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“Those vials in that cabinet. What did you use those for?”

“Reverend McCamy used them to help him mortify his flesh, help him transcend the pain of giving himself over to God, pain that was both corporeal and spiritual. He cried in that room, not from the pain, but from how exalted he felt in those moments when the whip split his flesh and his blood flowed off his body onto that beautiful marble altar.

“But you ruined our life, Sheriff, destroyed everything. I’ve thought of nothing else but killing you since my husband died.”

Now! Katie dived and rolled, hoping that Roosevelt’s sculpted cloak covered her, and jerked her derringer out of its ankle holster the instant she stopped rolling. It was nearly worthless at any distance at all, that little gun, but if you got close enough, it could kill.

Elsbeth fired, one shot, then another and another, all three of them striking the sculpture, ricocheting off, sending stone shards flying. Katie stayed down, protecting her face.

Elsbeth yelled, “Come out of there, Katie Benedict! You deserve to die for what you did! That statue won’t help you!”

Katie stuffed herself tighter against the sculpture. “Don’t come any closer, Elsbeth, I have a gun. Do you hear me? I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you force me to. Give it up. Toss the gun over here. There are bodyguards here, two of them, FBI agents. They heard the shots. You don’t have a prayer, just give it up!”

Elsbeth suddenly appeared around FDR’s huge cloak. She stopped not three feet from Katie, smiled down at her. She didn’t see the small derringer. “You’re lying to me again, Katie. You don’t have a gun. You’re expecting your precious bodyguards to ride up like the cavalry and save you. But there won’t be time for that.” And she laughed again. It made Katie’s skin crawl, that laugh.

“You know something?” Elsbeth said, nearly choking. “I wish Reverend McCamy could see me now.”

“I could tell he was proud of you, Elsbeth.”

Those beautiful blue eyes lightened a moment with pleasure. Thank God, Katie thought. Maybe she’d bought herself some time. That big Beretta was pointed right at her head.

Elsbeth McCamy blinked, looked momentarily confused, then shook her head so hard her ski cap fell off. “He was my dearest mentor, a great man who had God’s ear and made me scream with pleasure when he made love to me. And you sent him to his death.”

As she flexed her finger around the trigger of the Beretta, Katie brought up her derringer and fired its two shots point-blank into Elsbeth’s chest.

Elsbeth stumbled backward, but she didn’t go down. “My God, you shot me! You miserable bitch, I won’t let you kill me like you did my husband!”

Katie threw herself at Elsbeth’s knees. She heard a gunshot close to her head. She could smell her singed hair burning as she used all her strength to shove Elsbeth down.

The front of Elsbeth’s coat was drenched with blood now. She raised the gun and fired toward Katie again, wildly now. Katie rolled into Elsbeth, pushing hard against her legs, throwing her arms up to dislodge the Beretta. She knew that at any moment a bullet would smash through her flesh.

There was a single shot, only one. Katie, her arms still pressing against Elsbeth’s knees, looked up and saw a frown of faint surprise on Elsbeth’s face. The frown was frozen in death. Slowly, she fell backward, landing hard. Katie jerked back and leaped to her feet. Her hip burned, and her heart was pounding.

She looked down at Elsbeth McCamy, surely dead this time, her eyes open, staring at nothing at all. Her beautiful hair spilled around her face. She looked very young, innocent even, without any evil or madness about her, just lying there on the ground, the front of her coat soaked with blood and the back of her head ruined.

She heard the sound of the cascading water and the wind whipping between the monuments. She heard the water running fast in the tidal basin, not fifty feet away. And her own harsh breathing, so deadened with relief that she couldn’t move.

She heard running feet. Katie turned to see the