.  I've missed you, John."  Her voice was low, and 
he leaned closer to hear her.  She lifted her face and 
looked directly at him for the first time, and she caught 
her breath.  His eyes were such a startling blue.  Could 
she have forgotten?  His grave face was already damp with 
sweat, and she resisted the urge to reach up and wipe it 
from his forehead.  

"I gotta go inside, talk to some people," he said.

"I understand,"  she said. "You're working." 

He stood up and looked back down at her.

"So how are we gonna play this, John?" she asked.   "I met 
you once?" 

Fuck. He ran a finger over his upper lip, studying her.  
Fuck.  "I think it might be better to be discreet," he 
finally said. 

She saw his discomfort.  "Okay.  Discreet it is."

He reached out and smoothed her hair, his eyes intent on 
her. 

"Could I come see you later?" she asked.  "Discreetly, of 
course." She tried not to smile.

"If you don't," he said softly, "I'll come and get *you*."

She did smile then, looked down at her feet.

"I'm at the Ramada Inn," he added.  "Room 18."

"It might be late," she said.

"It doesn't matter," he said.  He turned and walked to the 
door, knocked, and went inside.  She leaned back in the 
swing and closed her eyes.  After a moment, she got up and 
followed him into the house.
                                                      

Just inside the living room, Doggett stopped and looked 
around.  The house was smaller than it looked from the 
outside.  The living room, painted a rich deep peach color 
and full of plants, photos and paintings,  stretched into a 
dining room boasting a big dark-wood table and chairs and a 
brass chandelier.  A room, most likely the kitchen, opened 
off the back of the dining room.  There was a room off to 
the right of the living room.  He noticed that the house 
still had its original doors, with old-fashioned keyholes 
and ceramic doorknobs.  

Monica was sitting on a comfortable-looking green sofa next 
to a small auburn-haired woman, who looked over at him 
questioningly.  She got up and walked the few steps to him, 
extending her hand.  He took it, looking down into a pair 
of intelligent brown eyes.  There was something about this 
woman that made him want to smile.

"Hello," she said to him.  She sounded so much like Mo that 
he must have looked surprised.  At any rate, her smile 
widened.  "I'm Maeve Dannah.  You're--?"

"John Doggett," he said.  "I'm with the FBI."

"Ah, you must be here with Agent Reyes," Maeve said.  

"That's right," Doggett said, nodding.  He heard the door 
open behind him, and turned to see Mo walk in.

"This is my sister Morgan, Agent Doggett," Maeve said.  
"Mo, this is--"

"John Doggett," Mo said.  "Yes, we've met before."

Maeve looked at Mo, her brows arched questioningly.  

"He was one of the agents on my case, last winter," Mo 
explained.

"Oh," Maeve said, drawing out the sound.  She turned back 
to Doggett.  "What a coincidence that you'd turn up here, 
Agent Doggett."  She put her hand on his arm.  "I can't 
possibly begin to express my thanks to you for. . .helping 
Mo."

This sort of thing--people thanking him for doing what he 
got paid to do--had always made him uncomfortable, as a 
soldier, as a cop. . .and even now, apparently. "Thanks," 
he finally said.  "I was just doing my job."   The words 
sounded pretty lame even to him.

"I know," Maeve said quietly.  "But Mo's my sister.  And 
from what she's told me, she would have died if you hadn't 
been there.  So I think you can see where I'm coming from."

"Yeah, I do--but I didn't do it alone," Doggett said. 

"I know," Maeve said, "but that doesn't make my thanks to 
you any less meaningful, does it?"

He could see that it would be harder than hell to get the 
better of this woman, so he just nodded.  He glanced over 
at Monica and saw that she was watching him with a look of 
gentle interest. 

Doggett watched as a tall, dark-haired man walked into the 
dining room.  Who the hell was *this*?  

Seeing the two agents in the living room, the man slowed 
down some.  "Sorry to interrupt," he said.

"Max, this is Agent John Doggett from the FBI.  You 
remember Agent Reyes," Maeve said.  "This is Max 
Somerville."

Doggett nodded to the tall man.  He was a good-looking son 
of a bitch, he'd give him that.  Then he turned to Mo.  "Am 
I the only one in this house whose name doesn't start with 
an M?"

She smiled.  "Oh, that was always such a pain when Maeve 
and I still lived together," she said.  "Then when I 
married Max it got ridiculous."  She noticed the look on 
Doggett's face, and realized that he'd just had his 
question answered about who Max was. "Anyway," she went on, 
"that's a good guess, but no.  My mother's name is Ruth, 
with an R. She's the one you came to see.  I'll go get 
her." 

Doggett watched her escape to the kitchen, feeling a little 
bit like he was down the proverbial rabbit hole. 

"Max, Agent Doggett here is the FBI agent who helped find 
Mo last year," Maeve said.

"No kidding?"  Max walked over to Doggett, his hand 
extended.  Doggett shook it.  "Damn," Max said.  "You 
probably don't have any idea how grateful we all are for 
what you did."

"Thanks," Doggett said.  "But I--"

"Agent Doggett is being modest," Maeve said to Max, who 
nodded.

"Thanks," Doggett said simply, nodding back, and picked his 
way over to the sofa and sat down next to Monica as Max 
followed Mo into the kitchen.

She leaned over to him. "You're the man of the hour, John,"  
she said quietly.

"Monica," he said, the tone of his voice a quiet warning.

It made her smile.  "Aren't you glad I called you about 
this case?" she asked him.  

He just looked at her.

"Agent Doggett?" At the sound of the soft drawl, he looked 
away from Monica and into the face of a small woman whose 
auburn hair was mostly gray now.  She was smiling at him, 
her brown eyes warm.  He realized that this was Mo's 
mother, and he quickly stood up. 

Ruth reached out and captured one of his big hands in both 
of her small ones.  "Agent Doggett," she said again.  "I'm 
Ruth Dannah, and I'm *very* happy to meet you."

"Thank you, ma'am," Doggett said.  Damn, this was awkward.  
And it was worse because Monica was witnessing it all.  

"I'd been wanting to thank you for the longest time," Ruth 
said.  "I'm glad to finally meet someone who helped bring 
Morgan back."

It was hard not to smile at this little woman who reminded 
him so much of Mo, though Mo didn't look a lot like her, 
except around the eyes.  "I was just a part of the team 
that brought her off the mountain," he said quietly.  

"You're a diplomat, too, I see," Ruth said dryly.  "You 
just consider yourself at home here," she said, patting his 
hand.  "Let's sit.  I understand you want to talk to me." 
She waved Doggett back onto the sofa and sat down in the 
chair pulled up opposite him and Monica.  "Can we get y'all 
something to drink?  Are you hungry?"

Southern hospitality, Doggett thought.  How many times had 
he and Monica been offered drink, food, in one afternoon?  
"No," he said to her. "But I appreciate it."

"Mrs. Dannah," Monica said, "I was wondering if you had any 
idea at all why Enrique Boadu was murdered on your 
property."

"Darlin', not a clue," Ruth said.  "I knew Enrique some, 
but Deborah better.  They're wonderful people.  Dr. Dannah 
took care of the Boadus during some illnesses over the 
years."

Monica smiled gently at the old-fashioned way Ruth referred 
to her late husband.  

"Deborah was always sweet to Morgan and Maeve, when they 
would come down here to visit their grandparents.  I think 
Morgan was in college and Maeve was in high school when 
Deborah and her little boy moved here.  Her husband died a 
long time ago, before they moved to the U.S." 

"So the Boadus were known in the community?  Respected?"  
Doggett asked, leaning forward to look Ruth in the eye.

"Well, yes, I'd say so," Ruth said to him.  "They used to 
live not too far from here, in a little house just across 
the river, by the graveyard.  Enrique did groundskeeping 
work there. But they moved out toward High Springs a number 
of years ago now." She looked thoughtful.  "Deborah works 
at the Methodist church."

"Yes," Monica said, "the sexton there mentioned that today 
when we spoke to him."

"Mrs. Dannah," Doggett said, "do you know anyone affiliated 
with any of the churches that were vandalized? The 
Methodist, Baptist, and--" He glanced at Monica.

"Lutheran," Monica inserted.

"Just the Methodist," Ruth Dannah replied.  "It's just out 
behind our house a ways, across the back field. The 
minister there, Mr. Price, is a dear man.  He's been here 
since Hector was a pup.  Seems like Mr. Goodall's been here 
for a few years now, and I can't say I know him all that 
well.  He was always a little too 'Good Christian' for me, 
if you know what I mean."  Ruth's eyes sparkled wickedly. 

At that, Monica glanced at Doggett, and he remembered her 
words about how the murderer might be religious in some 
way, something about why the victim had been murdered where 
he was.

"His wife died last year," Mrs. Dannah was saying, and 
Doggett refocused his attention on her.  "That was awful--a 
terrible illness and then complications."

"Did Dr. Dannah take care of her too?" Doggett asked.  He 
studied her carefully.

"Yes.  It was meningitis.  There was an outbreak, about a 
year ago now.  Dr. Dannah tended her, Enrique Boadu and 
Deborah's son, Stephen."  She saw Doggett glance at Monica.  
"Do you think this is related to the. . .the killing?"

"Well," Monica said, "it could have some connection.  We 
always try to consider everything."  

Ruth looked from Monica and back to Doggett, whose sober 
blue eyes met hers.  They didn't hold any answers. 

Doggett stood up.  "I think I'll take that water now.  No, 
don't trouble yourself," he said to Ruth as she started to 
get up.  "I'll go get it."

"All right.  Morgan or Maeve should be out there in the 
kitchen.  They can help you."

"Thanks," he smiled down at her.  He walked through the 
dining room to the kitchen.  He needed to clear his head a 
little, to think.  Were the illnesses really a connection 
to the case, or was he forcing something into a pattern 
because of the odd reaction he'd had to Hugh Goodall?

"John," Mo said, as he walked into the kitchen.  She was 
covering pies with aluminum foil.  "What can I do for you?"  

"A glass of water?"  He walked closer to her, looking at 
her bare, sunburned shoulders and arms.  "You should put 
something on that," he said softly. 

"The sunburn?"  She made a face. "I remembered the sun 
block yesterday.  Somehow I managed to forget it today."  
She shrugged.  "I'll be all right."  She took a glass down 
from a cupboard and pulled a half-gallon jar of water from 
the refrigerator.  She poured him a glass.

"Thanks," he said, taking it from her, his fingers brushing 
hers.

"Come sit with me here on the porch for a minute," she 
said.  She led the way, and he followed her out the screen 
door to the back porch.  They sat together on the steps 
while he drank the cold water.  He looked around the yard, 
at the shed, the clothesline, the path worn through the dry 
grass.

"There usually so many birds around?" Doggett asked, 
turning to look at her.

Mo smiled and threw him an ironic glance.  "Are you making 
small talk?" she asked.

He shook his head.  "It's just odd."  He looked at one bird 
in particular that was perched on the clothesline just 10 
feet or so away.  It watched him with an unnerving 
intensity.

"I really don't know," Mo admitted.  "But there *are* a lot 
of them around right now, especially crows.  Noisy things."  
Her shoulder brushed his, and she felt his body stiffen 
slightly.  "It's okay, darlin'," she said softly, amused.  
"I won't bite you."  

"I know," he said, smiling a little.  He sipped the water, 
looking out across the back field.  His eyes narrowed.  "Is 
that the Methodist Church over there?" he asked her.

"Mmm, you can walk straight across the field to the back 
lane.  It's just up a ways."  She looked up at him.  He set 
the glass down carefully on the step next to him, lifted 
his hand to her face, and ran a gentle thumb across her 
cheekbone.

~~~~

Hugh Goodall raised the binoculars to his eyes.  There were 
two people on the back porch of the Dannahs' house, sitting 
close together on the steps.  He focused the lenses.  
There, now he could see them.  A slow smile spread over his 
face.  It was Dr. Dannah's daughter--the older one, he 
thought, the weird one.  And look who was sitting with her.  
That glorified policeman who had been at his house earlier.  
As Goodall watched, the FBI man leaned over and kissed Dr. 
Dannah's daughter right on her pretty lips.  Goodall's 
smile broadened.  He rubbed his hand across his mouth and 
kept watching.


~~~~


Doggett's fingertips slid from Mo's cheek to her neck, and 
she turned her face away from him.  He heard her sigh 
quietly.

"John," she murmured, "someone's sure to see, and you 
said--"

"I know," he said again, simply, returning his hand to his
knee.  "I guess I just had to do that."

She smiled down at her lap.

"Look at me," he said softly.

She lifted her face to his.  Her cheeks were flushed.

"Come to me later," he said, his voice a little hoarser 
than usual.

She nodded, not trusting her voice at all.

He stood up, and she leaned against his legs for a moment.  
He smoothed her hair tenderly, and then turned and went 
back into the house.


~~~~


Goodall watched as the FBI man walked into the house, 
leaving the woman sitting by herself.  She combed her 
fingers back through her hair and sat there alone for a few 
minutes.  Then she too went back inside.  Goodall lowered 
the binoculars.

Well, this was quite the new development.  He'd have to 
figure out what it might mean. 


~~~~


Doggett walked back into the living room, where Monica was 
still sitting talking quietly with Ruth Dannah.  As he 
walked toward them, Monica glanced at him and raised her 
brows.

"John," Monica said, "Mrs. Dannah was just telling me 
something else she remembered."  

Doggett sat down again next to Monica and looked at Ruth 
Dannah.  "Mrs. Dannah?" he prompted. 

"Well, Agent Doggett, there was another woman, Peggy 
Bonfils, who was also seriously ill last year with 
meningitis at the same time as the others.   I don't know 
why I forgot her.  I don't know if it's even important."

"And she recovered?" Doggett asked.

"Oh, yes.  She's fine.  She was just here last week to 
visit my husband."

Monica looked at Doggett, her eyes serious.  "John, Mrs. 
Bonfils is Santeria." 

Doggett frowned, but didn't say anything.  He didn't 
necessarily think Ruth Dannah needed to hear what he was 
thinking.

Ruth watched him, then looked to Monica.  "You know, we'll 
be havin' supper before too long.  Y'all are welcome to 
stay if you can," she said gently.

Doggett blinked, shaking himself away from his thoughts.  
"Mrs. Dannah, I appreciate the offer, but I think we'd 
better be going."  He stood up and looked to Monica.

"Yes, thank you," Monica said to Ruth, standing and 
extending her hand. 

Ruth took Monica's hand and squeezed it.  "I hope I was 
some help to you.  And you're welcome to come back any 
time."  She looked at Doggett.  "And you, of course.  I 
feel I owe you my daughter's life."

Christ, Doggett thought.  If you only knew.  I  wonder what 
you'd think of me then.



They walked together to the car, having made a quiet escape 
from the Dannahs' house.

"John," Monica said, "you think there's something there, 
don't you?  The death of Hugh Goodall's wife, the 
illnesses?  The Lucumi connection?"

"Well, it's sure as hell motive of a sort.  Not that 
there's any evidence," he said.  "Yet."  He looked at his 
watch.  "It's getting late.  Let's call the cops and see if 
we can get a rush on the lab work on that sample.  Then we 
might need to go see our Mr. Goodall again once forensics 
gets the lay of the land."  He smiled grimly.  "Assuming 
there's any land worth worryin' about."

"There's more to this than a man with a grudge," Monica 
said.  "I just feel it so strongly, John."

Doggett looked at her across the roof of the car.  "And 
what would that be?"

"I'm not sure.  But I saw what I saw, and it wasn't just 
your average crime scene," Monica replied.

"So what's the paranormal element, then, Monica?  I can 
tell you this:  There was no para-anything about how 
Enrique Boadu died."

"No, I don't think there was, either.  It's not the
murder--or the murderer--that I'm thinking about."  Monica
got into the car and shut the door, leaving Doggett
standing there.  He sighed, and got behind the wheel. 


             *             *             *


Jacob Owdeye had always loved gardening, even back long ago 
when he'd lived on a farm outside of Lagos.  Tending 
flowers was balm to the soul--at least that's what his 
mother had always told him.  And she had been, if nothing 
else, a wise woman.

He used the sharp end of his hoe to break up some hard 
earth around the roots of his favorite rhododendron bushes.  
Then he shoveled earth, compost, bone meal, and cow manure 
from his wheelbarrow into the loosened area and worked it 
into the soil around the base of the plants, blessing it as 
he went, soil, plant, manure and all.

Working with your hands in the soil was a good thing, Old 
Owdeye thought.  It was life.  It was growth.  It was magic 
in its quiet way.   It always brought him back to what was 
real:  sun, earth, water, air--those four forces that were 
a constant no matter how mankind mucked things up. 

He sat back on his heels, wiping the sweat from his 
forehead with the back of his forearm.  Owdeye, you're 
getting older and skinnier all the time, he thought.  It is 
hard to believe you've been nearly eight decades on this 
earth.  Life is surely sweet and fleeting, but his had been 
good. 

He settled his sun hat more firmly on his head and looked 
up, over at the little house next door, where Deborah 
lived.  It had been terribly quiet there these past few 
days.  He had stayed alert, extending his own senses that 
way more than a few times a day since Rique was murdered.  
He knew that Deborah was a strong woman of many talents, 
but it had been hard on her.  She had been frightened and 
angered by the brutal murder and its implications.

Owdeye's eyes narrowed.  Speaking of Deborah's talents, he 
thought, the birds were everywhere right now.  It was odd.  
Because of the drought, there hadn't been as much food 
available for the birds as there usually was.  They should 
have been migrating elsewhere, but instead there were more 
than usual these last days.  He watched as several dozen 
birds banked and turned and weaved about in the air and 
slowly came to a landing in the tree in the Boadus' back 
yard.  He stood up and walked over to the property line and 
looked up into the tree.

