Smiling to himself, Danny stepped out of his car. Letting the door shut behind him, he put his hands in his pockets and ambled over to the steps of the convent.

“Nice night,” he commented.

Perched at the top of the stoop underneath a yard light, a tersely standing Sr. Rachel looked his way. “Agent Taylor,” she acknowledged.

“Sister,” he returned respectfully.

Sr. Rachel was the one in charge of the orphanage program that ran out of St. Luke’s Parish. Actually, that was kind of an understatement. She was the only one who ran the orphanage out of St. Luke’s Parish, officially anyway. Normally, the young woman looked fresh and industrious, like the end of a cough syrup commercial after the once-invalid has taken their miracle drug. But tonight, all that was put aside. Now, she just looked pissed.

“Where was she?”

“Fairton,” Danny told her.

A small sigh escaped from between the woman’s lips as she shook her head.

Danny drew a little closer to the steps. “She was fine,” he affirmed. “I can’t speak for next time, but tonight, she was fine.”

“Yeah, only because she had you there to get her,” Sr. Rachel returned. She turned to stare through the door Jordan had left open upon her advent. “She can’t keep doing this.”

A frown worked its way onto his face. “How often does this happen?”

Her tired eyes turned to his. “Two, sometimes three times a week.” The nun again shook her head, biting her nail. “I try to keep track of her, Danny. I do. But, I have thirteen other kids… I teach at the school during the day… I mean, I try to make sure that she’s in classes, but I’m not the police. This is a school, not a prison.”

Danny pursed his lips. He in no way envied the woman’s position. Hell, he was the police, and even he couldn’t keep track of everyone who didn’t want to be found.

He lent her an empathetic gaze. “Have you tried to talk with her about it?”

“Of course, I’ve tried. But you know, Jordan. She’d listen to a three-headed alien from the supermarket tabloids before she’d hear anything I had to say. Remember? I’m the evil Nurse Ratchett, trying to split apart her and her brother at every turn.”

Danny took a breath, pausing distinctly to have his words take effect. “I don’t think Jordan thinks that. She may not like you, but she respects you,” he told her. “Probably more than she’ll admit.”

Sr. Rachel sent him a ‘cut the crap’ glance, a convincing one that Danny figured they must have taught her at nun school. “She respects me as a person, but not as an authority figure. You can smile and nod at someone, but still not trust a word they say.”

It was a good point, and Danny didn’t argue it. “So what do you plan to do about her?”

“Try to talk with her again, I guess.” She smirked a little. “Unless you’ve got some duct tape in that trench-coat, and then we could tie her down and spoon feed her meals, until she learns her lesson or the cops come to arrest me for child abuse. Whichever comes first.”

Danny let out a cynical laugh. Personally, he had bets on the latter. But despite the darkness of their conversation, it was reassuring to see that Rachel hadn’t lost all humor with the situation, as dry as her brand may be.

She too laughed, but it was far too weary for a woman her age. “That would be about all they would need to take away my license.” She looked the massive gray stone building up and down. “Close this place up for good.”

The comment sobered him. “It’s that bad, huh.”

“Yeah,” she whispered, running a hand through the few bangs that stuck out through her habit. “It’s bad. It could be worse. But…keeping up appearances you don’t have is no picnic.”

Watching her, Danny mulled over the many things they had said, trying to reason through them. But the thoughts swam back and forth in his foggy brain, hapless and disjointed. It became apparent that the both she and Jordan had left him with far too much to think about, especially at two in the morning.

His fatigue must have been noticeable, because Sr. Rachel said, “Well… You already spent most your night on my kids. I won’t keep you any longer.” She stepped up to the door and waved behind her. “Thank you for bringing her back.”

“Your welcome,” he said, retrieving his keys from his pocket.

She turned back, her tired arms crossed comfortably against her stomach. “I’ll see you in church?”

He nodded. “I’ll be there.”

After the two exchanged their good-nights, Danny returned back to his Stratus. Plopping into the driver’s side, he leaned against the plush of the seat, letting it support his back and the scuff of his neck.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, cleaning grit from his eyes before leaning down to start up his car. For now, he filed all the thoughts away in his mind to analyze through later, preferably after a few hours of sleep. He took to the road and headed back to his apartment in Brooklyn.

He had some decisions to make. A fleeting image of Jordan and then Sr. Rachel stemmed into his mind.

And he wasn’t the only one.