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Molly was not above begging, if that’s what it took to stay alive. “I’m a nun.”
    Even as she said the words, Molly was infused with guilt. As if a nun was better than any other woman? More deserving to be spared the horror of rape? Yet she couldn’t help hoping that deep down inside this monster was a man who might respect her vocation.
    She’d thought wrong.
    â€œEven better.” As if to please himself, he hit her again. Harder. Her head was still spinning as she heard the sound of bone breaking and felt her cheekbone shatter beneath his fist.
    A memory flashed through her mind, a memory of her father slapping her mother. Right before he’d put that gun to her head. Refusing to die as Karla McBridehad, Molly managed to curl her fingers around a beer bottle and pushing herself up, slammed the bottle against the front of the mask.
    â€œBitch!” Her attacker roared like a wounded lion and swung his arm at her, sending her tumbling back into the boxes. She heard the beer bottle rattling as it rolled away.
    He ripped off the mask and pressed the back of his gloved hand against his nostrils. When he took his hand away and viewed the black leather copiously stained with dark wine-colored blood, he screamed, “Fucking cunt!”
    Molly felt him ripping away her clothes, exposing her to the chilly December air. But there was no longer anything she could do to stop him.
    Through the swirling bloodred haze filling her head, she watched the heavily booted foot swing forward, then moaned as it landed with a bone-shuddering strength between her lax thighs.
    His heavy demonic weight came crashing down on top of her, crushing her lungs, stealing her breath. Molly tried to scream as he battered his entry into her tight, dry virginal body, but the pained sound caught in her throat, choking her.
    The back of her head kept banging against the asphalt as he pounded away violently at her defenseless body. Sometime during the seemingly endless assault, Molly vomited violently. Over herself and over the monster.
    And then, as the crimson haze spread and she prayed silently to a God that seemed to have abandoned her, Molly finally surrendered to the enveloping darkness.

Chapter Three
    R eece was almost home free. His grueling shift was over, he’d showered, shampooed the smell of disinfectant, disease and death out of his hair, shaved and changed into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that didn’t have a single bloodstain on it. He took the poinsettia he’d remembered to buy for Lena, and was headed toward the door when he saw a ragged man arguing with the security guard.
    He considered trying to sneak out another exit, but recognizing Thomas and knowing that Molly would never forgive him if he turned his back on whatever problem was plaguing the former priest this time, Reece cursed beneath his breath and waded into the breach.
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Thomas?”
    â€œIt’s Molly.” The eyes beneath the filthy hair were wild with distress. “I tried carrying her here, but—”
    â€œWhere is she?” Reece interrupted, tossing the poinsettia toward the nearby counter. It missed and landed on the floor, spilling dirt and breaking stems, but no one noticed.
    â€œOut there.” He pointed a filthy finger. “She’s in bad shape, Doc.”
    That was, Reece discovered, an understatement. Her face was bruised and battered, her eyes were swollen shut, she was stripped nearly naked, allowing him to see the bite marks on her breasts and the vaginal bleeding. She was also unconscious.
    â€œJesus Christ.” He knelt down and felt her thready pulse.
    â€œChrist has nothing to do with this, Doc. Whoever did this to Saint Molly was a devil.”
    Reece couldn’t argue with that. As he scooped her from the pile of trash, he understood the impetus behind crimes of passion. He was not, by nature, a violent man. But he could easily kill with his bare hands