The Blue Bottle Club

BRENDAN

1

DEMOLITION DAY

October 10, 1994

Brendan Delaney pulled up the collar of her coat, held up three fingers, and began the countdown for the cameraman: Three, two, one, roll!

She raised her hand mike and looked into the camera. Asheville witnessed the end of an era today as the dismantling began on Cameron House, one of the oldest and best-known homes in the Montford historic district. Cameron House, originally built in 1883, took its name from Randolph Cameron, a wealthy stockbroker who purchased and renovated the house in 1921. It was a showplace in the twenties, but as you can see behind me, Cameron House has seen better days. It was made into apartments in the sixties and just last month was condemned by city inspectors.

Brendan adjusted her scarf as the cameraman shifted to the house, panning in for a closeup of the rickety, rotting porch, the front door hanging off its hinges, the broken windows. As the camera came back to her, she cleared her throat and wrapped it up.

Neighbors in the Montford district expressed mixed feelings about the demolition of Cameron House. Most were sorry to see the landmark go, but admitted that the vacant building was an eyesore and a public health hazard. As one neighbor summarized, 'None of us lives forever.' For WLOS, this is Brendan Delaney. She gave a brisk nod and smiled into the camera.

The red light blinked out. We're clear, the cameraman said, and Brendan heaved a sigh of relief.

Let's pack it up and get back to the station, she suggested. It's getting colder.

Buck, the cameraman, nodded. Sounds good to me. Want to stop at Beanstreets and get a cup of coffee?

Not today, thanks, Brendan murmured absently. I've got work to do. The truth was, she didn't-feel like company—not even Buck, whose friendship she had counted on for almost six years. The demolition story had depressed her, and she wasn't sure why.

She was good at her job, that much she knew. The station vault was full of outtakes from the other reporters, mistakes worthy of a spot on that Sunday night bloopers show. Every year at the station Christmas party, someone inevitably dragged out the most recent composite of editing scraps and gleefully played it, much to the chagrin and humiliation of the reporters. But Brendan Delaney's face was rarely seen on the cutting room floor. She almost always got her spots right on the first take—even that horrible, hilarious report at the Nature Center, when a pigeon landed on her head and pooped in her hair.

If nothing else, Brendan Delaney was composed.

She was a good reporter, and regular promotions at the station confirmed it. But she didn't feel as if she was getting anywhere. What difference did it make if she did an outstanding job of on-the-scene coverage of traffic accidents and spring floods and the demolition of a hundred-year-old house in Montford? Nothing she did seemed to have any lasting significance.

But that was the news business, she reasoned. Today's lead story went stale by midnight. It was like manna in the wilderness—if you didn't get it fresh every day, it rotted on you.

As the image flitted through her mind, Brendan shook her head and gritted her teeth. If she lived to be a hundred, she'd probably never be completely free from the religious stuff her grandmother had drummed into her. Gram had spent her life trying to get Brendan to see the benefit of believing in God. But God hadn't been there to protect her parents from a drunk driver—why should she give the Almighty the time of day now that she was grown and on her own?

Brendan Delaney was no atheist. She called herself an agnostic, but if she were to be perfectly truthful, she supposed she was more of a combatant. She admitted the possibility—even the probability—that God might indeed exist. But the idea brought her no comfort. She didn't disbelieve; she just didn't like God very much.

And so she had come to an uneasy truce with the Almighty. She pretty much left God alone, and God, in turn, didn't bother her.

Gram would have told her, of course, that if she was in doubt or uncomfortable with the way her career was going, she should pray about it, seek God's direction. Well, Brendan didn't want God's direction; she was doing just fine on her own, thank you very much. She would discover her own way, make her own destiny

In the meantime, however, she had better get to the bottom of this depression that came over her every time she went out to do a field report. This was an ideal job—why wasn't she happy with it? Why did she feel as if her life, like Cameron House, had been condemned and was just waiting for the demolition team to show up?