He didn't see the large, glossy crow fly directly into an 
open window of the house.

~~~~

Nude and shaken, Deborah Boadu stood up and grasped the 
footboard of her bed, afraid she might fall.  She picked 
her way around the black feathers strewn about the linoleum 
floor and collapsed onto the bed.  She curled onto her side 
and rested, breathing slowly and deeply.

After a while, she was less dizzy.  She sat up slowly and 
pressed her fingers gently to her eyes.  Changing most 
always gave her a headache.  It usually went away quickly, 
but it was inconvenient.  She slid off the bed and slipped 
on the shift and the panties that she'd left at the foot of 
the bed and walked into the bathroom.  She ran some warm 
water in the sink and splashed it gently on her face.  She 
sighed, looking at herself in the mirror.  What are you 
doing, Deborah, spying on people?  Are you trying to 
protect them, or yourself?  But she knew that only time 
could give her that answer.  

The sudden knock on the back screen door startled her, and 
she quickly dried her face and hands and walked out of the 
bathroom.  She unconsciously patted her braids as she went 
to the door, her head throbbing.  It was Old Owdeye.

"Come in," she said.   She was glad to see him.  They 
needed to talk.  

The old man came inside and stood in the doorway, silent, 
his deep-brown eyes sparkling in his immobile face.  

"Come, sit," she said, pulling out a kitchen chair for him.

The little man sat, and folded his hands in his lap.  
"Deborah, I wanted to come by and see how you were doing 
after today's ceremony."

They'd sanctified and buried Rique that afternoon.  The sky 
was darkening now with approaching dusk, and Deborah was 
still a bit numb.  This little man was her iworo, her 
priest, the man who had trained and consecrated Enrique, 
and she loved and respected him more than almost anyone 
she'd ever known.  But he was wrong about this matter, and 
she was going to have to tell him so.

"Old Owdeye, I'm fine," she said. "Thanks for checking on 
me.  But we do need to talk, about--everything."

"Yes," the old man agreed.  "If this man is doing what you 
think he is doing, he will kill again.  I will take care of 
it, Deborah."

"My deepest respect, babalawo, but how will you take care 
of this crazy man without making things worse?" she asked.  
"It's time to talk to the police, tell them the truth."

The old man shifted uncomfortably in the hard chair.   On 
some level, she spoke sense, but he had a deep-seated 
distrust of the white policemen, who had never been friends 
of the black man, and especially the black Lucumi.  It was 
simply the way it was and the way it had always been, 
though no one ever seemed to want to admit it.

"Deborah, you must let me do what I need to do," he said.

"Babalawo, I saw what this man did in the church.  I should 
have known then that he would do something horrible.  I 
should have exposed him to the police when I saw what he'd 
done at the church. Maybe Rique would still be alive."  
Owdeye could see that she was close to tears.  "I followed 
your wishes and did nothing.  But now I am afraid.  I'm 
afraid he'll come after Stephen."  She put her hand on his.  
"Please let me go to the police, or to the FBI agents who 
were here this morning.  They were at Dr. Dannah's house 
today.  I. . .I believe others may be in danger too." 

Old Owdeye's dark, dark eyes seemed to grow larger.  "Why 
do you say that?"

She leaned closer to him.  "I'm afraid this man's hatred 
will find more targets.  I'm afraid you won't be able to 
protect everyone," she said quietly.  She bent down and put 
her face close to his, and he focused his sharp eyes on 
her.  "Babalawo, you know how much I love you.  You have 
been everything to my family.  I will let you do what you 
must, but I am afraid he might hurt Dr. Dannah's family, 
his daughters.  I will not let them be hurt," Deborah said 
emphatically.  "I owe their father a life."  She 
straightened up.  "And I can't let him hurt my loved ones."

Old Owdeye stood up and looked down at her.  "Let it be, 
Deborah," he said in a voice that was hard to contradict.   
He put his hand on her head gently.  "I will make sure he is
not able to hurt anyone else," he added softly.


CHAPTER 5

Could she possibly be more restless?

Mo had the keys to her father's old car in the pocket of 
her blue denim shorts.  When she'd asked her mother if she 
could borrow the car to go to Alachua to visit Doggett and 
Reyes later that evening, her mother hadn't asked why.  Her 
sister hadn't asked, either, but she'd gotten that look on 
her face that Mo had learned to dread:  the I-Know-What-
You're-Up-To look.  It wasn't a lot of fun to realize that 
she disliked that look now just as much as she had when 
they were growing up together.

Now it was just a matter of waiting until it was a little 
later, until everyone was ready for bed, so she wouldn't be 
skipping out on her family.  She sighed.  It wasn't a lot 
of fun to realize that she still didn't deal with guilt 
very well, either.

Mo looked at her face in the mirror over her mother's sink 
vanity. Her skin was pink from the sun and felt hot and 
tight, as if the flesh were pulled tauter than usual over 
the bones.  She ran her fingers back through her black 
hair, trying to coax it into some semblance of order. She 
dug around in her shoulder bag for a lipstick and finally 
found it, opened it and slid it across her mouth, slowly, 
watching it as it dragged its soft, creamy color across her 
lower lip. She ran her finger across her mouth sensuously, 
and a sudden shiver ran through her body.

If she'd been a cat, the toms would have been yowling under 
the window by now. How could a touch, a kiss, produce such 
intense yearning in her? Apparently she hadn't realized 
just how lonely she was, how much she missed being touched-
-yes, touched *that* way.

She put the lipstick away and ran the cold water in the 
sink.  She washed her hands and splashed her face lightly 
with the cool water, then dried her hands and face with her 
mother's soft-pink hand towel.  She replaced the towel on 
the ring and left the bathroom.

She walked through the living room and pushed the screen 
door open quietly and went out onto the porch. Maybe 
walking for a while would take care of some of the 
restlessness. She could walk uptown and back in 20 minutes. 
It'd do her good.

"Mo, hey," the deep Carolina voice came from the still form 
sitting in the semidarkness at the top of the steps.

"Max," she said softly, trying to keep the disappointment 
out of her voice. She really hadn't wanted to run into him 
this evening, though it was hard to avoid someone when they 
were sleeping in the next room of a small house.

"Sit down," Max said, patting the step next to him. "I 
haven't had two minutes with you since I got here."

She smiled to herself. And there was a good reason for 
that, she thought, and then pushed the thought away. Max 
had flown all the way from Japan to attend her father's 
funeral. She might not be married to him anymore, but he 
truly had loved her father and was crazy about her mother, 
and for that, she loved him. She sat down next to him and 
looked up at him. The sprinkle of silver in his hair was 
nice. As he got older, he was actually getting better 
looking--if that was even possible.  He was such a 
beautiful man. . .

**Stop it, Mo!**

"Max, I'm glad you came. It's made Mama really happy."

"It wouldn't have been right to miss it, Mo," he replied. 
He looked down at her soberly. "How're you handlin' all 
this?"

"Okay so far.  The funeral and the wake will be the test, I 
think."

"And how've you been these last months?  Are you feeling 
better?"

Of course, he had to ask. It had been quite a while since 
she'd spoken to him, but she remembered the concern in his 
voice when he'd called her back in the winter, some weeks 
after she'd left the hospital. "I'm doing okay now. I 
really am. But thanks for asking."

"Your-- The way you walk. . .it hardly shows."

He'd been about to say "limp." He seemed to realize how it 
sounded almost as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

Mo laughed gently. "Thanks. You should have seen me six or 
eight months ago."

"Mo, I didn't--" He sighed. "Jesus, I'm sorry. I always 
manage to fuck up when I'm just tryin' to talk to you, 
don't I?"

Mo looked at his face. He was genuinely embarrassed. "It's 
okay, Max. It really is." She touched his arm. "It was 
awful for a while. But I'm better now."

"That guy, that FBI agent--he really saved your life?" Max 
asked softly.

"Yeah, he and his partner and a lot of cops. So I'm told."

Max shook his head. "Then I owe him, big time." He slowly 
leaned closer to her, looking into her face. Fascinated by 
what was happening, Mo sat very still as his face came 
closer to hers.

Her lips were already parted by the time his mouth touched 
hers. The kiss was gentle, sweet. Sensing that what he was 
doing wasn't unwelcome, he took her face between his hands 
and kissed her in earnest.

Mo closed her eyes and just let herself feel it. His kiss 
was knowing and insistent, and as he explored her mouth his 
hands moved sensuously on her neck, in her hair. Max had 
always been able to generate tremendous heat in his languid 
way--and he still could.  Almost in spite of herself, she 
put her arms around his neck, and he pulled her close, 
trailing kisses down her neck and softly, lightly across 
her collar bones.  She was so tense, so incredibly aroused. 
Her body felt weightless and electrified. She heard a quiet 
moaning from somewhere and realized it was her own voice.

She felt his hand under her shirt, on her breast, a sure 
but delicate caress. At the sudden intense shock of 
pleasure, she gasped like a swimmer coming up for air and 
pulled away from him as if she'd been stung. "Max, I
can't. . ."

He was breathing hard. "Jesus, Mo!"

"I can't do this with you again," she whispered to him.

"Honey, why not?  It sure seemed like you--"

"Yeah." She took a deep breath and let it out, shaky. "You 
always did know how to make me feel good, darlin.' "

"Then let me." Max took her hand and rubbed it with his 
thumb. "Let me make you feel good." He moved his hand up 
her arm, soothing her skin. It did feel good. He could be 
so irresistible. Just ask all the women, over all the 
years. . .

She shook her head. "No. I can't. It'd just drive me crazy 
in the end." She forced him to meet her eyes. "You know as 
well as I do that you don't really want to be with me--I 
mean, *be* with me, not just make love to me here, tonight. 
You left me years ago, Max. And even when you were with me, 
you weren't really with me."

He knew perfectly well what she meant, and he couldn't 
answer it.

"So you see," she said, "I just can't do this."

He took her hand and held it in his lap. "Mo, I'm sorry."

"Max, it's okay," she said. "We were together for a long 
time. We've been apart for a long time."

"Mo, I still love you," Max said softly, "in my own way, I 
guess." He touched her cheek, smoothed her hair behind her 
ear.

"I know. But it's better this way," she said. "I'm not 
miserable all the time, wondering why I wasn't enough for 
you."

"God, Mo." He pulled her back into his arms and held her 
tightly. He smoothed her hair with heartbreaking 
gentleness. "I'm sorry I hurt you. I know I've said that 
before, but I want you to believe that it's true."

"I do," she said simply. She pulled away from him and 
looked at his face. "I do believe you. It's just better 
this way," she said again. "That's all." She stood up and 
extended her hand to him. "I need a walk. Do you wanna come 
with?"

He rubbed his cheek, studying her. Then he stood up and 
took her hand. They slowly walked down the steps, down the 
sandy lane toward the little town, quiet together.


                                                             
             *             *             *


Mo steered the old Escort down the rutted path to the back 
lane.  It was well past 11, and the sky was dark and 
overcast, with no moon.  It was still, only the thrumming 
of the crickets breaking the silence.   She turned onto the 
back lane and drove slowly down its rutted length to the 
macadam road that led to Highway 27.  She didn't notice the 
car that pulled out of the lane to follow her, its 
headlights off, leaving just enough distance between the 
two vehicles. 


~~~~


Mo pulled into the parking lot of the Alachua Ramada Inn, 
peering at the numbers on the doors.   Catching sight of 
the door she was looking for, she pulled into a space a few 
slots down and killed the engine.

She wiped the sweat off her forehead and neck.  It was 
sweltering, and leave it to her sweet, mechanically 
challenged daddy to never get around to fixing the Escort's 
broken air conditioning.  She opened the door and slid out 
of the car.

The air was redolent of diesel fuel and greasy fast food, 
and the semis on I-75 kept up their unrelenting hum and 
whine.  There wasn't even a promise of a breeze.  Mo caught 
sight of her reflection in the car window, and smiled at 
what used to be perfectly normal hair.  She took a deep 
breath and walked over to the motel room door bearing the 
brass numeral "18."

It was a new motel, and the metal door was still proudly 
pristine.  She knew that would change before too many more 
months went by. She raised her hand to knock, hesitating 
for a moment, wondering why she always hesitated when it 
came to this man.  She shook her head and knocked.  

She paused, then knocked again, and Doggett opened the 
door.  He smiled at her and stood aside so that she could 
come in.  


~~~


Hugh Goodall raised the binoculars to his eyes and watched 
her at the motel room door, watched the FBI man open the 
door for her and let her inside.  Goodall smiled and 
settled in to wait.


~~~


Inside the room, Mo looked around, noticing the clothes 
hanging in the little closet area, the service weapon in 
its holster on the desk, the shoes neatly aligned under it. 
The TV was on, Jay Leno's monologue a soft murmur in the 
background. The queen-sized bed was rumpled, sections of 
newspaper strewn across it. He'd been waiting for her.

He shut the door behind her and turned to her, dressed in a 
pair of soft old jeans and a dark blue T-shirt, his feet 
bare. He studied her--her translucent skin, her crystal-
green eyes, her glossy black hair that had frizzed around 
her face in the Florida humidity.  He studied her as if he 
were trying to commit her to memory--as if he hadn't 
already memorized her face, her soft curves.  

As a cop, he'd been trained to observe and analyze, but 
he'd never had much luck figuring out this woman. He 
wondered if it was because she'd learned at an early age to 
shield herself from other people's thoughts and feelings.  
It sometimes seemed to work pretty effectively in the 
reverse too, making her harder than hell to read. 

Tonight her expression and her very posture awoke every 
instinct he'd ever developed.  She was on edge, more 
emotional than he'd ever seen her--naturally enough; she'd 
just lost her father. Her face was flushed, her eyes were 
bright, and her breathing was quick and shallow, the way it 
got when she was aroused.  He wanted to think that it was 
all because of him, but it seemed as if there was something 
else going on too, and he wasn't sure what it was.  Monica 
would probably tell him to use his inner sight or 
something. . .whatever the hell that even meant.

But Mo was right there, in front of him, whether it made 
sense or not, whether he could figure her out or not, and 
he wanted to touch her.  For Chrissake, Doggett--be honest. 
You want to do a whole lot more than touch her.  You want 
to take her to bed.  You've been wanting nothing else since 
you saw her weeding that damn flower bed at her mother's 
house. 

Instead, he waited to see what she would do.

"Hi," she said softly. "I can't believe we're really here 
together."

"I was just thinking the same thing," he said. A smile 
played at the corner of his mouth. "You sure it's okay for 
you to be here?" he asked. 

"It's okay. My mother's asleep." She moved close to him. 
"Not that she hasn't figured out that something's up." She 
lifted her hands and ran her fingers across his smooth 
cheeks, the chiseled planes of his face.  He'd shaved for 
her, and she was inexplicably touched.  "Oh, sweet 
darlin'," she said, smiling into his eyes, "it's so good to 
see you."

"You too," he said quietly, putting his arms around her.

She draped her arms over his shoulders, and he pulled her 
tight against his body. "Where's Agent Reyes?" she asked 
softly.

"She was just here a while ago, but she went to bed--she's 
in the next room," he said, his eyes on her soft mouth, her 
white neck where a pulse beat in time with her heart.

"Then it's a good thing I'm quiet," she said wryly.

"We can always work on that," he said, smiling then.

She pressed herself against him, his hard muscles, his 
sturdy reliability.  She breathed him in.  He smelled 
clean, like soap, like freshly laundered clothing.  She 
rubbed her cheek against his, slowly, wanting to melt into 
him, to become a part of him.

A shudder ran through him.  He was a little afraid he might 
make a fool of himself, do something Neanderthal--grab her 
and throw her on the bed, with no preliminaries.

"Oh, I love it when I make you shiver," she whispered, her 
lips against his ear.  The tip of her tongue flicked out to 
lick his earlobe.  That was too much for him, and he put a 
hand to the back of her head and kissed her mouth with a 
fierce longing that surprised them both.

If he hadn't been holding her so tightly, Mo would have 
fallen.  His kiss was so direct, so straightforward, so 
totally different from Max's smoldering insinuation.  It 
was the kind of kiss that would have given her over to him 
on the spot, if she hadn't already been given that way.  

His hands moved, awkward, down the front of her thin cotton 
shirt, unbuttoning it, then opening it so he could look at 
her.  She was trembling, and he looked up again, into her 
eyes.  He could hear his own ragged breathing.  He put his 
hands on her bare breasts, his fingers spanning their soft 
roundness, and felt the nipples tighten at his touch.  He 
found her lips again, gently now.  She put her hands on the 
back of his neck, teasing the soft short hair there, and he 
moved his open mouth across her cheek to her ear.  His lips 
and breath and hands were so hot on her skin, and she was 
almost faint from wanting him.

He pulled her over to the disheveled bed, and they fell 
onto it together, kissing, pushing newspapers out of the 
way, fumbling at each other's clothes.


And then she was naked and soft and warm beneath him, and 
he was kissing her and being kissed, touching her and being 
touched. It was almost sensory overload--skin against skin, 
mouth against mouth.  It had been a long time for both of 
them, and they were hungry for each other.

He slowly moved his lips down her neck and her chest to her 
breast.  His tongue lingered just at the edge of the soft 
pink areola, teasing her, and she moaned and pulled his 
hair just hard enough to get his attention.

"Don't play with me, you horrible man," she breathed, and 
he laughed softly, slowly moving his tongue ever closer to 
her nipple. When he finally covered it with his mouth, she 
gasped and raked her nails slowly up the soft skin of his 
back.

