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Jenna stepped into St. Michael’s sanctuary, followed by Jake and Frank. The afternoon sun slanting through tall stained glass windows spread dappled colors across the pews and the team of people working there.

Jenna spotted Officer Maria Delgado moving methodically along the pews, tracing the wood grain as if it might reveal something of importance. Jenna watched the meticulous examination, appreciating the thoroughness that made her one of Jenna’s most trusted officers.

“Maria,” Jenna called out. Maria straightened up from her crouch and turned towards the sound.

“Have you seen Colonel Spelling?” Jenna asked. Maria’s posture shifted to attention, a sign of respect for Jenna’s rank as much as for the urgency of her inquiry.

“Last I saw him, Sheriff, he was heading towards the sacristy,” Maria responded, pointing toward the rear of the church. “Said something about checking the vestment closets.”

Jenna reached into her pocket and pulled out the evidence bag with Caroline Weber’s hair glinting under the solemn light. The lock of hair was their most tangible link to the woman who had vanished from Trentville, never to be seen again until her body had been found in the closet near the back of the nave

“Whenever you can take a break from your work, I need you to do something for me.” Jenna instructed, “This has to go to Dr. Stark at the morgue. It should help firm up the identification of one of our victims.”

“Of course, Sheriff,” Maria responded, her tone equally serious. She tucked the bag securely into her own pocket. “I’ll go when I’m finished with these rows assigned to me. Anything else?”

“Keep your eyes open,” Jenna cautioned. “We’re still not sure what we’re dealing with here.”

Maria nodded, and turned to resume her painstaking work. Jenna watched her for a moment, appreciating the dedication she always displayed before signaling to Jake and Frank to follow her towards the sacristy. The hushed atmosphere of the church seemed to amplify their footsteps as they proceeded down the aisle.

They wound their way out of the huge main space of the church to a smaller room well behind the area where the pulpit stood—the sacristy where the priests prepared themselves for each service. The heavy wooden door stood open, revealing Colonel Chad Spelling inside, his figure imposing against the backdrop of delicate vestments and sacred artifacts. The sacristy was dim, a smaller stained glass window casting a sprinkle of colors that did little to pierce the shadows.

Spelling stood with his back to them and did not turn immediately, his focus absorbed by the contents of the wardrobe.

“Chad,” Frank’s voice cut through the stillness, causing Spelling to halt mid-search. The Colonel turned, and the surprise on his face quickly gave way to recognition and warmth.

“Frank! Didn’t expect to see you here, old friend.” Spelling’s smile was genuine as he stepped forward, grasping Frank’s hand with both of his own—a gesture that seemed to bridge the gap between their formal titles and their shared history.

“It’s good to have you on board. We could use your expertise,” Spelling added.

“Colonel Spelling,” Jenna said, stepping forward and drawing the men’s attention.

“Ah, Sheriff Graves and Deputy Hawkins,” he greeted as he released Frank’s hand and faced them. “What brings you to this side of the investigation?”

“We’re following up on every lead,” Jenna replied, her words clipped with the need for progress. She stood there, surrounded by symbols of faith and redemption, yet weighed down by the reality of the sin they sought to expose. “Have you found anything new?”

Spelling’s expression sobered. “Not another body, anyway,” he said. His gaze swept over the small room, as if to encompass the breadth of their efforts.

“What about the bell tower?” Jake asked.

Spelling directed his attention upward as if he could see through the ceiling to the tower above. “That’s actually the least likely hiding place,” he replied confidently. “It’s solid stone construction, no cavities or closets, no spaces where a body could be concealed. Just an open stair winding upward to the old keyboard where the bells used to be played.”

Jenna more than half-wished those stones could speak. They might be able to help with the investigation. Although she was certain that a third body —that of the autoharp player — must be hidden somewhere in the church, she couldn’t bring that up without something more than a dream to explain her conviction.

“However, we haven’t come up completely empty,” Spelling broke into her thoughts, drawing an evidence bag from his pocket with a flourish.” Inside was a gold ring, its luster long faded. “One of my men found this while examining the hiding place of the body you discovered in the closet of the Sunday School room.” Although his tone was matter-of-fact, Jenna detected a note of excitement under the professional veneer. This was a clue, tangible and potentially pivotal.

Jenna leaned closer as he held it up to the light. “Purdue University,” she observed, reading the inscription. “Class of 1970.”

“Any name or initials engraved inside?” she asked Spelling,

“No, it hasn’t been personalized. But I think that a ring like this, from that period of time, is likely to be rare enough around here that we’ll be able to track down who it belonged to.”

“Good work, Chad,” Frank said, patting Spelling’s shoulder. “You said it was inside the wall with the body?”

“That’s right,” Spelling stood straight as he reported, “We found it when we cleaned out the space. According to Dr. Stark’s estimate of that death, the ring was left in the wall before Father Walsh was ever appointed here.”

Jenna peered at the ring closely. “Maybe the killer took it off to keep it from getting damaged while he was getting ready to put up the drywall, then forgot it when he sealed up the opening.”

“My guess exactly,” Spelling said. “And after he sealed it up, he didn’t want to tear it open again to get the ring back. I had one of my troopers ask Sister Agnes Kendrick if she knew of a Purdue graduate from her early days in the Parish, but she didn’t know of anyone. Of course, she admitted, she just might not remember.”

