How Everything Turns Away

Ezra James used to be a big deal: Harvard graduate, FBI agent, beautiful wife. After being accused of fabricating evidence in a serial killer trial, he finds himself suspended, on the verge of a divorce, and working security at a posh Catholic school in Chicago. Then something out-of-the-ordinary happens: a young student-teacher is attacked during a Christmas pageant and left for dead in the snow with a noose around her neck and an electrical burn. Plus, she's pregnant. Ezra, along with up-and-coming police detective, Lucia Vargas, and school chaplain, Fr. Remy Mbombo, must work fast before the culprit returns to finish the job.

Excerpt:

Gorecki raised a hand. “I’m sure you’ve seen a lot, Mr. James, underage drinking, monitoring in-school detention duty and such, but this here’s serious.”
“You’re a cop, you said?” Vargas said. “Not in Evanston PD. What precinct?”
“I’m a special agent, actually.”
Both detectives raised their eyebrows.
“DEA?” Gorecki guessed.
Now he did produce his badge. “FBI, Chicago field office.”
Gorecki inspected it. “Special Agent James,” he said mostly to himself. Then a glimmer of understanding came over his face. “I—” he started to say but stopped abruptly.
This happened sometimes. Ezra would be having a perfectly normal conversation with somebody, but then a headline would flash through their mind, and their whole demeanor changed. For an entire year, Ezra’s name appeared in the Chicago Tribune, sometimes making the front page. Eventually people remembered seeing one of those headlines.
His jaw clenched as he waited for Gorecki to continue.
“You’ve helped a lot,” the detective said, biting his lip. “You can rejoin your friends inside.”