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  He gave a sigh of relief when he saw that the road wound to a halt at the forecourt of a handsome and secure-looking stone manse.

  The Holy Trinity School for Girls.

  Yes, this was the place.

  The girl was here. The virgin Colleen.

  If he could believe that.

  Abandoning his English Ford at the entrance, he made his way up the broad stone steps. He could hear a class of girls through an open, latticed window, the sweetly monotonous chant of Latin conjugation. Amo, amas, amat . . .

  He found himself reciting the known facts of his investigation. A litany of impossible ideas connected to an outrageous prophecy made decades ago at Fatima in Portugal.

  A virgin here in the Republic of Ireland, site of Pope John Paul’s mysterious visit in 1979.

  A virgin eight months gone with child.

  A fourteen-year-old schoolgirl named Colleen Deirdre Galaher.

  A secret that Rome and the church in Ireland were struggling to keep under containment.

  And that was just the start of things, just the beginning.

  Father Rosetti absently lifted the heavy ring knocker on the school’s front door. His heart was racing, and he felt weighted down with fear. Was he being watched? Followed? If so, by whom?

  At least the Voice was leaving him alone.

  A tall, flat-chested girl presently appeared at the doorway. The Holy Trinity student wore a puffy white blouse, a gray pleated skirt, conservative black shoes. She seemed to be expecting him. She curtsied, then silently led Rosetti upstairs to the office of the Reverend Mother.

  Still afraid of another attack, he gripped the slight wooden banister as if he were an old man. It was constantly on his mind now — being struck down with terrible crippling pain — then dying, simply ceasing to be.

  The school’s principal was expecting him, waiting upstairs in her small, dank office.

  “It isn’t often we’re receiving visitors . . . much less from Rome,” Sister Katherine Dominica said with a benedictory smile that made Rosetti distrust her. She was surely conflicted about her student Colleen Galaher, and concerned about the purpose of the visitor from Rome, of all places. But Sister Katherine would not ask leading or probing questions. As a provincial Irish nun, she knew her place.

  “This term, Colleen has been studying her lessons at home,” the nun told Rosetti. “The other students — and especially their parents — haven’t been kind to her about this unusual situation.”

  “Unusual? Yes, it certainly is that,” Rosetti agreed.

  He forced a smile and offered words that were sincere. “I’m originally from a small town, Sister. People can be cruel. I think I understand what’s happened here.”

  “I’ll take you to see Colleen.” The nun then nodded curtly and said, “She’s here today, at your request.”

  “My request. And the Vatican’s,” he reminded the solemn-faced nun.

  Chapter 13

  SO THIS WAS the girl that Pope Pius had wanted him to see.

  Nicholas Rosetti’s badly bruised heart lurched wildly the moment he saw the fourteen-year-old. His head ached terribly. The shock to him was that a month ago, even two weeks ago, he had been stable, strong.

  My God, my God, my God.

  The girl standing before him had skin as white as milk with a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and a ragged haircut. It looked as if the ends of her curling red hair had been chewed off. She was dressed in a tattered beige raincoat, clean but too thin for the weather. The hem of a red flannel dress hung beneath it. Under the dress, she had on blue jeans. Boy’s wool socks, elastic long since sprung, drooped over ancient school shoes with rips along the toes.

  And yet, his heart continued to beat wildly. Why?

  On a desk were a couple of schoolbooks, but also a paperback — Omnivores, by Lydia Millet. He thought he’d better find out about the book. What was Omnivores?

  Is this the one? Dear God in Heaven, she is so young, so small.

  The bulging stomach seemed a brutal thing for this poor waif of a girl to bear.

  “Please sit down,” he said. “Please, Colleen. You don’t have to stand because I’m here. I’m just a simple priest.”

  A sister brought in tea and scones, then Nicholas Rosetti began the formalistic interview of the Congregation of Sacred Rites. It was the first test. The first of many, if she was the one.

