Free The Thieves of Faith by Richard Doetsch Page A

Italian.
    “Simon.” Michael couldn’t disguise the thrill in his voice; it was like announcing a birth, or that someone had miraculously overcome some horrible disease. But it was tempered by circumstance, by anxiety. “She’s alive,” Michael said.
    “What? Hello to you, too,” Simon replied, not grasping what Michael had said.
    “She’s alive, Simon.”
    “Who’s alive?”
    “Genevieve.”
    “Alive?” Michael could practically feel Simon’s confusion through the silence on the end of the line. “That makes no sense.”
    “I know it’s hard to believe.”
    “Did you see her? Where is she?”
    “No, there was a car accident…” Michael went on to bring Simon up to speed. His story did not find much credibility in his own mind during the telling, as he realized he might be falling victim to his own imagination and wishful thinking. He explained the purse and the business card, how the address matched the one that Mary had given him, how the police had found no body.
    “But you didn’t see her?” Simon asked, making a point.
    “No,” Michael reluctantly answered.
    “Did you look for her?”
    “We started to last night, not realizing who we were looking for. The police dragged the lake, but I know she’s not there. She’s gone, Simon, I don’t know how, but she’s gone.”
    As the moment went on, Michael realized something: Simon did not once question her resurrection, her sudden reappearance as if she had never been dead at all.
    “I have to go,” Simon said abruptly.
    “Tell me what you want me to do.”
    “Nothing. Stay out of it, Michael.” Simon’s voice was utterly serious, his request more an order.
    “You know me better than that. Simon, I thought she was dead. You presided at her funeral, for Christ’s sake. What’s going on?”
    “Stay out of it,” Simon implored him. “I’ll find her.”
    “But she was here, she was coming to me.”
    “If she was there, she’s long gone.”
    “How do you know?”
    The silence dragged on, only broken by intermittent static.
    “She could have been kidnapped,” Michael said. “She could be on the run. You don’t even know where to look.”
    “I know where to start,” Simon said. “Listen, I know she is your friend, she’s mine, too. But trust me, Michael, you can’t protect her.”
    An ominous silence seemed to pour from the phone line and float about the car.
    “Protect her?” Michael asked, his mind suddenly on guard. “Protect her from what?” Michael could feel his blood begin to pump; he felt like his brain was turned upside down.
    “Please.” Simon paused. “Just stay out of it. If she’s alive, I’ll find her.”
    In the eighteen months that Michael had known Simon, they had become friends. But Simon was still Simon. A man capable of a ruthless devotion to God, and a ruthless devotion to his friends. A man who had taken more lives than he had saved. A man who never used the word “please.”
    “Simon,” Michael said, resigning himself to forgoing the search, to letting Simon find her. “I thought she was dead.”
    “So did everyone,” Simon said softly, and his phone clicked off.

 
     

     
Chapter 11
     
    T he scull shot along the Charles River, its bone-white hull seeming to float above the late springtime water as if it were frozen. The two rowers looked like wind-up toys in perfect synchronization. Michael watched them disappear around a corner upriver as they drove over the Longfellow Bridge into the heart of Boston. They left the police station at five a.m. and made the typical three-hour drive in less than two and a half hours; when Busch drove his Corvette, he didn’t believe in wasting time. They agreed that despite Simon’s emphatic plea, when they returned they would do everything to find Genevieve.
    While they had stopped by the police station under the auspices of Busch checking on the sunken-car investigation, the real reason for their visit was twofold. Even off the force, Busch was still