The food pantry was unmistakable, several large steel buildings up the road, a pretty green, leafed logo painted along one side of the largest. I parked Moneypenny in a visitor’s spot and glanced at Jeff.
“You ready?”
He nodded. “Let’s do this.”
We walked inside and found a pretty woman with curly hair at the front desk, typing on a computer keyboard. She looked up and smiled when we entered. “Hello. Can I help you?”
“Hi,” Jeff said. “Sorry to bother you, but we’re looking for Father Paul. I understand I can find him here?”
The phone rang, and she picked it up with one hand, pointed down the hallway with the other. “He’s in the warehouse. Down the hall, to the left.”
“Thank you,” Jeff said with a smile, punctuating his appreciation with a chipper tap on the counter as we walked down the hallway. It was a clean and happy place, the walls covered in children’s drawings and signs for previous holiday canned-food drives. The hallway led directly into the warehouse, which was impressive.
The space was huge, with a polished concrete floor, and was filled with twenty-foot-tall shelves of food in boxes, some wrapped in cellophane to keep them together. Smiling employees and volunteers walked the aisles with clipboards and moved pallets with forklifts into trucks that waited in three open bays.
A man with a scruffy beard and plaid shirt walked up to us, befuddlement in his expression. “Are you Laurie? The new volunteer? With a friend, maybe? We could use someone in the sorting room.”
“Sorry, no. We’re actually looking for Father Paul. The front desk said I could find him in here.”
“Oh, sure. He’s in diapers.” The man gestured toward the other end of the warehouse, and I stifled an immature laugh at his inadvertent joke.
The warehouse was chilly, cold air blowing in through the open bays. But the staff looked happy to be at work, buoyed, maybe, by the fact that they were helping others.
We did, indeed, find Seth Tate in diapers. But not literally.
He was tall and handsome, with blue eyes and wavy black hair. His hair was neatly trimmed, but a tidy black beard covered his face. If you hadn’t known Seth Tate, hadn’t been looking for him, you wouldn’t have seen the resemblance. It helped the disguise that he also wore a neck-to-ankle black cassock, the type of garment worn by priests. Seth Tate was hiding in plain sight, only thirty miles from Chicago.
He had a box of newborn diapers in hand but glanced up suddenly and met my gaze. His eyes widened with pleasant surprise, which calmed my nerves a bit. I’d been afraid he’d see our arrival as an unpleasant reminder of what he’d done in Chicago.
“Could I have a minute?” I whispered to Jeff.
“Take your time,” he said. “I’ll be here”—he scanned the shelves—“in toilet paper.”
Seth put the box on a nearby table, and we walked toward each other, meeting in the middle. I could see he wanted to reach out, to greet me with an embrace, a kiss on the cheek, and a whispered “Hello, Ballerina,” as he’d greeted me as a teenager. I’d been a dancer, and I’d been photographed meeting Tate, a friend of my father’s, in a tutu.
But he held himself back, stopping three feet away. He clasped his hands behind his back as if he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of human contact. Still, I caught the smells of lemon and sugar.
“Merit.”
“Father Paul,” I said, with a knowing glance. “You’re looking well.” I gestured toward the rest of the warehouse. “This is an impressive operation.”
He nodded, his gaze scanning the shelves and boxes. “It is a temple to generosity. All of this is donated to those in need.”
“Have you been here long?”
“Since I left Chicago. It’s my current mission, I think.” He tilted his head at me. “And I think I’m not the only one on a mission. What brings you here, Merit?”
“A mystery. And politics.”
“Always,” he said. He looked at me for a moment without even so much as a breath. “Perhaps we should speak somewhere more private?”
I nodded, and Jeff and I both followed as he walked toward the door, the cassock’s thick fabric swishing as he moved.
People offered greetings and shook his hand as they passed, apparently unaware of his history or the fact that he was an angel and could sprout wings large enough to carry us both out of the building.
We headed out into the chilly night and toward a picnic table that had seen better days, its wood faded and cracked.
Tate sat down on the bench, back to the table, skirt swirling as he moved. Jeff and I stood by, watching as Tate stared silently at the men and women coming from and going to the warehouse’s busy shipping bays.
“What can I do for you, Merit?”
I gave him Regan’s history, detailed the kidnappings and attacks, explained that we’d yet to find her and were risking a truce with the elves. And then I got to the point.
“I chased her in Loring Park. She smelled like sulfur and smoke.”
His expression stayed the same, but I saw the tiny hitch in his eyes. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“She has power—a lot of it. She’s not a sorceress. And she smells like Dominic did. We thought no other twins had separated when the Maleficium was destroyed.”
“They didn’t. Or shouldn’t have. I was the only one touching it.”
“Is there a chance you have children?”
His eyes went wide. “Do I have children who are kidnapping supernaturals, you mean?”
Irritation was beginning to rise. “We’ve come to you because we need help. Because you’re the expert in this area. That’s not an insult—it’s a magical fact. You know more about Messengers—fallen or otherwise—than anyone else we know. We need you.”
He sighed, rubbed his temples. And then he looked at me, apology in his eyes, and I felt lost. “I’m sorry, Merit. But I truly don’t know anything that could help.”
I glanced at Jeff, who shrugged.
“All right,” I said. “In that case, maybe there’s something else you can help with. Long story short, Mayor Kowalcyzk’s off her rocker. She’s arrested Ethan for a death he committed in self-defense, beaten Scott, raided Navarre, and put together a goon squad because she thinks we’re domestic terrorists.”
“And what do you want me to do about that?”