  A young child, fourteen years old, who very innocently ascribes her mysterious condition to the will of God the Father, Nicholas Rosetti would enter in his notes later that night. She is just a child, though. My prayers are with Colleen Galaher. To my eyes, her features seem luminous, as if lit by a glow from within. She seems without guile, an honest young Irish girl. A ninth-grader. Imagine that.

  I am struck powerfully with this notion: Colleen is precisely the age of Mary of Nazareth when she bore Jesus!

  He studied the girl as they talked; he couldn’t take his eyes away. Suddenly, Rosetti was struck by a wave of feeling so primitive and hideous, his mind reeled.

  He heard the Voice, but there were no words, just laughter. Awful, hideous laughter that the priest couldn’t stop.

  He braced for another physical attack, but this feeling was different, he realized. He gripped the edge of the desk and watched the skin under his fingernails go white.

  “Are you all right, Father?” asked Colleen. Her voice was sweet, melting with genuine concern.

  “Quite all right,” said Father Rosetti. But he wasn’t.

  The Voice spoke: She’s so young, so small, so tight.

  He was sexually aroused. He was violently tumescent, and he was awash with guilt and shame. He was powerfully tempted to have sex with this young pregnant girl. He wanted her more than any woman he had ever seen in his life.

  Take her right here on the floor. You can have her, Nicholas. You won’t be her first, though.

  Father Rosetti almost fell in his rush to leave the library. As he ran from the convent school, he was shivering uncontrollably.

  He’s seen the young Virgin, the Voice taunted, and he likes what he’s seen.

  Chapter 14

  Newport, Rhode Island.

  I STOOD AT the top of the wooden steps leading down to the beach and watched Kathleen Beavier below.

  She was tossing small flat stones into the surf, and I could tell she was athletic by the way she threw the rocks. She had an air of confidence, and it seemed so odd, so sad and wrong, that she’d tried to kill herself not long ago.

  I draped an old blue cashmere sweater around my shoulders and walked down toward the girl.

  Kathleen seemed to accept me so far. She waved, complimented me on the way I’d twisted up my hair, and told me that the watercolor blue of my sweater was a real “wow.”

  Kathleen looked like most girls her age, though she was prettier, and pregnant, of course. She wore a tan hooded sweater, wide-legged cargo pants, chunky boots, a wool beanie. I’d been noticing her favorite brands: Roxy, Blue Asphalt, Union Bay. She wore makeup, but not too much.

  She gave me an enthusiastic guided tour of the picturesque Beavier estate, which was once a working farm. There were still antique outbuildings dotting the grounds. The cottage was a beautiful structure, with four imposing wings added on to an impressive Victorian shell. The house had twenty-four rooms, eight full baths.

  “It’s pretty awesome,” I said.

  “It’s not exactly a humble stable in Bethlehem,” Kathleen said. She smiled at me. “I thought someone should break the ice.”

  I laughed. “Consider it broken. You know that I’m a private investigator.”

  “Do you get to carry a gun?” she asked.

  “Everybody asks me that lately. I have a gun, yes.”

  We walked at the frothy hem of the sea, skirting the foam as it surged toward our sneakers. I said, “Maybe we should talk about what I know about you, and what I don’t.”

  She took a deep breath. “Okay. If we have to.”

>   “We have to,” I said, hoping I sounded nonchalant. “All I know for sure is this: You’re pregnant, and you say you’re a virgin.”

  “Strange, but true. And you know I tried to kill myself.”

  I nodded. “I also know that the Archdiocese of Boston is concerned about your condition. I know they’re trying to keep the story quiet, which is understandable. But why did they become involved in the first place?”

  Kathleen rolled her eyes, which were bright blue and very pretty. “Okay. First of all, though, one minor correction. You said the Church was concerned; I’d say they’re terrified. The almighty cardinal came here himself. He couldn’t look into my eyes. That’s very strange. I think it is, anyway.

  “After I tried to end ‘IT’ and then to end me, my mother finally listened to me. She didn’t believe me at first, naturally, but then she got it big-time. I didn’t expect her to say, ‘Mother of God!’ Literally! But that’s what she said.”

