Chapter Two
Thane studied the surveillance video just sent over from Merck Enterprises’ security team with Martin hovering behind him. The only person who’d visited Mr. Merck before his untimely, accidental death yesterday was one woman. Thane hit the Play button, looping the video tape through to the beginning.
It was 5 p.m., and the precinct office was loud and boisterous. He had to concentrate over the shouts and projectiles being tossed from cube to cube. He zeroed in on the woman walking down the empty corridor. She turned to look over her shoulder as she passed by the camera. Her gaze settled directly on the camera, eyes black as the night. Thane felt a shiver in his soul. Or what he had left of a soul. This job had sucked most of it out.
“No wonder he let her into his office. Does she get hotter with every tape or what?” Martin said, clearly impressed.
Thane was trying not to notice. He had a rule about not finding criminals hot. In this case, though, he might have to make an exception.
“Are they planning an autopsy on Merck?” Thane asked, unable to take his eyes off the footage.
Martin replied, “Yup. It’ll take a few days. Doesn’t seem to be in much of a rush. Everyone hated his guts. Besides, it appears to be a freak accident.”
Like all the others. This was the seventh “freak accident” this month, but there were probably more. They just happened to stumble upon the pattern recently. Bad people dying in freakish ways.
Not that he minded that much, especially an untouchable like Merck. He was as dirty as they got, surrounded by an army of lawyers and well-paid, tight-lipped assistants. He deserved a far worse fate than bleeding to death facedown in his office.
The only connection between the spree of accidents was that they all involved the deaths of lowlifes. And one woman who may have seen them before they died. This was the third time they’d caught her near the scenes of the strange deaths. He’d bet there were more.
“No ID on her?” he asked Martin.
“Not yet. We ran her face through all our systems. She’s nowhere to be found. Seriously, I want to know how she does it.”
Thane stopped the video and switched to the next one. This showed her in the elevator that she rode down thirty-seven floors. A chill ran through him as the elevator music played out, and he rewound the tape for another look.
“You see something?” Martin asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice.
He replayed it at regular speed. Her mouth wasn’t moving, but he could hear people whispering. Hushed voices. Was it coming from the elevator? “Do you hear anything?”
Martin glanced at Thane and shook his head slowly. “No, nothing. Why?”
The whispers were definitely there, but Martin didn’t hear them. Thane couldn’t tell where they were coming from but, when he stopped the tape, the whispers stopped. Maybe he’d get better results through headphones.
The woman didn’t look at the camera until right before she got off. Then she gave it a stellar smile and vanished. Literally vanished. According to Security, and there was a lot of Security, no one saw her get off the elevator. The other surveillance cameras didn’t pick her up. She’d simply disappeared into the city.
And he never even had the chance to thank her.
“I don’t know,” Thane said, speaking carefully. It wouldn’t do to tell his partner about the voices only he could hear. “If we can tie her to one or more of the other deaths, we can put an APB out on her.”
“I’ll review the other tapes again,” Martin said.
“I’ll do it,” Thane said. Then he turned to Martin. “Don’t you have a kindergarten graduation to go to tonight?”
Martin ran a hand through his quickly thinning hair. “Yes. Christ, it’s kindergarten, you know? Do we really need a graduation ceremony?”
Thane smiled and rewound the tape to the beginning. “You got two more kids coming up. Get used to it.”
Martin laughed, but Thane knew how important his family was to him. He’d do anything for his kids. He was a stand-up guy. Too bad he’d gotten saddled with the likes of Thane.
“What do we tell Captain O’Brien?” Martin asked. “He’s due back from vacation tomorrow. We really don’t have a case here. The death was deemed accidental. Plus we got other cases.”
But none as big as this one. Despite that, they couldn’t go to their boss just yet. Not unless they found the woman was connected to the other deaths. Then they’d have something. Part of him hated going after her because she was doing a service by getting rid of the lowlifes. Part of him knew she was a murderer and had to be stopped. And part of him was more than a little intrigued by the whispers. It had been a long time since he’d heard them, and he needed time to process what it meant.
“Don’t tell him anything,” Thane said and restarted the tape. “I’ll work off the clock.”
Martin exhaled. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Somebody’s got to save the good people,” Thane said, half-joking.
