Page 24

“Larry Clark,” Jenna muttered as she drove her patrol car through the night streets of Trentville. “We know it’s him, but he’s become a ghost.”

“But we’ll get him.” Jake replied. “We have to.”

Jenna and Jake had joined the town-wide search for Larry hours ago, but so far, neither they nor anybody else on the team had found any sign of him.

“I want to go check in with Colonel Spelling at the church before he wraps up his work there,” Jenna said.

Before Jake could reply, his cellphone buzzed, and he looked at the screen.

“A couple of our guys just texted and said they’d join the search,” Jake said. “But they’re rookies. I should fill them in and get them started. Why don’t you drop me off at my house so I can take my own car? We can join up later.”

It felt odd to Jenna that they wouldn’t be working together for a while, but she did what he asked. She pulled her cruiser up to Jake’s house, the headlights briefly illuminating the familiar facade. The two sat for a moment in the quiet of the car, reluctant to part ways. Then Jake touched her hand once and got out and walked toward his car.

“Stay safe,” Jenna whispered to no one as she drove off, although the plea seemed futile in this game of cat and mouse with a killer.

As Jenna pulled her car up in front of the church, Colonel Spelling’s team could be seen through the open doors, their silhouettes weary from the search that had yielded nothing but despair. Jenna parked and approached just as Spelling gave the order to pack up for the night.

“Colonel,” Jenna called out, her voice cutting through the night’s stillness.

Spelling turned, his face marked with fatigue. “Jenna, I didn’t expect to see you back here tonight.”

“Couldn’t shake the feeling that we’re missing something,” Jenna admitted. “Frank—is he still here?”

“Left about fifteen minutes ago. He’d done all he could for the day. One of my guys drove him home. We still haven’t found anything else here, and I’m going to shut it down for the night. We need to get out on the street and help with the search. Besides,” Spelling added with a dry chuckle, “the dead aren’t going anywhere.”

The remark would have been macabre under any other circumstances, but here, it was a grim acknowledgment of reality. Jenna’s lips tightened into a thin line, recognizing the truth in his words.

“Quite unlike our suspect, who must know lots of places to hide,” Spelling continued, the humor gone from his voice. “Larry Clark’s still out there, and I need to get my whole team out on the street.

“Jake’s getting a couple more of our officers started.”

Spelling looked at her more closely. “You should get some rest, Jenna. We need you sharp. Maybe you should turn in for tonight.”

“Thanks, maybe I will,” Jenna said, although she knew perfectly well she was going to do nothing of the kind.

Spelling led his team out, leaving the sheriff alone in the cavernous space of the nave. As the heavy doors closed behind them, Jenna found herself enveloped in silence, a startling change after the earlier bustle of activity.

The sense of solitude was profound, and for reasons she couldn’t fully articulate, Jenna felt a reluctance to leave. It was as if the church itself, with its secrets and somber history, held her tethered to the spot. She couldn’t shake the thoughts of David Cavanaugh’s claims from her head. He believed the church was haunted by the specter of Kip Selves, an idea she had dismissed as an old man’s fancy.

Here with only the silent saints for company, it was almost too easy to imagine a wraith drifting through the arches, a lingering soul caught in the web of its own tragedy. The very air seemed charged with whispers of the past, and Jenna felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. She knew such thoughts were irrational; superstitions had no place in her line of work. Yet, in the palpable silence of the church, logic seemed to fray around the edges, like the worn pages of an old hymnal.

Continuing her solitary walk, Jenna let the memories of Caroline Weber float into her consciousness. She remembered the vivid dream where Caroline’s voice had filled the silence with a deep, soulful blues song. It was strange to think of Caroline, whose life had been cut short so violently, filling the same space Jenna occupied now with music and dreams of stardom.

The urge to sing the blues melody that had haunted her dream rose unbidden within her. The words felt like a key to something locked away, something vital about the darkness that enshrouded the church. With a glance over her shoulder, ensuring she was indeed alone, Jenna hesitantly began to hum the tune, allowing the notes to fill the void.

Her voice, though not trained like Caroline’s, carried a raw emotion that resonated off the stones, wrapping around her in an almost tangible embrace. It was an act of remembrance, a tribute to the lost souls who had once filled this space with their own hopes and songs.

