Page 57 of Silent Prayer

Suddenly, an idea struck her.

"Finn," she said, her voice tight with urgency, "we need to search Thorne's house. If he's our guy, there's a good chance he'll have some candlesticks there, ready for future victims."

Finn frowned. "What if he's run out of candlesticks?"

Sheila took a deep breath, steeling herself for the possibility. "Then we need to be prepared to tell Dawson and the public that we might have the wrong man. And that the Coldwater Confessor could still be out there."

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Sheila's stomach did somersaults as she pulled up to Ezra Thorne's house. A clock was ticking in the back of her head, counting down the seconds until that press conference. She needed to find something definitive before then, or else there was no telling how much damage that press conference might do.

The modest two-story home sat on a quiet street, its white paint peeling slightly in the late afternoon sun. A well-manicured lawn stretched out front, at odds with the sinister suspicions swirling in Sheila's mind.

"Sheila," Finn said, his voice tight with concern, "we shouldn't be here. We don't have a warrant."

She turned off the engine, her jaw set with determination. "I know, Finn. But we're running out of time. If Thorne has a collection of candlesticks, or even a single one that matches the candlesticks used on the victims, we need to find it before the press conference."

Finn sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Assuming we do find such a candlestick, any evidence we collect here won't be admissible in court. We could blow the whole case."

"We're not collecting evidence," Sheila replied, already opening her door. "We're just...looking. If we find something, we'll get a warrant. Come on."

She could tell Finn still wasn't happy, but he didn't argue further. They approached the front door, and Sheila knocked. To the best of her knowledge, Thorne lived alone, but there was no harm in checking.

No answer.

Sheila tried the handle—locked, as expected. She glanced around, spotting a fake rock near a potted plant.

"Really?" Finn muttered as she lifted it to reveal a key. "That's so cliché."

Sheila shrugged, inserting the key. "Sometimes the classics work best."

The door swung open with a creak, revealing a dimly lit entryway. Sheila stepped inside, her senses on high alert. The house smelled of old books and something herbal—incense, maybe.

"You take the ground floor, I'll go upstairs," she said.

Finn nodded reluctantly, still clearly uncomfortable with the situation. As he moved toward the living room, Sheila climbed the stairs, her footsteps muffled by the thick carpet.

The upper floor was a maze of closed doors. Sheila opened the first one, revealing a sparse guest bedroom. Nothing out of the ordinary caught her eye—just a neatly made bed and a dresser with a few framed photos. She moved on.

The next room was clearly Thorne's study. Bookshelves lined the walls, crammed with tomes on religion, philosophy, and astronomy. A large desk dominated the center of the room, its surface covered in papers filled with complex diagrams and scribbled notes.

Sheila rifled through the drawers, her heart pounding. She found more papers, a few USB drives, but no candlestick. Frustration gnawed at her as she moved to the closet.

Boxes of files, more books, but nothing that could be a murder weapon.

She was about to leave when something caught her eye. A small safe, tucked away in the corner of the closet. Sheila knelt down, examining it closely. There was no keyhole, just a smooth metal surface with an intricate design etched into it.

Her fingers traced the pattern. It looked familiar—a series of interconnected lines and dots. Constellations, she realized.Orion, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major—the same ones mentioned in the Confessor's letters.

Sheila's mind raced. Was this a combination lock? She tried pressing the stars in various sequences, following the mythological stories associated with each constellation. Nothing happened.

Frustration mounting, she sat back on her heels, staring at the safe. There had to be a way in. Her eyes wandered to Thorne's desk, which was covered in astronomical charts and diagrams. Maybe there was a clue there?

She rifled through the papers, her heart pounding with every creak of the old house. A sheet caught her attention—a star chart with certain constellations circled in red. But it wasn't the constellations themselves that interested her. It was the numbers scribbled next to each one.

Sheila rushed back to the safe, hope rising in her chest. She pressed the stars in the sequential order indicated by the numbers. Twenty-one, forty-three, fifty-six, seventy-one…

Nothing.

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