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Jason, you get the door.”
    As Bittner’s motionless body was muscled across the room, Ron threw up his arms in exasperation. “Isn’t Danny gonna stay here and guard my son? Casey’s already shown how dangerous he can be.”
    I said, “Your son needs help, not an armed guard,” and Liz favored me with such an appreciative glance that my belly somersaulted. Then I was opening the door for Father Sutherland and Danny.
    But Ron was not to be put off. Stalking after our slow-moving group, he said, “Where are you taking him?”
    “The cruiser,” Danny said. “I’ll make him comfortable in the back and lock him in.”
    Ron groaned. “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t exactly Humboldt Park around here. What’ll happen when this gorilla wakes up and starts wailing? You think my neighbors are gonna go for that?”
    “How large is your lot?” Sutherland asked. As he and Danny lugged Bittner down the hallway, I could finally start to hear some of the strain in his voice.
    “What’s that got to do with it?” Ron demanded.
    “Two acres,” Liz said.
    Straining to support Bittner’s considerable bulk, Sutherland said, “With all the trees and the distance…not to mention the storm raging outside…there’ll be very little chance anyone will hear Bittner’s cries. He’ll be inside the car, remember.”
    “Can’t you gag him?” Ron asked.
    Danny shook his head. “Don’t like to do that if I can help it. Some guys are mouth breathers. Or maybe just congested. Put a gag in the wrong person’s mouth, he could asphyxiate.”
    “Wouldn’t be much of a loss,” Ron muttered.
    I watched Liz shut the door to Danny’s room and stand there a moment, clearly overcome with anguish and sorrow. I waited for her, and as she approached, I murmured what comforting words I could. Without acknowledging me, Liz went down the stairs after the others.
    I descended a few moments later, but only after I gazed at that six-paneled ivory door for a long moment. I didn’t want to go back in there.
    But I knew we had to.

Chapter Five
     
    “What do you mean you don’t have enough proof?”
    Despite the aggressive way that Ron had approached him, Father Sutherland did not seem abashed. Standing beside the grandfather clock in the foyer—he and Danny and I had finally managed to arrange Jack Bittner’s hulking form in the back of Danny’s cruiser—Sutherland stood with his hands folded politely before him, looking for all the world as though he were about to deliver a sermon on the perils of greed.
    Sutherland said, “There are many requirements that must be fulfilled before we perform an exorcism, or even pronounce the child possessed.”
    “Requirements,” Ron repeated. “You’re telling me you can’t see it already?”
    “I will not rush to judgment. The only evidence I have is the child speaking in an unnaturally guttural voice—speaking in English, I might add, not in some unfamiliar tongue—and a secondhand account of anomalous strength.”
    “What do you need? The kid’s head to swivel on his neck and spit pea soup all over you?”
    “That’s not funny,” Liz said.
    “Shut up,” he muttered without taking his eyes off Sutherland. “Whatever that thing is, it’s endangering my son. What if it kills him? What if Casey doesn’t recover?”
    The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. “Are you sure it’s Casey you’re worried about?”
    Ron rounded on me, and for a flickering instant I was convinced he’d punch me. “You got a mouth on you, you know it? You gonna do anything other than contradict me tonight?”
    “Maybe you should get a grip,” Danny said.
    “Screw all of you,” Ron growled, his voice echoing off the soaring foyer ceiling. “I should’ve taken care of this myself.”
    “Allowing Danny to contact us was the one correct thing you did,” I said.
    “Listen, I know I may not be anything as impressive as a priest or a cop—” he threw his brother a