She couldn't go on this way. She had no passion for her work, no enthusiasm. And it was bound to show sooner or later.

Brendan watched as Buck got into the big white van and drove away Maybe she should go to Beanstreets after all. It might do her good to sit in that crowded little corner cafe, have a cappuccino, and try to sort out the warring emotions that were assailing her. Her assignment, such as it was, was wrapped up. She still had to do the edit, but that wouldn't take more than an hour. She could spare a little time for herself.

She got behind the wheel of her 4Runner, pulled down the visor, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her appearance was okay, she supposed, for thirty-three. People were always telling her that she looked ten years younger, that she had the perfect image for TV: a kind of healthy, natural athleticism, she supposed—dark hair, dark eyes, not too many crow's-feet. She had a promising future. And she was, in the words of LaVonne Howells, her best friend from high school, living her dream. So what was wrong with her?

Vonnie, of course, would have mocked her depression, as surely as Gram would have advised her to pray about it. But then Vonnie was a confirmed optimist, the kind of person who got up every morning excited about the day, anticipating the wonderful developments to come. Vonnie was a psychologist, with a booming private practice, and Brendan secretly wondered how she could be an effective therapist if she loaded her Pollyanna tripe onto her clients.

She couldn't have explained it to Gram or to Vonnie, but Brendan was feeling . . . well, stuck. She was successful, certainly, but everything—her job, her life—seemed so predictable. She could sum it all up in one sentence: She wanted something to happen.

Anything.

But it wasn't going to happen here, on Montford Avenue, in the middle of an unseasonably chilly October afternoon. She'd better just shake it off and get back to work.

She rummaged in the bottom of the huge leather bag that served as both purse and briefcase, found her key ring, and shoved the car key into the ignition. But before she had a chance to start the car, a knock on her driver's side window arrested her attention. She looked up to see a big burly man in a plaid jacket. Dwaine Bodine, his name was. He was one of the demolition crew She had tried to interview him for a spot in the Cameron House piece, but found him too eager, too camera-hungry. Maybe he was just trying to be helpful—he was, after all, what people called a good old boy. But if Brendan let some uneducated clod hog the spotlight, she'd be the laughingstock of the newsroom—and the main event at this year's Christmas out-takes showing.

That well-meaning, earnest enthusiasm filled Dwaine's simple face now, and Brendan shuddered. He tapped on the window again and motioned for her to roll it down. Might as well see what he wanted. At least Buck had taken the cameras, so Dwaine Bodine wouldn't have any success getting his face on the six o'clock news—no matter how hard he tried.

Brendan cranked the 4Runner and pushed the button for the window. Before it was all the way down, Dwaine had his face inside the car and was yammering excitedly about his discovery. The man had obviously had a meatball sub for lunch; his breath filled the car with the pungent scent of garlic.

What discovery? Brendan asked, leaning as far away from him as she could get.

Look, he said, reaching into his jacket and drawing out a blue glass bottle. Lookit what I turned up in the attic.

He handed it over and crossed his arms, looking immensely pleased with himself. I thought it might, you know, be something you'd want to use in your story I could tell how I found it, way up in the rafters—

Sorry, Dwaine, Brendan muttered absently, turning the bottle over in her hands. Bucks already on his way back to the station with the him, and we've wrapped up for the day. But thanks. Do you mind if I keep this?"

Naw, go ahead. His broad smile deflated, and he laid a hand on the car door. Guess I'll get back to work.

Me too. Brendan smiled and patted his hand. Thanks for everything, Dwaine. You've been a big help.

Really? The grin returned. I'll watch you on TV tonight, Miss Delaney You're my favorite. He lowered his big head and gave her a sheepish look. Do you think I could have an autograph?

Brendan suppressed a sigh. She was, she supposed, a celebrity of sorts, especially to a guy like this. Even local newspeople had fans now and then. Of course.

He fished in his pocket and came up with a stained paper napkin. Marinara sauce, it looked like. She had been right. Meatball sandwich.

