Ten Plagues

“There’s truth in it, Paul,” Keren said. “You might be tempting someone if you make an attack on you too easy.”

“Maybe.” Paul shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t think the lock to my apartment door works, and I have no idea where the key might be. I’ll check into it.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Keren muttered. “Thanks for your help, Dee.”

Dr. Schaefer nodded then squared her shoulders and turned to get back to her ghastly work.

“Now.” Keren reached for the door. “Where do we look for beasts?”

They were considering the possibilities when they stepped out into the late afternoon sunlight. A herd stampeded toward them and surrounded them. But these animals shouted questions.

“Is it true, Pastor Morris, that you are friends with four women who have been killed in the last two weeks?”

“Where did they come from?” O’Shea growled.

“No comment.” Paul began shoving relentlessly through the throng of reporters.

“And Detective Collins, a dead body was found in your apartment? A body covered with insects?”

“No comment.” Keren kept moving. She had ignoring reporters down to an art.

“Are you and Pastor Morris both involved with these women, Detective?”

Keren was going to be seeing spots for a month from the flashing cameras. She waded toward her car. Someone caught her arm and tried to drag her to a halt. She recognized a woman reporter for the crime beat of a local television station and saw a video camera right behind her. Keren pulled free, trying not to be rough enough to provide good footage.

“Is the killer someone who wants revenge on both of you?”

Paul reached the front passenger-side door. O’Shea provided an escort for Keren around to the driver’s side.

“Is it true you and the pastor worked together when you were both on the force?”

“The Chicago Police Department gives a daily briefing at headquarters, as you all know,” O’Shea announced over the din. “All your questions will be answered then.”

“Even the question of whether Detective Collins and Pastor Morris are having an affair?”

Keren jerked to a stop and turned to see who had asked that. She saw a man smirking at her from one of the sleazier local tabloids. She glared at him, and it was like pouring blood in shark-infested waters. The snapping cameras went crazy.

“C’mon, Detective Collins, admit it.” The man tipped back his hat and sneered. “That’s why the killer is focusing on the two of you. The pastor is kicking up his heels with a lady cop, and this nut is offended.”

Paul had already gotten in the car. Keren prayed desperately that he hadn’t heard the insinuations. She tamped down hard on her temper and began moving again. O’Shea helped wrestle her door open. She slid in and slammed her door shut, hoping she’d catch a few fingers in it.

She glanced at Paul. His eyes flashed fire and his jaw was tensed into a firm line.

O’Shea climbed in the back. “Guess the press finally put all these cases together. Took ‘em long enough.”

Keren took another look at Paul. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where they got an idea like that.”

“They’re going to print that.” Paul reached for the door handle. Keren grabbed his shoulder and sank her fingernails into his sweatshirt hard enough that he turned on her.

He jerked against her grip.

“Get ahold of yourself, Paul.” Keren saw the photographers leaning against the windows, recording everything.

Fuming, Paul asked, “Do you know how many kids I’ve counseled about abstinence? Do you know the battle I fight every day against the single-mother culture that guarantees a life of poverty to so many women and children in my neighborhood? If they print something like that, it will undo years of work in a single day.”

He caught Keren’s hand to pull it loose.

“Don’t you dare open that door.” Keren let go of him and started the car. “If you go out there, I promise you I’ll leave you to those wolves.”

She backed out of the parking stall.

Paul didn’t get out.

Keren could see that it cost him.

He stared at his white-knuckled hands. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m so angry at Caldwell and so angry at these reporters. I haven’t had time to pray or read my Bible, and all of a sudden it’s like I’m losing my faith. Am I so weak that if I’m deprived of quiet time for prayer and daily exposure to God’s Word that I just forget what I believe?”

Keren heard a satisfying thunk as she backed into a particularly foolish reporter, who thought she’d stop rather than run a man down.

Paul turned around. “Keren, you hit him!”

Keren glanced at Paul and smiled. “I’ve got too much respect for a man’s innate sense of self-preservation to stop.”

“It won’t hurt to thin the herd a little anyway,” O’Shea said. “Survival of the fittest. Darwin would be proud.”

Keren looked at Paul. There was a war inside him. She needed the cop, but she liked the pastor. She had been meaning to talk to him about it, but now wasn’t a good time. Despite herself, she asked, “Why do you think getting angry has anything to do with being a Christian?”