Like a maggot, his malice ate away at the parts of him that were still healthy. She was beaten, but she wouldn't admit it, and that was unbearable. He needed to see her defeated. He needed to watch the last glimmer of hope fade from her eyes until her soul was as empty as his. He needed to stand by and watch her accept what he'd already discovered. Some things in life couldn't be survived.

He jerked the doors shut and threw the lock. "You're turning that boy into a sissy. Is that what you want? A sissy boy who's never going to leave your side?"

She spun on him. "What I do with my son is none of your concern."

"That's where you're wrong. Everything you do is my concern. Don't forget that I can put you in jail with one phone call."

"You bastard."

He felt an unfamiliar heat in his chest and knew that his malevolence had begun to char the borders of his heart. If he didn't leave her alone, his heart would burn away until nothing was left but a pile of ash. The idea tantalized him. "I want my money back."

"What?"

"You haven't earned it, and I want it back. Now." He didn't care about the money, and one chamber of his smoldering heart imploded. Good. That meant there were only three more to go.

She reached into the pocket of her dress and threw the small stack of bills at him. They fluttered to the ground like broken dreams. "I hope you choke on every penny."

"Pick that up."

She drew back her arm and slapped him as hard as she could.

What she lacked in muscle, she made up for in passion, and his head snapped to the side. The sting sent fresh blood pumping through his body, fresh blood he didn't want. It renewed his charred cells, undoing what he needed to accomplish and releasing a torrent of new pain.

"Take off your clothes." The words, born in the dark and empty place where his soul used to be, came unexpectedly. They sickened him, but he didn't take them back. All she had to do was show fear, and he would let her go. All she had to do was crumble.

But instead of crumbling, she was angry. "Go to hell."

Didn't she understand how isolated they were? She was locked inside a secluded building with a man who could overpower her in seconds. Why wasn't she afraid?

He realized he'd finally found a way to kill himself. If he took this any farther, he would die of spite. "Do what I say."

"Why?"

Where was her fear? He caught her by the shoulders and backed her against the wall, only to hear Cherry's voice whisper in his ear.

I love your gentleness, Gabe. You're the most gentle man I've ever known.

He knew that voice could tear him to pieces, and he blocked it out by pushing his hand under Rachel's dress and closing it around her inner thigh.

"What do you want from me?" Her anger had disappeared, and confusion had taken its place. He caught the faint fragrance of summer in her hair, sweet, enticing, full of life.

Tears that he would never shed pushed at the backs of his eyes. "Sex."

Her gaze met his, and her green eyes chilled him to the bone. "No. You don't."

"That just goes to show what you know." Despite everything, he was hard. Although his mind was dead to lust, his body didn't seem to have gotten the message. He pressed himself against her to prove how wrong she was and felt the sharp edges of her hipbones. God, she was thin. He pushed his hand higher and touched the nylon of her panties. Two days ago they'd been blue, he remembered. A frail wisp of blue nylon.

He was clammy with sweat. Beneath his callused palms, her skin felt as fragile as the membrane of an egg. He slipped his hand between her legs and cupped her.

"Do you give up?" He ground out the words, and only after they were spoken did he realize he'd made it sound as if this were some child's game they were playing.

He felt the faint tremor that passed through her body. "I'm not going to fight you. I don't care that much."

He still hadn't broken her. Instead, it was as if he'd done nothing more than give her another job. Pick up the trash. Clean the Johns. Spread your legs so I can fuck you. Her acceptance made him furious, and he shoved her dress up to her waist.

"Damn it! Are you so stupid you don't know what I'm going to do to you?"

Her eyes bore into his without flinching. "Are you so stupid you haven't figured out yet that it doesn't matter?"

She robbed him of speech. His face contorted, and his breath grew ragged. At that moment, he looked the devil in the eye and saw his own reflection.

With a harsh exclamation, he pushed himself away from her. He caught a glimpse of pink nylon, then the soft whish of fabric as her skirt dropped back into place. All the fire in his body was gone.

He moved as far away from her as he could, over to the counter, and when he spoke, he couldn't summon more than a whisper. "Wait outside."

Other women would have run after they'd faced down the devil, but she didn't. She walked to the door, her head high, her posture erect.

"Take the money," he managed.

Even then he underestimated her. He expected her to tell him to go to hell and stalk out. But Rachel Snopes was stronger than false pride. Only after she had picked up every last bill did she walk away.

When the door shut behind her, he slouched against the counter and sat on the floor, his arms propped on his knees. He stared blindly ahead as the past two years unraveled in his head like an old black-and-white newsreel. Everything, he saw now, had led to today. The pills, the booze, the isolation.

Two years ago death had stolen his family, and today it had robbed him of his humanity. Now he wondered if it was too late to get it back.

6

In Ethan Bonner's job, he was supposed to love everyone, yet he despised the woman who sat in the passenger seat of his Camry. As he turned out onto the highway from the drive-in entrance, he observed her scarecrow-thin body and hollow cheeks scrubbed free of the makeup that had once coated them. The wild auburn jumble of curls and tangles had nothing in common with the teased and tortured hair he recalled from three years earlier when the television cameras had shown her sitting beneath the Temple's famous floating pulpit.