How about a picture instead? He was a nice fellow, and he had tried to help. She could afford to be generous. She slipped a publicity photo and pen out of her bag and wrote across the corner: To Dwaine—Thanks for your invaluable assistance, Brendan Delaney, WLOS.

He took it, read the inscription, and beamed. Thanks a bunch. Hey, maybe we'll work together again sometime.

Maybe. Brendan raised the window, put the 4Runner in gear, and pulled away with a wave. In your dreams, she muttered.

For once, Beanstreets was almost empty. Brendan sat at a small corner table sipping cappuccino decaf and doodling in a notebook. On the other side of the small cafe, a man with a ponytail and three gold earrings sketched on an art pad, looking up at her every now and then.

She had been here an hour. The first page of her notebook was filled with journaling—a practice she had begun in her early teens when she imagined herself going off to New York and taking the publishing world by storm. This afternoon's entry, however, was more literal than literary—an attempt to get at the root of her depression, to map out strategies for the future, to determine some kind of direction.

Brendan was a planner; always before she had been able to write her way into hope, to chart out a course and follow it. But today nothing seemed to work. She just kept writing around in circles and finally abandoned the exercise altogether. The only conclusion she had reached was that she needed a change, something that would hold her interest and give her life and work some meaning beyond a thirty- or sixty- or ninety-second spot on tonights newscast.

But how was she supposed to do that? She couldn't just march into the news directors office and declare that she needed more meaningful assignments. It didn't work that way. A reporter—a good one, anyway—made her own drama, discovered for herself the kinds of stories that would touch the pulse of her audience.

She thought about her piece on Cameron House—an ordinary, unremarkable stand-up, with background shots of the decrepit old house and herself in the foreground spouting clichés about the end of an era. Not exactly Emmy-nomination material. Good grief, the story didn't even interest her—how could she expect it to interest an audience? She envisioned a citywide drop in water pressure at 6:26 tonight as toilets across the county flushed during her forty-five-second demolition spot.

Brendan glanced at the bill the waitress had left—$2.75. Well, she wasn't doing herself any good here. Might as well go back to the station, get her tape edited, and call it a day

She reached into the bag at her feet, groping for her wallet, and her hand closed over something cool and smooth. The bottle Dwaine had brought to her from the attic of Cameron House. The blue glass bottle.

Brendan sat on her bed in the dark and stared out the bay window at the multicolored lights that twinkled below her. Sometimes, late at night, it was hard to distinguish the stars in the sky from the lights on the mountainside. It was like having the whole midnight firmament for a blanket—above, below, and all around.

There were perks, certainly, to this ideal job she held. This house on Town Mountain, for one. Five minutes from the station, overlooking the historic Grove Park Inn and the western mountains. Four bedrooms, a vaulted great room with a glass wall facing the view, a state-of-the-art kitchen, a hot tub on the back deck. She could never afford this house if she left broadcasting to search for a more meaningful career.

But the airing of tonight's spot on the demolition of Cameron House convinced her that she had to do something. She could have phoned it in, for all the impact it made. She had watched it three times in editing, once at six, and now again on the eleven o'clock wrap-up, and it got worse every time. She looked catatonic, bored out of her skull, with a smile so phony it threatened to crack her face. When she heard herself intone those hideous words the end of an era, she cringed and hit the mute button. The screen filled with images of Cameron House, once a showplace, now seedy and dilapidated. Its last moment of glory. By this time tomorrow, the Montford mansion would be a mass of rubble—nothing left except this blue bottle.

Brendan turned off the television, flipped on the bedside lamp, and scrutinized the cobalt glass. It was junk, probably—might bring a buck or two from an antique dealer—but it was unusual. Ten inches high, made in the shape of a small house, with a long neck. The outlines of a door and two windows were pressed into the sides; her fingers absently traced the image. The glass was filthy from years in the attic, and the cork was stuck tight.

