CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
Selena leaned back in the chair. “I see.”
“I can expand the search,” Brent said, “but I don’t think this is going to bear fruit. Maybe you should find another angle.”
“This is the angle for now.” Her eyes stayed on the crime scene photos across the room. “There was another murder before all this. There has to have been. Otherwise, the Roman numerals make no sense. Expand the search to other counties if you can.”
A pause. Then, “Okay. I’ll keep looking.”
“Thanks, Brent.”
“Hey, when you get back…”
“Let’s see if I make it out of here alive first,” she joked.
“All right, Selena,” he said. “Take it easy.”
The call ended.
Connor had not taken his eyes off her the entire time. It reminded her of when he used to get jealous. She could almost sense it in the air.
“Who was that?” he asked.
She didn’t want to tell him about replacing his forensics team on the case.
Not yet. The argument could come later. “Someone from the field office. I’ve got people looking at crime records, seeing if there have been any other similar murders.
We’ve got Roman numerals at both scenes.
That means a sequence, but we’re missing number one. ”
Connor nodded once. “You know him well?”
Sometimes it’s like you see straight into me, Connor, she thought.
“Sure,” she replied. “He’s a good agent.
” She avoided the part where she and Brent had been seeing each other casually for a few months here and there.
Then she wondered why she had to hide it.
But the answer to that was an uncomfortable one.
He smiled and looked back down at his computer. Connor still had an effect on her. No doubt. She didn’t understand it. She didn’t want to.
Selena went back to Lauren Gimble’s page and clicked through older posts.
Vacation photos ended years ago. Family pictures grew less frequent.
Then the tone shifted. More religious content.
More questions in comment threads under church livestreams. People offering to pray for her.
Lauren thanking them. One image showed her outside a little country chapel in another county, smiling uncertainly at the camera as if she had not yet decided whether she belonged there.
Selena clicked into the family section.
“There,” she said.
“You find something?” Connor came around the desk and leaned in beside her.
Lauren’s profile showed a son, Brian Gimble, twenty-two years old.
Connor frowned. “She must’ve gotten pregnant really early. Sixteen, for the age to line up.”
“Looks that way.”
Selena kept scrolling. A recent post from Lauren shared a quote about redemption. Another about starting over. Then a longer status from three months earlier about trying to find “the right place to hear God clearly.”
A small chill went through her.
“It looks like Lauren was searching for spiritual answers,” she said. “The killer is picking religious sites, so there’s overlap. That’s a good place to start.”
She looked up at Connor. He seemed to tower over her for a moment, his shoulders wide and powerful. His aftershave brought a flood of memories to her that she had to push out of her mind. She suddenly realized she was staring.
“What is it?” he said, looking down at her with that smile that long ago could have gotten her to do almost anything.
“Nothing, sorry,” she said, flustered. “Eh… someone has to contact the son.” That was the part of the job she hated the most, telling the families.
Connor straightened. “Then I’ll contact Brian and give him the bad news.”
Selena looked up at him, feeling relieved. “Are you sure?”
He pushed a hand over the back of his neck, then let it fall.
“Yeah. This is my county. It’s my responsibility.
” There’s was no posturing in the way he said it.
Just a sheriff doing his duty. A feeling of admiration swelled from somewhere deep down inside of Selena. A place that was locked tight long ago.
“Sure thing,” Selena said.
He headed for the door, pausing only long enough to take Lauren’s printout from the board.
As he left, Selena watched him go and felt something uncomfortable and honest move through her.
Respect, certainly. Something adjacent to sorrow, too.
He had become a man people could lean on.
A far cry from the wild young husband who once tried to race a thunderstorm home from the county fair just to prove he could beat it.
When the door shut behind him, Selena turned back to the screen.
If Lauren had been reaching for faith, then perhaps Brenda Colter had, too.
If that was the case… then the church scenes were not random.
Neither were the accusations painted on the walls.
The killer was choosing women who had drifted near religion and then deciding something about them.
Judging, perhaps. Purifying, if her reading of the verse at St. Bartholomew’s had been right.
But Selena had to find evidence that Brenda had been doing a similar sort of searching before she could be sure of that.
She packed up the laptop, slid the charger into her bag, and headed back out to reception.
Cheryl looked up as she approached.
“Done already? I guess the FBI don’t work the hours county does.”
Selena stopped. She turned. “Cheryl. Whatever this is. This thing you have going where you’re needling me with these little remarks. Drop it, honey. Okay? I’m no threat to you. And anyway, I’m not quitting for the day. Still working, just like you.”
Cheryl stared at her, and for the first time she looked embarrassed, like a kid getting caught stealing candy.
“I need the keys to Brenda Colter’s home,” Selena said.
Cheryl’s eyes flickered and then she said, “Of course. It’s in evidence. Hold on.” She left reception and then moments later returned with a tagged evidence envelope with a single key inside. “You think there’s something there we missed?”
“I hope so.”
Cheryl handed it over. “It’s good you’re thorough. Arnold gave the place a once-over already, but between you and me, he sometimes misses things.”
Selena closed her hand around the key, feeling like Cheryl was trying to back off. “Thanks, Cheryl.”
She turned and headed for the door.
Outside, the morning had brightened fully over the lot. Her rental sat where she had left it, sun catching the windshield. Brenda’s house waited somewhere beyond town, quiet now, holding whatever it still held.
Selena unlocked the car and got in, already wondering what she would find.