She pulled him between her thighs and wrapped her arms 
tight around him.  "You can take your time later," she 
whispered into his hair and lifted his face to hers to kiss 
him.

~~~~

He held her close underneath his heart, watching her in 
wonder as she trembled and sighed and shattered in his arms 
and came back whole and beautiful and his.  As he soothed 
away her quiet tears, it dawned on him in a kind of 
epiphany that she was his if he wanted her, and the 
realization filled him with something like awe.  He lay his 
head against her breasts and sighed, content, wondering how 
he could be alone for so long and not know how alone he 
was.


They lay together under the crisp motel sheets, touching 
each other gently, not speaking.  As they became 
reacquainted with each other's bodies, they communicated 
less by words than by touch, by caress, the meeting of skin 
and skin.  She slowly moved her hand down his strong arm to 
his hand, and laced her fingers in his. He held her hand 
for a moment and then circled her wrist with his fingers, 
struck, as always, by its smallness in his hand.  He traced 
the sweet curve of rib, waist, and hip with his fingertips.  
Everything about her was a paradox of delicate and strong
. . .like silk, he thought.

At length he pulled her close, cradling her against his 
chest, and they lay that way for a time.   She was roused 
from half-sleep by the deep rumble of his voice in her ear.  
"Are you gonna be all right, Mo?" he asked her quietly. "Is 
there anything I can do?"

She reached up and touched his cheek. "Just let me rest 
here with you for a while. There's really not much else 
either of us can do." She was quiet for a moment. "I wish 
you could've met my father."

"I do too," Doggett said. "What was he like?"

"He was such a wonderful guy, John," she said. "He was 
tall, and he was dark-haired like me. He was funny and 
smart."  She smiled, remembering.  "He could make you laugh 
*and* make you think."   She put her hand to her mouth for 
a moment, telling herself not to cry.  Doggett took her 
hand and kissed the palm soothingly. "I can't believe he's 
gone," she added.

He smoothed her hair gently, and she sighed. His arms were 
heavy and warm around her, and she realized that, despite 
everything, she was happy to be there with him.

"You know, I had a hard time thinking about anything other 
than this all evening," she said at last, almost shyly.

"Yeah, I get that," he said. "I'd been thinking about it 
since I caught sight of you this afternoon."

She laughed softly.

"We didn't waste any time, did we?" He smiled into the 
darkness.

"We never *have* the time to waste," she murmured into his
shoulder.

"That's true enough," he said, feeling a stab of 
conscience. He ran his fingers down her jaw line, across 
her cheek. "We could go out, do something, get something to 
eat."

She smiled at that. "You don't know much about the night 
life in Alachua, do you?"

He smiled too.  "We'd probably end up drinkin' shots in some 
roadhouse."

"Oh, and *that's* one of my favorite things!" She laughed. 
"I didn't really come here dressed to go out, anyway, but 
it was a nice thought."

"Actually, I'd say you came dressed to be undressed," 
Doggett said with an ironic smile.

She sat up and looked at him.  "And how do you know that?"

"I just know you like pretty underwear, and I didn't see 
you wearin' any--pretty or otherwise," he said wryly.  He 
pulled her back down onto the bed.

She looked at him for a second, speechless, and then she 
laughed.   "You have me all figured out, don't you?"

He was quiet for a moment, studying her face.  What was it 
about her that touched him so?  She could hardly be more 
different from him.  "I only wish I did," he said softly.  
He leaned over her and wove his fingers through her hair. 

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he covered her 
face with kiss after slow kiss, finally lingering at her
mouth.  He left a soft trail of kisses from her lips to
her cheek to that spot he knew, the one between her jaw
and her ear.  Feeling the tension coiling again in her
belly, she held him tight, arching her pelvis up against
him.  He drew his breath in with a hiss and slipped his
hand between their bodies, brushing the edge of his thumb
gently across her sensitive nipple.  He parted her legs
with his thigh and slid his hand lower, to the tight black
curls between her legs, and stroked her slowly.

"Ah, God," she whispered.  She raised her face to him, her 
hands moving across the small of his back, down his smooth 
backside, around his lean hips.  She lingered at the 
sensitive skin of his inner thighs, softly tracing her 
fingers across the warm flesh there.  She took him in her 
hand and returned the stroking, and he closed his eyes and 
sighed with pleasure, his body responding to her touch.  

He kissed her again, running his tongue along her lower 
lip, softly, slowly. She put her head back and moaned 
quietly as he continued stroking her, his mouth moving down 
her neck.  

"Should I take my time?" he whispered, smiling at the chant 
he'd invoked.  He trailed kisses down between her breasts, 
down past her belly to where all her heat was coalescing, 
his tongue drawing a line of fire on her skin.

"Mmmm. . ." It was all she had voice for. He was pretty 
sure it meant yes.


~~~~


"Can you spend the night?" he murmured into her ear.  He 
kissed her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin and hair.

"Oh,  I'd love that," she said. "I'd love to wake up with 
you in the morning.  But I don't think I--   I really 
shouldn't."  She looked up at him.  "You're working--you 
need to sleep.  There's Agent Reyes to think about. . .and 
I should be there with my mom."  She got very still.

"I'm sorry about your dad, Mo," he said quietly.  "It's 
tough. I remember--when my dad died."

She propped herself up on an elbow and looked at him, her 
face soft.  He put his hand on her neck, rubbing her cheek 
with his thumb.  She wondered as she always did about this 
difficult, complicated man, who she knew could be so hard 
with other people.  He was always careful with her, almost 
always gentle, even in his most passionate moments.  She 
bent her head down to kiss him, once, then again, with a 
tender yearning.  He put his hand on the back of her neck 
and held the second kiss a little longer.   Then she rested 
her head on his chest with a sigh, and he smoothed his hand 
down her curly hair, twisting a lock of it around a finger. 

"It's so good to be with you," she said. "How odd to run 
into each other this way."

"Yeah," he said softly.   "Weird coincidence.  A nice one."  
He ran his hand down her ribs to her hip.  "You're 
thinner," he added.  His big hand spanned her back at the 
waist. 

She nodded her head against his chest. 

"You need to eat," he said.  "You need to take care of 
yourself."  He realized that he sounded an awful lot like 
an uncle--or a husband--and he felt his face grow warm.   
"This sort of thing--the stress has a way of creepin' up on 
you," he explained.

"I know."  She yawned.  

"Look," he said, "you should sleep here for a while. You're 
tired--and you've got a lot to handle right now.  I can set 
an alarm for a couple hours."

"All right," she whispered.  "Thanks, darlin'."  She 
touched his cheek and then rolled over onto her side with a 
tired sigh, reaching for him.