She set the bottle on the bedside table and leaned back against the headboard, sighing. She wouldn't be able to sleep for a while; she might as well watch Letterman. Where had she put that remote?

Out of the corner of her eye she spied it on the edge of the table and turned. The light from the lamp streamed through the clouded bottle, casting a blue glow over one side of the bed. Brendan squinted and picked up the bottle, moving it closer to the light.

There was something inside. . . .

She gripped the cork and pulled, but it wouldn't budge. After trying vainly for a minute or two, Brendan took the bottle into the kitchen and rummaged in a drawer for a corkscrew. Maybe she could pry it out.

On the third twist of the corkscrew, the dried-up cork split into a dozen pieces, scattering debris over her counter and kitchen floor. The remnants of the cork dropped into the bottle. Brendan held it up and peered inside.

There were papers of some sort, rolled up and squeezed in through the neck of the bottle. Her pulse began to race, but reason immediately stepped in to quell her excitement. This wasn't an SOS floating on the ocean, for pity's sake. It was just an old glass jar. Still, she was determined to find out what was inside.

After ten minutes of fiddling with the papers, she managed to extract them using a table knife and a pair of needle-nose pliers. She took them back to the bedroom, spread them out on the bed, and began to read.

The first page sent chills up her spine. I, Letitia Randolph Cameron, on this twenty-fifth day of December, 1929, here set forth my dream. . . .

Good grief, Brendan thought, this stuff was written sixty-five years ago. Letitia Cameron. Middle name Randolph. She must be related somehow to Randolph Cameron, the stockbroker who renovated the house in the twenties. His wife? No, more likely his daughter. Christmas Day 1929. Two months after Black Friday, the day of the stock market crash that brought on the Great Depression.

Brendan shuffled through the rest of the pages. There were similar declarations from three other people named Eleanor James, Adora Archer, and Mary Love Buchanan. None of the rest of the names meant anything to Brendan, although she vaguely remembered something about a clothing store called Buchanan's, down Biltmore a block from Pack Place. The building, she thought, that now housed the Blue Moon Bakery.

She scrutinized the papers. Letitia Cameron's was written in a fine, feminine hand. Eleanor James's penmanship was more angular, a no-nonsense style. Adora Archer's was a back slant full of flourishes, and Mary Buchanan's a legible, down-to-earth print. A small pen-and-ink sketch was included, a representation of a child opening a Christmas package. Amazingly lifelike, Brendan thought. The picture was signed with the initials MLB.

Clearly, they had all been young—teens, perhaps—when these statements had been written. The ink was faded and uneven, the paper coarse and brittle. Unless Brendan missed her guess, these pages had been hidden away, untouched, behind a rafter in the attic of Cameron House, for more than six decades.

Her imagination latched onto the image and would not let go. Four young girls, best friends, writing out their dreams for the future and placing them in this blue glass bottle. There had to be some kind of ceremony, of course—girls that age loved drama. She could envision them sitting in a circle, solemnly committing their dreams to one another, promising to be friends forever.

It was an intriguing scenario that raised an even more compelling question: What had happened to those four girls? Had they, indeed, realized their dreams, lived out the fulfillment of the destinies they had envisioned for themselves? They would be in their eighties now—were they even still alive to tell the story?

The story.

Brendan's heart began to pump, and tears sprang to her eyes. Here it was, right in front of her. The demolition of the historic Cameron House wasn't the real story This was the assignment she had been looking for. The human narrative that had been building, layer upon layer, for the past sixty-five years.

She gently fingered the yellowed pages and traced the lines of faded ink. This was what had been missing in her life—passion. This was a story that could change her future, that could put meaning and significance back into her work. This was the direction she had been searching for.

She didn't know how she knew it, but she knew. She would find these women, track them down, tell their stories. She would do profiles, a whole series, maybe. If—

Please, God she thought suddenly—the first genuine prayer she had uttered since her parents' deaths when she was twelve. Please, let them still be alive.

