C.C. grinned at her. “Watch and see!”

“Okay,” Mack called curtly. “Let’s move.”

Inside, they lit a pair of candles stuck in lanterns made of old tin cans with a few holes poked in them to let out just enough light. They found the safe sitting in the empty modern vault. The vault had been looted long ago, its door sagging open, but the old-fashioned safe looked sturdy and intact.

“Ohh-kay.” C.C. sank reverently to his knees before it, plugging the stethoscope into his ears. “Let the doctor work.”

Mack beckoned to Loup. “C’mon. I need you to block the door while I fix the lock. Can’t do it without light.”

She stood in front of the glass door, listening to Mack rustle and curse as he attempted to repair the lock by the faint illumination of his makeshift lantern. The stars overhead were bright and distant. Outpost was quiet, all the clubs closed, all the soldiers except a few MPs back on base or shacked up with women they’d never marry.

“Got it,” Mack said softly. He blew out his candle as Loup ducked back inside.

“C.C.?” she asked.

Mack shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking believing that fucking lunatic could actually crack a safe.”

There was a stifled whoop from farther inside the bank.

“Shit!” Loup breathed.

They found C.C. sitting on his heels with an awed look on his face. The stethoscope hung forgotten from his ears. The safe door was open and inside was an enormous stack of bundled cash and receipts. C.C. looked up, his eyes shining. “Mack, man… we could clean them out.”

Mack hesitated.

“No,” Loup said in an adamant tone. “C.C. was right the first time. You want to start the turf wars all over again with the church in the middle of it? This is a miracle, not a robbery. We take a thousand bucks for Santa Olivia to give to the O’Brien kids, and not a penny more.”

“Okay, okay!” C.C. heaved a sigh, snatched two bundles of cash, and handed them to Loup. She tucked them into the envelope Jane had procured and shoved the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans. He gave the safe one last longing look, then closed the door and spun the lock. “We’re out of here.”

The O’Brien house was small and run-down, sitting on a scrubby lot on a street the MPs didn’t bother to patrol. They circled to the east side. The window of the bedroom where Pilar swore the kids slept was ajar. Loup hung from the windowsill by fingertips, peering into the darkened room.

“See anything?” Mack whispered.

“Nah, too dark.”

“If it’s the mom, she’ll scream bloody murder.”

“Shhh.” She listened hard. “It’s okay. It’s kids. I can hear them breathing.”

“How can you tell it’s kids breathing?” C.C. asked.

“Kids breathe different from adults. Hold my legs.” She worked the screen loose while Mack and C.C. braced her below, then eased it down. “Here.”

“Careful,” Mack murmured.

“Uh-huh.” Loup hauled herself up on one forearm, raising the window with her free hand. The wood creaked. She tugged her neckerchief up to cover her lower face. “Okay, miracle time.”

It was dark and frowsty inside the bedroom. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of starlight, she made out small figures sleeping two and three to a bed. In the nearest, a boy of some ten or eleven years was awake and staring at her with wide eyes, clutching the sheets to his chest.

“Hi,” Loup said softly, crouching at his bedside. “It’s okay. Don’t be scared. Do you know who I am?”

He shook his head.

“I’m the spirit of Santa Olivia.” She fished the bulging envelope out of her jeans pocket and handed it to him. He squinted at the message written on it.

PRIDE IS A SIN.

SANTA OLIVIA DOES NOT FORGET.

Loup struggled to remember the speech Jaime had written for her in the event that one or more of the kids had awakened. “Give this unto your mother and tell her behold, Santa Olivia bids her take this gift and feed her children. Let her accept it with grace and, um, be reminded that it is sinful to cause others to suffer for her self-righteous pride. Especially kids. And when the money runs out, she should accept the church’s charity. Okay?”

“Okay,” the boy whispered. A glimmer of awe dawned in his stricken gaze.

“Good kid.” Loup straightened and patted him on the head. “Okay, amen and good night.”

“Okay,” he repeated, thin fingers clutching the thick envelope.

The other kids were beginning to stir. Loup made a quick exit out the window, dangling from one hand long enough to prop the screen back in place when Mack handed it to her. They beat a careful retreat to the church before the sky began to lighten.

C.C. yawned. “Good miracle, guys.”

Mack thumped his shoulder. “Nice work on the safe, Doc. Don’t forget to put the stethoscope back before Sister Martha misses it.” He smiled at Loup. “ ’Night, Santa Olivia.”