He hadn't seen her in almost four months, but it was as if 
no time had elapsed since their last morning together, at 
his house, when he'd made love to her in his own bed.  He 
set the alarm on his watch to go off in two hours and slid 
back up against her warm back.  He wrapped an arm over her, 
resting his hand on her drawn-up thigh, and felt her arm 
curve around to rest over his.  He closed his eyes, feeling 
oddly at home in this strange motel room, in this strange 
town.

~~~~

It seemed just minutes later that the incessant beeping of 
the watch on the nightstand woke him again.   He reached 
over and fumbled around in the darkness, finally finding it 
and silencing the alarm.  

Mo rolled over and touched his arm.  "What time is it?" she 
asked softly through a yawn.

"It's a little past 3."  He put the watch back on the 
nightstand, yawning himself.

She sighed and slowly sat up and stretched.  She pulled her 
legs up in front of her and wrapped her arms around her 
knees.  "I need to shower. I smell like--" She hesitated, 
suddenly embarrassed.

"You smell good."  She heard the smile in his voice. He sat 
up behind her and buried his face in her hair. 

She leaned back against him and closed her eyes.  Depending 
on your point of view, he was right.  She smelled like skin 
lotion and sweat and sex.  God, she was a wanton, and she 
didn't care.

He couldn't stop touching her, pressing his lips to her 
neck, tracing patterns over her collar bones and down 
across her breasts with his fingertips.  She sighed.

"I've missed you so," she whispered.

"You have," he said.  It wasn't quite a question, wasn't 
quite a statement.

"Every day." She turned to look at him.  "Does that bother 
you?"

He studied her face for a moment.  "No," he said softly. 
"It doesn't bother me. I missed you too."

"I thought of you so often." She was silent for a moment. 
"Even though I didn't call you much."

He looked at her soberly.  "We don't stay in touch too 
well, do we?"

"No," she said quietly.  "I wonder why, John.  It's 
interesting that we turned up together here," she said 
thoughtfully.  "I'm not sure I believe in coincidences.  I 
guess I tend to believe that people always pretty much end 
up where they're supposed to be."

"You sound like Monica," he muttered, pulling her against 
his chest and wrapping his arms around her.  

"In that case, maybe you should listen to her," she said to 
him with a smile. 

"Maybe so," he said.   She kissed his cheek and slipped out 
of his arms and went into the bathroom to shower.



She came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.   Lying on 
the bed in his boxers, he watched her as she rubbed her 
hair to just-dampness and dried off her body, ran her fingers
back through her hair.

There was a simple, aching beauty to her comfortable 
nudity.   Looking at her, he was a little surprised to 
realize that she'd become familiar to him.  He knew her:  
the softness of her skin, the warmth of her kiss, the 
kindness of her heart, her odd way of looking at the world.
He caught himself wondering what it would be like to wake up
next to her every morning, to be the one who kept her safe, who
made her smile.  He looked away, shaking the thought off as if
it were something forbidden.

She slid her shorts and shirt on and sat down on the bed 
next to him, buttoning the shirt.  He pulled her close against
his chest and kissed her, and she held him tight.  

At length she sat up again.  "I need to go," she said 
quietly.  "And you need to go back to sleep."  She smiled 
at him.  "Maybe I'll see you again before you have to go 
back?"

He nodded.  "Let's see how everything works out.  I'd like 
to take you out, maybe have dinner."

"That'd be nice. If we can sneak away without Agent Reyes 
knowing," she said, teasing him, and was grateful to see 
him smile.  She leaned over and kissed him gently, then 
stood up. 

"Be careful going back," he said, getting up from the bed.  
He walked her to the door.

"I will," she said.  "Sleep well, darlin'."  She looked at 
him one more time, and then went out the door, closing it 
behind her silently.  


                *          *           *


Mo parked the Escort in the back field and walked through 
the dry grass toward the back of the house.  The only light 
was from the streetlamp off across the field, in front of 
the old Methodist Church.  She glanced that way and 
shivered a little at the thought of what had been done 
there so recently. She had almost asked John about the case 
he was working on, though she suspected he wouldn't have 
told her much anyway.   But she really wasn't sure she 
wanted to know much about it, if what had been in the 
newspaper about the murder was any indication.  She knew 
that what the newspapers reported was usually only a small 
percentage of the true horror of a crime. 

Not for the first time, she wondered how John could do his 
job, how he could hold up under the endless horrors, how 
he'd been able to make it through the very personal horror 
of his own son's violent death at the hand of a criminal. 
She wondered how his heart had survived even in its wounded 
state, and what a younger John Doggett must have been like, 
before his work and his own tragedy had made him the man he 
was now, whose heart was weathered beyond his years. She 
could picture him as a happy man, with a wife and son he'd 
loved, and the vision, all that had been lost, broke her 
heart, made her taste salt tears.

As Mo approached the wooden steps to the back porch, a 
small sound made her stop walking and listen.  A quiet tik-
tik, like fingernails against metal.  She looked up and saw 
a large black bird walking back and forth on the gutter of 
the porch roof.  It stopped, cocked its head, and looked at 
her out of its inky eye. She realized that she'd stopped 
breathing. The bird cocked its head the other way and 
continued to stare at her.  She moved one pace closer to 
the steps and nodded to the bird, showing respect. It 
skittered away from her down the gutter and flew off.

Mo started breathing again and realized that her heart was 
beating fast.  She climbed the porch steps slowly, 
painstakingly, trying her hardest to be quiet.  It was a 
quarter to four in the morning, and no one sleeping in the 
house needed to be awakened just because *she* was stupid 
enough to have stayed out all night.  She knew that her 
mother would have locked up, and she gingerly felt above 
the back door for the skeleton key.   She found the key and 
quickly got the door open.  Something about the still night 
air and the odd encounter with the crow was giving her a 
uneasy feeling, and she just wanted to get inside.  

She walked into the old kitchen silently, and stopped in 
the middle of the room.  It still smelled the same after so 
many years, like cooking and mineral-rich water and old wood
and linoleum.  She sighed, relaxing a little. 

"Morgan, honey, is that you?" The voice came from the back 
bedroom.

Mo shut her eyes.   Busted.  "Yeah, mama, it's me."

"Are you just now gettin' home, darlin'? It's almost 4 in 
the mornin'."

"I slept for a while, mama.  I was so tired."  She walked 
into her mother's bedroom. The familiar furniture and 
curtains, the old smells of fabric and sachet, the 
paintings and knickknacks were all the more poignant in the 
painful absence of her tall, funny father, and she felt the 
tears start to come.  The last thing she wanted to do right 
now was cry.  Her mother didn't need to take care of her at 
a time like this.

But her emotions were raw, on the surface, and every nerve 
in her body was excited.  If she closed her eyes, she could 
still feel his hands on her thighs, his breath on her 
cheek, his lips on her throat, and warmth suffused her body 
until her skin felt like fire.  

Maybe Ruth could feel it.  But she recognized that her 
daughter needed something.  "Morgan," she said, patting the 
bed, "come on over here."

She walked over to her mother and father's old bed and sat 
down on the edge.  Her mother took her hands and held them. 

"What's the matter, honey?"

"It's nothing," she said.  She shook her head. "It's 
everything."  

"I know, sweetie.  I know what you mean," her mother said, 
squeezing Mo's hands gently.

"Mama, sometimes when I think about how you and daddy--you 
were married for so long, and you were happy.  I just 
wonder if I'll ever--"  She took a deep breath.  "I was 
married, and it didn't work out."

"And you're wonderin' if you'll ever be happy that way 
again?" Ruth reached up and stroked her daughter's hair 
gently, concern in her face.  

Mo swallowed the tears that kept threatening.  "Mmm."  She 
nodded, not sure she could speak.  

"Darlin', you will.  I know you will.  It'll happen for 
you."  Ruth pulled Mo into her arms and hugged her tightly.  
"Oh, honey, I  just can't believe I'm gonna wake up 
tomorrow and your daddy's not gonna be here with me."

Mo looked at her mother and watched as her face, and the 
rest of the room, blurred behind her tears.  And she put 
her head on her mother's shoulder and cried, for her 
mother's lonely heart, for her own desperate feeling of 
loss, for her own confused yearning.


                *          *          *


Mo stripped off the shirt and the denim shorts and left 
them in a pile on the floor.  She pulled her nightgown out 
of her suitcase and slid into it, exhausted in every bone.  
She crawled into the big brass bed with her sister, 
gratefully pulled the sheet up, and rolled over and closed 
her eyes.

She felt her sister's hand touch her rapidly drying hair. 
"You slept with him, didn't you?" Maeve asked.

"Maeve!" Mo turned around and peered at her younger sister 
through the darkness.

"And then you took a shower." Maeve was impressed with her 
own deductive abilities. "So how long have you been 
involved with this guy, anyway?"   She propped herself up 
on an elbow and looked over at Mo.

Mo laid her head back on her pillow and covered her face 
with her hands.  "Mother of God," she muttered, her Irish 
Catholic childhood coming through. 

"So?" Maeve prompted.  "It's obvious you have a history 
with him that's a lot more than professional," she said, 
sounding like the attorney she was.

"Maeve, don't cross-examine me, okay?"

"How long?" Maeve insisted.

"Since the day I met him," Mo finally admitted.

Maeve sat up and looked down at her sister, incredulous.  
"*You*?  The ultimate Good Girl? You're actually admitting 
that you slept with this guy the day you met him?"

"Maeve, don't--"

"I had a feeling there was something going on when I first 
heard him call you 'Mo.'  Damn!  He's the policeman you 
were telling me about yesterday!"  Maeve slapped Mo 
playfully on the behind.  "Ha!  I knew you weren't telling 
me everything when you were talking about him before." She 
grinned, inordinately pleased with herself.

"You're amazing, Mevvie.  You've got me all figured out."  
She laughed gently.  "Everyone thinks they have me figured 
out." She sighed.  "I don't even have myself figured out."

"My God, Mo," Maeve said suddenly, "do you know how happy 
Mama would be if she knew about this?  She has that man on 
a pedestal as it is."

"Don't you dare tell her!" Mo hissed.

"Oh, don't be dumb," Maeve said.  "I wouldn't tell her 
anything."  She was quiet for a moment.  "Do you love him?" 
Maeve asked then, her voice soft.  

Mo didn't know what to say to the sudden blunt question.  
"I--I'm not sure," she finally said.  "We live so far 
apart, I almost never see him.  We're so different." She 
heard herself repeating all the excuses she'd made to 
herself over the months, and she took a deep breath and let 
it out, slowly.  "I think maybe I started to love him a 
little when he came back out to Boulder, a couple months 
after I met him."

"He did that?" Maeve asked.  "Hmm."

"Yeah," Mo said.  "He could have just forgotten about me, 
gone on with his life."  She smiled into the dark, 
embarrassed.

"Well, he's not bad-looking.  It's not like he had to fly 
halfway across the country to get laid," Maeve put in 
thoughtfully.  

"Maeve," Mo said with a resigned sigh.  

"I'm kidding," Maeve replied.  "But you see my point.  Have 
you told him?"

Mo didn't say anything.

"You haven't told him anything?" Maeve touched Mo's 
shoulder.  "You are *such* a nimrod." She sounded 
exasperated.  "Does he love you?"

"I don't know."  She looked over at Maeve.  "He's never 
said anything."

"I saw the way he looks at you," Maeve said, "for what 
that's worth.  Mo, I know how reserved you can be.  But you 
should tell him how you feel.  If he doesn't feel the same 
way, at least you've told him, and you can get on with 
things.  Like the rest of your life."

"You're probably right," Mo said.

"Well, it's better than being afraid, and ending up pushing 
him away because he *doesn't* know how you feel," her 
sister replied.

Mo took Maeve's hand and squeezed it.  "You know me pretty 
well," she said softly.  

"You're such a nimrod," Maeve said again, but she smiled.  
"You need to get some sleep," she added.  "We have to get 
up early."

"I know," Mo said.  "G'night, sweetie."  She rolled over 
and buried her face in the soft pillow.   As when they were 
little girls together, she felt Maeve's small hand on her 
back, soothing her into sleep.


CHAPTER 6

Saturday Morning

Sipping her coffee, Monica watched Doggett eat his eggs, 
grits, and sausage. He was paying the same single-minded 
attention to the food that he did to most everything else.  
And if the muffled moans and murmurs she'd heard coming 
through their adjoining wall the night before were any 
indication, he'd been paying that single-minded attention 
to someone last night in a particularly enjoyable way.

She'd never before picked up so much as a hint that John 
had a woman in his life, and she knew how embarrassed he'd 
be if he found out she knew anything different now. So she 
feigned ignorance of the elephant in the room and continued 
eating her wheat toast with butter and honey, trying not to 
smile too much. 

She continued to watch him.  He wasn't the same man she'd 
met those years before, which shouldn't be any big 
surprise; after all, she wasn't the same woman he'd met.  
But the last year had changed him in subtle ways she didn't 
think even he quite recognized.  She was seeing glimpses of 
something different, of an unconscious willingness to trust 
other depths of instinct that he'd never been able to trust 
before.  That thing at Goodall's house, for example:  He 
might call that playing a hunch, but she would describe it 
as listening to insight, working with senses he'd never 
really used. 

Maybe his year on the X-Files had simply attuned him a bit 
more to the weird side of things.  She knew he'd hate even 
the thought of that, that it would disturb him.  But she'd 
always had a feeling that sooner or later it would 
manifest, and that he'd always somehow known it would.  She 
suspected it was part of the reason why he had maintained 
contact with her over the years since his son's case, 
contact that had developed into an odd sort of friendship.

She sighed quietly.  It was something else she didn't think 
she needed to discuss with him, at least not right now. 

Then, as she focused on his spiky brown hair, her eyes 
opened wide as a thought occurred to her. He chose just 
that moment to look up, and when he saw her expression he 
put his fork down and leaned across the table, his face 
concerned.

"Monica, what is it?" he asked her with a quiet urgency.

She met his eyes. "John, let's assume for a minute that 
Goodall *is* the one who desecrated the churches and killed 
Enrique Boadu.  What if he's not only out to get the people 
who lived through that epidemic that killed his wife--what 
if he's out to punish their families as well?" She watched 
his face tighten. "What if, in Goodall's mind, Dr. Dannah 
let his wife die? And then Dr. Dannah dies, so he doesn't 
get the revenge he wants. What--"

"Yeah, I get it," Doggett replied. "I thought of that too, 
yesterday.  I didn't want to say anything to Mrs. Dannah--
she has enough to be grievin' over." He grabbed his napkin 
and wiped his mouth, then pulled out his wallet and left 
some bills on the table, more than enough, Monica noted, to 
cover their breakfasts and a nice tip. He stood up and  
returned the wallet to his back pocket. Monica took one 
last sip of coffee and stood up and followed him out of the 
Perkin's. 

"John!" she called out. "Where are we going?"

"Alachua P.D.," he said over his shoulder. "We need to 
light a fire under their asses.  And if they find what I 
think they're gonna find, it'd be a good idea to call your 
Sheriff Ritch, too."

She caught up to him.  "What else?"

He stopped.  "I think we need to get over to Deborah 
Boadu's.  And to the Dannahs'." He glanced at his watch.  
"It's getting late.  They're probably at the funeral right 
now, or on their way."

Monica plucked at his coat sleeve, lightly, just enough to 
let him know she was there for whatever needed to be done.   
He met her eyes for a moment, and then they walked together 
to the car.

                                                  
             *            *            * 


It felt good to sleep late once in a while, Hugh Goodall 
realized, pouring himself a cup of coffee.  He added a 
tablespoon of cream.  It was fresh and unpasteurized, from 
a dairy just outside of town, and drinking it with your 
coffee was almost like having dessert.  He took the coffee 
and the morning paper out to the Florida room and sat down 
with a sigh, crossing his legs.

He glanced at the clock.  It was 10:15.  The wake for Jack 
Dannah would be starting in less than an hour, and he 
really should go pay his respects.  He smiled bitterly.  
Respects.  Respect.  He'd had nothing but respect for Dr. 
Dannah ever since he and Nora had moved here to this little 
town.  Not anymore.  

He opened the paper and read for a while, restlessly 
turning page after page to find something to engage his 
attention.  He couldn't concentrate.  His mind was too 
taken up with things, with people:  The Dannahs, the black 
heathens, that smug FBI man.  

He finally laid the paper down on the table and stood up.  
He walked over to the louvered windows and looked out.

What was *he* doing out there?

The small black man was kneeling in Goodall's side yard, 
underneath the largest cypress.  Goodall squinted through 
the window.  What was he doing?  The little man's hands 
were relaxed on his thighs, his eyes closed, his mouth 
moving.  Goodall cranked the window open and listened.  
Chanting.  The man was sitting in his yard chanting.  And 
what was that on the ground in front of him?

Goodall felt the blood rush to his face, and he told 
himself to relax.  He walked to the front door and went 
outside, making his way quietly to the side yard where Old 
Owdeye sat.  He walked up behind the old man, and stopped 
and looked down at him.  There were bowls on the ground in 
front of Owdeye, one full of sand and smoking incense, the 
other full of what looked to Goodall like milk.   There 
were several beaded necklaces on the ground next to the 
bowl of milk.  The old man continued his chant, eyes 
closed..  It was as if Goodall was simply not real to the 
little man.

Goodall stalked around to stand in front of Owdeye.  "What 
are you doing here, old man?" he breathed, fury reddening 
his face.  "Do you want to end up like your friend Boadu?  
Do you know how stupid you are to come here?"

Then Old Owdeye opened his eyes and looked up at Goodall.  
"The pattern has been set.  Do what you must.  Your fate is 
ordained, as is mine."

Goodall stared down at Owdeye.  The little man was 
maddeningly calm.  "What are you talking about, old man?"

"Mr. Goodall," Owdeye said softly, "you have fallen into 
darkness beyond all redemption.  I have come to stop you.  
And now all will unfold the way it will." 


              *           *            *


Doggett walked quietly into the Dannahs' living room, 
holding on to the screen door so it wouldn't slam behind 
him. He hated wakes, always had. He supposed they had their 
place, but that didn't mean he had to like them.

He'd left Monica at Deborah Boadu's house and had come here 
to talk to Mo. . .and, if he were to be totally honest, to 
go back to see Hugh Goodall.  He did a quick scan of the 
crowd. The old house was full of friends and family.  The 
scene reminded him of his childhood, of similar gatherings 
after church at the houses of relatives. Even the smells 
were familiar:  too-strong perfume, the heady scent of 
food, the pungent odor of too many bodies in one warm place 
together.  He saw the tall, dark-haired Max over in the 
corner of the dining room, talking to a heavyset gray-
haired man.  He saw the top of Ruth Dannah's head lost in a 
clutch of taller people.

Then he saw Mo. Dressed in a short, black sleeveless dress, 
sandals, and a white picture hat, she walked from the 
kitchen into the dining room carrying a casserole dish in 
one hand and a glass of water in the other.  She set the 
dish down on the table and handed the glass to an elderly 
woman who was sitting there. The woman reached up and 
patted Mo's cheek, and Mo leaned over and hugged her.

God, she was a pretty woman. Doggett felt an ache in his 
middle just looking at her, something not conducive to 
