Soft Targets Read Online Free PDF

could sleep soundly.
    I will know and I will kill them.
    Irene was not well trained in the science of avoiding detection or shaking trackers, but she’d been watching, and as far as she knew, she hadn’t been followed. And even if she had, surely even the most monstrous of monsters would not harm her for seeking counsel from her priest. That’s what she told herself, anyway.
    Still two or three blocks from the river, she passed an enormous mansion on the left. Easily the largest residence she’d seen, it seemed to be nearly the same size of the church that loomed farther down the hill—Saint Katherine’s Catholic Church. Between the two structures sat a two-story colonial that she pegged as late-eighties construction. It was served by a two-hundred-foot driveway, which ended with a small white-on-black metal sign that read, RECTORY.
    Irene swung the turn and drove toward the house. By the time she got to the space in front of the garage, Father Dom was already standing on the front stoop, waiting. The clerical suit was gone, replaced by blue jeans and a Washington Redskins T-shirt. He approached the car as she opened her door, and was there at the opening as she started to climb out.
    “Are you okay, Irene?” he asked. “You sounded so frantic on the telephone.” He extended his arms wide for an embrace, which she accepted.
    When her lips were very close to his ear, Irene whispered, “Someone has kidnapped my girls.”
    She felt his shoulders stiffen. He pushed her out to arm’s length. “Oh, my heavens, Irene. What are—?”
    “Can we go inside, Dom? I don’t want to talk about this out here. I don’t want anyone to see.”
    “See what?”
    “Please, Father. Can’t we—?”
    “Of course, of course. Please come this way.”
    He led the way up the brick walkway to the house’s front door and opened it, gesturing for Irene to cross the threshold first.
    Inside, the rectory looked like, well, a home. Why did that surprise her so? Moreover, it looked like a home that could have been in any suburb of any city in the country. In fact, it didn’t look all that much different from her own home. The dining room lay on the left of the center hall, the living room to the right. She was struck by just how homey the place felt. A television on the far side of the living room showed a golf game in progress, and an even younger priest than Dom sitting on the sofa, thoroughly engaged.
    “Father Tim?” Dom said, breaking the reverie.
    The sound of Dom’s voice seemed to startle the other priest, and his head whipped around. “Yes?”
    “Can you excuse us, please? I need to speak—”
    Father Tim shot to his feet. “Yes, yes,” he said. He seemed self-conscious of the open beer on the end table. As he scooped it up, he made a valiant but ineffective effort to hide it. “I’ll get right out of your way.” He made no attempt to introduce himself to Irene, nor to seek her introduction.
    Irene suppressed a laugh as the young man rushed past and hurried toward the stairs to the upper level.
    “He’s very new,” Dom explained, answering her question before she could ask it. “He gets a little twitchy at times.”
    Dom gestured to the chair that Father Tim had just vacated. “Please,” he said, “have a seat. Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
     
     
    “Why are you so sure that this is the work of Jennings?” Dom asked when she was done.
    “How could it be anyone else?”
    Dom cocked his head and gave a little smirk. “You know that another question is never an answer, right?”
    Irene conceded the point by sagging her shoulders. “I know it because I don’t believe in coincidences.”
    Dom smiled.
    “Am I missing a joke?” she asked.
    “Not at all. It’s just that a friend of mine is fond of saying the same thing. There’s no one else who would fit the profile of someone who might threaten you through your children?”
    Irene felt her jaw drop. What the hell kind of question was