  The girl was funny; I had to hand it to her. She was a charmer. “So she called the local church?”

  “Yeah. If it had been up to Dad, he would have sent me to Switzerland, put the baby up for adoption . . .”

  Kathleen turned somber. She took off her beanie, rolled it in her hands. I couldn’t help running diagnostics on her as she talked. Was she bipolar? One symptom of manic-depressive tendencies was megalomania or delusions of grandeur. The belief that one was going to be the mother of God could certainly fit under that category.

  Kathleen rubbed at the still-livid scar on her wrist, then wrinkled up her face.

  “Things got pretty wild around here after that. I was examined by a high-priced gynecologist they flew in from Boston. Then I was cross-examined by theologians at Harvard University, of all places. After that, all these different priests began to come to the house. And now you! Anyway, you seem much nicer than the others. They must have made a mistake when they chose you. Or you’re sneaky?”

  “I’m very sneaky. Kathleen, please start at the beginning. I’ve heard the story in bits and pieces. There’s something about a day last January. Eight months ago. You’d gone out with a boy after a school dance? Who was he? What was that all about?”

  Kathleen’s blue eyes hooded over suddenly, a door seemed to slam shut on the newly formed trust between us.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She shook her head. “I can’t tell you about that. Don’t go there. I’ll talk about anything else.”

  Tears filled her eyes and she had to cover her face with her hands. I wondered if she was conning me. It was impossible to tell.

  “I’m so afraid,” she whispered at last. “I feel so alone and afraid. People think I’m either a liar or a saint. I’m neither. I’m just me! I’m still just me!”

  She leaned against me and I took the badly shaking girl in my arms. I could feel her emotions, her fears, her terrible loneliness. I had seen it before, but never quite like this. What had happened to Kathleen Beavier?

  Chapter 15

  I WAS AGITATED after my talk with Kathleen. I liked her. Period. My objectivity was weakening already. I spent the remainder of the early evening interviewing the staff of five who worked at the house. I tried to do my job as if it were any other. The staff idolized Kathleen and none of them thought she was a liar. They believed in her.

  I watched the evening news in my room and saw more about the polio outbreak, but also about a famine in India and a plague in Asia. What was happening around the world? I noticed I was hugging myself as I watched Peter Jennings report the news.

  Just past seven-thirty, I checked in with Cardinal Rooney. I told him I was making progress but that there was nothing earth-shattering to report so far. That was when he dropped his little bombshell. He was sending a priest from Boston to stay at the Beavier house.

  “I’m sending Father Justin O’Carroll,” the cardinal told me. “You know Justin.” Yes, I know Justin O’Carroll.

  I had a late dinner with the family that night around nine, but my mood kept wandering all through the meal. Kathleen had gotten under my skin the second I saw her, and she defied easy classification. Now Justin O’Carroll was coming. God give me strength.

  Around ten o’clock, I took a walk alone on the grounds. My mind was in overdrive, and I knew I would have trouble sleeping if I went up to my room.

  This is a hoax. It has to be. Now how do I prove it?

  And what will that do to Kathleen?

  She had warned me to be careful walking around outside, and I thought that odd advice. The place was beautiful, and extremely well lit. I thought that I could handle any danger I found here.

  Chapter 16

  THE NIGHT AIR was cold and felt brittle to me. I had hoped that the roar of the waves would soothe me, but instead the sound called up a touch of melancholia that caught me off guard.

  I had been trying to think of something other than the young girl. And as iron files are attracted to a magnet, so were my thoughts drawn straight to Justin O’Carroll. Damn, damn, damn. Why is Rooney sending him?

  I hadn’t thought about Justin for months, but now that I did I remembered everything all too well. I had been a Dominican nun for only two years, and I felt I’d made the right choice. But then something completely unexpected happened. I met Father Justin O’Carroll, originally from County Cork, Ireland. And damn it, I fell in love with him.

