Walking in the Midst of Fire
go?”
    Remy cocked his head, unsure of the question. “Go?”
    “Inside.” She motioned toward the church with her head. “Did you get to talk to who you wanted to.”
    “Not really,” Remy acknowledged, giving the leash a slight tug so that Marlowe would stand.
    “Huh,” Dottie said. “That doesn’t sound good.”
    “I’m afraid it isn’t.” Remy found himself thinking of his dream and the foreboding words of the old man, and what Dottie had said earlier about seeing angels on the streets.
    The old, homeless woman was carefully watching him as he wrapped the leash around his hand and started to lead Marlowe away.
    “Thanks again,” he said, turning to head back up Boylston toward home.
    “So what’re you gonna do?” Dottie’s voice called after him.
    Remy turned to face her.
    “What are you gonna do?” she asked again. “You know, to fix the problem . . . what’re you going to do?”
    It was a very good question, and one that Remy didn’t have an answer for. Instead, he shook his head, then turned back up the street, her question hanging in the air like a bad smell.

CHAPTER FOUR
    T he weeks that followed were without catastrophic event, but the potential for disaster was never far from Remy’s mind, and he found himself watching for angels in the strangest of places.
    What are you gonna do?
    The answer to old Dottie’s question still evaded him.
    I honestly don’t know, Dottie. I really don’t.
    He was doing the last bit of paperwork on a workman’s comp job he had done for an insurance company out of Lexington—an incapacitating neck injury that wasn’t so incapacitating that it kept the claimant from participating in a bodybuilding competition—when there was a knock at his office door.
    “Come in!” Remy called out, stapling the pages of his report together and placing them inside a file that also contained some photos taken at the Mr. Power Competition in Tampa.
    The door into the office swung open and a man stepped in. He was wearing a dark suit on his average-sized frame, his blond hair cut short. He looked around the office, taking it all in as he carefully closed the door behind him.
    Something wafted off of him like the smell of aftershave.
    Something with the potential for danger.
    “Can I help you?” Remy asked as he stood, all of his senses on alert.
    “Remy Chandler?” the man asked, a hint of an accent in his voice. Italian, most definitely Italian.
    “That’s right,” Remy said, feeling the power exude from the man in waves.
    “My name is Malatesta,” he said, stepping forward and extending his hand. “Constantin Malatesta.”
    Remy had been wondering when the Vatican representative who had paid Steven Mulvehill a visit would finally get around to meeting him face-to-face. He shook his hand, a strange electrical tingle coursing up through the angel’s arm reaffirming what he had felt in the air when the man entered.
    “What can I do for you, Mr. Malatesta?” Remy asked, feigning ignorance of the man’s identity as he released his hand and gestured for him to take a seat in front of the desk.
    “Thank you.” Malatesta unbuttoned his suit coat as he took the offered chair. “First, let me say how good it is to finally meet you.”
    The man smiled.
    “Have you been wanting to meet me, Mr. Malatesta?” Remy asked, curious, as he cocked his head.
    “For quite some time,” the man acknowledged. “But it’s only been recently that there has been a reason to make the journey to Boston.”
    “You have me at a disadvantage,” Remy said. “You obviously know who I am, but I can’t say the same of you.”
    “Where are my manners?” Malatesta said, reaching into his suit coat pocket to extract a small, leather identification case. He opened it, and leaned forward to place it on the desk in front of Remy.
    Remy examined it and smiled. “Yep, you’re from the Vatican, all right,” he said, and handed it back to his guest.
    “Ah, so you are aware of

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