2

FILM AT ELEVEN

Under normal circumstances, Brendan despised archives research— especially searching for the kind of obscure information that dated back to the twenties. All the old newspapers were on microfilm, which translated into motion sickness, eyestrain, and terminal sciatica as she sat in the down-town library and peered into a microfilm reader for hours on end.

But this time, at least, she wasn't just doing her duty, logging facts to supplement another dull story This time she was a detective, searching out truths that had been hidden for more than sixty years.

Norma Sully, the reference librarian, brought out an armful of reels and dropped them on the desk with a clatter. That's all of'em.

Thanks, Norma. Brendan shuffled through them and pulled out the reel dated 1930.

What did you say you're looking for? Norma hovered at Brendan's side and peered over her shoulder.

Brendan looked up. I'm not sure, exactly. She pulled her notepad out of her bag and held it up. These four women. They were teenagers, probably, at the outset of the Great Depression.

Cameron, Archer, James, Buchanan. Norma read the list aloud and scratched her head. Cameron. Is that the Cameron of Cameron House, the report you did on the demolition over to Montford? She grinned and pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. Real nice piece, Miss Delaney. Caught it on the news the other night.

Brendan sighed and suppressed an urge to throttle the old gal. Even though that report had set her on a quest that might bring her the story of her life, every time she was reminded of it, she could hear that sappy end of an era comment. She clenched her teeth and said, Thanks. And yes, it's the same Cameron. Right now I'm looking for anything on the family, or any of these other names.

Well, I'm not old enough to remember the Depression, but I've lived here all my life, and it seems to me I remember Mama talking about those days.

Brendan closed her eyes and braced herself for a trip down memory lane. Norma Sully was a competent reference librarian and had on occasion been extremely helpful to Brendan. But the woman could talk a blue streak, and once she got going there was no stopping her.

Norma, however, didn't seem to be in a garrulous mood. She reached over Brendan's shoulder, threaded the tape, and made a dizzying run through the reel until she found the place she wanted. She pointed a gnarled finger. Might try startin' with the obits, she suggested cryptically. Lots of suicides around that time.

Then she was gone, and Brendan was left staring at the dimly lit screen that bore the obituary column:

LOCAL FINANCIER TO BE BURIED MONDAY.

Whether Norma was a genius or a psychic, Brendan didn't know and didn't care. But one thing was certain: She would get a dozen roses and a big box of chocolates for her efforts. For there on the faded screen was the obituary of one Randolph Cameron, dead at the age of forty-six, survived by his wife, Maris, and daughter, Letitia. Services to be held at Downtown Presbyterian Church under the direction of Reverend Charles Archer.

Brendan sat in the parking lot of Downtown Presbyterian and held the photocopy of the obituary in trembling hands. The pastor who had conducted Cameron's funeral was named Archer. Another clue; another connection.

She tried to calm her racing heart. She knew from experience that this would very likely turn out to be a dead end—no pun intended. The chance of anyone knowing anything about the Camerons, or even about this Reverend Archer, a former pastor of the congregation, was slim. Still, it was the only lead she had, and she intended to follow it.

Brendan's stomach clenched, and for a minute she thought she was going to be sick. The last time she had set foot in a church was for her grandmother's funeral three years ago, and—except for Christmas and Easter, when Gram forced her to go—nearly twenty years before that, when her own parents, or what remained of them, were buried in a closed-casket service.

She remembered that funeral as if it were yesterday—her grandmother holding her hand, stroking it until little Brendan thought the skin would rub off. She could still hear the preacher talking about God's loving purposes. But what kind of love took a twelve-year-old child's parents away in a senseless, violent accident?

It had been raining when they went to the cemetery, and Gram had tried to console her with an image of God weeping for her loss. But Brendan, wise beyond her years, knew better. God didn't cry God let a drunk driver walk away unharmed while her parents, who had never done anything but love her, lay dead on the highway. If God was, as the preacher was saying, all-knowing and all-wise and all-powerful, then God must have known it was going to happen and had done nothing to stop it.