  I first saw him when he was a caseworker for Catholic Charities in South Boston. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt, jeans, work boots. I didn’t even know he was a priest. I was attached as a social worker to Cardinal Rooney’s office, the main archdiocesan office, on Commonwealth Avenue.

  Justin was handsome; not quite Daniel Day-Lewis good-looking, but close enough to make the comparison. All of the laywomen at the chancery thought so, too. He had the most intense royal blue eyes and thick black curls. Some days he banded those curls into a ponytail and then he was virtually irresistible.

  But I had resisted physical temptation before. I knew where it led: eleven kids and a lifetime of alcoholism. Even when I was a nun, attractive men had sometimes come on to me: fathers of my classmates and men on the street who couldn’t tell I was a nun in my street clothes. But there was something so compelling about Justin; an unmistakable strength that intrigued me; self-reliance and individuality; a seeming indifference toward the rude ways of the world. He was a rebel with a cause: He was devoted to the poor, and especially to children.

  Justin was worldly-wise, too. He could speak intelligently on a variety of subjects ranging from Irish sociology to classical music and art to American politics and pop culture, even baseball. He loved Mozart, and he really loved U2 and the Cranberries, and I had caught him humming and singing selections from both musical worlds. He was classically educated and had a quiet, sensitive temperament. But he was a priest; I was a nun. And the two of us simply couldn’t be together.

  Down on the beach near the Beavier house, I took a seat on a log of driftwood and stared out to sea. Pictures were flowing into my mind, filling in spaces I’d forgotten were there.

  I remembered how dumb and giddy I’d felt when I was around him and how dumb and guilty that made me feel. To be honest, I’d never experienced anything like it before. Naturally, Justin and I never discussed this for the first year of our acquaintance. Then I went to an international conference in Washington, D.C., a trip that lasted two weeks.

  One night during my second week, I got a midnight phone call. It was Justin.

  “What’s wrong? Did something happen?” I asked.

  “The only thing that’s wrong that I can think of,” I heard a dreamy, faraway voice say, “is that you’re in Washington, I’m here in Boston, and I’m missing you terribly.”

  I felt my heart seize up in my chest. I was tempted to hang up the phone. But before I was forced to find an answer, Justin was brushing past the awkward silence.

  “You can’t imagine how hard it was for me to make this call. I picked up the receiver and hung it up again at
least a dozen times. I feel like a total fool, Anne, but I seemed to have no choice about it. I had to call you.”

  What to say? The word flustered had been invented for moments like this. Could I possibly tell Justin that I’d been missing him too? That constant thoughts of him had been destroying my concentration all week? All month? All year?

  No. I could not. I would not.

  I said, rather inconsiderately, “I’ll be back in Boston next Monday.” And then I said I had to get some sleep, and hung up on him. What willpower, what confusion, what disingenuousness.

  I thought about us for the rest of my time in Washington. I was extremely negative. When I got back, I asked for, and received, an immediate transfer out of Boston. I had taken vows; I had made a solemn commitment; I couldn’t go back on those now.

  Justin seemed to understand my decision. He didn’t write to me or phone me at my new school in Andover. Slowly, my faith and some of my commitment returned.

  Then one afternoon he was waiting for me outside the private high school where I taught.

  “I had to see you again,” he said in the quietest voice. “I’m sorry, Anne. I almost feel as if I have no choice anymore. No free will.”

  “Well,” I said, and smiled. “It’s good to see you too. But you do have free will. And so do I.”

  We went for a long walk through the streets of the village. I tried to talk reasonably, logically, calmly. It seems so ironic when I think of my impassioned lecture to him that day. Then suddenly this positively gorgeous man I wanted to love held me by the shoulders, and I was looking up into those stormy blue eyes of his. We were standing outside a place called the Pewter Pot. I’ll never forget it.

  “Justin,” I whispered, “please don’t.”

  “I love you, Anne,” he said, still holding me. It was the only time I had ever heard those words.

  “I don’t want to see you again,” I told him. “I’m sorry. I’m deeply sorry.” Then I went back to my car and drove home, trembling and sobbing uncontrollably the whole way.