“In two weeks he’d found someone else?”
“When they walked up to me, the woman he was with said, ‘Is this the exorcist cop?’ “
Paul flinched.
“He asked me if I was going to add stalking to everything else.”
“You dated him for a year and never saw this side of him?”
“Not helping, Paul.” “Sorry.”
“It was a betrayal like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Not just that he was so… repulsed. But that he’d obviously told this woman. Made a joke out of it.” She shook her head silently for a while. “I felt like God gave me a choice right there and then to serve Him or to have a man in my life. Well, I couldn’t believe it was right not to serve Him. So I decided marriage just wasn’t for me. Not in God’s plan for me. If I was called to be a police officer and given a gift that was so hard to understand, God’s will must be for me to remain alone. And that was it. I walked away. I haven’t dated. I certainly haven’t kissed a man since. And I’ve never talked about my gift to anyone again.”
“I’m glad you walked away. What did he want you to do? Ignore a gift that could help so many people?”
“No, I think he just wanted me to get away from him and stay away.” She pulled herself out of her dark mood enough to glare at Paul. “And there’s no could about it. I do help people.”
“Sorry.” Paul was glad to hear her temper, much better than the hurt. “I didn’t mean you didn’t. I’m honored that you felt like you could talk about it with me.”
“You should be.”
“I’d like you to come over to the mission. If I knew there was something more than simple human weakness involved with some of my people, maybe I could help them more.”
“There’s more.”
Paul said cautiously, “More gifts?”
“No… well, sort of. My gift is discerning spirits—that’s not only demons. I can also discern when the Holy Spirit is flowing strongly in someone.”
Paul looked at her for a long time. “That would be such a wonderful thing to see.”
“It is. I sensed the Holy Spirit in you the first time I saw you lying there all beat up in that hospital. You have a spirit of courage and joy that is so strong.”
“Was that before or after you started yelling at me?”
Keren was silent for a few seconds. Sheepishly, she said, “Before.”
Paul looked at her.
She gave him a quick glance then went back to staring out the windshield. “Your spirit, your love for the people who come to your mission, it has an unusually powerful effect on me, Paul. I’m afraid I’m letting it confuse me.”
She rested her elbow on the open window and propped her head up with her fist. “That kiss—it shouldn’t have happened, but there’s something…” Keren shrugged.
“Let’s deal with the kiss later.”
Keren gave him a dry look, like she knew he didn’t want to deal with it at all, and she agreed; but they were still going to have to deal with it.
“So if you saw the Holy Spirit in me, why did you get so angry?”
Keren gave him a disgruntled look. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”
Paul sat straighter in his seat. With all the other revelations tonight, he had a feeling this was the one she wanted to talk about least, and therefore was the one that he needed to hear most. “I asked you if we met. We did. I knew it. But I can’t remember when.”
Keren shook her head and crossed her arms. She said in a disgusted voice, “We didn’t exactly meet. But you didn’t like the way I handled a case and tried to have me busted out of the police force. All I can guess is you must have done it so much that one little incident doesn’t carry much weight.”
“I did what?”
“You heard me.”
“When? What happened?”
“Let’s leave it for now,” Keren said. “I’m sorry I brought it up. You tried to paint me as an incompetent little girl who was too softhearted to arrest the bad guys, and I was tough enough to survive the suspension, plus the harassment from every cop who knew what happened.”
“You can’t make a statement like that and then let it drop.”
“You dropped the kiss. Now it’s my turn to drop something.”
“Keren,” Paul said, doing his best to sound threatening. He’d been good at threatening at one time. She gave him a You-don’t-scare-me look.
Finally, Paul said, “All right, fine. But I’m going to find out what it is. I’m a cop—”
“You were a cop,” Keren corrected him.
“I’ll track it down. Or maybe I’ll just pry it out of you.”
“Why don’t you just reread some of your old press clippings? You had enough of those.”
Paul heard the venom in her voice and wondered how they’d gotten from a kiss to this. He studied her mulish profile and tapped his foot on the floorboard irritably, then he decided to change the subject. For now. “You reacted so strongly when I told you Pravus was Latin for ‘demon’ because you sensed this about him?”
“It’s bad.” Keren nodded. “Evil is permeating every aspect of this case. Nothing bothers O’Shea, but the crime scene, the blood… it really shook him. And I’ve never seen Dr. Schaefer lose her cool. They don’t know it, but they’re sensing the demon in this, too.”
Paul thought of the ME’s unsteady voice during the autopsy.
“I’ve never had an experience like this,” Keren said. “Where I could feel the demonic presence even when the person hosting the demon isn’t around. I felt it at the explosion, at the fountain where we found Juanita, at the autopsy, in LaToya’s apartment…”
“Do you think you could sense him if he were near?”
“I don’t know. Whatever is inside of him is incredibly powerful. If I could focus on him with some internal radar, it would be the first time I ever have.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure? What do you mean?”
“Maybe you aren’t aware of it. Have you ever been pursuing a criminal and you picked the right alley to go up or the right door to look behind? You told me once that O’Shea says you have great instincts. Maybe, without you being aware of it, you’ve been able to track down evil better because of your gift.”
“I’ve never considered such a thing. You know, not every criminal I arrest has a demon. You’d think they would. Sometimes I see demons in the strangest places. I’ve seen the struggle in some people, and, if they are open to it, I’ve helped them.”
“Can you cast demons out?” Paul’s heart started pounding.
“I don’t cast them out the way Jesus did. The people I’ve helped have done it themselves. I’ve encouraged them and prayed for them, but I’ve never found an ability to just tell the demon to come out and it works. Remember the demon that the disciples couldn’t cast out?”
“Yes, the story is in Matthew and Mark. I’m always particularly interested in the seemingly small stories that occur in more than one book. They must have left a strong impression. And I think God wants us to understand that they have special meaning.”
“Well, in Matthew, Jesus is pretty hard on His disciples, saying they don’t have enough faith. But in Mark He says this kind of demon only comes out with prayer and fasting. That’s the way I approach demons. I begin praying. I only speak in the kindest way to the person who is possessed. I pray every second I’m with them. I can tell if they are interested in my help or not.”
“And if they are?” Paul prompted.
“Then we pray together.”
“And it works?” Paul was fascinated.
“It works. It works a surprising amount of the time, because part of my discernment seems to be… well, usually… I think I can discern a spirit in someone who is open to being free of it. Because I usually help them, so it stands to reason, right? God gave me that type of understanding as the true purpose of my gift. Leading them to Jesus Christ always has to be part of it. I’m afraid I’ll leave them empty and more demons will come and take up residence.”