Martin slapped him on the shoulder. “Just remember you aren’t the only gun in town, okay?” Then he left.
Thane studied her face frozen on camera. It was locked and loaded in his memory for all time—her smile, her face, her walk. He had it all filed away for future reference. Because he knew he’d see her again.
* * *
At 9 p.m., Thane was still holed up in his cubicle reviewing all the video tapes from the past month. Headphones fit snuggly over his ears, blocking out the din of activity in the suite.
She’d caught his attention last week in two of the cases. But now he’d found footage of his mystery woman at the scene of two more deaths. Granted, there were a lot of people in the security videos, but her being there was too much of a coincidence.
His father used to say there were no such things as coincidences, only the facts. And his father had been a good cop.
He could now place her at the scene of at least five of the untimely deaths.
So who was she, and why was she doing this?
He rewound one of the tapes and started it from the beginning again. It showed people entering and leaving an Italian restaurant on the Upper West Side where the victim had been found dead in the men’s bathroom. A massive overhead light assembly had fallen on him while he was taking a piss.
He couldn’t deny the coroner’s reports that these were accidents, but he knew she was involved. She had to be. That wasn’t even the part that worried him the most.
It was the whispers.
Thane watched her enter the restaurant wearing a snug-fitting black dress and knee-high black boots. He slowed the video and studied her frame by frame. She was incredible, really. Long, black hair to her waist, wide almond-shaped eyes, red lips, and one smoking-hot body. She moved like a dancer—confident and graceful.
He let the tape run, closed his eyes, and listened to a sound he hadn’t heard since the night his father was murdered. He didn’t remember much from that night—not the killer, not the circumstances. All had been buried in his young mind then. But the sound—the whispers—those he remembered now. It took every bit of concentration he had to keep his emotions at bay, and the realization that somehow, someway, this woman had triggered this one small memory to the surface.
He held the headphones against his head tightly.
Just like all the other tapes, the voices were soft and light. There were two or three different tones, but no matter how he tried, he couldn’t understand what they were saying. If he asked his tech guys to boost the sound, they’d think he was crazy. There was no audio with half of these tapes.
Which proved that he might just be crazy.
Or maybe he missed his father so much that he was clinging to something that wasn’t really there. Maybe the woman had nothing to do with these deaths or his father’s murder, but there was really only one way to find out. He opened his eyes just as she exited the front door and disappeared into the night. The whispers faded.
At least now, he had something to show his boss.
He’d keep the voices to himself. He was on probation as it was. All he needed was a damning psych evaluation to finish him off.
* * *
Alexander Wolken slammed his fist against the steering wheel and yelled into his cell phone. “My emergency? My car died in the middle of Bed-Stuy, and it’s f*cking two a.m. That’s my emergency.”
The 911 operator said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t handle car problems. This line is for emergencies only—”
“F*ck you!” he yelled and disconnected the call. “Jesus H. Christ!”
Of all the nights for his car to crap out on him. The steady rain carved long streaks down his windshield, and the inside of the glass was covered in steam. But he could still make out the streetlights of this godforsaken neighborhood.
His cell phone beeped a low-battery warning, and he let loose a slew of curses, which didn’t help his situation. His choices were to sit and wait here until morning. Or get out and try to find a cab. Either way, his car would probably be stripped bare.
No f*cking way. He cared about his car more than anything and anyone.
He tried doing a search for a tow service on his phone, but it kept blipping out on him. He ignored the annoying reminders that the battery was low. After a few minutes of searching, he finally found one. But when he managed to get them on the line, the call cut out dead.
“Piece of shit!” He threw the phone against the dashboard. It bounced off and landed on the floor somewhere. He didn’t bother to look. He slammed his fists on the steering wheel. This was all his wife’s fault. If she hadn’t had to work the late shift, he wouldn’t be driving to pick her up. Well, she could rot at work for all he cared. And when she did get home, he was going to beat the shit out of her.
Suddenly, the passenger-side door opened and a black figure slid into the car. He gaped at the strange woman in disbelief. He’d locked the doors, he was sure. “What the f*ck do you think you’re doing?”
She turned to him, and her eyes glowed silver in the dark. Her hair was black and wet, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Car trouble?”
Oh, Christ. Just what he needed. A hooker. “Get lost. I’m not interested.”