Brendan had decided, right then and there, that a God like that didn't deserve to be worshiped, and that she would never speak to him again. On the rare occasions when her grandmother insisted she go to God's house, she complied, resigning herself to the sentence like a convicted but innocent felon, counting the days and months and years until she was old enough to be reprieved.

By the time she was thirty and attending Gram's funeral, Brendan had revised her childhood theology somewhat. She no longer held God accountable for the deaths of her loved ones—at least not consciously. She simply accepted the reality that if there ever had been a divine Presence behind the creation of the world, that Presence had long since vanished from the universe. Things happened because they happened. God could neither be blamed for bad fortune or adored for imagined blessings.

The imposing edifice that loomed over her now, impressive with its stonework, stained glass, and spires pointing heavenward, was, she reminded herself firmly, merely an empty shell, a mausoleum to the memory of a deity who no longer inhabited the place. She felt the emptiness clutch at her heart, a visceral, palpable reaction. Bile burned her throat, and she took a deep breath to still the churning in her stomach. It was a building, nothing more. Why then did she feel such apprehension about going in?

From the cavernous depths of her leather bag, her cell phone began to ring. Brendan pulled herself together and groped in the bag until her hand closed around the phone. She flipped it open, jerked out the antenna, and snapped, Yes?

Where are you? a strident voice demanded. It was Ron Willard, the station manager.

I'm in my car, sitting in the parking lot of Downtown Presbyterian Church. I got my first lead on the blue bottle story, Ron, an obituary for Randolph Cameron that says—

Hold it, he interrupted. Are you telling me that you're following that red herring when you're due at the Parkway mudslide in fifteen minutes? Buck's already on his way with a camera crew, and if you're not there to interview the Parkway official, you'll be writing your own obituary—you can entitle it 'Death of a Promising Career.'

Brendan glanced at her watch and let out a gasp. Ron, I'm sorry. I forgot all about it. Call Buck and tell him to stall for me. I'm on my way now.

You'd better be, or—

Brendan snapped the phone shut before Ron could get off another threat. This was so unlike her, so unprofessional. She never forgot an assignment, never arrived late for a shoot. The mudslide that had closed the Blue Ridge Parkway was all the way up past Craggy Gardens, a good twenty minutes north. It would take her another ten minutes just to get down 240 and onto the Parkway.

Randolph Cameron and Pastor Archer would just have to wait. If she wanted to keep her job, that is.

She started the 4Runner, slammed it into gear, and sped out of the parking lot toward the 240 loop.

All the way through town and north along the Parkway, Brendan seethed—not so much at Ron, who was just doing his job, but at herself, for not doing hers. And at circumstances, which seemed to be conspiring against her to keep her from pursuing the one story she really wanted to investigate.

The day after the Cameron House demolition piece, she had sat down with Ron and told him of her discoveries—the blue bottle, for one, and the potential for a human-interest series that resided there. And her own passion, for another. Something she thought she had lost years ago in the accumulated blur of miles of videotape—stories brainstormed, researched, taped, and edited, then forgotten as soon as they were aired.

But this story—that haunting image of four elderly women looking back on their dreams—had gripped her imagination and would not let go. She had felt her pulse accelerate as she told Ron about it, sensed the adrenaline surge that rose with her excitement.

Ron, the consummate pragmatist, had heard her out with a mixture of amusement and intrigue. When she finished, he nodded and waved one hand—a gesture not quite condescending, but just this side of patronizing. All right, he said with a long-suffering sigh, go on and track down your old ladies, if any of them are still alive. But don't overspend your expense account. And promise me—promise—that you won't let your other work slide while you're doing the Jessica Fletcher bit.

