Page 66 of Forever Dark
Three nights of renewal.
Three nights of deliverance.
Youare 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.
