Dark Prison: Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 9

by Ryan, Lori

  Eve nodded. She would ask Glenn about it to be sure he’d ruled out any staff. She didn’t remember much about his reasoning for not looking at anyone from the home further.

  The back door banged open and Kyle and his near lookalike came in the room. The older boy, who must be Carter, had a small scar running from his forehead across one eye and down his cheek. But he was smiling. He ran up to Sara, pushing a plastic cup with plastic wrap strapped over it with a rubber band.

  “I caught a lizard, mom!”

  To Sara’s credit, she didn’t shy away from the cup. She raised the cup and put her face right up to it, peering inside. “Go grab the hamster’s travel cage. We’ll set it up in there.”

  Eve didn’t see any air holes in the baggie and wondered if the lizard would make it, but Sara didn’t seem worried. She set it on the table as the boys ran out of the room on their mission.

  “Will you let me know when you find out…” Sara’s light dimmed as she looked at Eve “when you find out where she was all this time?”

  Eve stood and nodded. “I’ll find out what happened to her.”

  It wasn’t a promise she should make and she damned well knew after all the searching Glenn had done without any results, she had no business offering any reassurances. She made it anyway.

  Chapter Four

  Eve could feel the weight of the women’s judgment on her, even though their eyes stayed on the floor. It was a neat trick, that. She would have to see if she could master it. She’d always used eye contact to tell her officers when she wasn’t happy. These women were managing it through some kind of Jedi mind trick.

  She stuck out in the room. The women before her all had long hair. Not the kind of long hair Eve had. Hers came to her shoulder blades when it wasn’t wrestled into a bun for work. These women all wore their hair in a long braid that went down to the lower back on most, lower on some. They sat in stiff chairs that lined what was a living room of sorts in the house that sat behind the Blessed Divine Church.

  John Sevier stood by her side, shooting her the kind of look that said he found the whole place as uncomfortable as she did. It felt nothing like the church Eve had grown up in.

  They’d gotten a glimpse of the compound on the way in. The church itself was out in front of the fenced grounds so that the public could come and go through front doors of it without entering the compound itself.

  From what they had seen, there was the large main building they were currently in that looked like part house and part office. The remaining land was a hodgepodge of small homes and other buildings, but it went back farther than they could see.

  Eve knew from looking at land records before they came, that the land stretched back for over twenty acres. She had the feeling there were a lot of secrets on those twenty acres. She thought about the tunnels Dr. Grundholdt said the church had built. Were there hidden rooms down there? Places they could hide a teenage girl? She shuddered.

  A door at the back of the house shut and moments later the sound of shoes clicking on the hallway preceded a small woman with blond hair dusted with silver that only served to make the blonde richer somehow. Her hair was the same style as the other women and her dress identical. A gray and white dress that covered her arms and all the way to her ankles. The high neckline covered all the way to her neck.

  It was the same type of clothing that had been on Samantha Greer’s oddly preserved body.

  The woman clasped her hands before her as though signaling she would not shake hands with either John or Eve, but her smile softened the message.

  “Good morning detectives. I’m Faith Richardson. Anna Beth tells me you have some questions for my husband and I.”

  Eve could see the mouse of a woman who’d greeted them when they entered hovering behind Faith. “That’s right. We’re sorry to drop in without an appointment, but this won’t take long at all. We’re just hoping you can help us track down next-of-kin for someone we believe may have been a member of your congregation.”

  Eve knew she was laying it on a little thick, but she didn’t want the woman on the defensive.

  Faith’s face went appropriately sorrowful and she nodded. “I’ve called my husband and he’s on his way. He and the menfolk are doing some repairs on one of the outbuildings.”

  Eve nodded and kept her face neutral. Menfolk?

  Before Faith spoke again, a man entered the room, short but somehow imposing, nonetheless. Maybe it was the fact that all of the church women except Faith stood and exited the room as soon as he arrived.

  The man was busy rolling down the sleeves of a loose-fitting white shirt as he entered and took a seat at the desk. Faith went to stand by his shoulder, just behind him.

  The way he took his time with his shirt, ignoring Eve and John for the time being spoke volumes. When he did look up, he fixed a smile on his face as though gracing them with the offering. His eyes found John’s face and stayed there. “Detective, what can I do for you?”

  John had worked interviews long enough to know how to work this one without Eve having to offer any guidance. He kept quiet as Eve spoke.

  “Reverend Richardson, I’m Captain Scanlon and this is Detective Sevier. We’re hoping you and your wife can help us find the next-of-kin for one of your congregation who’s passed away.”

  His jaw tightened only slightly at her words and he nodded. “We’ll certainly try.”

  Eve held out the photo of Samantha Greer when she disappeared at age fifteen and an age progression photo the lab had worked up for her that morning.

  The reverend’s face blanched at the images. “Grace is dead?” he asked the question with a quiet voice laced with what Eve pegged as genuine regret. “We had thought she’d just moved on.”

