CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Brenda Colter’s house stood at the end of a short red-bricked drive with a dead planter by the step and a porch light that had been left on in daylight.
Selena killed the engine and sat for a moment with the key in her hand.
From the outside, the place looked too ordinary for what had happened to the owner. White siding gone dull with weather. Brown shutters needing paint. A plastic chair tilted near the wall as if Brenda had meant to sit out there one evening and never got around to it.
Selena got out, mounted the steps, put on a pair of blue forensics gloves, and unlocked the door.
The house held the stale stillness of shut windows and routine interrupted.
Coffee, laundry powder, old upholstery. A television remote lay on the arm of the couch.
A throw blanket had slipped half to the floor.
Beside the lamp sat three magazines fanned out on a side table, and a candle that had burned low enough to show Brenda had used it sparingly, stretching the last inch of wax.
Selena closed the door behind her and let her eyes adjust.
Living room. Kitchen. Short hallway. Bedroom and bath.
Small place. But Selena had learned that small places could hold big secrets.
She started with the living room because it sat nearest. A search done properly had discipline to it. Drawers first. Surfaces next. Then shelves, containers, pockets, frames. Nothing got skipped because it looked harmless.
The side tables gave her a broken compact, two gas-station receipts, aspirin, a lighter, gum, and a coupon booklet.
The television stand held more of the same.
A few paperback thrillers sat on the low bookshelf with creased spines and cracked covers, read more than once.
Cookbooks beside them, the cheap spiral-bound sort from church fundraisers and local women’s groups.
One framed photograph showed Brenda smiling beside Gus Farley on his porch.
Brenda’s head tilted toward him. Gus looked as though he would rather be snoozing than posing for a camera.
Selena set the photo back carefully. She felt a pang.
Selena always did her best not to show her emotions.
But the truth was, the job took a toll. She felt the loss.
The fact Brenda had no family other than a distant cousin made it almost feel worse.
Other than Gus and a remorseful ex, there was no one to grieve for her. Selena would have to do that herself.
She was hoping she’d find something that would connect her to a church or chapel, considering the religious nature of her death. But she was being disappointed at every turn.
Nothing religious there. Nothing secretive. No ministry card tucked in a book. No desperate note hidden in a drawer.
The kitchen came next.
A cereal bowl sat crusted in the sink beside two mugs with coffee rings dried at the bottom.
Magnets on the fridge held a diner shift schedule, an overdue utility bill, and a child’s drawing in bright marker that could only have belonged to someone else’s kid.
A friend they didn’t know about? One drawer held rubber bands, a flashlight, loose batteries, and unused envelopes.
Another gave up paper napkins, takeout menus, and a bundle of plastic cutlery.
Pantry shelves held canned soup, cheap pasta, crackers, instant noodles.
Mail on the counter said Brenda was behind on more than one payment. Water. Electric. Credit card. A doctor’s reminder card for an appointment she had missed. Grocery receipts. No church bulletins. No notes from clergy. No sign-up slips for a Bible group. No devotional book with a folded page.
Selena stood by the counter and looked over it again.
If Brenda had been reaching for religion, she was hiding it well. Usually, people who were religiously inclined sign-posted it with an occasional trinket or painting. But nothing so far.
Bathroom next.
Cheap shampoo. Cheap foundation. Pink disposable razor.
Pack of cigarettes tucked behind towels in the cabinet as if she had once meant to quit and then stopped performing the effort for anyone.
Medicine cabinet stocked with aspirin, antacids, tampons, an expired antibiotic prescription. Nothing useful.
Bedroom last.
That room carried more of Brenda than the others.
Bed unmade. Laundry half folded in a plastic basket.
Jeans over a chair. Drugstore hairbrush on the dresser tangled with dark strands.
A necklace with a broken clasp. One bottle of perfume nearly empty.
Another framed photo, this one Brenda alone somewhere outdoors holding a plastic cup and laughing at whoever stood outside the edge of the shot.
Selena searched the dresser.
Socks. Underwear. T-shirts. One donation envelope with no church name written on it and nothing inside.
A Bible turned up in the bedside drawer.
For a second she thought she had it. Then she opened it and found clean pages, no underlining, no notes, just a funeral card tucked into Psalms from Brenda’s mother’s service five years earlier.
