creature he’d seen through his train window the night before. A pair of scarlet wings splayed open
over its back, the feathers brushing the snow. As an icy wind blew over Verlaine, it was impossible
to tell if his body tingled from the cold or from the shock at what lay before him.
Meanwhile, Gabriella had managed to open the door and was searching the SUV, emerging with a
gym bag, the very bag he’d left in his Renault the previous afternoon.
“That’s mine,” Verlaine said. “They took it when they broke into my car yesterday.”
Gabriella unzipped the bag, withdrew a folder, and sorted through its contents.
“What are you looking for?”
“Something that might explain how much Percival knows,” Gabriella said, examining the papers.
“Has he seen these?”
Verlaine peered over her shoulder. “I didn’t give these files to him, but those guys might have.”
Gabriella turned away from the wreckage and made her way back up the snowy hill to the car. “We
had better hurry,” she said. “The good sisters of St. Rose are in more immediate danger than I had
feared.”
Verlaine took the driver’s seat, deciding that he would drive the remaining miles to the convent. He
turned the Porsche around and headed back to the highway. Everything before him lay still and calm.
The rolling hills appeared sedate under blankets of snow. The barn slouched in abandonment, the
cloud-heavy sky vaulted above. Aside from a few scratches and a guttering in the engine, the old
Porsche carried on with admirable resilience. In fact, it appeared that nothing had changed
significantly in the past ten minutes but Verlaine. The leather steering wheel grew slick under his
hands, and he found that his heart beat hard in his chest. Images of the dead men appeared in his mind.
Intuiting Verlaine’s thoughts, Gabriella said, “You did the right thing.”
“I’ve never even held a gun before today.”
“They were brutal killers,” she said, her voice businesslike, as if the dispatching of men were
something she performed on a regular basis. “In a world of good and evil, one cannot shy from
making distinctions.”
“It isn’t a distinction I’ve thought much about.”
“That,” Gabriella said softly, “will change if you remain with us.”
Verlaine slowed the car, pausing at a stop sign before turning back onto the highway. The convent
was only miles ahead.
“Is Evangeline one of you?” he asked.
“Evangeline knows very little about angelology. We told her nothing about it when she was a child.
She is young and obedient—traits that might have been her undoing if she weren’t extremely bright.
Placing her in the hands of the sisters of St. Rose Convent was her father’s idea—he was Catholic,
quite attached to the romantic notion that young ladies are best sheltered from danger by hiding them
in a cloister. He could not help it. He was Italian. Such notions ran in his blood.”
“And she listened to him?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your granddaughter gave up everything worth living for simply because her father told her to?”
“There is perhaps some room for debate about what is and what is not worth living for,” Gabriella
said. “But you are right: Evangeline did exactly as she was instructed. Luca brought her to the United
States after Evangeline’s mother—my daughter, Angela—was murdered. I imagine that her upbringing
was rigorously religious. I imagine he must have prepared her from an early age for her eventual
induction into St. Rose Convent. How else in this day and age would a young girl of her gifts go so
willingly?”
Verlaine said, “It seems rather medieval.”
“But you did not know Luca,” Gabriella said. “And you do not know Evangeline. Their affection
for each other was something to behold. They were inseparable. I believe that Evangeline would have
done anything, absolutely anything, her father told her—including giving her life to the church.”
They drove along the highway in silence, the Porsche’s engine rattling, the forest rising on both
sides. Only an hour before, it had seemed a strangely restful journey. But every cluster of trees, every
bend in the road, every narrow lane funneling into their path presented the opportunity for ambush.
Verlaine pressed his foot on the gas, pushing the Porsche faster and faster. He checked the mirror
every few seconds, as if the SUV might appear at any moment, the assassins rising from the dead.
St. Rose Convent, Milton, New York
Evangeline and Celestine rode the elevator to the fourth floor, the strap of the leather case already