Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Officer Ryson? We spoke on the phone. I’m Special Agent Laramee Fox.
” The agent wore a gray suit and white shirt, her dark hair straight and loose over her shoulders.
She motioned to the third person in this alcove, just outside the elevator on the sixth floor of the Chicago FBI field office. “This is Special Agent Justin Glor.”
He shook hands with the guy, trying not to be intimidated. “Carlos is fine.”
At least six five, Glor had short brown hair cut in a military style and a solid presence not diminished even a little by the blue of his eyes.
“Or Ryson.” He didn’t need to be called “officer” when this was about his sister.
“If you’ll follow me this way.” Special Agent Fox motioned down the hall, and they started walking.
This could be any office building in the world, but for some reason Carlos figured the place where the FBI worked would look… less generic. He glanced over at Special Agent Glor. “How long have you been an agent?”
“Fifteen years or so. We’ve been working the case against the Reverence Sisters for three years, trying to make some progress between our other cases.”
“I know you guys were sitting on that house across town,” Carlos mentioned. Just so they were aware that he had information.
He’d been in contact with the Bureau since he moved to Chicago, but their public relations office hadn’t given him much—until he explained who he was—and even then, the information had been sparse.
Very much like, We’ve got it handled. As if he should leave Luci’s fate to them and presume that once they rounded up all the members of the group and filed the charges, she’d be rescued in due course.
Carlos had found that life was rarely so simple, and he definitely didn’t want it to take another three years. He figured the FBI didn’t want some beat cop with a personal angle against the Reverence Sisters sticking his nose in and messing up their case.
“Right. The house.” Glor nodded as they approached a huge room full of desks and people, with screens all over the walls.
“No movement in days. In fact, it’s been remarkably quieter since you started asking about the Reverence Sisters.
” The tall agent folded his arms, pulling the sleeves of his suit tight across his elbows. “Why might that be?”
Carlos shrugged. “Maybe ask the person who knocked out Eliana and I, stuck her with a needle, and disappeared before we could talk to them.”
Glor didn’t like that. “Right. The abandoned compound.”
“Did you know about it before Eliana and I went there?”
Special Agent Fox shifted. “Why don’t we head this way?
” As she walked the outside of the room, she glanced back.
“We knew there was a community where they lived, but without probable cause we couldn’t execute a search warrant on that location without getting ourselves in trouble.
The right to gather for religious reasons is protected, and without witness testimony that would hold up in court, or physical evidence of a crime, we couldn’t go in.
After you reported a crime against you during your time at the compound, we were authorized to take over the scene from the state police and enter your reports as testimony in our investigation.
The wealth of evidence that has provided has been immense. ”
Carlos wondered for a second if she was going to thank him, but she didn’t continue. He held his tongue without saying, You’re welcome.
Fox entered a door at the far end, packed with boxes and files on the conference table, wide office chairs all around, and the eight-by-ten screens on the walls that were a mass of images and notes laid out on the displays they’d collected and had in digital form.
Glor slumped his tall frame into a chair. “Now we’ve got a reporter crying ‘rapture’ as if the situation in this city isn’t bad enough.”
Fox glanced at him.
Glor lifted his hands.
Carlos looked around, uninterested in talking about Neil Lorne and his theories. “This is your case file?”
Special Agent Fox tapped the bottom left corner of the nearest wall screen. A menu popped up, all down the left side. “This is the index of everything we’ve collected so far.”
She tapped the word ‘compound,’ and the screen showed a bunch of files, images, and text. Everything they’d collected after Carlos called the state police at the compound. They must have swooped in and taken over the whole case.
She turned to him. “In this room is everything we know.”
“Not that I’m not grateful you’re letting me see it,” Carlos said, “but I’m a Chicago PD officer. Probably the newest one on the force. Why tell me all this?”
“Short answer? Milwaukee Police Captain Maizie Morrow.”
“Ah.” Right.
Glor’s chair squeaked. “Captain Morrow assisted us with a case last year. Apparently, this is how she wants us to repay the favor.” His eyes narrowed, curiosity in his features.
