Right on cue, a soft knock fell.

Tessa gave her reflection one last look, squared her shoulders, and then went to open the restroom door.

"I'm sorryI didn't meant to be so long."

"Oh, no, child, no need to apologize." Ruth's sharp face softened, and she reached out to pat Tessa's shoulder. "I should be the one to say I'm sorry, to have upset you."

"It wasn't you, honestly. Just I just felt overwhelmed for a few minutes. It happens sometimes."

"But less and less often. I know, child. I'm a widow myself."

"Then you understand." She managed a smile, wondering if it ever got any easier, pretending to be something she wasn't.

"Of course I understand. Everyone here understands, believe me. We've all faced loss of some kind. Grief. Pain. And we've all found solace here."

As the older woman took a step back, Tessa came out of the restroom and joined her in the vestibule. She was just about to say something about still being unsure, knowing it would be viewed with suspicion if she seemed to give way and give in too suddenly, when three other people appeared from inside the church, paused near the front doors, then came toward them.

"Oh, dear," Ruth murmured beneath her breath.

The obvious cop was the young woman, hardly more than a girl, really, who wore her crisp uniform with an entirely visible pride. But the man on her right was also a cop, if Tessa was any judge, even though he didn't wear a uniform. At least a decade older than the young woman, he was casual in dark slacks and a leather jacket worn over an open-collar shirt. No tie. In fact, the shirt looked somewhat rumpled.

He looked somewhat rumpled.

His square jaw was shadowed by a faint beard that probably needed shaving more than once a day, and his dark hair looked as though fingers or wind had ruffled it in the very recent past. But there was nothing untidy or careless about that level, dark-eyed gaze.

Oh, yeah. Definitely a cop.

Tessa looked at the third person, a tall man with wide shoulders and the most coldly handsome face she had ever seen on something not made of actual stone. He had thick fair hair and pale blue eyes, and even though he was expressionless and without the pleasant, eerily serene smile worn by practically every other person she had seen here, he unquestionably belonged.

With an effort, Tessa pulled her gaze away from that hard face.

"h.e.l.lo, Mrs. Gray," the male cop greeted her. His tone was probably meant to be polite, but nature had given him a rough, gruff voice that rumbled slightly and made his words somewhat abrupt.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Have we met?"

"Not officially. I'm Chief Cavenaugh. Sawyer Cavenaugh. I knew your husband."

Oh, great That's just great. Because I never met the man.

Chapter Five.

SAWYER WASN'T all that surprised to find Tessa Gray here in the Compound and within the church. A woman in her situationnewly widowed, alone in a strange town, and quite wealthy in terms of property and businesswas just the sort of potential church member who would have been on their radar from the day she arrived in Grace. Possibly even before she arrived.

He had intended to warn her but had wanted to give her a week or so to settle in here. And then people had begun going missing, anxious relatives had been calling him, and bodies had turned up. Warning Tessa Gray about the aggressive recruiting practices of the Church of the Everlasting Sin had simply fallen down his list of priorities.

He was sorry about that now.

She'd been pointed out to him in town, from a distance; up close, she looked even more vulnerable, more fragile. And also very attractive.

With a slight, strained smile, she extended her hand, saying, "I'm sorry, Chief Cavenaugh. Jared didn't say much to me about Grace or the people he knew growing up here. He told me he left for college and never came back."

"No, as far as I know, he never did. We weren't close," he felt compelled to add, "so we didn't keep in touch."

Extremely attractive.

Don't be a jerk and hit on your dead childhood friend's widow when he's barely in the ground, Sawyer chided himself, holding that delicate hand as gently as he could manageand very aware of DeMarco's silent attention. And don't provide the ghoul with his amus.e.m.e.nt for the day.

Even so, he heard himself saying, "Call me Sawyer, please."

"Thank you. I'm Tessa."

Sawyer forced himself to release her hand, very reluctantly. "If there's anything I can do to make things easier for you, Tessa, I hope you'll let me know." Idiot. Could you sound any more awkward?

"I appreciate that," she responded, grave now.

Belatedly, Sawyer introduced Robin Keever to the others, and then Ruth Hardin introduced Reese DeMarco to Tessa.

So now we all know who we are.

Sawyer didn't know why, but he couldn't seem to shut up the sarcastic voice in his head. It was, actually, a bit unnerving.

"The Chief had some questions," DeMarco told Ruth. "What we heard was true. There was another body found in the river this morning."

"Oh, how awful." Ruth shook her head. "Do they know who it was?"

"The chief seemed to feel we might know that."

"That we might know? Why?"

"Because of Ellen, I gather."

"I don't understand."

"Neither do I," DeMarco said dryly.

The chief sounds like a moron.

Ruth looked at Sawyer. "Poor Ellen. We do feel that we failed her, Chief Cavenaugh." She sounded genuinely troubled. "If we had only known how upset she was"

"Mrs. Hardin, no one here even reported Ellen Hodges missing, something I find surprising since she was clearly in the river at least a few days before her body was discovered. Nor has her husband or daughter been reported missing, despite the fact that neither can be found."

"Chief, our church is hardly a prison. We told youshowed youthat Kenley and Wendy's clothing and other things are gone. That the family car is gone. Obviously, whatever caused Ellen to take her life"

"She did not commit suicide," Sawyer said.

Ruth's chin jutted stubbornly. "I know what I believe, Chief. I'm very, very sorry Ellen couldn't find what she needed in our church, in us, but I am absolutely convinced that no one here had anything to do with this tragedy."

