The Mephisto Club

don’t, Maura! Please. These past few months without you, I’ve been lost in the wilderness. I felt so guilty, wanting you. But you were all I thought about.”
    “So where does this leave me, if I stay in your life? You get to keep your church, but what do I get to have?” She stared up at the darkness. “Nothing has really changed, has it?”
    “Everything has changed.” He reached for her hand. “I love you.”
    But not enough. Not as much as you love your God.
    Yet she let him pull her into his arms again. She met his kisses with her own. This time their lovemaking was not a tender joining; this coupling was fierce, bodies colliding. Not love, but punishment. Tonight they’d use each other. If she couldn’t have love, then lust it would be. Give him something to remember that would haunt him on those nights when God was not enough.
This is what you’ll give up when you leave me. This is the Heaven you’ll walk away from.
    Before dawn, he did walk away. She felt him stir awake beside her, then slowly sit up on the side of the bed and begin to dress. But of course; it was Sunday morning, and the flock must be tended to.
    He bent to kiss her hair. “I have to leave,” he whispered.
    “I know.”
    “I love you, Maura. I never thought I’d say that to a woman. But I’m saying it now.” He stroked her face and she turned away, so he wouldn’t see the tears welling in her eyes.
    “Let me make you coffee,” she said, starting to sit up.
    “No, you stay warm in bed. I’ll find my own way out.” Another kiss, and he rose to his feet. She heard him walk down the hall, and the front door closed.
    So it had finally happened. She’d become just another cliché. Eve with her apple. The temptress luring a holy man to sin. This time, the snake that seduced them was not Satan, but their own lonely hearts.
You want to find the Devil, Mr. Sansone. Just take a look at me.
    Take a look at any one of us.
    Outside the sky slowly lightened to a cold, bright dawn. She pushed aside sheets, and the scent of their lovemaking rose from the warm linen: the heady scent of sin. She did not shower it off, but simply pulled on a robe, stepped into slippers, and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Standing at the sink, filling the carafe, she gazed out at clematis vines crystallized in ice, at rhododendrons huddling with leaves crumpled, and did not need to look at a thermometer to know that today the cold would be brutal. She imagined Daniel’s parishioners hugging their coats as they stepped from their cars and walked toward the church of Our Lady of Divine Light, braving this Sunday chill for the uplifting words of Father Brophy. And what would he say to them this morning? Would he confess to his flock that even he, their shepherd, had lost his way?
    She started the coffeemaker and went to the front door for her newspaper. Stepping outside, she was stunned by the cold. It burned her throat, stung her nostrils. She wasted no time retrieving the newspaper, which had landed on the front walkway, then turned and scurried back up the porch steps. She was just reaching for the doorknob when she suddenly froze, her gaze fixed on the door.
    On the words, the symbols, scrawled there.
    She spun around, frantically scanning the street. She saw sunshine glinting off icy pavement, heard only the silence of a Sunday morning.
    She scrambled into the house, slammed the door shut, and rammed the dead bolt home. Then she ran for the phone and called Jane Rizzoli.

TWENTY-THREE
    “Are you sure you didn’t hear anything last night? No footsteps on the porch, nothing out of the ordinary?” asked Jane.
    Maura sat on the couch, shivering despite her sweater and wool slacks. She had not eaten breakfast, had not even poured herself a cup of coffee, but she felt not the faintest stirring of hunger. During the half hour before Jane and Frost had arrived, Maura had remained at her living room window, watching the street, attuned to every noise, tracking every car that passed.
The killer knows where I live. He knows what happened last night, in my bedroom.
    “Doc?”
    Maura looked up. “I didn’t hear anything. The writing was just there, on my door, when I woke up. When I went outside to get my…” She flinched, her heart suddenly thudding.
    Her phone was ringing.
    Frost picked up the receiver. “Isles residence. This is Detective Frost. I’m sorry, Mr. Sansone, but we’re dealing with a situation here right now, and this isn’t a