  His wife rubbed his shoulder and he put a hand over hers and looked up at her. Eve watched as the two seemed to share a private moment before the reverend turned back to them. “Grace was with us for many years. She was engaged to my brother, as a matter of fact, before she left.”

  “We’ll need to speak with your brother,” Eve said.

  Faith nodded and stepped from the room and Eve took the time to find out all she could from the reverend. Seeing if the stories of anyone else they interviewed matched up would be important.

  “How long was Grace with you?” She used the name they’d used even though she knew it to be false.

  Richardson frowned and rubbed the palm of his hand with one thumb as he spoke. “Must be at least ten or twelve years.” He paused, then, “maybe more. My daughter handles the church records. I can get that information for you.”

  Eve pressed on.

  “You said you thought she moved on. Why is that?”

  He gave a bewildered shake of his head. “She left a note for my brother saying she’d changed her mind about the marriage. Said she was going to go back to her family. We didn’t know where her family was. We had no way of tracking her down. It broke Isaiah’s heart.”

  “Isaiah is your brother?”

  He gave another single nod.

  Faith reentered the room and Eve continued her questioning as the woman took her place behind her husband again.

  “Was the engagement something Grace seemed happy about?” What Eve had wanted to ask was if the engagement was arranged for Grace. Arranged as in forced.

  Faith was the one who answered, seeming to know where Eve was headed. “Marriages in our church are not arranged. A match might be encouraged or suggested but they aren’t forced.”

  Sounds from the hallway announced the arrival of more people, this time men and women. The reverend stood and made introductions as the others filed into the room.

  A man so similar in stature and looks to the reverend was introduced as his brother Isaiah. His sandy brown hair was longer than the reverend’s but the heights matched, as did the blue eyes.

  A dark-haired woman held his arm like she might fall down without his support, despite the fact that she looked otherwise healthy and seemed to be only in
her mid-forties. She was introduced as his wife, Susanna. Two women were introduced as the reverend’s sisters and two others his adult daughters. There were adult sons, also, the oldest named Ezra who looked ready to come to his parent’s defense if given the chance.

  “Papa!” a young girl of about eight laughed as she ran into the room heading for the reverend, chased by another girl in her early teens. The teenager flushed pink and apologized, pulling the younger girl from the room and up the stairs of the house as she admonished her to “leave the adults to the adulting.”

  Eve made a mental note to see how far this family extended. From what she gathered, the couple’s children ranged in age from their late twenties down to the eight-year-old, at least.

  The reverend was speaking quietly to his brother as the others looked on and Eve saw the man go pale when he found out his former fiancée was dead. Eve wasn’t sure what to make of it. Everyone in the room seemed stunned at the news, but Eve also had the feeling they were in the right place. She couldn’t point to a single person who seemed to know before they arrived that Samantha was dead.

  But everything about the church seemed off. Her gut was screaming at her that Samantha had somehow come to the church and she hadn’t left alive.

  Isaiah was the first to ask the question she’d been expecting for some time. “How did she die? Where did you find her?”

  He turned and spoke to Detective Sevier, instead of addressing Eve, the same way his brother had done. The patriarchy ran strong through this group, Eve thought.

  Eve let John answer this time, wanting to watch Isaiah’s reaction.

  “We can’t release details at this time,” John said, “but we believe she may have died accidentally.”

  There was a hint of truth to it. It was entirely possible the blow to Samantha’s head was caused in a fall or through some other accident. But her body wasn’t hidden accidentally and it wasn’t moved in an attempt to keep it covered up accidentally. All of that was very purposeful.

  Still, if the killer was in the room with them, it might set that person at ease. Let them think they had gotten away with it. And with that, the killer might make a mistake. Say or do something to give themselves away.

  Eve jumped in now. “Can you tell us when you last saw Grace?”

  Isaiah blinked at her before answering. “Three days before we were going to be married. January 15th.” He looked to the woman on his arm, Susanna, then back to Eve. “Four years ago.”

  The timeframe matched up with what Dr. Grundholt had said would be her time of death, but it was entirely possible Samantha had left the church four years ago and then been killed sometime later by someone else.

  Eve looked at Susanna, too. “Did you know Grace?”

  Susanna glanced at her husband who nodded before she answered. Eve wanted to roll her eyes but didn’t.

  “No,” Susanna said. “I joined the church a year after Grace ran away.” She glanced down as though afraid she’d said the wrong thing.

  “Your brother said Grace left you a note?” Eve said to Isaiah, getting a nod in response.

  “Do you still have it?”

  “No. I held onto everything of hers for a few months hoping she’d come back, but when it became clear she wouldn’t be back, I threw everything away.”

  “Holding on to dark memories traps the soul in pain,” Faith said from where she and the reverend stood. “We seek to let light into our lives, detective.”

  Eve smiled. “Captain,” she finally corrected. They’d called her detective or refused to address her directly one too many times. “Are any of you familiar with the cemetery on Oak Terrace on the west side of the city?”

  A few head shakes and then one woman spoke up. “I think that was where Adelle Mason was buried last year.”

