Chapter 31 #2
Tony led them through the entry to an empty room on the ground floor with a blood stain on the floor.
“See the spatter on the wall here?” He crouched and pointed.
“And here? This pattern indicates someone was struck with a hard object. There aren’t many other ways to exert that much force without leaving spatter like this. ”
Carlos looked at Eliana. She swallowed, her face pale. Then turned to Tony. “Is there a point to this?”
Tony rose out of his crouch. “All this happened last night. The two men we think are the ones from the apartment…” He looked pointedly at Eliana. “They reportedly left, according to eye witnesses.”
“What witnesses?” Eliana asked, her voice sounding hollow and her attention still on the blood stain.
“Neighbors. A delivery guy.” Tony paused. “Luci was here. Did the FBI tell you that?”
Carlos gritted his teeth. “They said activity here quieted down when I came to Chicago looking for her.”
“They pulled surveillance weeks ago.” Tony shook his head. “By the time we got here early this morning, this had happened.” He pointed to the blood again. “And we ran the DNA. It belongs to your sister. She’s the one who was struck.”
Carlos flinched. “Did witnesses see her after?”
Tony shook his head. “Just two men leaving.”
Eliana gasped. “She’s hurt.”
“Judging by the blood, it doesn’t look like she would’ve survived. I’m sorry to say that the FBI lied to you about having this place under surveillance.”
“This isn’t over. It’s blood,” Carlos pointed out. “It isn’t my sister.”
Tony’s expression remained unruffled, despite the fact Carlos’s words filled the room.
“Where is she?”
When Tony didn’t reply to Carlos’s question right away, Eliana said, “The Board said they were going to help find her. So where is she?”
“I’m sorry,” Tony said. “I don’t think she could have survived this.”
“That’s not an answer!” Eliana spun away and strode to the window, looking out through the ugly floral curtains.
There was no furniture in here, or in the whole house by the look of it, and yet they had curtains up so no one could see inside.
Carlos stared at the older man. “You’re sure this is her blood?”
“I’m sorry the news couldn’t be good. But at least now you know.”
Carlos heard an interesting note in his tone at the end there. “Know what?”
“About your sister, and what might’ve happened to her,” Tony said. “And that those FBI agents haven’t been honest with you about what they know, or what they’re doing. They’ve been telling you what you want to hear. The Shrine and the Board of Governors will tell you the truth.”
“This is some kind of ‘trust us’ pitch?” Carlos shook his head.
Unbelievable. The guy couldn’t just deliver the bad news.
He had to use it to try to convince them to follow the Shrine’s dictates.
“You’re holding people in detention cells in a museum and we’re supposed to believe you’re all honest and forthright? ”
Tony shrugged. “Families operate in the truth. Not in telling people what they want to hear.”
“Family?” Eliana turned back from the window. “Is this about the vault? I didn’t know it would let me in without killing me. I had no idea.”
Tony shook his head. “It isn’t about the vault.
The Board explained to me how it works. That’s why I’m so sure that we should all be working together on this.
Because the FBI is never going to treat you the way the Shrine will.
You can’t put faith in people who only want to close a case.
” He slapped the front of his shirt. “We want to help you. To keep you safe.”
“Then I want to know everything the Shrine has in that vault. Since I get full access. Since I’m family.”
Carlos bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling, watching Eliana stand up for herself. Even if he was the reason she had to learn how to do it, he was still proud of her.
He could see the blood plain as day, but that didn’t mean he would believe Luci was dead. For all he knew, she’d been hit by accident and taken to the hospital. He’d have to call around a few, find out if they had an unnamed patient matching her description.
Tony said, “This isn’t about Shrine secrets. We’re digging into this Lydia Rosenburg person. We believe she might be the one who killed Doctor Splitfield.”
Eliana shook her head. “Why would she do that?”
Carlos had to turn away from the blood and not stare at it anymore, thinking about his sister. What was he going to tell his father? He needed real, concrete answers. Not a supposition based on good physical evidence. He needed to see those test results for himself.
He left them to their conversation and wandered through the house.
Luci had been here. He wanted to get a feel for the place, but the only feel he got was the cold, damp air. That sense of oppression Eliana had felt at the compound. It had seeped into the walls here.
He climbed the stairs, where the wooden boards creaked and groaned. Where the cold increased and he thought he heard a scratching sound. But there was no one up here.
“Hey.” Eliana touched his arm. “You okay?”
Carlos looked at her. “She isn’t dead. Not until she’s laid out on a slab at the mor—” His voice broke, and a couple of traitorous tears rolled down his cheeks. He scrubbed his hands down his face.
She put her arm around his waist, standing beside him. Looking at this place.
“Remember when we would play hide-and-seek at your house?” Eliana paused. “And Luci always hid behind her dresser, where that panel in the wall was?”
“Yeah, that was creepy. I can’t believe she got in there just so she could freak us out when we slid it back, pretending like she was some abducted kid kept in the walls.” He shook his head. “Maybe she always had a screw loose and we shouldn’t be surprised she ended up in a place like this.”
Eliana looked up at him, tucked to his side—where she belonged. “Don’t say that. We can’t give up hope.”
He didn’t want to argue, but this place sucked the hope from his soul.
Lord, where is she?
Eliana squeezed his waist. “I’m going to look in all the rooms.”
They split up, and he went the other direction down the hall, through one larger room to a grimy bathroom with a showerhead but no curtain separating the bath from the rest of the room.
No personal items on the sink. He opened the mirrored medicine cabinet over the basin and found an old toothbrush with all the bristles bent in one direction.
In the reflection of the mirror, he saw a panel on the wall behind him. Some kind of laundry closet, or it was for towels and kept them tucked near the water heater so they’d stay warm.
He shook his head and turned to the door. That wasn’t how life worked—remember a time when…and then bam, there she was. Someone had searched the whole house. They’d know if Luci had hidden somewhere. There would be blood.
No, he should check.
Carlos crouched and grabbed the inset handle, then slid the panel sideways, his breath catching in his throat. He found a woman curled up in the cupboard, dressed in a white nightgown. Dark hair spilled over her shoulders, longer than Luci had ever worn it.
He would ask forgiveness later for the things he said in that moment, before yelling, “Lia!”
Carlos slid his fingers under her throat and felt for a pulse. Her skin was warm, and he felt a faint thump. So slow.
Merciful Lord.
Eliana skidded into the bathroom, closely followed by Tony.
“I found her.” Carlos reached in to scoop Luci from the cupboard. “She’s alive.”