by Lori Ryan
She had time for roll call, two more cups of coffee and thirty-two of the emails in her flooded inbox before the woman emailed back and she was in the car on the way to her apartment in the next county. The time out of the office wasn’t something she could really spare, but Eve wanted answers. Everything in her gut screamed the church was at the center of the disappearances and that church had been functioning unchecked for years. She needed the kind of inside information the woman had.
Eve didn’t know what she expected, but the woman at the door was a surprise. She must have, at one time, had the long hair and modest clothing of the other church women Eve had seen. But now, Abigail Tanner had short spiky blond hair. Her clothes were more modern looking than those worn in the church, but she still wore a long maxi skirt that covered most of her legs and a long-sleeved shirt. It was almost like she was purposefully trying to leave the church dictates behind but hadn’t made it all the way there.
“Abigail Tanner?” Eve asked, pulling her identification out.
“Gail,” the woman said, stepping back to let Eve in.
Eve introduced herself and followed Gail into the small apartment.
She wondered if church life had prepared the woman for any kind of work, any way to make a living.
“Thank you for agreeing to talk to me,” Eve said as she took a seat on a folded-up futon couch and Gail sat on a tattered chair nearby.
“I don’t know if I can help.”
Eve saw hesitation and doubt in Gail. It was the kind of doubt that came from years of being told your worth was next to nothing. That the woman had had the guts to walk away from the church spoke volumes.
“You were born in the Blessed Divine Church?” Eve asked.
Gail nodded. “My parents and sisters are still there. I couldn’t get them to leave.”
There was pain etched into every syllable of that truth.
“We’re looking into the disappearance of some women. Anything you can tell me about the church will be helpful.”
She folded her hands carefully in her lap. “I’ll try.”
Eve didn’t want to jump right into why the woman had left the church. She needed to send some softballs her way to get her talking, get her to open up.
“Can you tell us how many members live on the church grounds. Our understanding is that services are attended by more than just those who live in the church.”
Gail shook her head. “They like to say that and there are a few people who live off the grounds, but they don’t usually attend long. It’s like there’s a timeline. You either sell your worldly possessions, donating most of the proceeds to the church, and move onto the grounds or you’re treated as an outsider and pushed out.”
“What about the meals the church provides for homeless people? Are they used to recruit?”
“Yes. I don’t think we get a lot of people that way, though.” She seemed to catch herself. “They. I don’t think they get a lot of people that way. But it helps with public perception of the church if they’re feeding the poor. It started back when the church was under attack as a cult.”
“Do you think it’s a cult?” Eve asked as gently as she could manage.
Gail shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe more like a commune. Everyone works, everyone shares in the Lord’s abundance.”
Eve pushed a little harder. “Can you tell me why you left?”
Gail’s eyes darted to the floor. “I was married to Gentry Coltrane when I was sixteen. He was older than me, but he was a good husband. He was well-liked in the church. My father thought he was a good match.”
“It was an arranged marriage?”
Gail nodded at Eve. “He was …” she seemed to search for words. “I guess a good husband at first? He was kind. He had rules, but if I followed them, cleaned and cooked and stayed within the rules of what a good wife was supposed to do, he was … nice?”
It seemed almost painful for her to speak out against this man, as though the idea of it was anathema.
She squirmed in her seat. “When we got into our fourth year of marriage and I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet, he began to get harsher, mean sometimes. He told me it was my failure as a wife and a woman. He was always pointing to his mother as an example of a pious wife, a good wife.”
Now Gail was studying a spot on the floor intently. “I believed him for a long time. I wracked my brain for the sin I might have committed to deserve this punishment from God. But one day, I wondered if it wasn’t my sin. If it was my husband’s. If he’d done something he needed to atone for.”
Eve fought not to clench her fists. She hated to think what had happened at that suggestion.
Silence dragged for minutes as Eve waited for Gail to collect herself and continue.
When she did, Eve wanted to leave and march to the church, guns blazing. Not that she would. She believed in the rule of law. In the right of it. Still, the urge was there.
Gail took a deep breath. “He sent me to his father’s house for punishing. Said his father would train me, send me back when I was ready to be a dutiful wife.”
Her knuckles paled white where she gripped her hands together and Eve could see she was barely holding tears in check. “I stayed one night and then ran to my family. I thought for sure my parents would protect me. Defend me.”
It took a long time for her to get the next words out. “They sent me back. Told me it was my duty to honor my husband’s decisions. Even if that meant laying with his father.”
Eve pressed her lips together to keep in the vitriol and rage that wanted to burst from her.
“I couldn’t go back. I got halfway there and just couldn’t make myself do it. So I slipped out the back of the compound and ran.” Now her eyes came up and she looked at Eve. “I was so terrified. I couldn’t breathe for weeks. I went to a shelter, but I was so afraid someone from the church would come after me. Every time I saw a man with a beard out of the corner of my eye, my heart stopped, thinking it was my husband coming to bring me back.”
