Body Of Truth by Deirdre Savoy Page A

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but how did you know where to find me?”
    Father Mike strode into the room. Dressed in neither the gym clothes he usually wore nor the priest’s frock he eschewed, he had on a pair of khaki pants and a polo shirt. “Mrs. Ryan, Stevie’s mother, is an emergency room nurse. She saw you come in and called me.”
    Dana nodded. She’d known that she and the boy’s mother shared the same profession but not where the other woman worked. “She didn’t have to call you.”
    He pulled the one chair in the room, a green pleather number, over to her bedside and sat. “Yes, she did. We’re a family at St. Matt’s. We take care of our own.”
    Dana offered him a wan smile. She’d heard that sentiment from the first time she’d walked through the school’s doors. The idea of being part of a family community had been what drew her to the school, not the fact that its academic program ranked as one of the top in the archdiocese. Neither she nor Tim had any family; they only had each other. She liked the idea of people watching out for her brother when she could not.
    In the four years Tim attended the school, she’d donated blood for blood drives, baked cakes for bake sales, offered up prayers for the needy and those in dire straits. But never before had she been in the position to need their largesse or their concern. She wasn’t sure how she felt about receiving it now.
    Father Mike sat back in his chair. “How are you feeling?”
    She lifted her good shoulder in a shrug. “Just a little worse for wear.”
    â€œBut the young man with you wasn’t as fortunate.”
    â€œNo.” Grief welled in her, clogging her throat and bringing the sting of tears to her eyes. “He died right there.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Dana.”
    She inhaled, and let her breath out slowly, fighting the urge to let her tears spill. “Don’t get me wrong, Father. He was no angel. He dealt drugs and probably stepped on the wrong person’s toes. I don’t know. It just seems like such a waste to me. He was only seventeen. He could have been anything.”
    Father Mike offered her a sympathetic look. “Sometimes the hardest thing to give up on is hope.”
    Nodding, she looked away. Despite his hostile attitude and fatalistic view of his own life, she really had felt Wesley could have turned his life around. Hope. The fact that she felt the emotion didn’t surprise her, but the depth of her emotions and the breadth of her grief and disappointment at the loss of the young man did. Maybe she wasn’t as much of a cynic as she thought.
    She started to turn back to Father Mike, but something on the television screen caught her eye, the image of a blond woman in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Dana recognized the woman as the one she’d seen in Nadine Evans’s building a couple of days ago and automatically turned up the sound.
    â€œ. . . body was found behind a popular South Bronx eatery,” the newscaster intoned. He gave several other details of the case before concluding, “Police are investigating both the cause of Ms. Pierce’s death and how she ended up in the South Bronx neighborhood where she was discovered. Anyone with any information should contact the Bronx Homicide Division. A special hotline has been set up at 1-800-877-9241.”
    Though the newscaster quickly switched to another story, Amanda Pierce’s image stayed with Dana. “Oh, my God, Father. I saw that woman.”
    Father Mike sat forward. “When?”
    â€œFriday morning. She was coming out of Wesley Evan’s apartment building. Less than a mile from where she ended up.”
    â€œAre you sure she’s the woman you saw?”
    â€œNot absolutely. My head is still a little fuzzy from the concussion, but I’d swear it was her. I wondered at the time what a woman dressed