  The reverend nodded at the woman and Eve noticed he was still doing the thumb thing, rubbing it into the palm of his other hand. “She’s right. Detectives, this is my eldest daughter, Hannah. She handles the church records for us. She’ll need to look it up, but she’ll be able to tell you how long Grace was with us.”

  The woman nodded a greeting and Eve handed her a business card with her contact information on it.

  “Who is Adelle Mason?” John asked.

  It was Hannah who answered. “A member of our congregation who passed.”

  “You don’t have a cemetery here?” Somehow Eve couldn’t see the church members being buried someplace else.

  “We do,” the reverend said, “but some of our congregation don’t choose to live on our grounds. They’re buried elsewhere.”

  Like second class citizens. Eve didn’t voice the opinion. She’d learned early on in her career no one wanted the commentary that took place in her head.

  “Were any of you aware that Grace’s real name was Samantha. Samantha Greer?” Eve asked, watching faces and body language closely.

  It was Faith who answered again. “People who come to our church seeking solace often take a new name. It signifies a rebirth of sorts.”

  The woman was just full of little tidbits like that, a little like a walking greeting card.

  Eve continued without acknowledging the explanation. “And the name Ruth Adamson, does that mean anything to any of you?” She tossed out the name of the woman whose grave Samantha had been found in, hoping for a reaction.

  She got a lot of frowns and head shakes, no, but again the reverend’s daughter spoke up. “It sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.”

  Eve wondered about the daughter. She didn’t seem to be as worried as the other church women about speaking up. Neither did Faith, for that matter, so maybe it was the fact Faith was the matriarch of the church and also her mother that gave the woman standing to say what she pleased, when she pleased, without the look of seeking permission or apology the other women seemed to have whenever they spoke.

  “Did you report Grace missing when she left?” Eve asked the group at large.

  It was the reverend who answered. “We welcome many people into our community, detective. But we don’t force them to be here. It’s not uncommon for people to move on.”

  Faith added, “She was a part of our community for a long time. It hurt when she left, but that doesn’t mean we would try to force her to stay any more than we would force one of our own children to stay if they wanted to move out into the world. She was going back to her family.”

  “Samantha was a foster child. She didn’t have family,” John said.

  Faith shook her head. “She must have had some somewhere. Her letter said she was going to be with them. We had no reason to report her missing.”

  Eve had a feeling the church wouldn’t report anything to the police. There was a distinct us and them feel like the outside world was somehow removed from their community.

  She dropped the last of their questions, hoping to see a reaction from someone. “Did Grace have any children?”

  Isaiah’s expression was nothing but puzzled at the question. “No. She lived here for many years before we were engaged. She never said anything about having any children.”

  “You knew her for a long time before you were engaged?” she asked.

  “Yes. She came to the church when she was nineteen. I was married to my first wife at the time. She passed six years ago. I began courting Grace a year later and we were engaged a year after that.

  Eve kept her face blank but noted the discrepancy. Had Samantha really come to the church when she was nineteen? That would mean she either spent four years somewhere else or Isaiah was lying.

  Had Samantha delivered her child in those four years and left it somewhere else? Or did she give birth after she left the church?

  “Did Grace live alone when she was here?” She wondered what they did when someone new showed up in the church. Did they have a dorm room situation where they would set up individuals that showed up looking for a place to live?

  Faith frowned as though thinking about something before looking at the reverend.
“One of our host families took her in. Was it the Jamesons?”

  The reverend shook his head. “Widow Akers took her in.” He looked up at Eve. “She’s no longer with us. She went to the Lord four years ago.”

  As they left the building and walked to where they’d parked, John leaned closer, speaking low.

  “Do you get the sense half the church is that guy’s family?”

  Eve nodded, but her eyes cut to a sedan sitting across the street from the church. She tossed the keys to John. “Grab the car. I’m going to have a talk with someone.”

  The window on the sedan rolled down as she approached.

  “What are you doing, Glenn? I thought I told you you’re not working this case in the field.”

  Glenn waved her comment off. “I’m not working it. I’m following you.”

  She snorted and shook her head. She should have known he wouldn’t listen.

  He looked past her to the church, frowning. “I had a witness. A friend of Samantha’s who said she came here to a service with Samantha. I came and asked at the church and they thought maybe she’d come to a service, but couldn’t say for sure. They did say she didn’t come back if it was her. Denied she was with them. I didn’t have enough to get a warrant back then.”

  “And I don’t have enough now,” Eve said, but she wondered about the fact they’d denied knowing Samantha. Maybe she hadn’t been there yet. She could have come to a service with her friend, then wandered back to the church at some point later. According to Isaiah, she hadn’t shown up until she was nineteen. “Who did you talk to? Do you remember?”

  His look told her she should know better than to think he’d forgotten anything about the case. “The Reverend Richard Richardson. His wife was there also. Faith.”

  Eve glanced at where Sevier had pulled the car around to idle behind Glenn’s. “They say Samantha came to the church when she was nineteen and was in the church for years and then left one day, leaving a note saying she was going back to her family.”