Oz burst into peals of big-bellied laughter.

"Hate you, toots? h.e.l.l, no."

"Then what"s their problem?"

"They don"t wanna p.i.s.s off your papa by getting caught staring at his baby. You"re getting too pretty for your own good. Stop that, now. And get rid of those pigtails. That only makes it worse." He slapped the side of her leg in a fatherly sort of way and headed back to work. Eleanor couldn"t believe these guys she"d known since she was a tiny seven-year-old, and they were zit-faced teenagers, now couldn"t even talk to her because she had b.o.o.bs. She yanked her ponytail holders out of her hair.

Eleanor glanced around the garage while she waited. Bad night. Everybody working like demons. She"d never seen the garage looking so dismal or so frenzied. A great furnace boiled with flames in one corner casting heat but no light. The whole place smelled of smoke and sulfur. She couldn"t wait to get the h.e.l.l out of here.

Finally her father pulled in the back entrance and got out of the Camry.

"One down," Eleanor said as he glanced first at the car and then at her. "Four to go."

A convertible driven by her dad"s friend Tony pulled up outside the back entrance to the garage. Eleanor threw herself inside.

"Where to?" Tony asked as he peeled out and onto the street.

"Find me some rich b.i.t.c.hes. They keep their cars cleaner."

"Gramercy Park it is then, ma"am."

On 23rd Street, she nabbed a Mercedes. Too easy. They hadn"t even locked the f.u.c.king thing.

Ca.n.a.l Street netted them one BMW, silver. It handled like a dream. Such a pretty car it broke Eleanor"s heart to scratch the window with the coat hanger. She didn"t want to think about the thousand different parts it would be chopped up into by tomorrow morning.

On Union Street she spotted a high-end Acura, bright red, parked outside a restaurant. The owner had probably tipped the hostess to keep an eye on it. The hostess was probably off getting stoned in the kitchen.

"Four down, one to go," she said to her dad as she tossed him the Acura"s spare keys. The genius owner had left the set in the visor. She didn"t even have to wire this one.

"Be careful," he called out as she headed back to the street.

She flipped him off on her way out the door.

One more car and it would be done. One more and she could go home to bed. With all the adrenaline surging through her body, she knew she"d crash hard the second she got home and wouldn"t wake up until noon.

As Tony drove her into SoHo, Eleanor kept her eye out for a nice American car. American manufacturers were arrogant, and that made them s.h.i.t at security. No Ford or Dodge had ever put up much of a fight.

"Nice ..." Tony purred as he spotted a car in tiny ten-s.p.a.ce paid-parking lot.

She saw what he saw the second after he saw it. A Shelby Mustang. Looked like a 1966 to her, not that she"d bet her life on that. She knew make and model on sight, but she wasn"t enough of a nerd to bother with all the years. She"d leave that to her dad.

"It"s mine," she said. Tony wolf whistled his agreement.

"Go for it. See you back at the shop."

Eleanor hopped out of the car and sidled over to the lot. She saw a few people milling around but no one seemed to notice her. She probably looked like some drunk preppy waiting for her friends to come out of a bar.

Let them think that. Let them think anything they wanted as long as they didn"t notice her standing with her back to the driver"s side window, a bent coat hanger behind her back. She dug under the latch and lifted up, popping the lock with ease.

Ten seconds later she and her new friend Shelby were already on the street.

Done. She"d jacked five high-dollar cars in one night. One night? She"d done it in four hours. A sense of relief flooded her. In no time she"d be back in her bed at home dreaming of S0ren. Good thing she"d finished her job early. The skies had opened up and rain exploded from the clouds. The temperature, unusually warm the past week, turned frigid in minutes. The rain fractured the city lights and set everything in her rearview mirror alight with a blue glow.

Blue?

"f.u.c.k." In a panic Eleanor glanced behind her. A police car, blue lights ablaze, nestled in behind her. It hadn"t turned on its sirens and the silence of the car menaced her far more than sound.

She knew she had about two seconds to decide what to do. She could gun it and run. The second she lost the cop car she could dump the Mustang and disappear. But this wasn"t the highway or the interstate. This was Manhattan after midnight. Narrow streets. Pedestrians. Her foot hovered over the pedals. Accelerator on her right, brake on her left. Eleanor looked around for an escape route. She saw no alleys. No easy exits. And up on her right loomed a church, its ancient spire casting a cross-shaped shadow onto the shining streets.

Eleanor hit the brakes and prayed for a miracle.

8.

