The Austin School for Learning Disabilities seemed to Bill like a cross between an elementary school and a hospital. The front part was a converted house, and that was where the administrative offices, physical therapy rooms, and classrooms were. The bulk of the students at the Austin School came on a daily or weekly basis for intensive one-on-one therapy and then went home to spend the bulk of their lives as more or less regular kids. The rest of the kids lived in the winding new construction that stretched out the back of the converted house and then made a right angle and followed the edge of the adjacent lot. These were the more seriously disabled kids, the ones whose parents couldn't care for them on a day-to-day basis. This was where Cheryl Anderson lived.

The area in front of the residential quarters was almost park-like, and that was where Bill found Pepper and Cheryl. He hung back at the gate and watched them. Pepper sat at a picnic table, her arm around the girl who was focused on a fuzzy toy. Pepper pushed the toy along the top of the table, and two plastic antennae on its head lit up. Cheryl reached out and touched the lights, then let her hand drop. Pepper pushed the toy again, and the girl reached out again.

From a distance, they looked like a normal mother and daughter playing in the park. They were, however, neither mother and daughter, nor normal. Cheryl had been born to their mother when Pepper was twenty-five, and for the first four years of her life, she was completely, totally normal, everything a beloved little girl ought to be. Then Pepper's parents had died, and Cheryl had withdrawn into herself. Most people assumed she was autistic - Pepper generally gave that explanation rather than have to explain the whole story - but she wasn't. Her damaged psyche was holding her prisoner in her own mind.

Helping Cheryl was the most important thing in Pepper's world, even if she didn't talk about her sister often. Bill knew that. It was, in fact, rare for Pepper to talk about Cheryl at all, not because she was ashamed of the child, but because of the deep sense of responsibility she felt towards her. Pepper protected the girl from further shock by keeping her far from her life as a cop. Bill felt fortunate to be, even in a small way, on the inside of that protective wall.

"Hello, ladies," Bill said, sliding onto the bench next to Pepper.

Her eyes widened, and she smiled. "What are you doing here? Look Cheryl. It's your Uncle Bill."

The girl regarded him with solemn eyes. There was no flicker of welcome or even recognition, but Bill hadn't expected it. She turned away from him and looked at the toy on the table. Pepper obediently pushed it, and Cheryl again reached out to the flashing lights.

"Did you talk to Hinton?" Pepper asked.

Bill nodded. "Nothing that helps us track down the person who's trying to kill him," he said. He watched Pepper push the toy over and over, her bright smile when Cheryl reacted to the light never fading though he knew it hurt her to see so little progress. Sometimes she would cry after her visits. She never let him see, but her eyes would have that telltale redness. He'd never heard her express frustration or seen her hope falter.

"How did your parents die?" he asked.

Surprise crossed her features. She studied him a minute, then turned deliberately back to Cheryl. "Honey, do you see that ball over there?" She turned the girl's shoulders and pointed toward a basketball in the grass. "Do you think you could bring it to me?" Cheryl's face showed no reaction, no understanding, but she wandered off toward the ball just the same. Pepper waited until she was out of earshot and said, "They were murdered."

It was Crowley's turn for shock. Murdered? He'd assumed they were in a car wreck or other accident. But murdered?

"My father was a police officer," Pepper said, her gaze on Cheryl. The girl was kneeling by the ball, stroking it. "In Wyoming. It was a small town with very little crime, but I guess even really bad things can happen in small towns. He broke up a drug operation that had roots in a bigger city. He was warned to back off, but he was stubborn and stuck with it. Someone broke in one night and shot him and my mom."

"And Cheryl?"

"Saw the whole thing."

"And you?"

"I was married and living in LA, but I was in town visiting friends. I… found them." Her eyes stayed focused on Cheryl, but Bill guessed that she was seeing something much further away. The hand that absently pushed the fuzzy toy on the table top trembled.

"I'm sorry," he said. Sorry she and Cheryl had gone through it. Sorry he'd dredged it up. Sorry he couldn't find the person who killed her parents and make him resemble Swiss cheese.

She turned to him and tilted her head. Then she smiled. "It was hard, but it made me want to be a cop."

"To vindicate your father?"

"At first. But I saw what the officers he worked with went through when they tracked down the people responsible. That anger and bitterness. I felt it too… but I knew wasn't what my father would have wanted. He didn't become a cop to teach the bad guys a lesson. He just wanted to make things better. For everyone. So that's what I'm trying to do, and it hasn't worked out so bad."

Make things better. Had anyone else said it, Bill would have said they were either naïve or full of shit. But he knew Pepper Anderson, and he believed her. When they first met, he saw her ability to empathize with the people she met, to see criminals as people who made wrong choices in bad situations, as a weakness. He believed it would eat alive, burn her out - or worse. The first time he'd seen her breakdown and cry, he'd told her to quit before her hysterics got someone killed. Then he saw the results, saw the hardened criminals she'd duped - guys who should have hated her - confess and all but beg her forgiveness. Saw junkies and hookers and scam artists turn snitch at risk to their own lives. They trusted her, even though she was a cop.

If anyone could make the world better, it was Pepper, but Jesus, what a price she had paid to find her path. Thinking out loud, he said, "Do you think there's a greater purpose? A Plan?" The question suddenly seemed silly, and he blushed, but she considered it seriously.

"Yes, I think so. But not in a passive, predetermined sense. I think you have to fight for it, make it happen."

He looked out at Cheryl who had wandered away from the ball and was now running her fingertips over the bark of a tree, stroking it over and over. "But what if you fight, and it doesn't happen? What if you give it everything, and God doesn't answer?"

She followed his gaze to Cheryl. He expected to see her eyes darken, but instead a soft smile graced her features. "God always answers," she said. "But sometimes the answer is no. So you pick yourself up and keep going."

"For how long?"

"As long as it takes. I think that's what it's really about. Enduring, no matter what." She turned her serene gaze on him. "And in the end, the blessings always outnumber the disappointments."

What blessings? he thought. Parents brutally murdered. Saddled with a disabled sister who doesn't even seem to recognize her. Divorced and working paycheck to paycheck.

As if reading his mind, she laid her hand on his wrist and said, "I have enough money to make sure Cheryl is safe and cared for. I have a good life, a good job, good friends, and a great partner." Her smile was infectious, and he couldn't help but return it.

"Don't you feel alone sometimes?" he asked.

Her fingers slid into his hand, and the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile that warmed him to his soul. "Bill," she said, "I'm never, ever alone." She leaned against him and turned her attention back to her sister.

He looked down at the fingers entwined in his, and it occurred to him that at that moment she wasn't talking about her relationship with God.