Eve had already told the woman she wouldn’t push her to press charges. It had been part of their agreement in convincing her to talk to them. Still, she had to make the offer.
“I can help you bring charges and seek a divorce if you want to move forward with that, Gail.” She kept her tone quiet and steady.
Gail’s head shake, no, was immediate and forceful.
Eve nodded. “I understand.” She didn’t. Not really. But she’d never been in this woman’s position. Eve had been raised in a family where she was respected, taught to value herself and demand respect.
Gail had been shown time and time again that she wasn’t valued, that she couldn’t stand up to those who harmed her. Eve could only hope she would convince her to stand against the church someday, but today would not be that day.
And since Gail had already told her she wouldn’t testify against the church and wouldn’t sign an affidavit, nothing she got here would help her get a warrant. She needed to find a church member who was willing to go on the record.
Still, she was one step closer than they had been because now she knew they were on the right track with the church.
Eve pulled out the photos she’d brought of the missing women. She had printed them but also had other women in the stack of photos who were unrelated to the case. She handed the images to Gail.
“Can you tell me if you recognize any of these women?”
Eve waited as Gail paged through the images one-by-one. She pulled out three photos and placed them on the coffee table in front of her. She pulled another one out and put it into a separate stack and then handed the rest to Eve.
She put her finger on the single photo she’d pulled out. “This is Grace. She’s not at the church anymore.”
Eve looked and saw that it was Samantha Greer’s photo.
“Do you know when she left?”
The girl lifted a shoulder again.
“Can you remember why she left?”
Gail shook her head. �
��She was going to marry the reverend’s brother but she went home to her family instead.”
“Did anything about that strike you as odd? Did it seem off that she left like that?”
Another head shake. “People leave the church sometimes.”
Gail pointed to the other photos. She had pulled out three of the missing girls’ images. “I know these women. They’re in the church.” She touched the photo of Carina. “This one might be Charity, but she’s older so it’s hard to say.”
She pointed next to the picture of Katie. “This is Haven. She’s much older now but she has those same dark eyes and that little scar over her top lip.”
The last one she pointed to was Susie Norman. “This is Purity.”
Eve kept her face blank at the names. She had to wonder who assigned the women virtues as names. Had they chosen them themselves or were they dictated by someone when they entered the church.
“You know each of these women?” Eve prompted.
Gail nodded. “They’re church members. They live on the compound.”
“Do you know when they came to the church?”
Gail looked back at the pictures and pursed her lips. “I’m not sure exactly. Haven has been there for a long time. As long as I can remember. Purity and Charity are newer. I think they came seven years ago? Maybe a little more.”
“Did they arrive at the same time?” Eve asked.
“Nooo,” Gail said slowly as though searching for the information in her memories of a time she’d probably much rather forget. “I think Charity came a little earlier than Purity. Maybe a year or so before her.”
The timelines weren’t adding up. The women all showed up at the church years after their disappearances. The same as Samantha supposedly had. Something wasn’t right here.
“And they were still living on the church grounds when you left there?” Eve asked.
Gail nodded, yes.
“Did you get the sense they were there willingly? Was there anything off about the women?”
Gail frowned. “I mean, they seem perfectly happy there. I didn’t have any reason to think they weren’t there for any reason other than that they wanted to be there.”
As Eve said goodbye to the woman, one thing ran through her mind. She couldn’t keep calling that place a church. There wasn’t a damned bit of God in what was happening behind those compound walls. It was a cult.
Eve blew out a breath as she unlocked her car. She didn’t know if she could get a warrant with the information she had. The DA still saw this as a church with a history of what some see as persecution by the police. She could do a well check on Purity and Charity now that she knew they’re in there, but the church could refuse and it might put the two women in danger by letting them know the police had connected the missing women to the church.
She needed to be able to go in ready to make an arrest. Ready to take them down.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kemal sat by his dad’s hospital bed. Antoine was at a neighbor’s house and Kemal and his dad were waiting for his dad’s paperwork to be completed so he could check out and go home. According to the doctors, his dad was clear to go back to business as usual.
His dad had already started talking about wanting to go back to the precinct and nothing Kemal said seemed to be getting through to him. Kemal was going to need to convince Eve to tell his dad he couldn’t work the case anymore.
He rubbed his chest as he thought about Eve. He should have called her. Instead, he’d sent a text about his dad’s condition. He was an asshole. More than an asshole. She hadn’t deserved to be treated that way. She was an important part of his dad’s life and he’d kicked her out of the waiting room like she meant nothing to his dad.
Like she meant nothing to him. And damned if that wasn’t bullshit. She meant more to him than he wanted to admit. More than he was ready to handle.
