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riddles,” Dom said. “If it came to a binary choice between not getting Ashley and Kelly back or violating every known rule on the collection of evidence and prosecution of witnesses, which would you take?”
    Something tugged in Irene’s spine. She’d never seen Dom like this before. “Are we speaking in hypotheticals here?”
    Dom’s expression remained rock hard. “I’m asking you a question. How far are you willing to go to get them back?”
    “Whatever it took,” Irene said. “I’d move heaven and earth.”
    Dom leaned in closer. “Would you violate the very laws that you swore to uphold?”
    “Father, I’m not comfortable—”
    “Answer the question,” Dom snapped. “Would you be willing to break the law and risk prison yourself if it meant your children being set free?”
    “Of course,” she said.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Dom, what are you talking—”
    “Are you sure ?”
    “They’re my children, Dom.” Irene didn’t get why he was being so strained, so weird in this discussion. How could he think otherwise? And what was he implying in the first place?
    “I need to know, Irene. I have an idea, but I need to know how far you are willing to go.”
    Irene scoffed, “What, do you, like, know a hit man or something?”
    Dom’s expression remained stone.
    The realization hit her like a slap. “Oh, my God, Dom, what are you suggesting?”
    He pulled back. “I’m suggesting nothing,” he said. “I’m waiting to hear a request from you.”
    “Are you suggesting that you know someone who could . . . address this problem for me?”
    Dom reached out and grasped her hand. “Ask me for what you want.”
    This was a side of the priest that she had never seen—a side that she was fairly certain no one had ever seen. “I want to find someone who can help me get my daughters back,” Irene said. “And who can punish the son of a bitch who took them.” That last part was important, too.
    Dom’s eyes bored into her for a long time, presumably assessing her seriousness. After maybe thirty seconds, he said, “Hang tight for a few minutes. I need to make a phone call.”

Chapter 4
    Irene sat alone in the rectory’s living room for the better part of a half hour. She heard Dom on the telephone in the kitchen, and while she couldn’t make out the words, she clearly heard the urgency in his tone. She heard her name mentioned once, and she heard what sounded like a defense of her status as an FBI agent. Finally, she heard the receiver being set into its cradle, and then . . . nothing. She’d expected Dom to return with a status report on whatever he’d been negotiating, but instead, she got only an extended stay in the empty living room.
    What was he doing, anyway? The mysterious questions, followed by the long silence, were unnerving. If Dom had a solution, she wanted to hear it. If he didn’t, then she wanted to hear that, too.
    When the doorbell finally rang, she jumped. It was the standard ding-dong sound, but it was so out of context that she nearly drew down on it. Apparently, that sound was the cue Dom had been waiting for, because he appeared in a heartbeat, nearly running from the kitchen through the foyer to answer it.
    As he pulled the door open, Dom said, “Hi, Dig. Thanks for coming over.”
    Dom stepped to the side and ushered in a man who looked like he might have been pulled out of a homeless shelter—a shelter with a very nice weight room. At five-ten, maybe a hundred eighty pounds, the man had wide shoulders, a narrow waist, and arms that threatened to rip the fabric of his T-shirt at the arm holes. Wild brown hair consumed his head and morphed seamlessly into an unkempt beard that seemed to stretch from just under his eyes into the neck of his shirt. His eyes were a shade of blue that she’d never seen before, more befitting a swimming pool than an iris. The eyes were hard, though, and as such matched perfectly the set of his mouth as he stepped into the living