Note: There is some talk of God and faith and stuff in this chapter, and I know not everyone believes the same stuff, so if you find anything with God or anything offensive I wouldn't read this but I did try and make it neutral.

Thanks: Jenna

Jordan went home that night at five thirty, four hours earlier than usual. She drove home without the radio on. She climbed up the stairs with a drag in her step and a heaviness in her steps… she stuck her key in the door and turned it without thinking. She dropped her purse and her keys on the kitchen table… she leaned against the blood red door and slid down it… the sun was a sweet rose, the same color as pink lemonade. She let it wash her in its innocence. She closed her eyes as that little girl's face stain her thoughts… the way the blood dried in her hair… "Oh God…" she whispered, her chin quivered and she bit back sobs…

She didn't know how long she was sitting there, on her floor, with her face in her hands… but when she looked up, the night was upon her and the sun had disappeared from the sky and it was all dark in her house. She felt around and flicked on a light… she squinted and sighed. Her house was empty and lonely… she walked to her window and stared out at the city, somehow she felt so isolated and alone in this big old city… She could feel the chill in the air and huddled closer to herself for warmth. That little girl should have been out walking the city with her mother, her eyes big with wonder at the sight of the beautiful lights all different colors and brightness… was this that little girls destiny? To be laying on a cold, bare slab in a city morgue, no one left to claim her body… until finally she is laid to rest in a potter's field, and she becomes just a name on a cross, nothing more.

She pulled out a frozen dinner and sat down to watch TV, nothing was on… so she just lay on her futon with a half frozen Salisbury steak… This had become her routine. She listened to a car honk and a dog bark… she listened to her clock chime the hours away… she listened to her heartbeat ricochet against her skin. It was almost like she could feel that little girls hands against hers…

"Come on Mommy… hurry."

There she was, skipping along, with a large hand in hers, all wrapped up and mitten clad. Something was wrong… something was missing, or was it the lack of something missing…

Her dark eyes looked up… It couldn't be.

"I'm coming baby… don't worry we're not going to be late." Her dark hair was rich and sweet and long around her tiny face… her eyes were glistening in the winter cold. Her cheeks were rosy and… Alive.

"Mommy?"

"You don't have to run baby… we'll get there in our own sweet time." She whispered.

Jordan woke up with a start… she could still feel the snowflakes in her hair and the bite of the wind on her nose… but it wasn't true… it was just a dream. She leaned back against her pillow and rolled over, burying her face in her pillow to soften her sobs.

"Mommy, I'm still running…" She whispered in-between sobs.

She got up and made some tea… she dressed in her warmest clothes, her red jacket, black gloves and a black scarf. She grabbed her purse but left her keys… she walked down the stairs, heaviness to her steps and an uncertainty in her eyes. She wandered out to the street, not knowing where she was going or why… she wandered down empty streets and desolate alleys. Until she was standing out front of a church… she didn't know why that church looked familiar, it just did… she walked up to the worn, heavy doors and opened them… she drifted in-between the pews until she reached the alter, she knelt there for a long moment… not feeling time move past her in waves… she didn't feel cold or lonely or lost… she felt a bitterness but that was it. She lived in that bitterness and let it fold over her.

"My child are you lost?" a voice boomed from the back of the church. She looked up startled at the woolen robe clad man it the back. She felt hot tears on her cheeks, funny; she thought to herself, she hadn't known she was crying. He stepped towards her and it seemed that step he engulfed the rest of the way… and he was suddenly right next to her, his hand on her shoulder.

"I've been lost for a long time…" she whispered… "Help me find my way father?" it was said as a question not a statement. He helped her up and sat her down on the nearest pew.

"I will do everything in my power." She looked into the tattered eyes of the old man and trusted him fully.

"Okay…" and she talked to him tell sunrise… she told him of her mother and her faith… she told him of her past and her job and her friends… and she talked mostly of Woody, to her surprise, their history… their confrontation… his bullet, everything. He was silent for a long time after she was finished.

"The answers are all inside of you, my child… God is here with you, can you feel it?" he waited for her to answer.

"No father… I can't feel him… he isn't here." She said with a sad groan after a few moments he spoke again.

"Can you feel the air… I mean, can you stick your hand out and touch it and feel it with your fingers?"

"No" she whispered

"No, hmmm… do you know its there?"

"Yes Father… Its there… how else would we breathe?"

"Exactly." He stated with determination "Without God… how else would we live?" he raised his bushy eyebrows at her. And she looked down at the ground.

"But why in the world, if a god is so mighty, would he not show himself to the world… I know if I was almighty I would flaunt."

"The greatest gift god could give us… free will, he wants us to be our own people… if he was to do that, there would be no need for faith… and proof is for the weak of faith isn't it my child?"

She nodded and let his words seep into her pours. "This Detective Hoyt?" he said after a moment. She looked up startled by his name. "He sounds like a fellow who is trying to get back onto his path… a path we all stray at times… none more so than I… but if you just open up the door to your heart a bit and let someone in… you might find yourself finding a soothing that it seems your heart has needed for a long time."

She stood and held out her hand for him to shake… he ignored it and took her shoulders, looking into her eyes. "Go with God my child… wherever he might lead you… it has to be better than this place you live now…" she backed away slowly

When she walked out into the street and found the sweet green of dawn. She realized she had nowhere to go… she looked left, then right… she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the heavens and waited to find a direction… she found herself walking… and walking… and walking… before she knew it she was at Woody's apartment.

She didn't go up, she didn't move from the front of his stoop, she just stared up at his window with a quiet hunger and a anger at him for all he had done, all she had done. She looked on as the morning glistened on his window pane. She sat on his steps and tried to piece together her puzzle, deep in heart… she couldn't find the missing piece… so she figured it was gone for good, and walked home.

She fell asleep three hours later, clean and bathed… she slept and hoped that she would find a place to go where mommies and daughters walked through the streets on Sunday mornings all wrapped up in coats and scarves, heading to mass with happiness living and breathing all around them.