I take my hand away quickly and glance around.
"I don't see bodyguards."
"They're well hidden," he says. "They know what you are, even if you don't. They see you as a threat to me."
I laugh in disbelief. "Me, a threat to you?"
He merely smiles and begins walking down the hall. Then, he stops and turns around.
"Like I said, Eve, when you figure out what I am, you come and talk to me. Until then, you're just a pretty little bit of temptation and a waste of my time."
"Why am I a temptation?"
He shakes his head.
"You really don't know much, do you?" He stands, hands on his hips, and looks away for a moment. "I'd say that's bad management on Michel's part. He's too damn stubborn. But I have a feeling he’s going to change his mind. Soon."
He leaves me standing in the middle of the hallway.
I'm not sad to see the city grow smaller below us as I look out the window of the jet.We're on a busy flight to Rome and I'm unable to get an aisle seat, my usual refuge when on a passenger jet. So distracted from the events of the preceding two days, I forget to count to one-hundred and twenty and think instead about my report to Vasquez: what I'll include and what I'll leave out.
I swallow down a scotch and ask for another, needing the heat of the silky liquid to calm me before I have to meet with Vasquez and Terri. They've arranged to meet me at the airport, and I have to build up my courage to tell them the truth.
More than twenty hours later, after a layover in Rome, I arrive at the airport in Boston.
"Oh, God, Eve. You look terrible."
Terri clucks over me like a mother hen, examining me, checking for injuries. I let her fuss over me. She’s the closest thing I have to family and I relish her honest concern for my welfare.
"I'm fine, just shaken."
The driver retrieves my bags and escorts us to Vasquez's car. On the way to Vasquez's office, we discuss the events of my trip.Vasquez doesn't look at me even though he sits in the seat directly opposite me. He holds his hands folded as if in prayer and touches the tips of his index finders against his bottom lip. He looks like the Pontiff himself as I relate the facts of the bombing and the way Soren healed me.
"That scar was there from when you were a child, Eve." He looks at me finally, and the conviction on his face is so strong, I have to reassess my experience.
"You're wrong. I never had a scar on my face."
"That scar you have is very old. Ask any surgeon and he'll confirm that for a scar to look like that, it takes years. Decades."
"You think I imagined this?" I say, anger filling me. "I felt his hands on me, I felt warmth from his touch. I saw him heal others right after the bomb."
"You were obviously upset and in shock. The mind often plays tricks on us when we're under duress. Only the Saints themselves can heal."
I shake my head and look out the window as the city speeds by. His religious explanation for everything irritates me.
"I know what I saw. I know what happened."
"By now, Eve," he says, his tone dismissive, "I'd have thought you'd know not to trust your own senses. Your own prejudices."
Terri reaches out and her warm hand is a comfort in the silence of the rest of the trip.
Back in his office, I look around as Vasquez rustles through his files and then speaks on the phone.The leather chair creaks under my weight as I shift nervously, waiting for the real interrogation to begin.
"The bombing. Please relate the events for me." He turns on a small tape recorder, and smiles at me. "I hope you don't mind, but I want to record your words for our records."
I tell them everything I can remember – meeting Soren in the market, him saying he'd healed my benign tumor. The bombing and his healing me and then others while I watched. Him saying he wasn't what we thought and that I should figure it out before contacting him again.
Vasquez sits, hands folded once again as if in prayer.