“Yes, he is-was. You know, I’ve got to go see to things, Savich.”

Dillon Savich, chief of the Criminal Apprehension Unit at FBI headquarters, was sitting on the edge of his desk, close to Dane. He leaned forward, squeezed Dane’s shoulder, and said, “Yes, I know. This is a terrible thing, Dane. Of course you have to go take care of it. You’ll have paid leave, no problem. He was your twin, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, an identical twin. He was my mirror image. But inside, as different as we were from each other, we were still so much alike.”

Savich couldn’t imagine the pain he must be feeling, losing a brother, a twin. Dane had been in the unit for five months now, transferred in from the Seattle field office, by his request, and strongly recommended by Jimmy Maitland, Savich’s boss, who told Savich that he’d had his eye on Dane Carver for a while. A good man, he’d said, very smart, hard-nosed, tough, sometimes a hot dog, which wasn’t good, but reliable as they come. If Dane Carver gave his word on something, you could consider it done.

His birthday, Savich knew, was December 26, two hours after midnight. He’d gotten lots of silly Christmas/birthday presents at the office party on the twenty-third. He’d just turned thirty-three.

Savich said, “Do the local cops know what went down? No, back up a moment, I don’t even know where your brother lived.”

“In San Francisco. I got two calls, the first just before four a.m. last night, from an Inspector Vincent Delion of the SFPD, then ten minutes later, a call from my sister, Eloise, who lives down in San Jose. Delion said he was killed in the confessional, really late, nearly midnight. Can you believe that, Savich?” Dane finally looked at him straight on, and in that instant there was such rage in Dane’s eyes that it blurred into madness. He slammed his fist on the chair arm. “Can you actually believe that some asshole killed him in the confessional? At midnight? What was he doing hearing a confession at midnight?”