Eleanor FOR TWO HOURS THE COPS KEPT HER IN THE BACK of the squad car while they asked her questions and talked on their shoulder-mounted walkie-talkies. She did her best to stick to her story. I"m sorry. I wanted to drive it around the block. You know-joyriding. But for some reason the cops didn"t quite buy it. Apparently joyriders usually borrowed cars they had the keys to, not cars that had to have their locks popped and their ignitions hot-wired.

The two cops-one white, one black, both young-seemed way too excited about having pulled her over. Mobsters and murderers and rapists were running all over town and Officer Ferrell and Officer Hampton couldn"t stop patting themselves on the back for bringing down a fifteen-year-old car thief.

"We called your mom," Officer Hampton said, giving her a wink.

"Oh, no, not my mom."

"She"ll meet us at the station," Officer Ferrell said.

"Station? We have to go to the station?"

"Sure we do." Officer Hampton waved his hand, motioning at her to stand up. She stepped out of the back of the squad car and into the driving rain. "That"s where we take everybody we arrest."

"Arrest?"

Ferrell and Hampton laughed as they pulled her arms gently behind her back and placed handcuffs on her wrists. The cold metal bit into her skin. She"d never worn handcuffs before. The heft of them surprised her. She"d never dreamed they"d feel so heavy and cold.

The white cop, Ferrell, placed a hand on the back of her head as he maneuvered her into the back of the squad car.

"You, little girl," began Officer Hampton, "have the right to remain silent."

"Take that advice, little girl," Officer Ferrell said as she pulled her feet into the car.

Eleanor glared up at his wide, plain and arrogant face.

"Don"t call me little girl."

Her bravado lasted until the door slammed behind her. Alone in the backseat of the squad car, she started to shake. The temperature had dropped. Rain had soaked her clothes and hair. Her skin felt clammy and cold. But that wasn"t why she couldn"t stop shaking.

Once at the station the two officers pulled around to the police entrance. Officer Ferrell opened the door and ordered her out. As they headed toward the door, she saw two figures ten yards away at the main entrance standing in the rain both holding umbrellas. One was her mother. She"d recognize that shabby pink umbrella with the ruffles anywhere. Her mother stood watching her, her face as wet with tears as Eleanor"s was wet with rain. Behind her under a black umbrella loomed someone else. Tall, stern and watchful, he followed her every step with his eyes. She raised her head, not wanting him to see her fear and her shame. Something about the sight of her must have amused him because his gaze darted once to her handcuffed wrists before meeting her eyes with the subtlest of smiles on his lips. Officer Hampton ushered her inside and put her in a plastic chair.

"Can I see my mom?" she asked him as the officer at the desk took her mug shot, and another starting typing on a computer behind the high desk.

"Soon. We"re gonna get you in a room. Somebody"s coming to talk to you."

"Do I need a lawyer?" she asked, having learned long ago from her father that in their world the L word had magic powers.

"You can talk to your mom about that later," Officer Hampton said as he scribbled on a clipboard. She wondered if he was drawing dinosaur doodles the way his hand flew all over the page. All the files and the forms and the pictures were intimidation tactics. They"d asked her fifteen times in the car on the way over where she"d planned on taking the car. She knew they wanted her father and his shop, and they weren"t about to get that information from her.

"How long do I have to keep wearing the handcuffs?" The metal cuffs kept hitting the back of her plastic chair and making a sc.r.a.ping sound like nails on a chalkboard.

"We"ll get those off in a minute," Officer Ferrell said. "Once I remember where I put the keys."

"Come on, Speed Racer." Officer Hampton snapped his fingers in her face. "We got a room for you."

He took her gently by the upper arm and escorted her down a dingy beige hallway to a room with nothing but a table in the center and two chairs.

"You"re going to interrogate me?" Eleanor asked as she sat down in the chair.

"Nothing but a friendly conversation. Someone will be in soon."

He shut the door and left her alone in the room with nothing but her fears. Calm down, she ordered herself. It"ll be okay. Dad will find out and he"ll come straight down here and tell them it was his fault, his doing, that he asked me to help him because he owed the mob a lot of money. He"d never let her take the fall for him. Not his own daughter, his only child. Right?

But deep down she knew he wasn"t coming for her.

Time dripped by as slowly as frozen honey from a bottle. The adrenaline drained from her body and soon Eleanor felt the exhaustion under the fear. Her head throbbed; her arms ached. She"d give anything to get out of these handcuffs and stretch.

Eventually her chin dropped to her chest. For a few minutes she even slept.