"Yes," Sawyer said. "I know you are." But not all of you are convinced. At least one of you knows otherwise.

He glanced at Tessa, a little surprised that she was so still and silent, and even more surprised when he caught her gaze for only an instant and saw an unexpected sharpness lurking in those big gray eyes.

Huh. Maybe not so vulnerable, after all?

"In any case," DeMarco said, his tone still dry, "excepting the Hodges, we're all present and accounted for, as I told the chief."

Ruth nodded. "Absolutely. Everyone was at morning prayers today."

"As I'm sure you'll all swear," Sawyer muttered.

"Of course. It's the truth."

I wish I could see something unexpected in her eyes. But, no. She believes what she's saying. She always does.

"I'd still like to talk to Reverend Samuel."

"The reverend is at his afternoon prayers, Chief. A very important private time of quiet and meditation for him, especially before evening services. And you don't, after all, have any evidence connecting the unfortunate person found today in the river with any of us or our church." DeMarco's smile was hardly worth the effort and never came close to warming his eyes.

Robin cleared her throat and shifted her slight weight just a bit.

She could stand a little inscrutable right about now.

"I have plenty of evidence," Sawyer said stubbornly, "connecting Ellen Hodges to all of you and this church. And while I'm sure Mrs. Hardin is completely sincere in her beliefs, my job requires me to explore that evidence."

"Which you have done," DeMarco countered.

"It's an open case. A death under mysterious circ.u.mstances."

"Mysterious?"

"She didn't drown," Sawyer said. "She didn't die of a heart attack or a stroke. She wasn't shot or stabbed or hit over the head. But she is dead. And I will find out what happened to her."

Yeah, toss a gauntlet at his feet. That'll probably work out just great.

"I'm sure you will, Chief."

Arrogant b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"I think," Tessa said a bit hesitantly, "I should probably be going."

"Oh, no," Ruth protested. "I haven't even had time to show you around inside the church."

Under normal circ.u.mstances, Sawyer would have apologized for keeping them and got out of the way. But not this time. This time he merely waited silently. Because he wasn't about to do anything to help them get their claws deeper into Tessa Gray.

Yeah, you're purely unselfish, you are.

"I can always see the rest of the church another day," Tessa was saying with a polite but clearly strained smile.

Ruth shot Sawyer a look that didn't hold a lot of Christian forgiveness, then said to Tessa, "Of course you can, child. I'll walk you back to your car. Chief. Officer Keever."

"Ladies." Sawyer watched the two women until they pa.s.sed through the main doors and out of the church, then shifted his gaze to find DeMarco watching him with a little smile.

Irritated, Sawyer said, "I could stick around for Wednesday evening services, just in case Reverend Samuel has a few minutes afterward to talk to me."

"Yes. You could. Though Reverend Samuel is always very tired after services and retires to his apartment for the night. Still, you're more than welcome to stay. Is that what you'd like to do, Chief?"

You don't need to chase after Tessa now; she'll think you're a stalker. Or something worse. Take advantage of this offer and do your d.a.m.n job.

Sawyer told the sarcastic inner voice to shut the h.e.l.l up and said, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I would like to stay."

Reese DeMarco smiled that smile that never softened his stone face or warmed his icy eyes and said, "Our doors are always open, Chief."

Bambi Devenny had been christened Barbara, but her delicate, doe-eyed beauty as an infant had led to the nickname, and she had really never answered to anything else. It had gotten her teased in school, her situation not helped by the fact that she had matured much faster than the girls around her, skipping the training bra entirely and going straight to a C-cup.

After that, only the other girls teased her.

The boys liked her. A lot.

Or, at least, so Bambi had believed. It hadn't been until the school guidance counselor had talked to her about her skimpy tops and too-tight jeans and baldly asked if she was using birth control and protection against STDs that it had slowly dawned on Bambi that all the muttered I-love-yous in the backseats of cars and under the bleachers at football games meant a lot less than she had believed.

She didn't think she would ever forget the mixture of compa.s.sion and distaste on the counselor's face as she explained that Bambi's mother should have warned her about boys and how they would take advantage of girls who slept around.

Had taken advantage.

Bambi had gone home that day nearly in tears to find yet another "uncle" laughing and drinking with her mother, and when the man had turned his hot-eyed gaze on the daughter as soon as the mother pa.s.sed out, the lesson had been reinforced.

Bambi fended him off with an empty whiskey bottle, then packed her few things and left. She hadn't seen her mother since.

How she had wound up, finally, at the Church of the Everlasting Sin was a tale of a rough and sinful life on the streets, doing what she had to do in order to survive.

"We understand, child," Father told her, his voice deep and warm and inexpressibly comforting. "You had no choice."

"Yes, Father. I hated myself, but it was the only way I knew to make enough money to eat." She kept her gaze on his kind face, oblivious, as she always was when giving Testimony, to the other church members watching and listening from the pews.

As long as Father heard, as long as he understood, she didn't care about anyone else.

"Go on, child." He put his hand on her shoulder, and Bambi could feel the warmth of that touch spreading all through her body.

"It was harder to earn money sometimes," she said obediently. "No matter what II was willing to do. So sometimes I got a meal and a cot at some mission or soup kitchen or church. I'm sure plenty of the people there tried to help me. To talk to me. But I wasn't ready to listen."