working. He shook his head, feeling a little foolish, and 
then noticed that Max's eyes were on him. He was smiling 
slightly. It was unsettling, as if the younger man knew 
exactly what Doggett had been thinking and feeling. Well, 
maybe he did. He'd been married to Mo, after all.  Doggett 
felt his face flush.  

He threaded his way through the crowd until he was standing 
in front of Ruth Dannah. She smiled at him, and her 
expression reminded him of Mo. It was something about her 
lively eyes, though hers were as dark as Mo's were light. 
Ruth reached out and took his hand. 

"Agent Doggett, it's good to see you again," she said in 
her gentle drawl, looking up at him.

"I just wanted to stop in and pay my respects, ma'am," he 
said, hearing the South come through in his own words, even 
the intonation of his voice.

"Thank you for that." She patted his hand. "I appreciate 
it." Her eyes studied him for a moment. "Morgan didn't tell 
me you were comin'," she said.

So Mo had been right:  Her mother did know something was 
up.  Figured.  "She didn't know.  I'm working," he told 
Ruth.

Ruth nodded. "Have you spoken to Morgan?" 

"Not yet." 

"Then you'd better go say hello," Ruth gave him a little 
push in the direction of the dining room.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, with a shadow of a smile, heading 
through the crowd toward the dining room.  Mo wasn't there. 

"She's in the kitchen." He heard the voice at his shoulder 
and turned. It was Mo's sister, her dark eyes laughing. He 
nodded his thanks and walked into the old kitchen.  It had 
been painted a cheerful yellow, the curtains on the window 
white and filmy.  A large gray tabby-cat blinked at him 
from the windowsill.  The kitchen was charming, but there 
was no disguising the fact that the room hadn't been 
remodeled yet.  

Mo was at the sink, her hands in soapy water, her back to 
him. "Max, could you hand me that casserole dish?" she 
asked over her shoulder. 

Doggett looked around and found the empty dish on the 
kitchen table.  He picked it up and carried it over to her. 
"This the one you mean?" he asked quietly.

She turned, startled at the sound of his voice. "Yes, 
that's the one. Thanks." She took the dish from him and put 
it in the dishwater, then dried her hands on the hand towel 
on the towel bar. She smiled at him. "So what are you doing 
here?"

"I have some business," Doggett said.  "And I thought I'd 
stop by and pay my respects to your mother."

"Really?" She touched his hand, and he took her hand and 
held it.

"Really." He reached out and tucked a stray curl under her 
hat. Her hair was longer now than he'd ever seen it, and it 
didn't have any less a mind of its own.  It curled with 
abandon around her nape, tendrils of it escaping to shadow 
her neck, her throat.

"You sweet man. Thank you, John. That means a lot." She 
smiled at him.

"Your mother's a lady," he said simply. He squeezed her 
hand. "I need to ask you to do something."

Seeing his expression, her smile slipped a little.  "Of 
course," she said.

"For a while, I want you to make sure no one in your family 
goes anywhere alone."  His face was as serious as she'd 
ever seen it. 

She felt a sudden tension in her stomach.  "You really 
think there's a need for that?"

"I don't mean to scare you, but there's a possibility that 
someone could try to harm your family." Doggett said 
softly.  "And maybe I'm overreacting a little, but I just 
want to keep you safe--you and your family."

"Safe from what?" Mo looked him in the eye with an 
expression he knew well. "What's going on, John?"

He hesitated.  Fuck, maybe he shouldn't have said anything.  
But he couldn't take any chances.

"John," she said, "you can't just walk in here and tell me 
my family might be in danger and then walk out.   And I 
know you didn't mean to scare me, but you've scared me 
anyway."

He should just go.  Instead, he took hold of her arms and 
held her.  Didn't he owe Mo some sort of explanation?  
Didn't he want her to be a part of that life he was trying 
to get back?  

Well, didn't he?

"I gotta go," he said.  "Please, just do as I asked."

She turned her face away from him, and he watched her.  He 
could almost see her thinking.  Then she impulsively 
reached up and took his face between her hands and kissed 
him. 

His grave face grew soft with a certain wonder.

"Please be careful," she said.

"I will," he said, holding onto her arms for another 
second.  Then he turned to go out the back screen door.

"John--" she said.

He turned back to her.

"Nothing. I'll talk to you later," she said.

He nodded and went out the door and down the steps.  She 
went to the screen door and watched him walk across the 
grass, the knot of worry tightening in her belly. 


             *           *            *


As Doggett walked through the back field to the lane where 
the Methodist Church was, the dry grass rustled under his 
feet, and grasshoppers buzzed and jumped to each side of 
him.

**Please be careful.**

She'd said the very words his wife had repeated to him like 
a mantra every morning for years, as he went out the door 
for work.  Be careful, John.  Take care of yourself.  
Please come home not dead.  Or not stabbed or shot or 
beaten or maimed in the countless other ways he knew she 
imagined but was afraid to give voice to.  

God, he'd loved her, through all the good times and, at the 
end, through the anguish.  What the hell had happened to 
that?  It had just all blown away, leaving them stranded, 
isolated, incomplete.

**Please be careful.**

It felt good to hear a woman say it to him again, no matter 
what the implication.  It gave him an unfamiliar feeling, 
something like hope.

He saw the sandy earth under his shoes.  He was at the lane 
already.  He wasn't even  paying attention to where he was 
going.  Jesus Christ, he had to get his head back into this 
case and out of this personal shit.  No matter how good it 
felt, it was one quick way to get hurt, or dead.

Goodall's little house was there, just south of the church, 
under the stand of moss-hung cypress.  He walked up the 
gravel path to the house.  The louvered windows were all 
closed tight, and he couldn't hear any sounds at all coming 
from inside.  He knocked once, then again, louder.  

"Mr. Goodall!  Hugh Goodall!" he called out, loudly.  
"FBI!"  He knocked again.  Waited.  Then he walked around 
the house to the back.  Nothing.  Something was making the 
hair stand up on the back of his neck.  He unfastened his 
holster and finished the circuit around the house.

Not a damn soul.

He squinted through the mossy tree branches, trying to get 
a good look at the church next door.  There was a good-
sized flock of crows darkening the tree--no, Doggett 
remembered, it wasn't "flock"; it was a "murder" of crows.  
He smiled grimly.  Good choice of words for a bunch of 
black birds.  They looked like death.

Christ almighty, it was hot, and it wasn't even noon.  The 
heat radiated up off the ground even there in the shade.  
He navigated past a big fire ant nest and made it to the 
cement walkway up to the modest church.  He unholstered the 
Sig and opened the church door.

As he stepped inside, the side of his head exploded in 
pain, and he fell, hard, unconscious before he hit the 
floor.

Hugh Goodall looked down at the man at his feet.  "I 
wouldn't have taken you for an impatient man, Mr. Doggett," 
he said.  "It's a dangerous character trait."


CHAPTER 7

Saturday Afternoon

Monica glanced at her watch.  It was already 1:15 p.m., and 
John had told her he'd be back by 12:30.  She was beginning 
to feel a dull worry-ache in her solar plexus.

"Agent Reyes," Deborah Boadu said, "may I get you 
anything?"  Deborah studied Monica, her face concerned.

"Mmm, maybe just a cold drink of something," Monica 
replied.  "No, don't get up," she said as Deborah Boadu 
started to stand.  "I can get my own water, or tea--if you 
tell me where it is," she added with a smile.  

"All, right," Deborah replied.  "The tea is in the 
refrigerator, in a jar.  It will be easy to see."

Monica got up and went into the kitchen.  As promised, she 
found the tea easily.  She pulled a cupboard door open, then
another, until she found the glasses.  She pulled a glass down
and poured the tea into it.  She stood for a moment, sipping
the sweet, cold tea, thinking.  She glanced at her watch again
and pulled out her cell phone and punched in Doggett's number.    

"The party you are requesting is unavailable," the 
disembodied voice said to Monica, and she bit her lip and 
put the phone back in her jacket pocket.   It wasn't like 
John to go off without backup or without letting someone 
else know what he was planning.   He was a good, methodical 
investigator who seldom let things fall through the cracks, 
and she knew he wouldn't turn his phone off when he was 
working a case unless he had a damn good reason.   Shit.

Shit. 

She took the glass of tea with her back into Deborah's 
living room.

Deborah stood up as Monica walked into the room.  
"Something is wrong," she said.  

Monica nodded, studying the other woman.  Deborah had a way 
about her--knew things for inexplicable reasons.  Monica--
and John, too--had suspected from the first that Deborah 
knew something she didn't want to share with them.  Maybe 
now that something would come out.  

"Is it your partner?"  Deborah asked softly, something like 
understanding in her expression.

"Partner"--now, that might take some getting used to.   
Monica tried a smile.  "It's just that I don't know exactly 
where he is, and I am starting to wonder a little, yeah."  
She sat down on the sofa, and Deborah came and sat next to 
her.

"If I may ask--could he be with the healer woman?" 
Deborah's voice was hesitant.  

"The healer woman?"  Monica's face must have looked blank. 

Deborah smiled, a little embarrassed.  "Dr. Dannah's 
daughter," she explained.  "He is her oko, yes?"

Blank again.  "Her oko?" Monica asked. 

"I'm sorry," Deborah said.  "He is her man--they have a 
history together?"

"Well, he did go over to the Dannahs' in connection with 
the case, but--"  Monica stopped and stared at her.  "How 
would you know that?"

"Please, forget I said anything," Deborah hastened to say.  
"It was just a thought.  It came from nowhere." 

No, I'm absolutely certain it didn't, Monica thought.  And 
it was pretty astute, judging by those moans and murmurs 
she'd overheard the night before.   Just then her cell 
trilled in her jacket pocket, and she fished it out. 
"Monica Reyes," she said.

"Agent Reyes?" a north Florida drawl crackled through the 
phone. "This is Floyd Westenra. Y'all called about some lab 
results this mornin'?"

"Yes," Monica said.  "Do you have anything for us?"

"Yes, ma'am.  I tried callin' Agent Doggett but couldn't 
get 'im.  Anyway, the results came back on the sample y'all 
brought in.  It's blood all right, Agent Reyes, but I dunno 
if it's what you were thinkin'."

"What do you mean?" Monica asked.  "What is it?"

"It's goat blood.  It's sure not fresh, been on those boots 
for at least three 'r four weeks.  The lab says it's 
impossible to pinpoint exactly."

"Goat blood," Monica repeated.  Well, it wasn't evidence 
that Goodall had killed Enrique Boadu, but it was good 
enough to bring him in for questioning.  It was certainly 
good enough for her--and now she was thoroughly worried. 
"Okay.  That helps me.  Thanks--Officer Westin, was it?"

"Westenra, ma'am.  And you're welcome, now."  The phone 
went quiet, and Monica slid it back into her pocket.

"Goat blood," Deborah echoed in a small voice.

Monica frowned.  "Yes.  Goat blood."  She moved closer to 
Deborah, and the other woman saw Monica's hazel eyes 
darken.  "Deborah, you need to tell me what you know.  I 
know you haven't been telling us everything.  You know who 
we're looking for, don't you?  The man who vandalized the 
churches."  Monica's eyes got wider.  "You know who killed 
your brother-in-law, don't you?"

Monica watched as Deborah's pupils dilated and her lips 
parted.  Damn, Monica thought, it's not too often you 
actually get to see that happen.  She'd seen Doggett with 
witnesses and suspects before, and he was a past master at 
reading body language, expressions.  He knew when to press 
and when to back off.  She really wished he were here right 
now.

"Agent Reyes," Deborah said, "I can't--"

"You can't what?" Monica asked, her voice brittle.  "You 
can't help me stop this man from killing someone else?  
Come on, Deborah, you know who he is!"  Her worry about 
Doggett was getting to her, and she told herself to back 
off a little.  You don't know where he is, she thought.  He 
could be anywhere.  He's probably fine.  He's probably with 
Morgan Dannah; it's obvious there's more there than meets 
the eye.

But she knew he wasn't.  She could feel it, just like she 
felt something when she first met Morgan Dannah.  And she 
knew John wouldn't be off with a woman when he was working 
a case.

"I am afraid he will come after my son," Deborah said 
softly. "I'm afraid he will hurt Dr. Dannah's family.  I 
think he saw your partner with Dr. Dannah's older daughter, 
and I'm afraid he'll go after your partner too."

"Then you need to help us," Monica said.

"I promised that I would not," Deborah said quietly.  She 
shut her eyes, and Monica saw the tears slide down her 
cheeks.  "But I know I have to.  And believe me, Agent 
Reyes, there are things involved that you won't be able to 
accept, things I'm afraid to tell anyone."

Monica smiled and touched Deborah's arm.  "You'd be surprised
what I can accept.  And I'm especially curious about how you
know some of these things."  Monica pulled out her cell phone
again.  "I think it's time to call Sheriff Ritch, too."



                   *         *         *


Mo Dannah bent over the bottom rack of the dishwasher, 
loading the plates and silverware.  She pulled the glasses
and cups off the kitchen counter and loaded them into the
top rack.  She put the soap into its little container and
closed the door and started the dishwasher.  Sighing, she
stood up, rubbing the small of her back.  It was only 2 in
the afternoon, but she was tired.  Too many people, too much
emotion, too little sleep. 

She walked from the kitchen into her mother's bathroom and 
stood in front of the vanity, looking at herself in the 
mirror.  Fortunately, she didn't look as tired as she felt.  
Nice how a little sunburn can make you glow, she thought.  
She smiled.  A night of loving didn't hurt in that 
department either.  She combed her fingers back through her 
hair and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead.  

"Mo!"  It was Maeve's voice, from the kitchen.  

"I'm in here, in mama and daddy's bathroom," Mo called out 
to her sister.  "Tryin' to assess the damage," she added 
dryly.  

Maeve walked in behind her and studied Mo's reflection in 
the mirror.  "Hey, nothin' a little lipstick and a good 
night's sleep can't cure," she teased.  "Do you know why 
your Agent Doggett's car is still parked outside in the 
lane?"

Mo blinked.  "It is?"  She frowned.  "He left here a long 
time ago."  She thought about what he'd said to her before 
he walked out the kitchen door, and the worry-knot in her 
belly that had been there for hours tightened even more.  

"Mo, what's wrong?" Maeve stepped to Mo's side and looked 
up into her face.

"Nothing, really," she said.  "John mentioned something to 
me before.  I think the case he's working on might be 
putting him in danger."

"What did he tell you?  You've been walking around here 
ever since he left, waiting on people and worrying?  Mo, 
what's going on?"  Maeve understood her sister's reticence
--it was how Mo dealt with the overload of feelings that 
sometimes burdened her--but it was irritating Maeve right 
now.

Mo couldn't get a deep breath.  "He asked me to make sure 
that none of us went anywhere alone.  And he went over to 
the church--" She glanced at her watch.  "--over two hours
ago. And he hasn't come back yet to get his car?"

"The church," Maeve echoed.  "So he thinks the vandalism 
over there is directly connected to the murder?"

"Mevvie, I'm not a mind-reader.  I don't know what he 
thinks, and he wouldn't tell me.  I just know he was 
worried about our family maybe being in danger.  I think 
he was worried in general."  Mo smiled, a nervous quirk of 
her lips.  "And, you know, I don't think he scares too 
easily."

Maeve regarded her sister knowingly.  "But he traveled a 
couple thousand miles to see a woman he barely knew, 
because he cared enough about her to worry about her.  I'm 
guessing he still worries about you."

Maeve watched as Mo's face went white beneath the sunburn.  
She reached up and pulled Mo into her arms and held her 
while her sister drew in shaky breaths, trying to ward 
off the tears.  "Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to 
make you cry," Maeve whispered.

Mo squeezed her tightly and then pulled away from her.  She 
took a deep breath.  "Do you know where mama put Agent 
Reyes' card?  If she knows where he is, then I'm worrying 
about nothing.  To hell with standing around and worrying," 
she said, walking out of the bathroom. 



             *            *            * 


****John Doggett was lying in the back of Stuie Wilcox's  '69 
Chevy pickup bumping along the ruts of Route 82.  They were 
outside of Powder Springs, Georgia, way the hell out in the 
sticks, and if he'd ever been more drunk, he couldn't 
remember when.****


His head felt like it had been kicked by a good-sized 
horse, and he was afraid to open his eyes.  The air was 
thick and smelled of heat and pine forest, but the truck 
bed was cool, and he pressed his aching head against it, 
trying to quench the fire on the side of his face.  His 
cheek scraped against the grit and dirt in the bottom of 
the truck bed, and it scratched his skin and made the fire 
burn hotter.  The truck swerved, and a small, warm body 
next to him shifted into him, and he groaned. 


****Jennilee had been in trouble, and he'd gone and kicked the 
ass of the stupid bastard who'd been grabbing her and 
making threats.  And now she was there with him in the bed 
of the truck, pressing her pretty little self up against 
him, pulling up his T-shirt and kissing him in places he 
wasn't used to being kissed.

He was almost 18.

"John-eee, John-eeeeee!"  The voice was a chant, a moan, 
and she was straddling him now, her tongue leaving a wet 
trail up his belly to his chest.  He grasped her arms and 
pulled her down on top of him.****



As Doggett slowly moved his head back and forth 
experimentally,  sickening dizziness hit him. His head hurt 
more than he thought a head could possibly hurt.  He opened 
his eyes and immediately closed them again against the 
bright assault and tried to move his arms and legs.  
Nothing.  He tried moving his head again, gently.  There 
was someone next to him.  And where the Christ was he? 

Not in Stuie Wilcox's pickup, that was for sure.  But it 
was a truck bed--and who the hell was that next to him?  
The pickup swerved again, wildly, and Doggett rolled 
against the side of the truck bed, hard, and stabbing pain 
shot through his head.  The driver righted his course, then 
swerved again, righted again.  --the fuck? Doggett thought 
weakly.  

As the truck continued on its journey to wherever it was 
going, another wave of pain and nausea hit hard, and he 
gave in to it and shut his eyes again.  



             *            *            *


"I was wonderin' if this sorta thing might happen on this 
case."  Al Ritch glanced over at Monica.  He could see that 
she was distracted, clasping and unclasping her hands in 
her lap, staring out the window as if she were trying to 
memorize the scenery that was going by as they drove down 
Highway 27.

Monica looked over at the big man behind the wheel of the 
Blazer.

"I mean, sometimes y' just don't get t' the bottom of a 
case unless someone talks," he added.

As if she didn't know that.  Monica rolled her eyes and 
looked out the window again. Damn condescending men.

"Look," Sheriff Ritch said, softer now, "we'll figure out 
what happened to him--your partner."  

A flood of hot embarrassment passed through her for her 
thought just now, and she turned back to him and smiled 
weakly.  He nodded, the crinkles around the corners of his 
brown eyes as close as he came to smiling. 

"So, Miz Reyes," Ritch said, turning the Blazer down the 
lane to the Dannahs' house, "Deborah Boadu told you that 
she witnessed the vandalism at the Methodist Church?"

"Yes," Monica said.  "She said she watched him eviscerate 
the goat, pull out the intestines and basically, well, 
decorate the church."

Ritch laughed softly.  

"The one thing she didn't explain was how the goat parts 
got burned--especially how it got burned without burning 
anything else in the sanctuary."  That was true enough; 
Deborah hadn't explained it, although Monica thought she 
had it pretty well figured out.  But she didn't think the 
good sheriff needed those details.  He wouldn't believe 
them, anyway.

Ritch stopped the Blazer next to the rented Taurus sedan.  
There were a number of other cars parked in front of the 
house, and Monica realized that there must still be some 
visitors here who'd come for the wake.  She opened the door 
and slid out of the car, and followed the sheriff up to the 
porch.