She brushed raindrops off her black coat onto his upholstery. “Really? So why did you rape and murder seven women over the last six years?”
Alexander blinked furiously for a few moments before regaining his composure. “Get out of my car!”
She turned to face him, her skin pale against red lips. “And your wife. You manage to find a reason to beat her regularly.”
Who the hell was this woman? How did she know all this? He reached out and grabbed her by the arm. “Get out!”
But she didn’t move, and his hand slipped right through her, disappearing into the black coat. He pulled his hand back out and stared at it.
“I’m not like them,” she said, her voice low and ominous. “I don’t bleed. I don’t break. You can’t hurt me.”
He growled in frustration and shoved at her with both of his hands, grasping nothing but air. He slashed at her, punching and hitting—nothing. It was as if she weren’t there at all. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe he was losing his mind.
“Done?” she asked, sounding bored with his antics.
He felt the breath rushing in and out of his lungs. “What are you?”
She smiled. “Someone who knows everything you’ve done, Alexander. Every woman you’ve raped, beat, abused, strangled, and killed.”
His mind scrambled. She knew his name. She knew what he’d done. This made no sense. “You can’t know—”
“I do,” she said with a smirk. “Marcy. Jenna. Bridget. Colleen. Kim. Should I continue?”
He shook his head, the shock settling over him. He started to shake. No one should know about them. He’d been very careful who he chose, very careful not to leave clues behind. “Are you a cop?”
“Hardly. I just have connections,” she said simply. The car turned quiet. Rain pelted the top of the car softly. “Alexander Wolken, are you sorry for your sins?”
Reality returned with a vengeance. His sins? What about their sins? What about their sins? The way they looked at men and toyed with them. The way they teased and lied. The trouble they put men through, for what? Themselves. They were all selfish, every one of them. They had no idea what men wanted or needed, and they didn’t care. He was not at fault. They deserved what he did to them.
“Go to hell,” he hissed at her.
“Already been there.”
He reached through her and opened her door. “Out!”
“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then,” she said. Then she slipped out and slammed the door shut, leaving him alone seething. His breath came hard and fast, fogging up the windows.
He hit the steering wheel with both palms, hating the rain, hating everything. He was so furious, he could barely sit still. Who did she think she was? Getting in his car? Accusing him? Red rage filled his mind. A memory of each woman came back to his mind. The way they begged when they knew they were going to be brought to justice. He remembered every one clearly—
A knock on the driver’s-side window jolted him out of the past. He glared through the steamy glass and realized that men wearing hoods over their heads bobbed and weaved around his car.
Punks. Worthless punks.
Then a face appeared in his driver’s-side window, grinning through the steam. Alexander flipped the man off and grinned back. There, f*cker.
Suddenly, the glass shattered next to him and a metal rod jammed into his face. Pain blinded him as he yelled and grabbed for his nose. A hand gripped the back of his head and slammed his face forward. Crushing pain followed. Warm blood spurted out across the steering wheel, and his mouth went numb. He didn’t even have time to react before he felt himself being ripped from his seat and dragged through the window.
Voices rang in his ears. Glass sliced his skin. He reached out to grab the nearest punk and got a handful of shirt. Damned if he’d go out without a fight.
“You know who you’re messing with?” he shouted. “You know who I am?”
A fist drove deep into his belly, and he buckled and choked. Something hard hit the back of his head, sending stars across his eyes. He started to fall, but he was hoisted to his feet. Through the blood and rain, he glared at the punk he’d flipped off. There were another six or seven figures that he could see. One of them was standing in the back, watching.
“You think you’re bad?” Alexander spit.
The punk grinned and flashed a silver blade as he walked up to him. “Yeah, old man. We do. And you’re gonna find out just how bad.”
His hatred was so great, Alexander felt no fear. “F*ck you.”
* * *
Reya stood in the rain and watched the gang stab and beat Alexander to death. Even if she wanted to help him—which she didn’t—she was forbidden. It was his time to die, regardless of her brief intervention. All she could do was offer his soul a reprieve.
Occasionally, Alexander let out a cry or a curse that reached her ears through the ping-ping of rain on the streets. When he fell, they picked him up and hit him again.
And with every blow, she felt a small bit of justice for the women he’d tortured and raped. For the lives he’d taken. For his long-suffering wife. For the trail of tears he’d left.
