Page 39 of Only Girl Alive

His heavy breathing filled the line.

“You have no idea who you are messing with. You do not want to disobey me.” He disconnected the call.

Twenty

“We need to get out of here,” Eve told them once she was inside the house. “Let’s take a ride. I don’t want to be overheard.”

They took the van and remained quiet while Ray drove to a deserted parking lot and shut off the engine. Two media vehicles parked and sat watching the van. At least the press were acting normally, even if the fundamentalists were not. Eve told her team what had transpired since she had interviewed Sheila.

“Are the women in danger?” Ray asked when Eve finished.

She shook her head. “Candace thinks she is safe but that means nothing. These women do not understand what danger means unless it comes from outside the community.”

“We still haven’t seen or interviewed the only Tanner left alive,” said Clyde.

Eve had the same thought. She was trying to keep hold of her fury at not being given contact with Hannah. She needed the judge to act.

“I have the same concern and she is my top priority. I’m sending everything we have to Judge Remki. I’m including my conversations with Sheila and Candace. My recorder was running when the church suits arrived. We must have access to Hannah, at least a short interview.”

“The county attorney knows the judge will put a stop to the interference,” Collin stated.

“We’re not seeing the bigger picture,” Eve told them. “Something is missing. Treachery runs the church and always has. It’s possible Kathryn is a set-up. I don’t feel Candace was lying but if her husband told her to, she would.”

“Do you still think the killer is a woman?” Bina asked. They’d discussed it again in the room the night before.

Eve shook her head in frustration. “It makes sense the church would cover up a woman because the media would go crazy and it would impact the church negatively. That said, what if it were one of the seed bearers?”

“Just that phrase gives me the creeps.” Bina rubbed her arms.

“I think we can all agree on that,” Ray said.

Eve glanced at Clyde who was remaining quiet during the exchange. He had his thinking face on and would speak when he was ready. Eve knew the fact they hadn’t been able to physically check on Hannah’s well-being bothered him. He did better inside his head and Eve would let him work.

The rest of her team had more luck when they talked through events and quashed the non-working ideas methodically. The one thing they could all agree on at this point was the strangeness of the response from the church. As their conversation wound down, Clyde finally spoke.

“We handle this completely by the book and double-check everything. Get the judge involved immediately so we can begin interviews. No matter what the church is covering up, they won’t be able to keep every person silent. We do our job and stop allowing them to call the shots.”

With everyone in agreement, they prioritized their list of what needed to be done and helped Eve draft the information for the judge. Before they returned to the scene, she sent the email along with the audio recordings.

A mile from the Tanner home, they picked up a tail. The God squad in their large black lifted truck had arrived.

They locked the Tanner home and returned to the hotel. While Bina took a shower, Eve braided her hair and climbed into bed. She didn’t feel like being sociable and exhaustion caught up to her and she fell asleep. The following morning, she was groggy, her sleep disrupted by running thoughts in her head each time she woke up. She needed extra caffeine to start the day.

First, they planned the final walk-through of the Tanner home. Afterward, the house would remain on lockdown with police security. Eve’s team would not go back inside unless they had to find evidence that matched something discovered in the interviews. Usually, the home was released to family as soon as their initial investigation was finished, but no family had come forward and the longer they controlled the scene’s integrity, the better. There were too many unanswered questions.

They entered the silent house, its walls keeping the secrets the home still had. The downstairs wasn’t the pristine area it had been when they arrived. Dark gray fingerprint dust stained the walls and other surfaces. They were here to collect the evidence markers, Sharpies, and tape. Someone else would clean the blood from floors and walls. Carpet would be replaced. She wondered if whoever lived here next would feel the evil that Eve did. It wasn’t the house’s fault, but she didn’t know how someone could live here.

“Room by room,” she said.

They began their final walk through the house of horror.

Looking at the beds and the dried blood one last time, Eve tried to keep her childhood memories at bay without succeeding.

She remembered entering her bedroom when she was around eight and finding a dead mouse on her pillow. She’d screamed and been sent to bed without supper after her mother removed it. This was one of the last memories she had of Maggie before she left the home. Maggie was not upset for Eve; she was terrified about something.

Eve had no proof Aaron placed the mouse on her pillow, but his eyes gave him away. He liked when she didn’t keep sweet. He excelled at torment.

The team stayed quiet for the most part while they walked the Tanners’ house. Usually, their last walk included conversation about the next stage of the investigation.

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