~~~~

Sitting across the dining room table from the two Dannah 
sisters, Al Ritch found himself thinking that neither woman 
was hiding her concern very well.  But Morgan Dannah's eyes 
were shadowed and haunted, despite her attempt to maintain 
a happy front.  As he listened to the other people at the 
table speak, he watched her quietly.
 
"Agent Doggett was here--I think it must have been around 
11:30," Maeve Dannah told Monica.  "He just stopped in for 
a minute or two to pay his respects, and he left.  I'm not 
sure where he was going."

"I'm pretty sure he was going over to see Mr. Goodall," Mo 
put in.  "He walked across our back field to the church."

"Did he say anything to anyone?" Monica asked.

"He told me to make sure no one in our family went anywhere 
alone," Mo said.  "Of course I asked him why.  He wouldn't 
tell me."

Monica nodded.  

"Agent Reyes," Mo said, "is he in trouble?  Is he in 
danger?"  There.  She'd finally just asked it.

"To be honest, we don't know," Monica said simply.  "We're 
going to try to find out."  She stood up and looked at Mo.  
"I'll keep in touch with you, okay?" she said gently.   
"Let you know what's going on." 

Mo nodded.  "I'd appreciate that," she said softly. "I need 
to know." 



                *          *          *


"Looks pretty deserted, Miz Reyes," Sheriff Ritch said as 
they approached Hugh Goodall's little house. 

Monica had to agree.  It was completely quiet except for 
the hum and buzz of insects.  There weren't even many birds 
around.  Monica followed the sheriff up the gravel path to 
the house, looking around the yard, for what, she wasn't 
sure. 

Something gleaming in the grass caught her eye.  "Sheriff 
Ritch," she called to him, and he stopped and turned back 
to her. 

She walked a few paces off the path and looked down at the 
grass.  

"What is it?" Ritch said, walking over to her.

Monica knelt down.  There were two earthen bowls in the 
grass, both of them partially overturned.  One looked like 
it had been full of sand.  Monica touched the sand and 
raised her fingers to her nose.  Incense.  The other bowl 
was still partly full of milk, smelling overripe now.  But 
the gleam that had caught her eye was from the beaded 
necklaces scattered there.  She picked them up and held 
them between her fingers.  They were ilekes.

"Someone worked a Lucumi ritual here, fairly recently," she 
said, looking up at Sheriff Ritch.  "See--the incense was 
in this bowl.  Maybe there were other things too that I 
haven't found, scattered in the grass.  Whoever did the 
ritual brought a bowl of milk as an offering.  And he or 
she left their ilekes here on the ground, which is very 
odd."

Ilekes?  Well, the whole thing seemed pretty damn odd to Al 
Ritch, but he didn't say it out loud.  "Why's that so odd?" 
he asked instead.  

"The ilekes are sanctified to the orishas--the 
representatives of the gods.  Only a sanctified Lucumi 
wears them, and they're precious things.  You don't just 
take them off and leave them on the ground.  Unless--"  She 
stopped and thought for a moment, pinching her lower lip.  
"Unless you were expecting that something 'hot' was going 
to happen--maybe violence, blood-letting of some sort." 

She stood up.  This wasn't the time for Santeria 101.  "We 
need to go inside and look around."

Ritch nodded.  "I think it's time we put out a bulletin on 
Hugh Goodall's vehicle too.  In case he's gone 'n run off.  
I for one would like to talk to him again."

Still holding the necklaces, Monica was already at the door 
of the house, afraid of what she might find inside.



               *           *            *


Deborah Boadu unlocked her front door and pushed it open, 
walked inside and closed  it quietly behind her.  She 
stripped off her headcloth and wiped her forehead.  She was 
tired.  There had been a lot of cleaning to do at Mrs. 
Teague's house, and she was glad to be home.  It was just 
after 6--three hours of hard, intense work.  Stephen and 
Old Owdeye would be coming over for supper soon.

She walked through the kitchen and stood at the back door, 
looking out at the dry lawn, across at Owdeye's 
rhododendron bushes and flower beds.  They were glorious.  
She sighed, wondering if she'd done the right thing by 
telling Agent Reyes what she knew--well, most of what she 
knew.  Although this Agent Reyes had been more open-minded 
than she would have thought possible, how could you ever 
explain to someone that you could change into a bird?  That 
you could communicate with birds?  They would surely pack 
you up and take you to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

Deborah sighed and pushed her heavy braids behind her 
shoulders.

Where *was* Old Owdeye?  Now that she thought about it, she 
hadn't seen him all day, which was unusual.  He almost 
always could be seen out in his yard doing *something* with 
his trees and flower beds.

Deborah felt a sudden adrenaline jolt that left her warm 
and shaky.  What had he said yesterday?  That he would make 
sure the crazy man wouldn't hurt anyone else? 

What had he done?

Deborah banged out the back door and down the steps.  She 
ran across the grass into Old Owdeye's small yard and up to 
his back porch.  She walked up the steps carefully, 
quietly, dreading what she might find there.  The screen 
door was unlatched, and she walked inside.  The house was 
still and stifling, with no motion of air, no sound, no 
signs of life at all.  Decorated with colorful drawings 
done by Owdeye's great-grandchildren, the refrigerator 
hummed, the only sound in the silent house.  

Deborah felt a clutch of panic in her middle.  Then she saw 
a cloth bundle on the kitchen table and walked over to it.  
She opened it to find a pen carved from a small tree 
branch, a silver amulet, and a beaded necklace.  Deborah 
pulled the necklace gently from the bundle.  It was 
Owdeye's ileke sanctified to the orisha Oya, she of the 
winds and the birds.  There was a piece of paper at the 
bottom of the bundle, and Deborah pulled it out with shaky 
hands.


Temi abure Deborah, 

If I do not return, please give this pen and amulet to 
Stephen.  I would like you to have the ileke, because you 
above all others know what to do with it.    Do not worry 
about me.  I have faith that whatever happens was meant to 
be.

My love and blessings to you,

Jacob


Deborah read it again:  ". . .because you above all others 
know what to do with it."  She suddenly felt chilled at 
the realization that she hadn't been fooling the old man 
all this time.  He knew about her.  She wondered how long 
he had known, and why he'd never said a thing.  She kissed 
the ileke and gently placed it around her neck.  Then she 
folded up the paper and replaced it in the bundle, gathered 
the cloth together and took it with her as she left the 
empty house, barely able to see through the sudden tears.

She ran blindly to her house, stumbled up the steps and 
into the kitchen.  She almost ran into her son.  

"Stephen!  Have you seen Old Owdeye?  I think something has 
happened to him."

The tall young man was confused.  "Grandfather?  He's not 
at his house?"  He took Deborah by her arms.  "Mama, don't 
cry!  What's wrong?  What's going on?"

Deborah looked up at her son.  "I think he went to Mr. 
Goodall.  He said he was going to take care of him."  
Deborah pulled away from Stephen and handed him the 
colorful cloth bundle.  "He left these for you.  He would 
not have left these things out for me to find unless he 
thought he might not come back."  

She sank down into a kitchen chair.  "Stephen, this is my 
fault.  I didn't do what I should have, because I didn't 
want to dishonor my babalosha, my priest.   I thought it 
would be all right if I simply kept watch over things.  But 
I should have known.  Now this man has taken a policeman, 
who has some connection with the healer woman, Dr. Dannah's 
girl.  I cannot let him be hurt, if hurting him will hurt 
her.   Stephen, I owe her father your very life."  She drew 
in a deep breath and stood up.   "And now I'm afraid he has 
Old Owdeye--and I owe him more than anyone.  So now I need 
to do what I should have done in the first place."

"Mama, let the police handle this," Stephen said.

"I can't, Stephen," she said quietly.  "My omo, you must 
understand.  I will let them know about Owdeye, but I can't 
just let them handle it.  There's too much at stake."  She 
rubbed her eyes tiredly.  "Now I have to find out where the 
crazy man has taken them."



            *            *            *


John Doggett opened his eyes slowly, not wanting a repeat 
of his last attempt.  This time, it was dark, and his eyes 
were spared that piercing pain. 

He was no longer in whatever truck he'd been in.  Wherever 
he was, it was cool and damp and smelled like water.  Where 
the hell *was* he?  He tried to sit up, and realized that 
he was bound hand and foot and couldn't move effectively at 
all.

How the fuck had he gotten himself into this?  Unbidden, 
the image of Tommy Egan came to him--one of the toughest, 
shrewdest guys he'd even known, in the NYPD or anywhere 
else.  Tommy would kick his ass from here back to Sunnyside 
if he could see him now, trussed up like a turkey, caught 
by his own impulsiveness.   God knows he could use Tommy 
right about now, even if it *did* result in a royal ass-
kicking.

His head still ached, a lot worse than it used to after one 
of those lost weekends he'd pulled so many years ago, with 
his buddies from the Lebanon hitch.  He'd had concussions 
before, and he knew he must have one now--by far the worst 
one he'd ever had.  He'd lost consciousness twice, and that 
was something he'd never experienced before.  He was going 
to try like hell to stay conscious from here on out.  Maybe 
he'd figure out a way to get out of here alive.

He raised his head up a bit, and squinted through the 
gloom.   Where was the person who'd rolled into him in the 
truck?  And who *was* that, anyway?  He lay his head back 
on the cool earth.

Someone stirred and groaned just to his right, and Doggett 
strained to move, to see who it was, where the sound was 
coming from.   He peered through the gloom.  "Hey, you 
there!"  he hissed.  

"Hello," a thin, weak voice said.  "Who is that?"

"My name's John Doggett," Doggett said quietly.  "I'm with 
the FBI."

"I am Jacob Owdeye, Mr. Doggett," the voice replied.  "I 
would say I am happy to meet you, but this does not seem 
the right occasion."