“Why do you do it?” Kemal blurted the question without thinking about it, but decided to press it. “I never understood why you wanted to be a cop. You give up so much to be a cop, especially as a black man, and now that you’re out if it, you can’t wait to go back.”
His dad blew out a breath. “I don’t know that I can explain it, son. Being a cop is in my blood somehow. It’s a part of me. When I went to the academy, I did it because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to be part of the force so that kids like you and your brother would see a face that looked like theirs when they saw the police come into their community. The more I served, the more I believed I was helping make the city a better place. I still believe that.”
“Did Eve talk to you about the panel she proposed to the mayor?” Kemal asked.
Glenn nodded. “She did. I think it’s an excellent idea. I don’t know if the mayor will go for it, but I think it’s a great idea. I won’t lie to you, son. There were times on the force I felt the hate that can come with the color of my skin. There were times I saw officers acting in ways that told me they were making calls based on the skin color of the people they were dealing with and their actions were rooted in hatred and racism.”
Kemal listened as his dad went on.
“There were other times I saw things, people making decisions—often split-second ones—that I thought were rooted in poor training or just plain old ignorance. Sometimes, you look at a situation and you say, that person needs to be outta here. They have no business being on this side of the law. Other times, you look at a case and you think this person shouldn’t be here because they aren’t ready for this responsibility, they aren’t capable of wearing this badge with the gravity and honor it demands. But at the end of the day, what mattered to me the most was that I needed to see those cases being looked at. I fought at every turn in my career to be sure each incident of police force was reviewed and not pushed under the rug. I didn’t always succeed.
“I sometimes wonder if I hadn’t been a police officer, if your brother would have landed in jail the way he did. Don’t get me wrong. I know he made his own choices, but did my job push him that way? I know you rebelled because of it and you straightened yourself out before you ended up in prison with him, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder if I pushed him that way.”
Kemal shook his head. “He shouldn’t be serving as long as he is. It was a little bit of pot.” It still pissed him off that his brother was serving such a long sentence for something that was now legal in their state. If he’d been selling pot just a few years later, he wouldn’t have gone to jail at all. And he’d been sentenced to a hell of a lot longer term than any white boy caught selling the shit.
His dad nodded. “Yeah and that’s an issue we need to fight but that’s not on the police. That’s the legislature, the courts. We have battles we need to fight on all fronts, son. And we all do our part in our own way. Long as you ain’t burying your head in the sand, you’re doing something. There are some who would say my career suffered because I pushed for those things, and they’re right in some ways. I was never pushed up to captain or anything like that. But I never saw that as a failure. I served with pride. I held to my beliefs, and I think I served our community well.”
Kemal didn’t know what to think. His feelings about his dad’s job had always been so tangled up and convoluted. They still were. And right now, he saw his dad being pulled back into the stress of the job and that scared the shit out of Kemal.
But as he sat there with his dad, he realized something he hadn’t acknowledged in a long time.
“I’m proud of you, dad.”
His dad’s mouth pressed together and he saw him blink.
Kemal tried to break the tension. “Damn, man, don’t cry. I’m just saying I’m proud is all.”
His dad grinned, but also pulled Kemal forward and then they were hugging. And damn, if that didn’t feel good. It had been too damned long. He and his dad had been living with too much space between them for too long. It felt good to talk like this. Good to know that even if they didn’t always agree a
nd didn’t always see things the same way, that there was still love there to come back to. Always would be.
“Are we going to talk about Eve now or are you planning to pretend you don’t have feelings for her?”
His dad’s question shocked Kemal.
He scrubbed a hand up and over his hair, like he could scrub away the stupid. He’d been an idiot where Eve was concerned.
“I, uh, I don’t think my feelings are going to matter much. I was an ass to her when you were back with the doctors.”
“Is that why she’s not here?” his dad asked.
Kemal nodded. “I told her thank you for getting you here and told her she could leave.”
Kemal looked up at the sound of his dad’s wheezing. Well, damn. The man was laughing at him hard enough he looked like he might choke.
Kemal scowled. “I’m glad this is funny to you.”
His dad just shook his head like he was trying to catch his breath and talk but couldn’t.
So much for getting any words of wisdom from his dad. Apparently, he was on his own for figuring this one out.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Eve put in the call to the DA and was waiting to hear back. In the meantime, she updated Sevier and Cantu on what she’d found out from Gail.
“I’ll grab you guys if the DA gets us a search warrant,” Eve said, nodding at her detectives in dismissal.
She heard them stand but when she looked up, only Cantu was leaving the room.
“Something you need, Sevier?”
She was surprised when he shut her office door and sat back down.
“Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”
Eve laughed and got a grin from him in return. She’d never been one to stand on ceremony with her detectives, so he was making a joke with the line.
Still, he cleared his throat. “I, uh, I was actually hoping to talk to you about something as, uh, friends for a minute.”