“’Night.”

There were low, excited murmurs emanating from the boys’ dormitory after Mack and C.C. entered it, but everyone in the girls’ room was asleep. Loup sat on her cot and yawned, wriggling agilely out of her jeans.

“Hey.” In the next bunk, Pilar lifted her head sleepily. “Everything go okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it did.”

“Good.” For a moment, it seemed like Pilar was going to say something else. Loup sat and watched her in the dim light, waiting. Her blood beat steadily in her veins. But Pilar only sighed and said, “Good,” a second time and settled back into her dreams, hugging her pillow, her breathing turning slow and deep.

The room smelled like clean linen and sleep.

Loup crawled into bed and slept.

TWENTY

The following day, Loup went to the gym to help Tommy with his chores.

She kept her head down and listened to the idle chatter of the men training there. By midafternoon, the story of Santa Olivia’s latest miracle had broken.

“A thousand bucks!” Bob Reyes said in awe. “Just like that, out of nowhere. A goddamn fuckin’ miracle. You know what I could do with a thousand bucks?”

Miguel Garza snorted. “Not as much as you think. A thousand bucks is chicken feed.”

“To you, maybe.” Kevin McArdle worked a speed bag. “Not to me, not to Bob. Not to someone like Celia O’Brien.”

“Stiff-necked cunt,” Miguel said without any particular malice. “Cousin of yours, isn’t she?”

Kevin McArdle stalked away without answering.

Tommy watched him go. Loup watched Tommy. “Is it true?” she asked innocently. “She’s his cousin?”

“Yeah.” Tommy watched Floyd Roberts intercept McArdle. “Stiff-necked, too.”

“Coach has that kind of money, doesn’t he?” Loup asked.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “That would be just like him, wouldn’t it? Not to let anyone know.”

She shrugged. “I guess, sure.”

Tommy eyed her. “But the kid said he saw a girl. Santa Olivia. You don’t know anything about it?”

Loup widened her eyes. “Where would I get a thousand bucks, Tommy?”

It was the question no one could answer. As C.C. had predicted, Rosa Salamanca kept her mouth shut about the thousand-dollar shortfall, unwilling to acknowledge the possibility of an error in her bookkeeping, unwilling to admit to a breach in her security at the cost of debunking a miracle. Who had a thousand dollars to spare? There were only a few people in Outpost who could have done such a thing. None of them stepped forward to claim it.

None of them denied it, either.

At dinner, Father Ramon fixed the Santitos with a hard gaze. “Children?”

C.C. Rider batted his lashes. “Father?”

Father Ramon’s mouth twitched. “I confess, if this is your doing, I cannot fathom the how of it. If it has inspired others to take up the banner of Santa Olivia, let us pray that for the sake of her children, Celia O’Brien will take the lesson to heart and cease to begrudge our charity.”

“Hear, hear.” Sister Martha hoisted her water glass. “Let the rigid stick of self-righteousness be dislodged from her very uptight ass.”

Father Ramon coughed.

“A-fucking-men,” Loup supplied helpfully.

She was on KP duty with Mack that night. While they washed dishes together, Loup told him about an idea that had come to her at the gym.

“Snakes,” Mack mused.

Loup nodded. “I listen to the guys, you know? Bob Reyes, he works at the golf course. Said he found a nest of snakes in the rough just past the fourth hole. Just green snakes, nothing poisonous. He left them there. And someone who lies, you call them a snake, right?”

“You’re thinking about the assholes who lied to cover for Braddock?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded again. “We could put them in their jeep, maybe. Just to let them know they didn’t get away with it, not really.”

Mack’s gray eyes glinted. “So it’s not really vigilante justice, huh? Just a message to let them know Santa Olivia is always watching.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s see what Jaime and the others think.”

Jaime wasn’t impressed.

“It’s really nothing more than a prank, isn’t it?” he observed. “I mean, you could pull it off without witnesses, which is good, but after the thousand-dollar miracle, it’s kind of a letdown.”

“Oh.” Loup was disappointed. “Even if you wrote one of your great messages?”

“Still a prank,” Jane agreed dismissively.

“The snakes are a nice idea, though,” Jaime assured Loup. “Very nice use of symbolism.”

She sighed. “Thanks.”

Maria cleared her throat softly. “What about a plague of snakes? If they like, you know, fell from the sky?”