Doggett's laugh was thin and humorless.  Owdeye.   The man 
was one of the West Africans, a Lucumi priest.  Monica had 
interviewed him two days earlier.

"Well, Mr. Owdeye, where do you suppose we are?  I have a 
pretty good idea *why*, at least in my case," Doggett said.

"I think we are in a cave of some sort,"  Owdeye replied.  
"There are caves not far from town, at Ichetucknee 
Springs."

A cave.  Swell.  Doggett closed his eyes again, his head 
throbbing.  

Shoes scraped along the hard earth, and his eyes opened 
again.  Someone was walking toward them, and Doggett felt 
the adrenaline spike through his body in an almost painful 
rush.

The footsteps came closer and then stopped.  A man stood 
between Doggett and Owdeye.  "It's nice to see that you 
gentlemen have become acquainted," he said, his voice a 
soft drawl.

Hugh Goodall. 

"What do you want, Goodall?" Doggett asked tiredly.  "What 
the hell are you doin'?"

"I'm just paying a debt, Mr. Doggett.  And you and Mr. 
Owdeye here just happened to show up at my door."

"Payin' a debt?"  Doggett echoed.  "You're not makin' a 
damn bit of sense." 

Goodall walked closer.  "You're just a happy accident, Mr. 
Doggett.  Owdeye is the one I have serious business with.  
You're just a whoremonger who consorts with witches."

What?  Doggett had been called a lot of things over the 
years, but he didn't think he'd ever been called a 
whoremonger before.  Witches?  Did he mean Monica?  Mo?

It was beginning to dawn on Doggett that Hugh Goodall had 
sat in his empty, chintz-filled house and quietly gone mad.  
On the surface he might seem to be an unassuming bible-
thumper, but scratch the surface and there was a real bull 
goose loony. Doggett had pushed him before to see which way 
he would jump, but now he realized that there probably was 
no way to judge which way the man was going to jump.

"Dr. Dannah's daughter, Mr. Doggett," Goodall said 
insinuatingly.  "You seem to know her rather well.   I've 
heard talk about her New Age lifestyle.  And you do know 
what God says about witches, don't you?  Exodus 22: 18:  
'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' "

"Where is she?"  Doggett's voice was dangerously still.  
"Have you done something to her?"

"Oh, calm down, Mr. Doggett.  She's safe at home with her 
mama and her sister.  But maybe I should bring them all 
here and let you watch what I do to them."

"If you so much as touch her--touch *any* of them--I swear 
to Christ I'll kill you myself," Doggett said, still quiet.

Goodall moved faster than Doggett would have thought 
possible, swinging his leg in a vicious kick that connected 
with Doggett's side.  The pain was crushing, and Doggett 
cried out despite himself.  He couldn't move at all, 
couldn't breathe at all.

And then Goodall kicked him again, and Doggett felt the 
bitter burn of vomit at the back of his throat.

Through his haze of pain, Doggett didn't see Goodall double 
over, clutching at his head with both hands, and finally 
collapse to his knees.


CHAPTER 8

Saturday Evening

Deborah Boadu had showered and was clean and ready for 
ritual.  She poured the warm, scented oil into her hands 
from the glass bottle on her dresser and rubbed her palms 
together.  Then she ran her hands across her forehead,
cheeks, neck, breasts, arms and belly.  She ran her
oil-anointed fingers down each leg.  She pulled on her 
brilliant striped cotton caftan and wrapped her head in the 
white headcloth she saved for ritual.  She went to her 
altar and lifted her ilekes off its surface and put them 
over her head, one by one, kissing each one before she slid 
it over her braids.  

She knelt on the mat in front of the altar and shut her 
eyes.  

"Abure eiyele, abura eiyele, abure eiyele, abura eiyele," 
Deborah chanted softly, rhythmically.  "Wa ti mo, abure.  
Mo busi.  Gon mi lele, gon mi lele. Eje o orun busi yi a 
awo  Moducue.  Ajuba. Mo dide, mo dide!"   Brother bird, 
sister bird, brother bird, sister bird.  Come to me, my 
brothers.  I bless you. Be my eyes, my eyes!  Blood and 
heaven grant you secret blessing. Thanks be to you.  I 
salute you.  We rise, we rise! 

Over and over, she chanted the words, singing them, praying 
them, swaying and laughing as the room filled with birds:  
doves, crows, wrens, swallows, swirling and banking and 
diving around her, swooping and brushing her with their 
wings and calling to her and to each other in their 
cacophony of languages.

"Abure eiyele," Deborah said,   "brothers and sisters, you 
must help me find this eni, this one we have been watching.  
We must find him and stop him, as I should have long ago."



                 *          *          * 

   
Monica Reyes looked over at Sheriff Ritch as he steered the 
Blazer back up the lane to the macadam road.  "I'd like to 
stop by the Dannahs' house again for a bit, if you can take 
the time, Sheriff," she said.  "I know it's getting on."

"It's okay," Al Ritch said, glancing over at her.  "We've 
got everybody else we can spare right now lookin' for Hugh 
Goodall's truck--and, by extension, Hugh Goodall.  And for 
your Agent Doggett."

"I really appreciate that," Monica said.  I need to call the
Jacksonville field office too.  Ev Clyatt was pretty upset when
he heard that John had gone missing.  They'll probably be sending
some agents over from there too." 

Ritch was quiet.  They hadn't found much at Goodall's house 
that pointed anywhere, much less to anything criminal.  
Maybe Goodall had left in a hurry, or maybe he was just 
absentminded or sloppy:  They'd found breakfast dishes in 
the sink, a half-cup of cold coffee with congealed cream 
floating greasily on the top, a half-read newspaper.  Agent 
Reyes' partner had last been seen around 11:30 a.m., almost 
eight hours ago.  He could be almost anywhere by now.  Or 
he could be-- 

Monica looked up at Ritch and met his sober brown eyes.  He 
hoped she couldn't read his thoughts, because she probably 
didn't need to know what he was thinking, that they might 
not find Doggett alive.  He'd come to realize that he liked 
this woman.  She might be a little odd, but she was 
politic, funny, strong and  intelligent--she'd taken him to 
school on this case, that was for sure, without once 
overstepping her bounds or pulling rank.

He pulled the Blazer up in front of Ruth Dannah's house, 
turned off the ignition and looked at Monica.  He thought 
she looked tired, her eyes dark, her golden skin dulled.  

"You can just leave me here for now, if you need to get 
back.  I'll be fine," she said, her hand on the door 
handle.  

"You sure, now?" He kept examining her face, trying to read 
what she was feeling.  She smiled at him.

"I'm sure."  She nodded.  "I'll call you if anything comes 
up.  And if John left the keys in the rental car, I'll have 
a car here."  Fat chance of that, she thought.  "If not, 
I'll work something out."

"I'll call you the minute we hear anything," Ritch assured 
her.  

"Okay," she said.  "Thanks."  And she opened the door and 
climbed down from the Blazer.

He watched her as she walked up the porch steps and into 
the old house.  Ritch, you're losin' it, boy, he said to 
himself.  Gettin' silly thoughts about a Fed.  He shook his 
head, and turned the Blazer around and headed back down the 
lane, back to Gainesville.


  
              *            *            *    


Doggett slowly came back to awareness--of the gloom, the 
smells, the dampness, the crushing pain in his side, the 
ache in his head.

And a muffled voice tight with anger:  "What did you do to 
me, you filthy heathen?!"  

Doggett heard Old Owdeye sigh softly.  "I have stopped 
you," the old man said in his quiet voice.

Doggett wondered what Goodall had expected to hear.  He 
drew in an experimental breath, and the pain rolled over 
him in a scalding wave.  Broken rib, probably more than 
one.  Shit.  Then the next thought came:  Does Goodall have 
a weapon?

"You 'stopped' me?  What does that mean?  I was fine until 
I found you sittin' out on my lawn doin' your satanic 
mumbo-jumbo," Goodall said, his voice increasing in volume 
as he spoke.  "What did you DO TO ME?"

Doggett lifted his head as far as he could and peered at 
Goodall through the semidarkness.  Goodall was clutching 
his head with one hand, but in the other was a knife, its 
business end pointed right at the old man.  It was big, 
with a curved blade hooked at the end, a particularly 
vicious-looking hunting knife.

It was time to change the subject.

"Mr. Goodall," Doggett said, his voice hoarse.  "Why'd you 
kill Enrique Boadu?"

Goodall turned away from Owdeye to Doggett.  

"And you musta been the one who did all the church 
vandalizing too, huh?"  Doggett asked before Goodall could 
say anything.

Goodall stood over him.  "It was about duty, Mr. Doggett, 
keeping promises--if you can understand that."  The look on 
Goodall's face made it clear what he thought.

More than you could possibly know, Doggett thought.  "I 
just have a hard time understanding how murder could be a 
duty, or keep a promise."

"The Lord makes it very clear:  'The fearful, and 
unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and 
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, 
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire 
and brimstone, which is the second death.' "

"So you just take it on yourself to decide who the 
unbelievers and idolaters are, just like you decided I was 
a whoremonger, huh?"  Doggett said before he was seized 
with a paroxysm of coughing that sent almost unbearable 
stabbing pain through his side. He was sweating from the 
pain in his head and his side.  He didn't know how much 
longer he could keep talking to this guy, but if he could 
keep Goodall interested in him instead of Owdeye, all the 
better.

Goodall turned the knife over in his hands, ran his fingers 
over the tip.  Doggett remembered the description of 
Enrique Boadu's body, the dead animals, and remembered that 
Goodall knew exactly how to use that knife, remembered that 
he wasn't afraid to use it.  He remembered that the man 
wasn't quite sane.

If Goodall took it into his head to use that knife of his 
on either him or Owdeye, it'd pretty much be over for them 
both.  For the first time, it occurred to him that he 
really might die here.

It occurred to him that he might never get the chance to do 
things he'd meant to do, that he'd wanted to do.  To take 
down Alvin Kersh.  To explain to Dana Scully how much he 
owed her, and tell Fox Mulder that if he didn't treat 
Scully right he'd seriously kick his ass.  To tell Kate how 
sorry he was that they'd come undone the way they had, that 
he'd loved her with a fierceness he'd never expected to 
experience again. To acknowledge that there might be room 
in his life for love again.

"God provides me with righteous judgment, Mr. Doggett," 
Goodall replied, pulling Doggett away from his thoughts.  

Doggett breathed in carefully, as deeply as he could 
without too much pain.  "So, what, you just went and 
grabbed the guy and killed him, is that right?"

"He was at the graveyard, and I took him across the river." 
Goodall looked down at Doggett.  He kept turning the knife
around in his hands, around, and around.  "His death was a
warning, and a curse, to the family of the man who let my wife
die."  Goodall added, rubbing his fingers over his forehead
fiercely, as if it would smooth the pain away.  "I've been 
thinking about you, Mr. Doggett," Goodall said softly.  "I think
I know what your weakness is."  He ran his fingers slowly down
the blade of the hunting knife.  "Just like I figure hurting you
would be the worst thing I could do to Morgan Dannah.  You're a
policeman--you help people.  I could hurt you, and it really
might not faze you much.  But if I hurt someone *else*--now,
that would be a different story, wouldn't it?"   Goodall stood
up and moved over to Old Owdeye.  

"Goodall!"  Doggett said.  "Let him be.  I'm the one givin' 
you shit.  You just deal with me!" he said.

"That'd be easy for you, Mr. Doggett."  Goodall knelt down 
beside Owdeye.  "I don't think so.  His people lived.  Mine 
died.  This one owes me a life."

"Goodall, he's an innocent old man!  Don't do it!"  Doggett 
shouted, straining at the ropes.

Goodall looked down at Old Owdeye for a long moment.

The old man looked back at him, his eyes bright, his face 
peaceful. "It is over," Owdeye said.

"Yes, it is," Goodall said, and then plunged the knife into 
Owdeye's chest.  The old man gasped, sighed, and then was 
still.

"NO!"  Doggett shouted again, his throat raw, and then he
coughed again, spasmodically.  He squeezed his eyes shut, 
feeling the hot tears behind his eyelids. "No," he murmured 
again.  "Ah, God, no, fuckin' bastard, no. . ." 


               *           *           *


Monica Reyes stood at the Dannahs' screen door and looked 
out at the porch. The sky was starting to darken into dusk,  
and the swallows were flying low after the mosquitoes. Mo 
Dannah was sitting motionless on the top step, her hands on 
the porch behind her, looking out toward the little town.  
Monica didn't know the other woman well enough to know 
exactly what was going on with her, but she pushed the door 
open anyway. Nothing ventured, she always figured, nothing 
gained. . . 

Mo didn't look up, and Monica stood on the porch, silent. 
Then she saw that the other woman's body was shaking with 
quiet sobs. Monica approached her quietly and laid a gentle 
hand on her shoulder. 

Startled, Mo jumped and turned around, wiping her face. 
"Agent Reyes," she said, confused. 

"Ms. Dannah, we'll find him," Monica said. "John." She 
nodded, her dark-hazel eyes intent on Mo. 

Mo turned away, wiping her eyes surreptitiously. After a 
moment she looked up again at the other dark-haired woman. 
"I appreciate that," she said. "I just wish I believed it." 

"I think you can believe it," Monica said, sitting down 
next to Mo. "I just. . .think you can believe it, that's 
all. We'll get him back." 

Mo stole a sidelong glance at Monica. 

"He means a lot to you." Monica said. 

Mo sighed. Then she looked right at Monica. "Did he speak 
to you at all, about. . ." 

Monica laughed softly. "John? No." She shook her head. "I'm 
not laughing because the situation is funny. I'm just 
laughing because John would never--John doesn't talk about 
that sort of thing." 

"Then how--?" 

Monica didn't say anything for a moment.  She wasn't about 
to mention the Ramada Inn's thin walls.  "It's going to 
sound weird." 

Mo smiled ironically.  "Weird doesn't bother me, Agent 
Reyes." 

Monica's brows rose. "Really?" 

"You have no idea," Mo said drily.

"Is it too strange to tell you that when I met you the 
first person I thought of was John?" Monica studied the 
other woman. 

"No," Mo said softly. "Not too strange." She looked at 
Monica.  "You know him well?  I mean, you must have a 
pretty good feel for--"

"For who he is?" Monica asked.  "Well, I have a fairly good 
idea, I guess. I mean, we were never intimate--I mean, 
intimate friends."  Monica smiled, a little embarrassed.  
"I've known him for a few years.  We worked together 
through a really hard time for him."

Mo nodded.  "He mentioned you once, a while back.  You 
worked with him when his son was. . .taken."  Mo found that 
she had a hard time saying it.

"Yeah," Monica said.  "Well, then, you must know how it 
ended.  His little boy was murdered."

Mo rubbed her forehead.  "I can't imagine how he must have 
felt."  She looked at Monica.  "How could you bear to lose 
a child who was born to you, one you held, one you raised?  
I think I would have died along with my child." 

Monica looked down at her feet and then back at Mo.  "I 
think John wanted to."

"You know, almost from the day I met him, I wondered what 
had happened to him," Mo spoke softly, almost to herself. 
"There was always a part of him, a part of his heart, that 
was walled off.  I could feel it, but I couldn't get past 
the wall.  For the longest time I didn't know why, and I 
just let it be.  After he told me about his son, it made a 
little more sense." She looked at the other woman.  "And 
then the wall wasn't so strong anymore."

"You're an intuitive, aren't you?  I thought so," Monica 
said.

"I'm a healer," Mo said, her eyes bright.  "That's all.  
You seem to have a little talent yourself, Agent Reyes."

"A little," Monica admitted.  "I just sense things 
sometimes."  

"You know," Mo said quietly, "I never had the chance to 
tell him how much I care for him." 

Monica reached over and put a gentle hand on her back. "I 
think he knows," she said softly.

"I wonder," Mo murmured.  "I wonder if he does."

