Speaking in Tongues

represent God they’re inherently wrong so He has to exist apart from our flawed visions of Him.”
    “Yes, it makes sense. How simple, how perfect.”
    “You’ve thought about questions like this, haven’t you? Because of Peter?”
    “Yes.”
    Eyes on Matthews’s, Collier said, “You miss him so much, don’t you?”
    “Yes, I do.” Matthews stared down at the ground. For all he knew he’d stood on this very spot two or three years ago, studying slugs or dung beetles or ants, hour upon hour, wondering how, in their wordless world, they communicated their passions and fears.
    “You can get help, Aaron. It’s not too late. You’ll be in jail but you can still be content. You can find a doctor to help you, somebody who’s as good as you were.”
    “Oh, I don’t think so. It’s too late for that. One thing I learned—you can’t talk somebody out of his nature.”
    “Your character is your fate,” Collier said.
    Matthews laughed. “Heraclitus.”
    He’d learned the aphorism from one of Collier’s closing statements. He lifted the gun toward the lawyer.
    Then Collier’s eyes flickered slightly. “You won’t turn yourself in?” Collier asked.
    “No.”
    “I’m sorry,” the lawyer said.
    Matthews frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    A snap of brush behind him.
    Matthews spun around. There stood Megan, holding the gun Collier had brought with him. Matthews had left it in the lobby of the hospital and had forgotten about it. The girl was ten feet away and was pointing the black muzzle at Matthews’s chest.
    Matthews laughed to himself. Oh, yes . . . He understood. Remembered her whispering to Tate before she’d walked out of the asylum. They’d planned this together. Collier would stall him—with his talk of theology—and Megan would pretend to run but would return for the gun. He remembered Collier protesting as they’d hugged. But she’d had her way.
    Maybe she wasn’t his blood kin but at the moment she was her father’s daughter.
    He glanced at her eyes.
    “Drop the gun,” she ordered.
    But he didn’t. He wondered, would she go through with it? She was only seventeen and, yes, she had anger in her heart—enough to attack him with a knife—but not enough to kill, he believed.
    Character is fate . . .
    He saw compassion, fear and weakness in her eyes. He could stop her, he decided. He could get her to lower the gun long enough to shoot her.
    “Megan, listen to me,” he began in a soft voice, gazing into her blue eyes, which were so unlike Collier’s. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’ve been through. But—”
    The first bullet tugged at his side, near the knife wound, and he felt a rib snap. He was swinging his gun toward her when another shot struck his shoulder and arm.
    Collier dropped to his knees, clear of the line of fire.
    Megan stepped closer.
    “Peter . . .” Matthews whispered, struggling to hold on to his pistol.
    She pushed through the grass until she was only a few feet away.
    Matthews squeezed the grip of the pistol. Then he looked up into her eyes.
    Always the eyes . . .
    Her gun fired again. And for an instant his vision was filled with a thousand suns. And in his ears was a chorus of noise—voices, perhaps.
    Peter’s among them, perhaps.
    And then there was blackness and silence.

Chapter Thirty-two
    The beach at San Cristo del Sol in Belize is one of the finest in Latin America.
    Even now, in May, the air is torrid but the steady breezes soothe the hordes of tourists during their endless trips from the air-conditioned bars and seafood joints to the pools to the beach and back again. Windsurfing, paragliding, waterskiing and racing Jet Skis keep the surface of the turquoise water perpetually turbulent, and within the bay itself hundreds of snorklers and resort-course scuba divers engage in their elegantly awkward amphibious ballets.
    The town is also a well-known staging area for those who wish to see Mayan ruins; there are two beautifully preserved cities within five kilometers of the main drag in San Cristo.
    The Caribe Inn is the most luxurious of all the hotels in town, a Spanish colonial hacienda that has four stars from Mobil, and accolades from a number of other sources, proudly displayed behind the registration desk at which Tate Collier now stood, hoping fervently that the clerk spoke English.
    The man did, it turned out, and Tate explainedthat he had reservations, proffering passports and his