Her appearance had once reminded him of a cross between Priscilla Presley during the Elvis years and an old-time country western singer. But instead of sequined clothing, she now wore a faded dress with one mismatched button. She looked both years younger and decades older than the woman he remembered. Only her small, regular features and the clean line of her profile remained the same.

He wondered exactly what had happened between her and Gabe. His resentment toward her deepened. Gabe had endured enough without being saddled with her problems, too.

A glance in the rearview mirror showed her little boy huddled amidst the meager pile of their possessions that were stacked on the backseat: an old suitcase, two blue plastic laundry baskets with broken handles, and a cardboard box held together with some tape.

The sight swamped him with both anger and guilt. Once again, he had fallen short. You knew from the beginning I wasn't fit to be a minister, but would You listen? Not You. Not the Great Know-It-All. Well, I hope You're satisfied.

A voice that sounded very much as if it belonged to Clint Eastwood echoed inside Ethan's head. Quit your bellyaching, chump. You're the one who acted like a jerk two days ago and refused to help her. Don't put the blame on Me.

Great! Just when Ethan had been hoping for a little compassion from Marion Cunningham, he got Eastwood. With a certain amount of resignation, he wondered why he was even surprised.

Ethan seldom got the God he wanted to hear. Right now, he'd wanted Mrs. Cunningham, the great "Happy Days" Mother God. It figured he'd get Eastwood instead. The Eastwood God was strict Old Testament. You screwed up, punk, and now you're going to pay.

God had been talking to Ethan for years. When he was a kid, the voice had come from Charlton Heston, which had been a major drag, since it was hard for a youngster to bare his soul to all that mighty Republican wrath. But as Ethan's understanding of the many facets of the power and wisdom of God had matured, Charlton had been stored away, along with the other artifacts of his childhood, and replaced by images of three celebrities, all of them woefully inadequate to be divine representations.

If he had to hear voices, why couldn't they have come from more dignified people? Albert Schweitzer, for example? Or Mother Teresa? Why couldn't he get his inspiration from Martin Luther King or Mahatma Ghandi? Unfortunately, Ethan was a product of his culture, and he'd always liked movies and TV. Thus, he seemed to be stuck with pop icons.

"Is it too cold in here?" he asked, trying to overcome his animosity. "I can turn the air-conditioning down."

"Just fine, Rev."

Her cheeky manner set his teeth on edge, and he silently berated Gabe for getting him into this situation. But his brother had sounded so desperate on the phone when he'd called less than an hour ago that Ethan hadn't been able to refuse him.

When Ethan had arrived at the Pride of Carolina, he'd found the door of the snack shop locked and Rachel and her son sitting on the turtle in the playground. There was no sign of Gabe. He'd helped load up the pitiful pile of possessions that was stacked over by the riverbank, and now he was taking them to Heartache Mountain and Annie's cottage.

Rachel glanced over at him. "Why are you helping me?"

He remembered her as being shy, and her directness took him aback, just as it had two days earlier. "Gabe asked me to."

"He asked you two days ago, but you refused."

He said nothing. In some way he couldn't entirely define, he resented this woman even more than he'd resented G. Dwayne. Her husband had been an obvious crook, but she was a more subtle one.

She gave a wry laugh. "It's okay, Rev. I forgive you for hating my guts."

"I don't hate you. I don't hate anyone." He sounded stuffy and pompous.

"How noble."

Her disdain angered him. What right did she have to be condescending after she and her husband had destroyed so much with their greed?

None of the county's ministers had been able to compete with the Temple of Salvation's riches. They didn't have rhinestone-flecked choir robes or laser-enhanced worship services. The Temple had offered Las Vegas in the name of Jesus Christ, and many of the local church members couldn't resist the combination of show-business glitter and easy answers offered by G. Dwayne Snopes.

Unfortunately, as members fled their local congregations, they took their money with them, along with the funds that had always supported the county's good causes. Before long, an area drug program was abandoned, then the food pantry hours were cut back. But the biggest loss had been the county's small storefront medical clinic, an interdenominational venture that had been the pride of the local clergy. They had watched helplessly as the money their churches had spent helping the poor ended up in G. Dwayne Snopes's bottomless pockets instead. And Rachel had been a big part of that.

He remembered the day he'd impulsively introduced himself to her as she was coming out of the bank. He'd told her about the clinic that was being forced to close and been encouraged by what he'd interpreted as a genuine look of concern behind her mascara-coated eyelashes.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Reverend Bonner."

"I'm not trying to assign blame," he'd said, "but the Temple of Salvation has taken so many members from our local congregations that the churches have had to abandon one worthy project after another."

She'd stiffened, and he could see that he'd made her defensive. "You can't blame what's happened on the Temple."

He should have been more tactful, but the large sapphires in her earlobes caught the sunlight, and he thought how even one of those stones could help keep the clinic open. "I'll admit that I'd like to see the Temple show a little more responsibility to the community."

"The Temple has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into this county."

"Into the business community, but not into philanthropy."

"You're obviously not a regular viewer, Reverend Bonner, or you'd know that the Temple does wonderful work. Orphanages throughout Africa depend on us."

Ethan had been trying to look into those orphanages, along with the rest of the Temple's finances, and he wouldn't let this pampered woman decked out in flashy jewelry and too-high heels get by with that one. "Tell me, Mrs. Snopes, am I the only one who wonders exactly how many of those millions of dollars your husband collects for orphans actually make their way to Africa?"