Page 24 of Deadly Secrets
Chapter Five
Five hours later, Roman had reviewed every photo, video, autopsy report, and interview with Brooke. Shane and Winslow worked on separating the parts of each sigil to find potential common links and any hidden meanings associated with them. Polly ordered takeout—it was going to be another long night—and Nadia had gone for a run to clear her head.
Roman could use one too, but Brooke was still going strong, and he was afraid if he suggested they take a break, she might realize she’d missed her flight home and bail on him.
So while the sun sank low in the west, Roman ignored the clock and his growling stomach and kept working too.
Outside of the bodies, each crime scene held few leads. Undocumented immigrants had family and friends, but finding them and getting them to open up was the trick. Some were also part of the groups The Reverend had murdered, so there were almost no leads on that end.
The lone video from the previous night had been shot outside, in the dark, and never showed Pastor Luke’s face.
The interviews they had on record revolved around the St. Paul mission where The Reverend had found his second group of victims. The people who’d met him spoke of him in glowing terms, but they’d all admitted to not actually knowing him. He’d claimed to be on a quest from Jesus, going from town to town to help the poor and homeless. He’d only appeared at St. Paul’s for a few days before disappearing again. Apparently, it had been enough time to make contact with a group of undocumented immigrants searching for salvation.
The descriptions of him from the volunteer staff and the homeless who frequented the daily noon food line varied considerably. Some said he was short, others tall. Some claimed he was blond, others said he had dark hair. The mission had no security cameras, nor were there any traffic cams or ATM cameras in that area.
The Reverend had chosen his research site well.
“How did he find the first and third groups?” Brooke asked, thumbing through a stack of papers. It was just her and Roman at the conference table at the moment and they’d spread out everything into segments, like a giant murder board. “Why did he need the mission to find his second group? He didn’t need help finding the others.”
“Maybe he did and we just haven’t found the link to those yet. The only reason we discovered the mission was because one of the vics had a tract from the church in his pocket. But The Reverend’s appearance there happened after the first group was killed, so it’s unlikely he found them that way, and no one at the mission recognized any of the victims from the first group.”
“What about last night’s victims?”
“Polly canvassed the place today. No hits. The staff is all volunteer and turnover is high. Same with their clientele. We’ll have to hit them up again and see if we can come up with better intel.”
She gnawed on her bottom lip. “Hmm.”
He saw the wheels turning in her head. “What?”
The prompt made her wiggle her lips back and forth in a gesture Roman had come to realize was her “chewing” on a theory. It was cute, reminding him of Belinda, his niece, when she was deciding on an outfit for one of her dolls. Her pursed lips would go to one side, then the other before she made her choice. Brooke seemed to do the same when deciding what to offer up in the form of working hypotheses.
She rose, kicking her chair back and pacing to the other end of the table. “Three different saints, three different sigils, one group of victims targeted through the mission, but no mission connection to the other two groups as of yet.”
“Correct.”
Leaning forward, she put her hands on the table, her gaze on the papers in front of her, but she didn’t seem to be seeing them. She opened her mouth to speak when a sharp buzzing noise came from her purse. Her nose screwed up for a moment and she suddenly looked at her watch. “Oh, crap,” she said, hustling over to her purse. She gave Roman an apologetic look. “Sorry, I have to take this.”
She cut off the blaring ringtone, answering the phone and heading for the front doors, seeking privacy.
He should offer his office, but for the moment, he simply sat and enjoyed the view as she hurried away, hips swaying in her tight jeans.
During the afternoon she’d taken the pins from her hair, running her fingers through it and letting it hang loose. In her haste to get out of the office, wisps blew back from her face, the rest flowing down her back in waves created from her earlier bun.
And now he was hungry for something besides food.
“Hi, David,” he heard her say. “I’m so sorry. I got completely caught up—”
She disappeared out the door mid-sentence and Roman wondered who David was and if he was going to take Brooke away from him.
Polly appeared in front of him, blocking his view. “Food will be here in 45.”
“Great,” he said, no longer hungry. He raised his voice so Shane and Win would hear. “Everybody take a break.”
As the others did as instructed, Roman debated following Brooke into the foyer and eavesdropping. She’d been about to share an idea with him—he’d seen the light in her eyes, the one his agents got when they had anahamoment—and he didn’t want her to lose that thought.
He didn’t want to loseherperiod.
In the past few hours, she’d been like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge. She claimed not to have a photographic brain, but he wondered. She certainly retained more details and information about various religions and serial killers than he had witnessed in a single human being. And she was so determined to catch this guy.
