Marcia Talley - Through the Darkness

Eva smiled. “I didn’t know, but how wonderful.”

“She turned it down. Told Phyllis to give it all to NCMEC. So she did.”

“I can’t think of a better place for it.”

Eva walked to the wall, took down two of the crosses, wrapped them in newspaper and tucked them into the packing box along with the pencil holder. “I saw that psychic on CNN again this morning.”

“You did?” If Montana Martin had been on TV, I was surprised nobody had told us about it.

“You won’t believe what she was saying.”

I handed Eva a couple more books. “Try me.”

“It seems she’s added the Timothy Shemansky case to her portfolio of cases solved.”

“I don’t believe it! Montana’s predictions about Timmy’s whereabouts didn’t even come close.”

Eva dumped the books I’d handed her unceremoniously into the box. “She predicted ‘on or near water,’ right?”

I nodded.

“Did you notice the decorative fountain near Barnhorst’s apartment complex?”

I groaned. “That fake Victorian monstrosity? Okay. I’ll give her points for that. But she also said that Japanese people had taken him.”

“Chinese,” Eva corrected. “Isn’t the Joy Luck Restaurant right across the street?”

“This is seriously spooky.” I stared at my friend. “Maybe my mother really did want me to have her emerald ring.”

“Maybe we need to perform an exorcism,” Eva joked. “But let’s wait until your father gets back and you’ve had time to ask him about the ring.”

“Oh, Eva,” I cried, leaping to my feet and giving her a bear hug. “I am going to miss you so much!”

After I’d let her go, Eva rattled on, changing the subject. “I’ve got an ATV I can drive in Idaho. That way I won’t have to hoof it up and down the mountain when I need to get into town.”

“Do they have Internet cafés in your Idaho town?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Never thought to look, but if they do, I’ll be sure to e-mail you from time to time.”

“I’d really like that, Eva.”

Eva closed the box she was packing. I held the flaps closed with both hands while she sealed it with tape. “Would you like some tea?” she asked after we had finished with the box. “I’ve got a kettle on in the church kitchen.”

“That would be nice.”

“I’ll be back in a minute, then.”

I helped Eva stack several boxes on a rolling library cart and watched as she pushed the cart down the hall in the direction of the storage closet.

While I waited for Eva to come back with the tea, I puttered. Picking up a book here, a stray piece of paper there. As I moved to toss a dried-up tea bag into the trash, I noticed a tiny, shapely leg sticking out of the jumble of items in Eva’s trash can. I bent over and plucked it out. It was Eva’s Barbie doll. She’d been thrust down, head first, into a pile of crumpled-up sermons.

I smoothed Barbie’s robe over her body, adjusted her surplice, dug around in the mounds of trash until I located her missing stole, and settled that around her shoulders again, too.

Out in the hall, Eva was still pushing the cart with the squeaky wheel down the hallway. I dashed after her, clutching the Barbie. “Eva! You left this! Don’t you want to take your Barbie?”

With a tiredness born of disappointment and regret, Eva slowed. She brushed at her cheeks before turning around, trying, without much success, to hide her tears from me. She raised her voice slightly so that I could hear. “No, I don’t think I’ll need it.”

Still holding Barbie, I hustled down the hall, catching up with my friend near the door to the kitchen. “But Pastor Barbie was a gift from your sister.”

“Yes, but every time I look at her now, she reminds me of my failures. I failed myself, my husband, and my church. But most painfully of all, I’ve failed my God.”

“You’re too good a priest to leave the Church for good, Eva. Maybe after you’ve been away for a while, you’ll see your way clear to come back.”

“Maybe,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

Eva reached out and smoothed Barbie’s hair. Then, just as suddenly, she snatched her hand back as if she’d been burned. “Just throw it away,” she said.

I watched Eva, stooped, slump shouldered, and defeated, as she turned away from me and continued pushing her cart down the hall.

Holding her by her feet, I brought Barbie’s face up to meet mine. “Well, Barbie, what do you say?” I opened my handbag and tucked Pastor Barbie toes first into the pouch that normally contained my cell phone.

Eva might never return to St. Catherine’s, I thought with an ache in my heart, but someday Pastor Eva would come back to God. And when she did, Pastor Barbie would be at my house, waiting for her.

Thanks…

As always, to my husband, Barry, for the galvanized stomach that gets him through the fast food stages of my peripatetic writing life.

To the Rev. Margaret Waters, priest, longtime friend, and ought-to-be-published novelist, for keeping me straight, liturgically speaking.

To Special Agent Marina Murphy, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Annapolis Regional Authority, who answered all my questions about FBI policy and procedures with intelligence and sensitivity.

If I got it wrong, it’s entirely my fault, not theirs.

To Perverted-Justice.com, Dateline NBC , and reporter Chris Hanson, whose “To Catch A Predator” television specials both inspired and informed this story.

To the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Nation’s Missing Children Organization, Child Quest International, Beyond Missing, America’s Most Wanted, Laura Recovery Center, The Polly Klaas Foundation, The Jimmy Ryce Center for Victims of Predatory Abduction, the Maryland Center for Missing Children, and similar organizations throughout the United States and abroad who work tirelessly to make the world a safer place for our children.

To Linda Jones of Bedford, England, massage therapist extraordinaire, whose hands ought to be insured by Lloyds of London; and to Barbara Holderby, for a truly inspirational “Girls Day Out” at the Spa at Pinehurst in North Carolina.

To my writers groups-Sujata Massey, John Mann, Janice McLane, and Karen Diegmueller in Baltimore and Janet Benrey, Trish Marshall, Mary Ellen Hughes, Ray Flynt, Sherriel Mattingly, and Lyn Taylor in Annapolis-for tough love.

To my amazing editor, Sarah Durand; her excellent assistant, Jeremy Cesarec; my can-do publicist, Danielle Bartlett; and everyone at HarperCollins who makes it such an incredibly supportive place for a mystery writer to be.

To my web diva and lunch buddy, Barbara Parker. Come see what Barbara can do at www.marciatalley.com .

To Erika E. Rose, attorney at law, whose generous bid at a charity auction sponsored by the Friends of the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra earned her a starring role in this book.

And to Kate Charles and Deborah Crombie, without whom…

Marcia Talley is the author of five previous books featuring Hannah Ives. A winner of the Malice Domestic writing grant and an Agatha Award nominee for Best First Novel, Ms. Talley won an Agatha and an Anthony Award for her short story “Too Many Cooks” and an Agatha Award for her short story “Driven to Distraction.” She is the editor of two mystery collaborations, and her short stories have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies. She lives with her husband in Annapolis, Maryland.

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