“Deal?” she asked God. “Let’s shake on it.”

She held out her hand as a whistle blasted and a train barreled past her house, shaking the walls, the floors, the ceilings, everything to the very foundation.

Eleanor glanced at the clock—3:26 a.m. She stared at the clock in confusion. For seventeen years that train had rattled by the house at the same time every time—12:59, 6:16, 3:38, and 7:02. Never in all the years she’d lived in this house had the train rattled by this late at night.

Never once. Never ever.

Turning back to the chair she lowered her hand.

“Okay, then,” she said. “It’s a deal.”

19

Eleanor

FOR THE THIRD TIME IN TWO HOURS, ELEANOR REFILLED her bucket with cold water and poured in a cup of wood soap. She lugged the heavy bucket back to the sanctuary and sat it on the floor next to the center section of pews. For the past three weeks, she’d been washing the woodwork in the church in an attempt to pay Sacred Heart back for her legal fees. Maybe her dad was right. Turning tricks would be much a much easier way to make money.

As she washed the wood on her hands and knees, she let herself fantasize about her future. Søren had ordered her to apply to five colleges and she had. Now she couldn’t stop dreaming of a life at NYU. She’d been in love with the Village and the NYU buildings since she’d first seen them as a little girl walking through the city with her grandparents. Still she knew it was a waste of a dream. She had good grades but not good enough to get a scholarship. Student loans would only cover a fraction of what she’d need to pay for NYU. Maybe she could find a hot dean or something and trade her body for tuition money.

Eleanor couldn’t believe how hot it was in the sanctuary. Sweat beaded on her forehead and spilled onto the floor. She’d already soaked through her shirt.

For another hour she washed the pews until she could hardly see straight. Her mascara burned her eyes. What the hell was going on?

Eleanor dragged herself off the floor and stretched her back. She shouldn’t be this hot. She’d changed into a sleeveless T-shirt, her cutoff denim shorts, and other than a pair of kneepads, she didn’t have anything else on except for sneakers. She walked over to the wall and squatted down by the vent. Boiling hot air poured from it into the sanctuary.

That wasn’t good. Was the heat broken? She stepped out into the foyer and found the heating controls. Someone had jacked up the temperature to ninety degrees. Ninety. Fucking. Degrees.

Her priest was a dead man.

She stalked down the hall to Søren’s office. Luckily they were alone in the church this fine Thursday evening so she could kill him without anyone trying to stop her.

She found him in his office sipping from a dainty teacup.

“Are you some kind of sadist?” she demanded.

He made a notation onto a piece of paper.

“Yes.”

“You turned the heat up in the sanctuary?”

“I didn’t want you getting chilly.”

“You turned it up to ninety.”

Søren looked up from his notes.

“Did I? My apologies.”

“That was the least sincere apology in the history of the universe.”

“Possibly.”

“I’m working my ass off in the sanctuary scrubbing two hundreds years of farts off the pews and you’re sitting in your seventy-degree office drinking tea and writing homilies. It’s hot as Satan’s balls in there, and I’m sweating like a whore in church. Do you have anything to say to that?”

Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest and stared daggers into the office.

Søren looked her up and down before turning his attention back to his Bible.

“I like the kneepads.”

“I hate you.”

“Forty-two,” he said, as he pulled a file folder from his desk drawer.

“Forty-two what?”

“I’ve been keeping track of how many times you’ve declared your hatred of me. That was forty-two.” He opened the file folder and scanned something inside. “No, forty-three.”

He make a tick mark on the page.

“Forty-four. I hate you. Why the f**k did you turn the heat up to ninety?”

“You stole five cars. Instead of going into prison or juvenile detention, you endured nothing more than volunteer work. Now that you are paying back your legal fees, which were not inconsiderable, perhaps you need to suffer more in your service. It’s good for the soul.”

“Suffering is good for the soul? You’re sitting in your cute little office drinking your gross-ass tea that smells like bacon—”

“It’s Lapsang souchong.”

“It’s disgusting. You’re drinking disgusting tea and writing homilies in your room-temperature office while I’m dying in there. I don’t see you suffering.”

“I have suffered. My suffering has ended.”

“Did you find Jesus?”

“No, I found you.” Søren closed his file folder and slipped it back into the drawer. He sipped his tea again, sat the cup down and returned to his work.

Eleanor pressed her hand into her fluttering stomach.

“How would you feel if I stood on top of your desk and screamed my head off?” she asked.

“To be perfectly honest, I’m surprised you haven’t done it already.”

To be perfectly honest, it surprised her, too.

“Now that I’ve suffered, can I turn the heat back down to a low boil? More first circle of hell than eighth circle?”