The sound of a door opening alerted her to the presence of someone entering the room. She kept her head down, her eyes closed.

Something touched her cuffed hands behind her back. Fingers brushed her palm, caressed her wrists. She heard a click and the cuffs came off. In any other room under any other circ.u.mstances she might have enjoyed the sensation of large warm hands on her cold skin. Some cop touching her in such a personal way made her stomach turn.

She heard the rasp of a chair on the floor and the sound of the metal handcuffs landing on the table.

If she opened her eyes and raised her head, it would start. The whole ugly mess would start. Interrogation, investigation, accusations ... Her eyelids were a wall, and until she opened them the world would stay behind that wall. But she couldn"t hide forever.

She opened her eyes expecting to see a cop or a lawyer or maybe even her mom.

But no, it was her priest. He didn"t speak, not a word. She brought her arms around in front of her and started to rub her wrists. It had been him touching her fingers and chafing her skin as he"d removed the handcuffs, not some creepy cop.

Eleanor hated that he"d been dragged into this mess. Her mother had probably called him in a panic the second after the cops had called her. Anytime anything bad ever happened, her mother"s first call was to Father Greg. Had it been Father Greg she"d called, the old priest would have prayed on the phone with her, offered her words of advice and comfort. He never would have dragged himself out of bed in the middle of the night to go to a police station in the city. But S0ren had. Why?

He continued to stare at her in silence and Eleanor felt like she"d unwittingly entered into a staring contest. Fine. Staring contest it was then. She knew how to get him to blink.

"So," she began, "since our last talk about rules and priests and s.e.x and stuff, I"ve been meaning to ask you a question. Are you one of those priests who likes to f.u.c.k the kids in the congregation?"

She waited.

He didn"t blink.

"No."

Okay, so he was good at this game. She was better.

She raised her chin and gave him the sort of smile she"d dreamed of giving a handsome older man but never had the guts or the chance to try it.

"Too bad."

"Eleanor, we need to discuss the predicament you"re in at the moment."

She nodded her agreement.

"I"m in a real pickle."

Smile? Laugh? Withering glare? Nothing.

"You were arrested on suspicion of grand theft auto. Several luxury vehicles with a combined value of a quarter of a million dollars were stolen tonight. You wouldn"t know anything about that, would you?"

"I take the Fifth," she said, proud of her legal knowledge. "That"s what I"m supposed to say, right?"

Now she received the withering glare she"d been hoping for.

"To the courts, yes. To me, never. To me, you will tell the truth always."

"I don"t think you want to know the truth about me, S0ren." She dropped her voice to a whisper at the moment she said his name. It seemed like a magic word to her, his name. Like knowing his name meant something special like it did in fairy tales.

"Eleanor, there is nothing I don"t want to know about you. Nothing you tell me will shock or disgust me. Nothing will cause me to change my mind about you."

"Change your mind? You"ve already made up your mind about me? What"s the verdict?" She braced herself, not wanting the answer. They had nothing in common, she and her priest. He looked like money, talked like money. He had the whitest fingernails she"d ever seen on a man. White fingernails, perfect hands like a marble sculpture of a Greek G.o.d. And her? She was a f.u.c.king train wreck. Chipped black nail polish, soaked clothes, dripping wet hair and her entire life over in one night.

"The verdict is this-I am willing and capable of helping you out of this mess you"ve gotten yourself into tonight."

"Can we call it a pickle? Pickle sounds less scary than mess."

"It"s a disaster, young lady. The car they caught you stealing belongs to a very powerful man. He"s already demanding the police try you as an adult and put you away for the maximum sentence. You could spend years in juvenile detention, or worse-an adult facility. At the very least, this man doesn"t want you seeing sunlight until you"re twenty-one years old. Blessedly, I have some connections in this area. Or, more accurately, I have someone who has some connections in this area."

For the first time since they started speaking, he broke eye contact with her. He glanced away into the corner of the room. His face wore the strangest expression. Whoever this powerful person was, S0ren didn"t seem all that excited about asking him. In fact, if she had to guess, she"d say he was dreading it.

"You"re going to go through all this trouble for me, why?"

S0ren looked back at her and gave her a smile that stripped her soul naked and put it on its knees.

"Because there is nothing I wouldn"t do to protect you, Eleanor. Nothing I wouldn"t do to help you and nothing I wouldn"t do to save you. Nothing."

The way he spoke the final "nothing" sent a chill through her body. It scared her instead of comforting her. He meant it. That was why it scared her.