They did not make it back to the Austin residence until after two in the morning. Derek Steen’s computer files had proven infuriatingly bare of usable evidence. Adam ran a search covering various names—Peter’s company, Oxford University, the hospital doing clinical trials, the Italian company. Brief snippets appeared here and there, terse fragments that could well have been some company code. Given weeks, Adam suspected he could have come up with a clear trail of misdeeds. But Adam did not have weeks. Each passing minute brought an increased risk of discovery. Finally Adam did a wholesale dump of Steen’s entire filing system and zipped it off to his own e-mail address. And fled.
Despite the shortened night, Adam awoke not just clear-headed, but with a precise knowledge of his next step. A life-time’s worth of arguments meant nothing in the face of this certainty. When Honor and Peter entered the kitchen below his bedroom, he dressed and went downstairs to join them. But he had no intention of sharing with them the fragments and guesses that had been gained from his search. And the confrontation with Derek was Kayla’s story to relate. Instead, he took his mug over to the rear doors and savored dawn’s slow arrival. Circling hawklike in the growing light was a whisper from his past. His twelfth birthday had fallen on a Sunday. Adam had celebrated by asking his mother not to make him go to church again. Not then, not ever. Even at twelve, Adam had been determined to go places, and do so on his own terms. He was going to be strong. He was going to win.
Instead of all the arguments he had spent weeks steeling himself against, his mother had simply replied, “One day I hope you come to understand the difference between religion and faith, between the church and the body of Christ.”
Adam saw both the mist-clad valley and his own hollow-eyed reflection. All this time, and he still had no idea what she had been talking about.
Well, it was time he started finding out.
When he turned around, Honor asked, “Have you colored your hair?”
“Yes. It’s a long story.”
Peter’s rasp had deepened to where he scarcely had any voice at all. “It’s time we left for church.”
Adam set his mug on the counter and said what had been waiting for him when he awoke. “Could I come with you?”
Honor asked, “To the morning service?”
“If it’s all right.”
“Of course it’s all right. We’d be delighted to have you join us, wouldn’t we, Peter?”
But as Peter opened his mouth to respond, a soft voice asked, “Can I come too?”
Tendrils of mist glowed yellow in the lights surrounding the church. The bell sounded muffled, a tolling soft as the pre-dawn. Villagers offered one another quiet greetings as they passed through the perimeter walls. Footsteps scrunched across the graveled forecourt. The bell tolled a final time as they climbed the front steps, the sound lingering long in the chill and the damp.
The church’s interior was far narrower than the outer structure suggested. A placard by the entrance said the edifice dated from 1087 and was built upon the foundations of a far older church, one that had never been successfully dated, though records from the eighth century mentioned a monastery on the site. Kayla followed her father and Honor down the central aisle. Candles flanked the aisle and the front altar. Honor slipped into a pew close to the front. The church was neither full nor empty. Kayla guessed their numbers at about fifty.
A woman muffled against the wintry chill rose from the first pew and approached the dais. The ritual returned to Kayla with the soft familiarity of an old and dear friend. She murmured words she had once taken pride in forgetting. Her mind flitted to the service, to Peter on one side of her, and Honor on the other, and Adam on her father’s other side. Kayla observed how Adam studied the missal with such intensity the air seemed to shimmer about him.
Her long nap in the seedy London hotel had left her unable to sleep once they finally returned home. Instead, she had tossed and turned through the dark hours, chased from sleep by two thoughts. No, she corrected, thought was not a strong enough term. They were certainties. She knew with absolute conviction that they were both true; first, that Adam loved her, and second, that she did not have it within herself to give what he needed.
But what finally drove her from her bed was the question asked in a predawn hush, yet resounding through her with explosive force.
Did she want to give to him, to answer his needs, to love and be loved?
If so, she had no choice. She could never find what was required inside herself. Not if she searched the ashes of her poor charred heart for a hundred lifetimes. Trust and confidence and hope and love. All the words she had cast aside as belonging to a different person, a different era, a different life. If she wanted to give to him what he needed, what he deserved, she had to look elsewhere.
They rose to their feet a second time, all but Adam. It was unlikely he realized the others had moved at all, his concentration was so complete.
The church was built in the medieval fashion, with walls almost six feet thick at the base, narrowing in pyramidal fashion as they rose to the high ceiling. The narrow stained-glass windows were a pale wintry wash. The candlelight formed a comforting haven where even the flickering shadows were friendly.
Kayla shut her eyes and felt her mother’s presence so intensely she had to resist the urge to reach over and grip the hand that was not there. She took a shaky breath, and her nostrils were filled with her mother’s favorite perfume. Somehow her mother had bridged the eternal divide, just so she could share in this moment. Kayla found the presence so powerful, so comforting, the questions and the doubt and the pain just washed away. A calm replaced it all, the ashes and the hurt and the scorn and the fractured dreams, a calm so potent she could not entirely hold back the tears.
She opened her eyes and stood for the final blessing. The church swam in a gentle glow of candlelight and remembrances so strong they did not vanish merely because the moment was over. Kayla wiped her face and wondered if what she had just experienced might be called a prayer.