“Do you think the ring will have held prints?” Jenna asked.

“We’ve handled it carefully,” Spelling assured her. “But we won’t know about prints until we run it through the lab. I’m going to have one of my men take it there. I’m glad to have the chance to show it to you first.”

Jenna pulled out her phone and opened the evidence bag enough to snap pictures of the ring. She studied the photos for a moment, her mind already sifting through potential implications. “This could be a significant lead,” she mused aloud. “It might help us identify our killer or at least narrow down our suspect pool.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Spelling agreed, as unruffled as his uniform. “We’ll be running the ring’s details through our databases, see if we can find any connections to Trentville or the surrounding areas.”

The discovery felt to Jenna like a key, but what door might it open? It could have belonged to the killer they were looking for, but there were other possibilities. Might the ring have been left with the body to implicate someone else? Or even put there as a message?

Frank asked with an undertone of concern. “What’s your next move, Chad?”

“Honestly, Frank, I’m starting to think we’ve hit a dead end here,” Spelling admitted, his voice low and tinged with exhaustion. “We’ve searched this place top to bottom. I’m starting to doubt that there are any more bodies in this building, which I guess is good news of a sort. I’m inclined to wrap up our efforts here tonight and not resume tomorrow.”

“Colonel,” Jenna objected, “I really think we should continue the search. I believe there’s more to be found here.” She met Spelling’s gaze, hoping her earnestness would communicate the urgency she felt without betraying the supernatural nature of her insights.

Spelling regarded her with a mixture of respect and sympathy, the lines in his face deepening. “I understand, Sheriff. But we have to be realistic. We’ve been using ground-penetrating radar, thermal imaging, and good old-fashioned elbow grease to search every nook and cranny of this place.”

With a wave of his hand, he indicated the entirety of the church beyond the sacristy door.

“We’ve checked the nave, the choir loft, the confessionals, several offices, even the crawl spaces under the floors. I have some people going through pew by pew just in case anything useful turns up there. We still have a storeroom and some utility spaces to search, and we’ll stay with it until we’ve covered them. But at some point, we have to accept that we’ve found all there is to find.”

Jenna started to protest. There had to be a way to steer this search toward the third body without revealing the source of her conviction. But Jake’s hand on her arm halted her. He gave her a small, reassuring squeeze. “We should take a break,” he suggested gently. “Get some food, clear our heads. We’ve been at this for too many hours.”

She nodded reluctantly. Perhaps stepping away would grant her a new perspective. “You’re right,” she told Jake. “Frank, do you want to join us for a late lunch?”

Frank shook his head, his gaze lost somewhere in the middle distance. “I don’t have much of an appetite, to be honest. If it’s alright with you, Chad, I’d like to stay and help with the rest of the search.”

“Of course, Frank. We’d be glad to have you,” Spelling responded, his face brightening at the prospect of his old friend’s assistance. As they prepared to leave St. Michael’s behind, Spelling called after them. “Sheriff, before you go – any news on identifying our victims?”

Jenna paused, weighing the decision to share. “We believe the more recent victim might be Caroline Weber, a woman who disappeared from Trentville in 1989. She would be the one found in that closet with ring. We’re still working on identifying the older victim,” she disclosed.

“Good work. Keep me posted on any developments,” Spelling replied.

“I will. And let us know if anything changes here,” Jenna said, her tone final. Jake was right, they needed to regroup, reassess their strategy. She offered a brief nod to Spelling before leaving the sacristy.

As Jenna and Jake stepped out of the church building, she felt the late afternoon breeze whisper against her skin. Slipping into the driver’s seat of her patrol car, she glanced one last time at the bell tower slicing into the dimming sky.

“Ezra Shore’s body is still in the church somewhere, Jake,” she said quietly, a statement of fact rather than a speculation. “I’m just sure of it.”

Jake nodded, his expression grave. “Of course I believe you. But we can’t exactly tell Spelling about your dream. We’ll have to find another way to convince him to keep searching. Or figure out how to find it ourselves.”

Jenna turned the key in the ignition, the hum of the engine breaking the heavy silence between them. The dashboard clock read 4:47 PM, the digits a grim reminder that daylight was slipping away just as swiftly as the chance to continue their search for answers. She felt Jake’s gaze on her, patient and expectant.

With a decisive motion, Jenna shifted the car into drive, and the car rolled smoothly out of the parking lot, past the weathered sign marking the entrance to St. Michael’s. Jenna kept her eyes on the road ahead, but her thoughts lingered on the church they left behind, its stone facade a mute guardian of secrets she was determined to unearth.

The ring, the carillon, David Cavanaugh’s strange behavior—each element was a fragment of some larger enigma. She pondered over the old gold ring, surely a possible link to a past that refused to stay buried. Could the ring lead them to the killer, or was it merely another dead end in a maze of false leads?

“Anything we missed might as well be invisible without the right pair of eyes,” Jenna admitted.

Her grip tightened around the steering wheel. Ideas churned in her mind, each as elusive as the wisp of a dream upon waking. She needed concrete evidence, something irrefutable that could sway even the most skeptical mind.