Finally, he started begging for his life. Echoes of women’s voices begging for mercy drowned him out in her head.
Reya shoved her hands inside the pockets of her long coat and looked down the street. Water dripped down her face and from the tips of her long black hair. Lights gleamed long lines across the wet concrete.
And tonight, there was one less bastard in this world.
* * *
“Seriously, he called 911, stayed until the local cops showed up, and admitted to killing the victim,” Martin said as he walked with Thane to the interrogation room. “He’s got to be certifiable. What gangbanger does that?”
“Maybe he found God,” Thane said.
Martin laughed. “I have a better chance of getting struck by lightning.”
As someone who’d personally sworn off God years ago, Thane had to agree. “Who’s the victim?”
“Alexander Wolken.”
Name didn’t sound familiar.
Martin read off the sheet he was carrying. “Worked as a sales rep for a luxury car dealership. A wife, no kids. No tickets, no warnings. He’s clean.”
Didn’t make sense. “DNA testing?”
“Already ordered,” Martin said. “If he follows the pattern, he’s dirty. Fifty bucks says we’ll find a match in a DNA database,” Martin replied, closing the file.
“Hundred bucks says it’s a murder,” Thane added.
Martin shook his head in disgust. “All the work we do. Ever notice that you and I are the only ones who give a damn that these a*sholes are dead?”
The thought had crossed his mind. At least the woman had good taste in her murder victims. If she was choosing them because they were bad, how was she finding them? Why was she targeting them?
They stopped in front of the interrogation room, and Martin put his hands on his hips. “You want me to come in with you?”
Thane shook his head. “I got it. See what you can find on Alexander.”
Martin grinned. “Hey, at least this was no freak accident. And we got a witness account that she was there. This guy’s description of her matched perfectly.”
It was the break he’d been hoping for, but he couldn’t get too excited yet. Thane waved her photo. “Let’s get a positive ID first.” Then he opened the door and stepped inside. Louis Gonzales looked up from behind the table with a look of arrogance and attitude. The interrogation room was painted white, top to bottom, broken only by a door and a long bank of mirrored glass.
Thane took a seat across the table from him.
“I already told you everything,” Louis said. “I got no more to say.”
And he had spilled his guts. Given names of the members in his gang, admitted to killing the victim, and even told them his past crimes. That wasn’t what Thane wanted. Louis had just signed his own death warrant. He probably wouldn’t even make it out of the precinct alive after giving up his gang. The question was, what would make Louis do that?
“I know and we appreciate it,” Thane said. “If your gang finds out—”
Louis’s dark gaze pinned him. “I did what I had to.”
His conviction stunned Thane, and that took some doing. Here was a guy who’d killed people with his bare hands, and now he’d gone all righteous? He didn’t look insane, but you never knew.
“Why did you turn yourself in?” Thane asked, deciding that direct was the best tack. “Why now?”
Louis scowled at him. “What, you think I’m lying?”
“No. No, I think you are telling the God’s honest truth,” Thane said. “It’s a courageous thing for a man to do.”
Louis puffed his chest out a little. “That’s ’cause I’m a good man.”
He believed that, Thane realized. “You said you ran into a woman.”
“Yeah,” Louis replied, nodding his head.
Thane slid a photo across the table between them. “Is this her?”
Louis’s expression softened as he gazed at the photo. He picked it up and stared at it for a long time. “That’s her. Who is she?”
An excellent question. “I don’t know yet. You never saw her before?”
Louis shook his head, but he kept his gaze on the photo. “Nope.” He paused and added, “She walked right through us.”
Thane asked, “You let her pass?”
“No.” Louis glanced up from the photo. “She walked right through us. Like a ghost or something.”
Thane leaned forward. “So you didn’t touch her.”
Louis said, “I told you, she was a ghost. A black ghost. She went clean through me.”
There was no lie in Louis’s eyes. He saw what he saw. “What did it feel like?”
He licked his lips and said, “It kinda burned.”
Thane waited. There was more.
“I couldn’t breathe,” he said. He tapped his chest, where he wore a solid gold cross. “Felt like a furnace inside me.”
Then Thane noticed a mark under the metal cross that Louis wore around his neck. “Can I see your chest?”
Louis didn’t hesitate. He simply pulled the chain aside and revealed where the sign of the cross had burned into his skin.
