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than twenty-first-century Sherman Oaks.
    The sign on the building had once said CATHOLIC THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. But the Cardinal had gotten wind of it and made them change it to CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL
    SOCIETY. The difference between mysticism and religion.
    Angela looked at the large gothic structure, once a seminary, attached to the church, and thought about going to one of the more conventional churches for confession instead of the Theological Society.
    But Father Garret had been a friend of her family’s for years. She trusted him.
    “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she murmured, a few minutes later, in the confessional booth. It was quiet and cool and private here and smelled faintly of wood polish. “It has been… if I told you how long since my last confession, you’d probably throw me out. And…” Her mouth was dry. She wished she had something to drink. She didn’t want to tell him…
    On the other side of the confession booth screen, Father Garret just waited. His silence was question enough.
    “And I killed a man today. Another one.”
    “I’m so sorry you had to do that, Angela.”
    “I didn’t even see his face. I just pulled the trigger and he went away. Just like all the others.”
    Father Garret considered, and cleared his throat.
    At last he said, “He was the shooter you were looking for?”
    “Yes. He needed to be stopped. But most cops go twenty years without firing their gun. Much less killing anyone. They have names for me at the precinct. They think I don’t hear. Sometimes I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Something…”
    “Angela… no.”
    “Maybe there is, Father. Maybe I’m… damned.”
    --
    That evening, after a day of keeping herself busy with shopping and errands - and of waiting for the decision of the inquest - Angela came home, locked her door, and looked around at her neat, carefully furnished apartment. She waited… and then it came:
    Her cat, gray and nondescript. They passed the time of day. Mutual caresses. The cat trotted to her dish and Angela poured cream for her, remembering the conversation in confession.
    I’m struggling with my faith, Father. What kind of God wants me to be a killer?
    These feelings are natural in your line of work, Angela. I’d be worried if you didn’t have them.
    She kicked off her shoes, let down her hair, and lay back in her recliner. The cat jumped up in her lap.
    Angela sighed. She was so tired. Her eyes felt heavy…
    But you have to be strong, Angela. God has a plan for you. He has a plan for us all. You mustn’t allow your faith to be overshadowed by guilt.
    I’m trying, Father. I’m trying real hard. She was so tired…
    She closed her eyes. Sleep came. A troubled sleep.
    Sleep that carried a message…
    --
    Night at Ravenscar Hospital.
    Angela. .. can it be Angela, here, now, in a hospital-issue nightgown? Her eyes bruised with sleeplessness, her face glossy with sweat? And the fear - has Angela ever shown so much fear on her face? That’s not something a cop is supposed to do, is it? Who surrenders to a terrified cop?
    But here’s Angela peering around the corner, seeing a nurse pinning something to a bulletin board down one wing of the hall, a janitor with a floor polisher working the other. She darts past the cross-hall and down toward the stairway, finds the door to the stairs slightly ajar and up she goes, two flights, to the metal fire door with its broken lock, and through it to the roof In a moment she’s out and running barefoot across the tar roof. She steps up on the aluminum-trimmed rim of the roof and looks down. It’s many stories to the roof of the hydrotherapy center below.
    A cool breeze flutters her gown and alters the tracks of the tears streaming down her cheeks.
    She looks at her hospital bracelet, grimaces, and tears it off with her teeth, pitches it into the air so it falls far below…
    She gazes at the matrix of city lights… .
    But she sees something else. She sees flames