Brendan had promised. Now here she was, not two days after that vow, late for a taping and careening wildly around the curves of the Blue Ridge Parkway in a frantic attempt to save herself from professional suicide. In TV news, nobody gave you much room for error. If you did your assignments well enough to get your tape on the air, you got the accolades, the promotions, the viewer shares, the opportunities. An Emmy nomination, maybe—or even a Pulitzer. But the show went on at six and eleven, whether you were ready or not. No matter how well you did yesterday if you fouled up today, your job was on the line.

At this moment, however, Brendan Delaney couldn't have cared less. Her foot was on the accelerator and her camera crew was waiting at the top of the mountain, but her mind was sixty-five years in the past, crouched with four teenage girls in the drafty attic of a big old house on Montford Avenue.

The house was gone now, but its story still lived—in the carefully-photocopied dreams of those four young girls, and in the hearts of the old women who waited to tell her whether those dreams had ever been fulfilled.

3

MANY MANSIONS

At three in the afternoon, Downtown Presbyterian was dim and quiet. Brendan stood at the end of the center aisle and looked down the long nave toward the altar, elevated on a three-foot dais. Behind the altar, an enormous stained-glass window depicted the Crucifixion, and with the afternoon sun slanting through the glass, the dark sky behind Jesus' head took on the same hue as the cobalt bottle that had brought her here.

Clearly, the building had originally belonged to the Catholics, not the Presbyterians. All along the sides of the nave, curved alcoves lined the stone walls—alcoves obviously intended for statues of saints. But when God had vanished, the saints had vacated the premises along with him. The alcoves sat empty now, like the hollowed-out eyes of a skull.

Brendan turned again and considered the crucifixion scene. The crown of thorns, the spikes through the hands and feet, the wound in the side, the deeply recessed, shadowed eyelids, closed against the pain. The corpus mocked her with its silent suffering. No matter what Gram had tried to teach her, she found no grace here, no hope, no purpose. What purpose could there be in such a brutal act of God?

All the old hostility came flooding back, rage she thought had long since been whipped into silence. She could feel her heart beating against her rib cage, hear her pulse pounding in her ears. And above the din, the whispered words, May I help you?

For all her anger and disappointment with God, Brendan never thought twice about the source of the question. She shook her head in fury. It's too late for that. Long ago I needed your help, and where were you? You missed your chance.

I beg your pardon?

This time Brendan realized that the voice was coming from behind her, in the doorway to the narthex. All the blood rushed from her face and she turned to find herself facing a tall, rangy man with graying hair and watery hazel eyes.

I'm sorry—I was— Brendan stopped. What did you say?

I asked if I might help you.

Brendan looked at him, then glanced over her shoulder at the empty cross. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.

It's all right, he said. People often come in here to pray. If I'm disturbing you, I'll just go back to my office.

I wasn't— What could she say? That she wasn't praying? But she had been talking to God, hadn't she? Or at least to the shadow of the God who had made his exit from her life years ago. Are you the pastor here?

The man stepped forward. Yes. I'm Ralph Stinson. He extended a hand, narrowing his eyes at her. And you're Brendan Delaney, the TV reporter.

I am. Thank you for recognizing me. Brendan relaxed a little. She was moving back into familiar territory now—the interview, where her natural composure and people skills served her well. Actually, I came to speak to you.

To me? His eyebrows arched upward. Well, I am flattered. Do come into my office.

He led the way down the hall into a spacious, book-lined room dominated by a large antique desk. Behind his leather chair, in an alcove of the bookcase, a computer screen saver scrolled a Bible verse in neon green across a darkened background: Ask, and you shall receive.

Brendan took the seat across from him and tried to position herself so that she couldn't see the computer screen. Holy e-mail, she mused. Wonder if God ever gets snarled in cyber-traffic on the information highway?

She collected her notes and looked at him. Pastor Stinson—

Call me Ralph.

All right then, Ralph. I'm doing a follow-up story on the demolition of Cameron House in Montford—

Yes, I saw that spot the other night. It was very good, he said. "I espe- daily liked the part where you compared the destruction of the house with the