“Does it hurt?” Thane asked, not knowing why. What did he care?
Louis put the cross back and shook his head. “It feels good. Feels right.” Then he eyed Thane. “You trying find her?”
“Yes,” Thane said.
Louis smirked. “You ain’t going to find her. She’s a ghost, man.”
Thane was trying not to think about that. Chasing ghosts wasn’t part of his job. Technically it was, but seriously. “Keep the photo if you want.”
Louis nodded and carefully slipped the picture inside his shirt.
“Why did you turn yourself in?” Thane asked again, hoping this time he’d earned an answer.
Louis leaned back and tipped the chair up on two legs. For long minutes, they sat across from each other in silence. Thane didn’t mind. He was a patient man.
Finally, Louis said, “I left home when I was twelve. Left my mom, left the school she tried to make me go to. I was sick of getting beat up and getting nowhere, you know? I figured without me around, my mom could get out of that neighborhood.”
Then Louis dropped the legs of the chair onto the floor as he looked away. “She didn’t leave though. I think she was waiting for me to come home. One day she got killed on the street when a guy tried to rob her.”
Thane had heard this story many times, but this time, he felt the tug. It was bad for a cop to do that. It made the job unbearable. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t go to the funeral,” Louis continued. “I was mad at her for not leaving and for getting herself shot.”
Thane said nothing. What could he say?
“But tonight, after we killed that guy, I went to my mom’s grave by myself. I wanted to see her. Talk to her, you know? Tell her I was sorry. Let her know I wasn’t all bad.”
Louis’s hands were shaking, and he was fighting tears. Thane turned slightly in his chair and gave Louis the privacy he needed to finish.
“She was there,” he said.
Thane looked at him. “Your mother?”
Louis laughed. “Are you listening? My mom’s dead. No, the black ghost. She was there, watching me.”
What the hell? “How did she know you were there?”
Louis shrugged. “I don’t know. Didn’t ask.”
“Then what happened?”
Louis licked his lips. “I told my mom everything. All the bad stuff I’d done. About killing the man. Why I left her. And then…” He shook his head, breaking the spell he’d been under. “I ain’t saying no more.”
“Did the woman say something to you?” Thane asked him. “What did she say?”
Louis fought the tears, but they won out. “She asked me if I was sorry for my sins.”
A chill settled over Thane, filling every part of his body.
“I said ‘yeah,’” Louis continued. Tears streamed down his face, and he didn’t even try to hide them. “I said ‘yeah.’ Then she just left.”
“Nothing else?” Thane pressed.
“No. She was gone.”
“Disappeared?” Thane suggested.
Louis nodded. “So I went back to where we left the guy and called 911.”
Thane glanced at the one-way mirror and then asked in a low voice, “Did you hear anyone whispering?”
Louis blinked at him like he was crazy. “What?”
“Never mind. Thanks for your help.”
Thane got up to leave, and Louis looked at him. His eyes were full of pain and regret. “I wanted to do one right thing in my life, you know? To make my mom proud.”
His honesty and desperation cut through Thane. Louis knew exactly what would happen to him now. He was completely lucid. And he was a dead man walking.
“You did, Louis.”
* * *
“So what do you think?” Martin said as Thane settled at his desk facing his partner.
“He’s telling the truth.”
Martin frowned at him. “No way. What kind of guy turns on his own gang just like that?”
Maybe someone who saw a ghost. “I don’t know, but he believes what he’s saying. That’s all I can tell you.”
“Yeah, well the defense attorney hears this, and they are going to the insanity plea,” Martin said. “He’ll be spending the rest of his days eating pudding and crocheting.”
Thane shoved over the pile of papers on his desk. He needed to move, not sit at his desk for the rest of his shift. “He won’t live that long.”
Martin nodded slowly. “You’re right about that. What could be worse than getting executed for ratting on your gang?”
Living with regret, Thane thought. Shame had the power to destroy lives. He’d seen it happen, and he’d felt it. He understood Louis completely.
“Now we can put an APB out on her,” he said, standing up. “And I want to check out the murder scene. You interested?”
His partner gave a loud sigh and grabbed his suit coat. “Do I have a choice? I can’t let you out of my sight.”
Thane smiled at him. “I didn’t know you cared.”