Closet next. A winter coat. Several dresses in plastic from the dry cleaner.
Selena wondered if she used them when she was working as an escort.
Unfortunately, if they had been dry cleaned, there was almost no chance of getting DNA from the dresses to identify who her customers were.
Shoes lined up unevenly on a couple of shelves.
A cardboard box on the top shelf holding old birthday cards and pictures of what looked like grandparents when Brenda was young.
Selena climbed down from the bed and stood with both hands on her hips.
Nothing.
She went back into the kitchen and stood very still. People sometimes disposed of their hopes. They’re just too painful, like looking at the warming sun while flailing in icy waters.
That thought came quietly, then stayed.
A woman might keep love letters. She might keep old photographs.
But if Brenda had attended something that felt raw or shameful or naive, something that admitted she needed saving, she may not have wanted that lying on the counter for anyone to see.
Not a neighbor. Not a boyfriend. Not a man leaving her room.
Hope could humiliate people when it arrived too late in life.
If she had gone somewhere on impulse, she might not have filed the proof away.
She might have thrown it out.
Selena’s gaze dropped to the trash can under the sink.
“There you are,” she murmured.
She pulled on gloves, took out the bag, and got to work.
Coffee grounds clung to a takeout lid. Eggshells cracked softly under her fingers through the latex. Junk mail. A yogurt cup. Bread wrapper. Greasy paper from a burger.
Halfway down, Selena found a piece of thick paper trapped between a frozen-meal sleeve and a damp envelope.
She drew it free and unfolded it carefully.
MERCY ROAD MINISTRIES
The words sat in red over a white tent painted gold from within, the sort of image designed to look holy to lonely people in parking lots.
Three nights of renewal.
Three nights of deliverance.
You are not lost.
Selena’s eyes narrowed.
Below the slogan ran the details:
Pastor Elias Croft and His Words of Wisdom
Eagleton Fairgrounds
Thursday through Saturday.
Evening worship, testimony, song, healing prayer.
Near the bottom, in smaller type:
Bring your burdens. Leave without them.
She checked the rest of the bag, then the outside bin by the back step. More wrappers, wet paper, a split bag of potatoes gone mushy in the corner. Nothing else.
Back in the kitchen, she slipped the flyer into an evidence sleeve and laid it flat on the counter.
Traveling revival. A moving circuit meant temporary crowds, heightened emotion, strangers coming and going.
A perfect place for a predator to watch women who looked desperate, ashamed, or newly devout.
It also meant Brenda had chosen to go somewhere she could disappear into without half the county seeing her sit in a pew.
She almost wanted to thank the silent house.
By the time Selena locked Brenda’s front door again, she had the first lead in the case that felt alive.
By the time Selena rushed into the sheriff’s office with the news, someone else had arrived before her.
“This is Brian Gimble,” Connor said. “Brian, this is Agent Raven from the FBI.”
He nodded mournfully.
“Pleased to meet you,” Selena said. Brian Gimble stood near Cheryl’s desk with a paper cup in both hands.
The coffee had gone untouched. He didn’t look twenty-two, in the way grief could make someone seem abruptly younger and older at once.
Eyes swollen and rimmed red. Skin gone gray under the freckles.
Hoodie zipped wrong on the second tooth like he had dressed in the dark and never noticed.
One leg bounced though the rest of him was trying very hard to stay still.
Connor stood beside him, not crowding him, speaking in a voice low enough that Cheryl had to pretend not to listen even though she clearly was.
Connor turned to Selena. “You find anything useful?”
Selena held up the evidence sleeve. “I think so.”
Brian’s gaze fixed on it. “What’s that?”
“A flyer,” Selena said. “From Brenda Colter’s trash. The previous victim.”
Something flickered across his face. Recognition maybe, or only fear that every new object now had the power to say something terrible about his mother.
Connor nodded toward the corridor. “Let’s use the briefing room, if you’re okay with that, Brian?”
Brian followed them without argument.
Inside, he took the chair nearest the door. Connor pulled a second chair back for Selena and stayed standing a moment, reading the boy the way he might read a witness right at the edge of bolting. Then he sat, too, hands loose on his knees.
Selena placed the flyer on the table and kept her voice soft.
“I’m sorry about your mother, Brian,” she said.
His throat moved. “Everybody keeps saying that.”