They sat there together, quiet, as the dark settled over 
the town, the birds went home, and the stars filled the 
sky, one by one.  

~~~~

Monica stood up, touching Mo's shoulder one last time, and 
walked down the wooden steps toward the lane.  She shoved 
her hands into her jacket pockets and looked up into the 
starry sky, restless, frustrated, worried.  She was worried 
that she hadn't heard anything yet from Sheriff Ritch, and 
she was more worried about John than she would admit.  She 
wanted to put some distance between herself and Mo Dannah 
right now, because if Mo really were as close to John as 
she suspected she was, the last thing she needed was to 
pick up on Monica's worry--something that was probably as 
natural to Mo Dannah as breathing.

Walking down the lane toward the little town, she ran her 
hands back through her hair, breathing in the spicy, humid 
air.  

Monica had been in the Bureau for seven years, and she 
wasn't naive, despite what some people believed.  Given her 
specialization in ritual abuse, she'd dealt with some 
horrors and had seen things that could easily have made her 
old before her time.  But right now she was feeling just 
about as bad as she'd ever felt about a case.  If it turned 
out that Doggett were injured--or worse--she'd have to live 
with the guilt that she'd gotten him involved in the first 
place.

Monica walked, listening to the crickets' happy thrum, 
breathing, trying to calm herself, to think clearly.   
Maybe that was all she could do, she thought:  Keep a clear 
head, and do what she could to find him.  She had to call 
Sheriff Ritch.

She already had her hand on her cell phone when it rang.  

"Monica Reyes," she said into the phone, anxious now.

"Agent Reyes?  It is Deborah Boadu." She sounded agitated.  

"Deborah," Monica said.  "What can I do for you?"

"Agent Reyes, I know where he is," Deborah said.

Monica stopped dead in the middle of the lane.  "What?  
Who?  Goodall?"

"Yes.  He has Old Owdeye, and Agent Doggett."

Monica began walking back to the house.  After listening to 
Deborah for just a few seconds, she was running.



                *          *          *


"I'm going with you," Mo said to Monica.  

Monica frowned at her thoughtfully.  "I don't think--"

"You said they were somewhere at Ichetucknee Springs.  You 
don't know how to get there," Mo said.  "I do.  If you go 
with the Sheriff, I'll just go by myself."  Mo smiled at 
her. "You can't stop me," she added.

Monica just blinked.  This was a side of Mo Dannah that she 
hadn't yet seen, and it surprised her.  "Ms. Dannah," she 
said, "you could get hurt.  I can't let you--"

"I won't get hurt.  I might be able to help you.  And, like 
I said, you won't be able to stop me anyway."  Mo looked at 
Monica with calm, determined eyes.

It was pretty clear that Mo wasn't going to give an inch, 
and Monica was the one to finally give.  "All right," she 
said.  "I don't see much point in having Sheriff Ritch come 
back here."

"Good," Mo said.  "We need to hurry."  She was already out 
the screen door and halfway down the porch steps by the 
time Monica moved to follow.



             *             *            *


"You owe me a life."  Goodall said.  He looked down at Mo, 
who looked up at him, her face peaceful.

"My life for his," she said. "Promise me."

"I promise," Goodall said to her, and smiled.  He stabbed 
down with the big knife with all his strength, the heavy 
blade shattering her sternum.  Gouts of bright red blood 
gushed out, soaking her white shirt, and she shuddered as 
the light faded from her eyes. 


Doggett cried out, gasping awake, coughing.  Breathing 
hard, he looked around.  Mo was nowhere to be seen.   His 
heart was hammering hard and fast, pounding the blood to 
his head so hard that he thought he would throw up.  
Through the sweat running into his eyes, he could see 
Goodall sitting next to Owdeye's body, swaying back and 
forth, moaning, clutching his head with his hands.

Then Goodall began to scream, tearing at his head and face 
with his fingers, his nails scratching bloody fissures in 
his skin. 



Later, Doggett  was never sure after that exactly what 
happened in the cave that night.  It was surreal, filtered 
through his own haze of pain and sickness, so far off the 
chart of what he'd ever understood to be reality. 

Sounds.  Smells.  Blurred images.  Things happening that 
couldn't really happen.

A noise that sounded like the flapping of small wings, and 
then the birds, dozens, hundreds of them, filling the 
cavern with their cries and the air from their beating 
wings.   

A figure he couldn't make out, who bent down over Owdeye's 
body and touched him tenderly, and then straightened and 
turned to Hugh Goodall like the wrath of God. 

The blinding flash of light, the screams, the smell of 
burnt flesh.  Doggett squeezed his eyes shut against the 
brilliance, and the horror.



"Holy fucking Christ, what the hell--?"  "This one's gone--
"  "Over here, we need help here!"  "Lady, you all right? 
Lady?!"  "Get the O2 the hell over here--move your ass!"

And then someone was kneeling over him, and there was the 
light touch of fingers on his forehead.  A blurred face 
close to his, tears dropping onto his cheeks, a sobbing 
laugh.  A soft Carolina voice.  "No, don't move, John.  We 
don't know how badly you're hurt."

Another person, much larger, kneeling beside him, cutting 
the ropes that bound him with a gentleness belying his 
size.  "Agent Doggett," the person said in a deep Florida 
drawl, "the EMTs'll be with y'all in just a minute.  Y'all 
hold tight, now." 

Her hands were on his face, warm, soothing, wiping away the 
sweat, giving him her strength.  Once the ropes were gone, 
she slid a hand into one of his and left it there, a silent 
reminder that he was all right, that she was there.

"Is he okay--?"  Another soft female voice.  He opened his 
eyes.  A tall, female figure.  Monica.  

The EMTs came and did what they did, and they took him out 
of the cave and into an ambulance.

As the ambulance moved slowly down the rutted road, she was 
still there, her hand in his.  And then whatever they were 
dripping into his arm made him too sleepy to know anything 
else.


CHAPTER 9

Sunday Morning

Monica Reyes walked into Doggett's room and stopped just 
inside the door.  He was lying motionless, his head turned 
toward the windows, not asleep but not totally awake.  How
vulnerable he looks, she thought, realizing that she hadn't
really thought of him that way in years, really not since 
he'd worked his son's case with him.  She pushed those
memories back down to the place where she kept them and
walked inside.  

"John," she said to him softly.  He turned his head slowly 
and looked at her.  She could see the ugly bruising on the 
side of his face now.  "Morgan Dannah's sister told me to 
tell you that she dragged her home a while ago to throw her 
in the shower and make her sleep for a while."  Monica 
smiled.  "But my guess is that she'll be back here after 
her shower."

So Monica had seen Mo's stubborn side.  Doggett smiled a 
little.     

Monica wondered if he knew that Mo had sat there with him 
all night, curled in the big chair by the side of his bed, 
watching, dozing.  She had a feeling the drugs had erased 
that memory.  "How are you doing, John?"

"Hard to breathe," he mumbled.  "Hurts like hell."

"The doctor filled me in on the damage," Monica said.  
"Stitches in your scalp, a concussion, three broken ribs, a 
partially collapsed lung--I think they were worried about 
pneumonia.  They're giving you morphine and azithromycin 
and fluids."  She walked closer to the bed and sat down in 
the big chair.  "What do you remember?"

He leveled his intense blue eyes at her.  "Before the 
morphine?  I remember everything." He shifted his body in 
the bed slightly, trying to find a comfortable position.  
Unsuccessful, he sighed and turned his face away from her 
again.

Monica thought maybe it was a signal for her to go, but 
then he turned his head on the pillow and looked at her 
again.

"Any news about the case?" he asked.

She was surprised at the question, but then this *was* John 
Doggett.  Why let a concussion, broken ribs, a collapsed 
lung and morphine fog get in the way of the job?  Her lips 
twitched with ironic amusement, and she leaned closer to 
him.  

"Hugh Goodall is dead," she said.  She watched Doggett's 
face.  He nodded; he remembered that.  "He must have been 
losing his mind for a long time, and no one even noticed.  
That's really pretty sad."

"Excuse me if I don't cry, Monica," Doggett said.

She raised her brows but didn't say anything.  "He was 
burned to death," she went on.  "No one's saying how he got 
that way, but I have a theory."

Doggett lifted a vague hand to her.  Get on with it, it 
seemed to say.  Theories later.

"Deborah Boadu was found naked and disoriented in the cave 
with you all last night.  She's upstairs being observed by 
psych, but I'm told they'll be releasing her this 
afternoon.  Jacob Owdeye went through seven hours of 
emergency surgery last night and is in the ICU.  He's 
expected to live, which surprised everyone."

Including Doggett, apparently, if the expression on his 
face was any indication.  "He's alive?  I watched Goodall 
stab him to death--I thought so, anyway."  

"I guess the knife just missed his heart, and he lost a lot 
of blood and had extensive trauma, but the old man's still 
hanging on."  Monica wasn't really surprised.  The old man 
was a priest, and a strong one, from all indications.  From 
what Deborah had told her, Owdeye was the one who'd trained 
the murdered priest, Enrique Boadu.  Spiritual power 
counted for something, she knew, whether Doggett understood 
it or not.  Monica glanced at her watch.  "They did the 
postmortem on Goodall a couple of hours ago."

"Who the hell pushed *that* through so fast?" Doggett 
asked.

"Sheriff Ritch," Monica replied.  "He seems to know the 
right arms to twist," she added.

Doggett smiled.  "I just think he likes you, Monica," he 
said quietly.

She looked down at her lap with a small smile and didn't 
say anything for a moment.   Then she looked up at him.  
"Do you want to know what they found, or do you want to 
discuss my personal life?"

He smiled tiredly.  "Well, discussin' your personal life 
would probably be more fun," he said.  "But, no, go on."

"Goodall's brain showed advanced degeneration.   Way beyond 
anything a disease could cause, even something like 
advanced syphilis. I believe the M.E.'s technical term for 
it was 'mush.' "

Doggett frowned.  "How could *that* be?  He sure as hell 
wasn't sane, but he was able to carry on a damn good 
conversation when we interviewed him.  You can't do that if 
your brain's turned to tapioca, Monica."

"I know, John," she said simply.  "So it must have 
degenerated fast.  It'd be interesting to look at his 
medical records just to see if he has any history--"

"Monica, do me a favor," he said quietly.  "Just let it 
go."

She blinked, drawn up short by his tone, the finality of 
it.   "What, John?  What should I let go of?  And why?"

"It's over.  Goodall's dead.  We both know no one else is 
in danger anymore."

Monica stared at him.  "That's probably true, John.  But 
aren't you the slightest bit curious about what happened to 
him, and how it happened?"

Doggett didn't say anything.  He remembered the old man's 
words to Hugh Goodall in the cave:  "I have stopped you."
He could still see Goodall screaming, tearing away his own 
flesh.  He had a feeling he might be seeing and hearing it 
in dreams for a while to come.

"John," Monica persisted, "Deborah Boadu told me that Jacob 
Owdeye assured her he would take care of Goodall, and 
Owdeye's a Lucumi priest.  He has certain, well, abilities.  
He could have caused what affected Goodall, the 
deterioration of his brain."

Doggett made a noise that somehow managed to sound tired 
and dismissive all at once.  

Monica stood up and folded her arms in front of her, took a 
deep breath and let it out.  "All right, John," she finally 
said, softly.  "We'll just pretend that we both don't know 
anything, that none of this stuff ever happened.  That Hugh 
Goodall didn't die because a Lucumi priestess let a power 
move through her that turned him to cinders, that his brain 
was already disintegrating because of a ritual performed by 
a Lucumi priest."  She walked to the door and looked back 
at him.  "I'm sorry, John.  Maybe I'll be more 
understanding later.  And maybe you'll be more able to 
listen."  She turned to go.

"Monica," he said.  

She stopped in the doorway.

"Monica," he said again, and what she heard in his voice 
made her turn and look at him.  

Something in his eyes made her walk back over to him.  She 
sat back down in the chair and touched his arm.  "John, 
what is it?" she asked, her pique forgotten.

"Monica. . .I don't know if I can do this anymore."

"John," she said softly, "do what?"

"This work.  This. . .nuts stuff.  I just feel like my 
whole life has gone to hell since I--well, since the X-
Files."  He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked at 
her again. "I know I need to stay, you know--there are 
things goin' on I know I need to play a part in--it's the 
right thing to do.  But I can't help but wonder if I'm the 
guy for the job."

"John, you're a good agent, one of the best, most 
instinctive investigators I've ever known."

His laugh was dry.  "Oh, I'm not doubtin' I'm a good 
investigator.  I'm just doubtin' if I can ever do what's 
required to do this work.  Monica, I can't work the way you 
seem to be able to.  I can't just accept the stuff that 
seems so normal to you.   I can't run off based on whatever 
crazy hunch I might take into my head.  I fucked things up 
royally yesterday doin' just that, actin' like a fuckin' 
amateur."  

"I don't think you did," she said.  

He laughed again.  "Oh, I did, all right.  Big time, major 
league."

"John, you're just learning how to listen to your 
perceptions--and your perceptions about Goodall were right 
on the money.  But you're bound to make mistakes.  It's 
part of the process."

"That's my point, Monica.  I'm not wired the way you are.  
There *isn't* any process.  I don't have perceptions that 
way." 

"I think you do.  I've told you that before.  Where did 
your impulse to look in Goodall's closet come from?  John, 
you need to give it a chance.  And you need to cut yourself 
some slack.  You're human, and you make mistakes.  Things 
like that happen," she said.

"Not to me, Monica.  They don't happen to me.  And you know 
as well as I do that in our line of work, makin' mistakes 
can get you killed--other people killed.  I can't shrug off 
mistakes like they didn't happen."

"I know that," she said.  "I'm not saying you should shrug 
them off.  But if you can't learn to let go, you'll drive 
yourself crazy, John.  Do you want to do that?"

"No!  I just want to do what's right, whatever it takes!  
And I can't just let go of things to make my karma all 
better--or whatever the hell you want to call it, Monica.  
I can't *be* like you!" 

They stared at each other.  

Monica pressed her lips together tightly, as if she were 
trying to stop herself from saying something.  "I don't 
want you to be like me, John.  But I don't want you to give 
up, either." 

He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers into them.  She 
noticed the IV shunt taped to the back of his right hand 
and saw the pale purple bruising around the needle 
puncture.  Suddenly he seemed younger, vulnerable, tired, 
injured, and it took all she had to keep from smoothing her 
fingers back through his hair and telling him it would be 
okay, that it would all be okay in the end.

He looked at her.  "I'm just tired," he whispered, as if he 
were reading her mind.

"I know," she said quietly, standing up.  "I shouldn't have 
stayed so long. You need to rest."  She touched his hand, 
and he squeezed it weakly.  "I'll come back a little later.  
You sleep now."

He closed his eyes.  "Thanks," he murmured almost 
inaudibly.

She walked to the door and almost bumped into Mo Dannah, 
who was walking into the room.  Her hair was damp, and she 
looked harried.

Monica smiled at the other woman.  "I'm glad you're here," 
she said.  "He needs a friend--someone who can just care 
about him, and not. . .push."

Mo smiled back, a little puzzled, and Monica left the room.  
Mo looked after her and then followed her into the hall.

"Agent Reyes!" she called out, and Monica turned. 

Mo caught up to her.  "What did you mean in there?"

Monica looked at the other woman, weighing how much she 
should say.  "Ms. Dannah--"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, call me Mo!"

Monica smiled.  "Okay.  Then you need to call me Monica."

"All right, Monica, what did you mean?"

"Well, obviously, he's been through a lot," Monica said.

"Obviously," Mo said.

"But I think he's having some troubles reconciling the 
things he saw.  He's not the most open-minded person when 
it comes to what you might call extreme possibilities."

Mo glanced around them and pulled Monica over to some 
chairs away from the main hallway.  "Monica, I really do 
understand that sort of thing.  Tell me what you think 
happened in that cave."

Monica examined the other woman's face for a moment.  Then 
she made a decision.  

"In just a few words?" Monica asked.  "I think Deborah 
Boadu focused some sort of energy and burned Hugh Goodall 
to death.  I think the little Lucumi priest did some sort 
of ritual that would have eventually killed Goodall, 
anyway.  And I think that John saw it all happen, and 
watched Goodall stab a helpless man while he was tied up 
there, totally unable to do anything."

Mo looked like she'd been slapped, and Monica wondered if 
maybe she'd said too much.

Monica was silent for a moment.  "There are a lot of things
going on with him," she said.  "I think he feels some guilt
--you know about survivor's guilt?"

Mo nodded.  

"I think he's feeling something like that.  He's had to deal
with that more than once in his life.  I also think maybe he's
just beginning to accept things he's denied for a long time.
And he's not comfortable with it."

Mo took a deep breath and nodded. "Thanks.  That helps me
understand a little better."

"I think John has a lot to think about right now--about 
everything.  It's hard to see things happen right in front 
of you that you would have never believed," Monica said. 

Mo nodded.  "Monica, I appreciate your telling me this.  I 
really do."  Mo touched the other woman's arm.  "What are 
your plans?  Do you go home now, or--?"  

"I need to spend a little time up at the Jacksonville 
office tomorrow with an old friend, and then I fly back 
home."  Monica smiled.  "Or what's home now.  I just moved 
from New Orleans last week, so things are still a mess."

"Do you need a ride to Jacksonville?"  Mo asked.   "I could 
take you."

"Thanks," Monica said.  "But I have a ride.  I thought I'd 
leave the rental for John."

Mo wondered if Monica's ride had anything to do with that 
tall, solicitous sheriff, but she didn't say anything.   
"I'm glad I got to meet you, Monica."

"I am too," Monica said.  "Take good care of yourself."

"I will," Mo said.  "You be careful too.  You have an 
awfully dangerous job."

Monica laughed softly.  "I will," she echoed, and watched 
the other woman walk back toward Doggett's room.  "Mo!" she 
suddenly called out.

Mo turned back to her.  

"You might be the best person to be with him right now," 
Monica said.  "Because you *do* understand."

Mo looked thoughtful.  "I don't know," she said softly.
"Maybe." She continued on down the hall.

She walked inside his room quietly, then over to the bed.  
He was asleep, looking very young, his face peaceful.  She 
sat down in the chair there, leaned toward him and lay her 
hand gently against his cheek.


             *           *           *

 
Monica held up her credentials so the front desk nurse at
the psych ward could see that she really was who she said
she was.

The nurse nodded.  "Sarah," she said to a nursing assistant 
walking by, "could you take the agent here to see the lady 
the cops brought in last night?--the one in C-16 with Mrs. 
Hartshorn?"

Monica followed the tall, blonde Sarah down the hall to the 
last room on the right.  "Thanks," she said to Sarah.  
"I'll only need to be here for a few minutes."

"That's fine, ma'am," Sarah replied.  "She's been real 
quiet.  I don't think she's any danger to anyone."

Tell Hugh Goodall that, Monica thought.  "Thanks," she said 
instead.  She walked over to Deborah's bed and stood next 
to it.  Deborah looked smaller, almost frail.  Her eyelids 
were a translucent gray.  She'd been through a lot in the 
last few days.

She opened her eyes and looked up at Monica.  Monica reached
out and put her hand on Deborah's arm and watched as the fear
in the woman's eyes faded.

"Deborah, how are you?" Monica asked.

"Agent Reyes," she said with a wan smile.  "I am okay.  I 
want to go home."

"I wanted to let you know that I checked in on Jacob Owdeye 
just now.  They tell me he'll probably have to be here for 
quite a while, but that he should be all right."

Deborah closed her eyes.  "Ashe," she murmured.  She looked 
at Monica again.  "Your partner?  He is all right too?"

"Yes," Monica said, "John will be fine.  I think they'll 
keep him here for another day or so just to make sure he 
doesn't develop pneumonia or have any problems from the 
concussion."

Deborah nodded.  She was still for a long moment.  "Agent 
Reyes," she finally said, "you know what I did."

"Yes, I think I do."

"Then I must tell you that I should have done it much 
sooner."

Monica didn't say anything.

"If I had followed my own instincts--if I had not been so 
careful to follow the wishes of my priest--neither Owdeye 
nor Agent Doggett would have been hurt.  That's something I 
will always live with."

This seems to be a day for regrets, Monica thought, and for 
guilt.  

"You were doing what you thought you should do, Deborah.  
Keeping a promise, isn't that what you told me?" Monica 
said.

Deborah nodded.  "It is not an excuse."  She sighed.  "Are 
you going to tell. . . the others?"

"No," Monica said.  "They wouldn't believe me if I did.  
What would be the point?"  She took her hand from Deborah's 
arm.  "May I ask you something?"

"Yes," Deborah said quietly. 

"The birds?   Was all that your doing?   You were keeping 
watch, through them?"

Deborah nodded.  It was enough of the truth.  

"And was it Shango who created the fire?"  Assuming you 
believed in the powers of the orishas, the orisha Shango 
would explain the fire, the lightning-like flash Monica had 
seen at the church that day.  It would explain Goodall's 
body.  Monica wondered if Deborah's actions in the church 
that day were out of anger or had a deeper purpose, though 
it hardly seemed to matter anymore.

Deborah's brows rose.  "Yes," she said.  "Agent Reyes, you 
know more than you let on.  The orishas come to us when we 
are in trance, as if we are the horses and they the riders.  
I am sanctified to Oya and Shango.  It is a duty that is 
both beautiful and terrible."

"Yes," Monica said softly.  "I can see that it would be."



As she left Deborah's room, Monica thought about how ironic 
it was how people are so often chosen to do things they'd 
rather not do.

And she thought of another irony:  Deborah had more in 
common with John Doggett than either of them could ever 
imagine.   


             *            *            *


Tuesday Morning

It was steamy and overcast, hotter than a stove already at 
8 a.m.  Ruth Dannah pushed the screen door open and walked 
out onto the old porch with her glass of tea.  She sat down 
in the rocker there and crossed her bare legs, sipping the 
cold drink.

It was so quiet.  It was going to take some getting used 
to, she thought, being alone.  Maeve had left on Sunday 
evening, after supper there at the house with Morgan and 
Max.  Maeve and Max both had flights out of Jacksonville 
around 9 p.m., so they left right after supper.  Morgan had 
helped her clean up the supper dishes, and then she had 
gone too, back to Gainesville to the hospital.  

Morgan had been back and forth several times a day since 
Saturday night.  The child was looking tired, but Ruth knew 
her daughter and knew it wouldn't do her a bit of good to 
tell her to stay there at the house and rest.  Ruth had 
learned over the years that it was usually fine to offer 
gentle counsel but that it was a waste of energy and time
to try to impose anything on either of her daughters,
particularly Morgan.

Ruth sipped the tea.  She would be 65 years old in 
September.  She had been married for almost 40 years to a 
man she'd loved passionately and had borne him two 
beautiful girl babies.  She'd taught school for 30 years 
and piano lessons for even longer.  Her life had been good, 
was still good, even though she would miss Jack Dannah 
until the day she died.

It's just that change was never easy.  She didn't fear it, 
but she knew she didn't welcome it, either.

She watched the birds in the old pecan tree flit from 
branch to branch.  There were fewer birds out there now, 
and they were quieter.  It was as if something had changed, 
as if some peace had fallen over them.   Ruth smiled.

The screen door opened, and Mo came out to join her.  
Dressed in her white shirt and denim skirt, she was 
eating a fresh biscuit covered with butter and jelly.
Ruth smiled to see that her daughter's old habits hadn't
changed much.  She'd always loved Ruth's biscuits, and
always with butter and jelly.

"Mama, how are you doing?" she asked, wiping her mouth 
clean and kissing Ruth on the cheek.

"I'm doin' okay, sweetie.   What have you decided?"  Ruth 
pulled the other wooden rocker over close, and Mo sat down.

"John leaves the hospital today.  Mama, I'm going to fly 
home to Virginia with him."  Mo said.

Ruth looked at her daughter.  "Well, I can't say that comes 
as a big surprise," she said.  "You don't really think 
either of you fooled me, do you?"

Mo laughed.  "Mama, you're somethin' else," she said.

"Well, he may not be the love of your life, darlin', but 
it's been fairly obvious since he showed up here that you 
like him more than a little bit." 

"Yeah, I do," Mo admitted.  "And you know what?  I don't 
know why I didn't learn this last winter when I came so 
close to dying myself, but I think I've learned it these 
last few days.  I'm not going to waste any more time being 
afraid and telling myself I don't really care for him.  
Because I do.  And life's too fragile.  You just never know
when your choices aren't going to be there anymore."

Ruth covered Mo's hand with hers.  "It's an important 
lesson to learn, sweetie."

"It is, isn't it?" Mo said.  "It's about time I learned 
it."  She smiled.  "I'll probably only stay in Falls Church 
a few days, though.  I have to get home--I have a lot to do 
there."  She squeezed Ruth's hand.  "I love you, Mama.  I 
probably don't tell you that enough, either." Ruth smiled 
at her.  "I'll have to go get my stuff together.  I need to 
get back to the hospital before too long."

"Do you need my help gettin' anything together?"  Ruth 
asked.

"No, Mama.  Just your company.  Always."


OBLIGATION 10/10
Rating:  A strong R for violence, language, and sexuality.


EPILOGUE

Falls Church, Virginia
Sunday Evening

Mo rinsed the last plate and set it in the rack.  She 
turned off the water, wiped the sink and counter and dried 
her hands on the hand towel there.  Then, resting her arms 
on the edge of the sink, she stood for a moment and looked 
out the window at the enveloping darkness outside, at the 
lights from neighbors' houses, at the glimmering walkway 
lights and the lights on spacious backyard decks.  It was a 
lovely neighborhood, peaceful, green, comfortable.  Safe.

But it wasn't home, and the thought made her indescribably 
sad.  She needed to go home, to *her* home.  

Home.  She thought about the first night she'd spent with 
him, back in the winter, at her house in Boulder.  Barely 
more than strangers, they'd taken each other's clothes off 
with hardly any words and made love in her living room and 
then again, later, in her big four-post bed.  Afterward,  
they'd lain under her heavy comforter while a fierce wind 
threw swirls of snow against her bedroom windows.   They'd 
talked quietly, kissed, touched each other.  She'd been 
perfectly content to lie with him while he ran his hands 
over her body like a blind man trying to learn her secrets.  
After a while, he'd slept, and she had curled into his 
warmth and slept herself, her arm wrapped over his waist, 
her body curved around his.  It had been a few hours of 
peace and safety during the worst period of her life.  
She'd needed him.

Maybe he'd needed her too.

She had trusted him, and he hadn't disappointed her.



Even injured, he moved quietly, and she felt more than 
heard him come up behind her.  She stood still, holding her 
breath, feeling a shiver run through her body as she waited 
for him to touch her.  He slipped his fingers under one of 
the thin straps of her blue silk top, slid it down off 
her shoulder and ran his fingers up her bare arm to her
neck.  He put his other arm around her waist and pulled her
close, touching his lips to the nape of her neck.  Sighing,
she leaned back against him, and he held her, laying his
cheek against her hair.   

If anything could make this place home to her, it would be 
him, but she didn't think that wishing could make it so. 

At last she turned around and looked at him.  The bruising 
on the side of his face was fading a little, but it was 
still hard to look at.  "Why don't you go on outside and 
sit down, get comfortable?  I'll bring you one of the beers 
I bought."

Doggett's lips quirked up in an ironic half-smile.  "Mo, 
you don't need to wait on me," he said.

She held up her hand.  "Just let me take care of you," she 
said.  "You took care of me when I was hurt."

He couldn't argue with that.  He remembered holding her one 
night last winter when she'd awakened, crying and shaking, 
from a nightmare full of terrors that she couldn't remember 
when she was awake.  The memories only came back in her 
dreams, and they kept coming back for months and months.

He didn't think his dreams had awakened her yet.

"And, you know, I actually *can* do domestic pretty well," 
she added, smiling.  "Go!"  She flapped her hands at him, 
shooing him out the screen door to the deck.  

He shook his head, smiling, and walked over to the glider 
and eased himself onto it.  God damn, how long was it going 
to be before it wouldn't hurt to roll over in bed, to walk, 
to sit up, to fucking breathe?   

Mo slid the screen door open and stepped out onto the deck, 
holding two cold Peronis.  She walked over to the glider 
and handed one to Doggett, then curled up against him on 
the seat, pulling her legs up in front of her and tucking 
her long silk skirt around her legs. 

"Thanks," he said, putting his arm around her.  He watched 
her.  "Mo, was your mom okay with this?"

"With this?" She looked puzzled, and then understanding 
dawned on her face.  "Oh, my coming here?  Yes, I think it 
pleased her, actually."  She smiled at him.  "I'm a big 
girl now, you know."

"I know," he said.  "I just wondered.  I'd been wonderin' 
what she'd think if she knew--"

"That you were sleeping with her daughter?" Mo said 
wickedly.  "Did you think she was going to get out the 
shotgun?"  She laughed.  "You're so funny."   He shook his 
head, and she put her hand on his leg.  "John, my mother 
knows I care for you, and all she's concerned about is 
whether I'm happy."

She smiled and lifted the beer to her lips and took a long 
sip, enjoying its slightly bitter bite.  She looked up.  It 
was a clear night, hot and humid and starry.  The moon was 
a tiny, waxing sliver in the purple sky.

"It's a pretty maiden moon," she said quietly.

He looked at her quizzically.  

She realized that he had no idea what she was talking
about.  They really were from opposite sides of the universe.
"A maiden moon is a crescent moon waxing," she explained. 
"The full moon is the mother, and then the waning moon is
called the crone.  It's a symbol of the triple goddess."

"I'm sorry I asked," he said wryly.  

"No, you're not," she murmured, smiling gently.  "Look at 
the education you're getting."  She laced her fingers in 
his.  "That, and free beer."  She looked at him, expecting 
him to laugh, and the look on his face surprised her.

He put his beer down and pulled her close to him wordlessly,
holding her tight.  He didn't really know what he wanted from
her, what he expected her to give him, to tell him.  Maybe he
just needed some of her strength.  It occurred to him that he'd
never looked to her for that before, that she'd never been the
stronger one.

She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling his sudden upwelling of 
pain.  She ran her fingers back through his hair, massaged 
the back of his neck with sure, practiced fingers.  

"You're gonna be all right, darlin'.  It'll all work out," 
she murmured.

"I know," he said into her hair.  "I know.  It's just too 
soon, I guess."

"I understand," she said softly into his ear.  "Darlin', I 
really do."

He knew that she did.  

"The worst part was not being able to help," he said.  
"Feelin' so fuckin' helpless."

"I know.  That's because of who you are down to your 
core." She lifted his face to her so that she could see his 
eyes.  "That man knew that about you, somehow, and he used 
it to torture you."  She ran her fingers down his cheeks.  
"But it's over, darlin'.  He's dead, and you're here.  
Jacob Owdeye is still alive." 

"You make it sound easy," he said.  "Like when it's over, 
it should be over up here too."  He touched his temple.  
"Monica said something to me about lettin' go, like it's 
easy."

"If I made it sound easy, I didn't mean to.  It's not easy.  
And I'll bet Monica didn't mean that either.  This kind of 
stuff is never easy."

They settled back onto the glider together.  Doggett sipped 
his beer and sighed.  He shifted his weight, uncomfortable.  
"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," she said and waited for him to continue.

"What makes you believe?"  he finally asked.

She blinked.  "What makes me believe?  Believe what?"

He rubbed the back of his neck.   "You know, the paranormal 
stuff, the New Agey stuff."  He checked to see if his words 
had offended her and was relieved to see her smile.  "Mo, 
you can accept the damnedest things--you can *do* the 
damnedest things.  I mean, that first day I met you and you 
sat there and just--"  He shook his head.  "You called it 
magic, but whatever the hell it was you did, I could *feel* 
it.  I damn near fell off my chair."

"Do you mean this?"  She shut her eyes and breathed in 
deeply, spreading her fingers.  And then, in just a few 
seconds, Doggett felt it:  The shift in the atmosphere, the 
pressure on his eardrums, the hair standing up on his arms, 
the back of his neck.  

"Yeah," he breathed.  "That."

She opened her eyes and smiled.  "I'm sorry, darlin'.  I
don't mean to tease."  Her face grew serious.  "You have to
understand that I was born able to do that.  I don't know
what it's like not to be able to do it.  So that might make
me different from someone else."  

She wrapped her arms around her knees and leaned toward 
him, suddenly energized.  "If you want to know what makes 
me believe, I'd just have to ask you what makes you believe 
in gravity," she said, trying to explain herself.  "It's 
not really a matter of belief.  It's just a given."  She 
shrugged.  "That's how I feel about magic.  It's life and 
energy and the power at the heart of everything, and it's 
everywhere.   You have to learn to love the process, to 
learn how to see it, how to work with it.  Everyone seems 
to tap into it in different ways.  The Lucumi you met down 
in Florida have their own ways, very powerful."

Doggett wondered if she'd spoken to Monica, or if she just 
knew this stuff.  He figured she probably knew it.  He was 
beginning to recognize just how much he didn't know about 
this woman.

"I guess I just want you to know it's not anything to be 
afraid of--the magic, or whatever you want to call it, the 
ability," she added.   She scanned his face.  "Because I 
think you're afraid of it, a little.  Afraid you might be 
giving in to something you don't believe in.  Am I right?"

He shook his head.  "I'm not really sure.   I guess I'm 
tryin' to figure it out.  Like you said, maybe it's 
educational."  He smiled a little.   "Or maybe you've just 
grown on me, Mo." 

She looked away from him, smiling. Then she looked back up
at him, right into his eyes.  "Can I say something else?"

He nodded.  "Sure."

Now it was her turn to hesitate.  "I guess I just believe 
that nothing else really matters more than love--love and 
faith and sacredness."  He could see that she was a little
embarrassed.  "Maybe I have a different view of what sacredness
is than some people do, but it's important to me.  And I just
need to tell you--"  She looked away.  She was nervous, her 
palms damp, and she knew he could feel it too, and oh, God, 
she was making a total mess of this--

She looked back at him, and those amazing eyes were intent 
on her.  

"--I just need to tell you that I love you."

Silence.  She drew in a breath and waited a beat.

"Because you just don't know what life's going to bring 
you," she hurried to add.   "When you went missing, I was 
afraid that maybe I'd never see you again.  And I would 
have hated it if you'd never found out how I feel, just 
because I was afraid to tell you."  She smiled at him 
tentatively.  "There.  I'm done now."

His eyes were still uncomfortably intent on her, but their 
expression was warm.  "You don't have to make light of it, 
Mo.  Did you think I was gonna run away?"

She searched his face for a moment.  "No, I guess I didn't, 
not really," she finally admitted. 

"It finally dawned on me last week, in Florida, that maybe 
you did love me." He smiled.  "Guess I'm a little slow.  
And I guess I've been wondering for a while now what it 
would be like to love you."  He rubbed his hand down his 
cheek.  "I've been wondering for a while now about a lot of
things, to tell you the truth."

She nodded.  "I got that feeling," she said gently.  "You
Have a lot to look at right now, don't you?  I don't want to
add more to it." She put a hand on his knee.  "I don't want
you to feel uncomfortable about what I said."   

"I know," he said softly.  "I think I understand.  You don't
want to let things slide."

She nodded.  "Almost dying has a way of changing you, you
know?"

"Better than you might think," he said dryly.  "But you 
lovin' me isn't a burden.  Why would you even think that?" 

She looked at him in wonder.  "I don't know.  I guess I was
afraid it could complicate things."  She pushed a wayward
lock of hair off her forehead.  "It's easier when you're
20, you know?   You're young--you tend not to see the shades
of gray. There's less history to get in the way."

He regarded her, saying nothing, knowing what she said was 
true.

"I need to go home, darlin'," she added.  "It's been 
weighing on my mind the last day or so.  There's stuff I 
need to do, people who need me."

"I know that," he said, rubbing his fingers absently along 
her arm.  "It's where you belong, isn't it?"  He knew that 
was true too, though it hurt a little.  

She nodded.  "It really is."  She took a deep breath and let
it out in a sigh.  "Oh, Lord.  I think I need another beer." 
She smiled at him.  "Or maybe a Valium."

"No," he said.  "You need to come here."  He pulled her 
closer to him and up, gently, onto his lap.  She rucked her 
skirt up and straddled his thighs, careful not to jar his 
still-painful ribs, and put her hands on his waist.  He 
combed his fingers back through her hair, holding her head 
gently between his hands.  "You're such an amazing, 
beautiful woman," he said to her.

"You keep telling me that, I'll start to believe it," she 
said softly.

"You should."  He kissed her once, slowly, then again.

She lay her head on his shoulder, pressing her face against 
his neck, breathing in the warm scent of his skin.  He held 
her, lazily caressing her bare shoulders and back, and they 
rested together in the quiet, listening to the peaceful 
sound of crickets in all the green back yards.

"You're not leavin' right away, are you?" he asked then, 
his lips warm and soft against her cheek.

"No.  I was thinking maybe Tuesday, if I can get a flight."

"Then be with me now," he said.  "Let me love you."

She raised her head and smiled at him.  "I'm here," she 
said.  "I wouldn't be anywhere else right now."

He kissed her again, harder, one warm hand on the back of 
her neck, the other on her breast, circling the taut nipple 
with his thumb until she moaned quietly. 

He slid his hand under her skirt, his fingers drawing 
languid circles on her naked thigh. 

"Ah, darlin', don't stop," she sighed against his mouth. 

"I think we'd better go inside," he said, amused. 

"Or we could stay out here," she whispered, "and scandalize 
your neighbors." 

He laughed.  "You don't have to live with my neighbors," he 
said.

"True," she admitted, smiling.  "I guess we should be good 
and spare them the shock."  She got up from his lap and  
held out her hand to him.  "Come love me, then," she said 
softly.

He took her hand and stood up, and they walked inside, 
sliding the door closed behind them.  He locked the door, 
and she turned off the kitchen lights.

And they walked upstairs together, in the quiet dark.


End



Notes

My father was born and raised in North Florida, and the 
area is very familiar to me.  Any inconsistencies are 
mistakes of memory or simply artistic license.  I 
researched the Lucumi religion (Santeria), and I regret any 
mistakes in respect to that.  Of course, certain liberties 
were taken for the sake of the story.