“I care about my pension,” Martin said and walked out ahead of him.
They made their way to Martin’s car in the parking garage. The rain was easing up only slightly as they pulled out into traffic and headed to Brooklyn.
The conversation with Louis ran through Thane’s head. Louis had called her a ghost because she walked through his body. As much as Thane found that very hard to believe, he couldn’t shake the transformation in Louis or the cross burned into his chest. Whatever had happened, it was enough to convert a hardened criminal in ten seconds or less.
Ghost or not, that was a damn miracle.
By the time they arrived at the crime scene, Thane had almost convinced himself that she was a ghost. Not that he was telling Martin.
They parked the car in front of the location where Alexander’s body had been found. The victim’s vehicle had already been towed; only a pile of broken glass marked its passing. Rain had washed away most of the blood.
Thane stood over the glass and scanned the neighborhood. “Not the kind of place a man with a Lexus would be hanging around. What do you think? Drugs? Hookers?”
Martin checked his phone. “According to the investigation so far, his wife had to work a double-shift at the hospital and he was picking her up.”
Why did he stop here then? “Did the car break down?”
“That’s what we thought at first,” Martin said. “It has been partially stripped, but the impound guys said the engine started right up for them.”
Had she stopped his car somehow? Thane wondered, and walked the street, looking for any clue of his mystery woman. “Don’t suppose we have any surveillance in this area?”
Martin laughed. “You know how valuable that equipment is?”
Right. “Wouldn’t want to waste it on the areas that really need it.”
“Don’t tell me you’re giving up,” Martin said, eyeing him.
Thane spotted an old neighborhood Catholic church. A single spire rose up from the door’s stone archway to a point at the top, crowned by a cross. “Not giving up.”
“Well, I don’t see anything here,” Martin said. “And it’s time to check out for the day. You ready?”
“I’m going to talk to a few people. I’ll take a cab.”
Martin shrugged. “Fine with me. Stay out of trouble.”
“Always.”
“Now I’m worried,” Martin muttered and sauntered away.
Thane crossed the street, climbed the church steps, and pulled on the massive iron handle. The door swung open. It was dark and silent inside. He stepped through and let the door close behind him, returning the interior to darkness. Nothing stirred except the flames on the rows of candles in the front of the church.
Thane walked down the aisle between the heavy oak pews toward the altar. Although he’d been raised Catholic, it had been a very long time since he’d been in a church. In fact, it had been more than fifteen years since he’d said a word to God. Thane was giving Him the silent treatment. It wasn’t working.
A lone figure sat in the first pew—an old man wearing a faded suit. His hat was clipped to the pew in front of him. His head was bowed, deep in prayer.
Thane noticed that the light over the confessional was on. He resisted the urge to say “to hell with it,” and opened the side door to step inside. He knelt and the center window opened, revealing an obscured face behind the grill. The priest murmured his greeting, and then waited for Thane to start.
“I’m sorry to bother you in this way,” he said.
“It’s no bother, my son.”
The “my son” didn’t set very well. “I’m Detective Thane Driscoll. I’m an investigator for the NYC Police Department. I have a few questions for you.”
There was a quick inhale on the other side of the grill. “This is really not the place—”
“I know,” Thane said. “It’s about the man who was killed here last night.”
“A tragic loss,” the priest said.
“Did you know him?” Thane asked.
“No, not personally but—”
“All God’s children,” Thane muttered, and then winced from old conditioning. “Did you see or hear anything?”
“I’m afraid not,” the priest said. “I live in the rectory, the next block over.”
“Was the church open last night?” Thane asked, grasping at straws. There’s no way they’d leave this place wide open all night around here.
“No, but—”
Thane cocked his head. “But what?”
The priest moved closer to the screen, and Thane could see his black and white vestment. “When I opened the doors this morning, all the prayer candles were lit, and recently, too. I have no explanation for that.”
“Maybe it was a ghost,” Thane said, half-joking.
“At least it’s a good ghost,” the priest said.
As far as you know, Thane thought. “Thank you for your time, Father.”
“Are you sure you don’t want reconciliation?”
His question stopped Thane with his hand on the door. “I’m sorry, but I think we’re well past that.”
“It’s never too late,” the priest said. Then he murmured a few words of prayer, but Thane didn’t stick around to hear them.