Of course, he wanted to know why Maizie would use her clout with the FBI to get Carlos of all people access. Did he intend to explain all the ins and outs of how the Banbury-Jaxton/Ryson clan interacted? “Maizie and I are family.”
Fox sat on the edge of the table, shooting him a frown. “She’s Kenna Banbury’s adopted daughter. What does that make you?”
“Family.” Carlos stood still.
“Please don’t tell me one of them is wrapped up in this.” Fox winced. “Are we going to have to contend with Kenna Banbury coming here and solving this case for us?” Those last few words had a distinct tone. Not something Fox wanted to happen.
“I’m looking for my sister. Not a Jaxton.
” He didn’t intend to explain about Eliana, who they didn’t seem to think was a factor.
Bringing her real name into this now would draw attention to her, but not in any way she wanted.
After all, people would only assume she was here to investigate this case.
When they’d been out at the compound, she’d used an ID that said her name was Hope Adams. Where she’d procured that, he hadn’t asked, but he knew why she didn’t want people to know who she really was. It would keep this whole thing simpler if they thought she was just some average civilian.
Carlos glanced between the agents. “Kenna and her husband are in Alaska, anyway. Nowhere near Chicago right now.”
Glor had his phone out. “He’s right about that. She’s working on some serial murder case up there.” The agent frowned. “Huh. This article says they might’ve gone missing.”
Carlos’s phone rang in his pocket, but he ignored it.
Fox eyed him. “If Captain Morrow thinks you might be able to help us, then we’re interested in what you have to say.”
They really thought he had information? By the look of things in here, they’d already taken possession of everything from the compound. “My sister, Luci Ryson, is why I’m here. The only reason I’m here.”
Fox selected another tab on the menu, and two of the whiteboard sized screens flickered to display rows and rows of pictures. All of them were young women between seventeen and late twenties.
Carlos wandered along the edge of the table, scanning each image. Looking for his sister.
“These are the women we believe are victims of the Reverence Sisters.”
“Victims?” He turned to Fox.
“Missing, never found. Apart from one woman who escaped them, we don’t know of any others who got out.”
“Faith Blackburn?”
Fox nodded. “That’s the name she gave us as well.”
He looked back at the wall. “How do you know these women specifically are their victims? I mean, this isn’t every woman in and around Chicago who has gone missing, right?”
“That pool would be much larger, even accounting for those who fit the profile,” Fox said. “And this list stretches back nearly seventeen years. One or two, sometimes three, a year for that time.”
That meant more victims than Carlos had even assumed there would be.
“We swept social media, phone records, and conducted interviews,” Glor said.
“When a woman is reported missing, we deep-dive into her life to try and find out what happened. What they post online, who they called, and what they searched for online. What the people they know have to say. All of it points in a specific direction.”
Carlos found his sister’s photo on the top row, almost to the end. He stared at Luci’s social profile picture. “The way I did, when I talked to her neighbor, and I managed to find the place where they were living.”
“We convinced the judge not to file breaking and entering charges. But that’s only because no one in the Reverence Sisters group has, as yet, complained that you infringed on their rights.”
Carlos turned to them. “What about my sister’s right to be free of them?”
“You’re assuming she considers herself to be captive against her will, rather than a willing participant in the group.” Glor lifted his chin.
Carlos shot him a look. “So you’re gonna play politics and make sure you don’t get in trouble, is that it?”
Glor studied him. “We’re going to do this right, so we can make our case and it actually sticks against this ‘Mother’ and those who keep the Sisters captive.”
Carlos didn’t want the “this is bigger than one person” speech, so he turned back to the photos and scanned each one, wondering who they were. Thinking about family members who might be missing them, worried out of their minds over their loved ones.
His gaze snagged on a blonde.
He frowned. What on earth? “I know her.”
Fox came over to stand by him. “You’ve seen one of their victims?” She reached over and tapped the photo. Basic details came up, name and age. Last known address, next of kin.
“No, that’s not it.” Carlos shook his head. “That’s not the name I know her by.”
Fox shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Who is she?”
Carlos stared at the photo. “That’s Chicago PD Detective Raquel Maloney.”
Glor’s chair hit the wall, and Carlos glanced over in time to see him standing. “Are you serious?”