With a measured breath, Jenna let the first line of the blues song escape her lips, “I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees.”

Her voice was a tentative whisper, barely more than a hush against the backdrop of shadows. The words lingered for a moment before an echo returned to her—not from the stone walls, but from above.

She frowned slightly and repeated the line, clearer this time, “I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees.” Again, the echo came, a perfect mimicry of her intonation. Jenna’s heart skipped as realization dawned: the carillon bells were echoing the song. It couldn’t be—her rational mind rebelled against the possibility. Yet she couldn’t deny what her ears told her. The metallic resonance of bells reverberated through the church, mimicking her own voice.

Jenna swallowed hard, her pulse quickening. This was no ghost story; there had to be a logical explanation. She summoned Caroline Weber’s rich alto to her mind and began the next line of the haunting melody, “Asked the Lord above ‘Have mercy, save this poor girl, if you please.’” As if summoned by her entreaty, the carillon answered once more, its notes spilling into the night with eerie precision.

The memory of Zach Freelander’s insistence that the carillon had played phrases from Caroline’s favorite blues song on the night of her disappearance sent a shiver down Jenna’s spine. The coincidence was uncanny, almost too much so. Jenna knew the power of dreams and the dead, they had guided her before, but this was reality, tangible and present. The connection between the song and the carillon couldn’t be mere happenstance.

She reached for her phone to call Jake, but she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt whatever was happening. As sheriff, it was her duty to unravel the mysteries that plagued Trentville, and this supernatural occurrence—or clever trick—would not deter her. She needed to find the source of this enigma, to confront whatever or whoever was manipulating the sounds of the carillon. With her weapon in hand, Jenna steeled herself for the ascent into the bell tower, where the answers—and perhaps the murderer—awaited.

Jenna’s hand trembled slightly as she reached for the narrow, creaking stairway that wound its way up into the bell tower. The fleeting thought that it was Kip Selves’s specter haunting the carillon sent an involuntary shudder through her. Ghosts weren’t something she usually gave credence to, at least not in her waking life. But alone in the church at night, with the ghostly echo of a song connecting the present to a sinister past, even Jenna’s rational mind faltered.

“Focus,” Jenna whispered to herself, shaking off the irrational fear. “You’re the sheriff, not some scared kid.” She gripped her service weapon, reassured by its cool metal against her skin. With one last look at the sanctuary below, Jenna started her ascent, the wooden stairs protesting under her determined steps.

The climb seemed to stretch on, each step echoing in the tight space like a drumbeat in the silence of the night. As Jenna ascended, the carillon began to chime once more, this time resonating with the solemn notes of the Angelus—that call to prayer that was meant only to be played by day. Jenna couldn’t suppress a deep shiver of dread and apprehension. It was as if the dead were calling again—this time while she was awake.

It had been years since she first accepted her unusual connection to the other side, and yet she knew better than to dismiss these signs out of hand. They had led her to breakthroughs in cases before. Whoever—or whatever—awaited her in the bell tower, Jenna was resolved to face it head-on, armed with both her weapon and her wits. The melody wrapped around her, a siren’s call luring her onward, upward, into the heart of mystery that Trentville concealed behind its small-town facade.

The persistent buzz of her phone was a distant concern for Jenna as she stepped into the carillon room, her attention held by the haunting melody that filled the air. Moonlight filtered through the narrow windows, casting an eerie glow on a figure seated at the keyboard. His back to her, he loomed like a specter in the dimness, unresponsive to her presence.

“Identify yourself,” Jenna’s command cut through the music’s cadence, authoritative and sharp. There was no movement, no sign that her words had reached him. Frustration knotted in her gut; this silence was an affront, a challenge to her resolve. She advanced, every step measured, weapon drawn but held low, not yet aimed.

Then she saw that his hands weren’t even on the keys, which danced away untouched by human fingers. The keys moved with purpose, plucking out the chiming notes of the Angelus. The very air seemed to thrum with otherworldly energy, but Jenna pushed aside the creeping fear. She would not be swayed by superstition or trickery.

Her foot caught against something soft and yielding, nearly sending her sprawling. Recovering, she looked down to find plastic and linen wadded up at her feet, the same materials used to enshroud the bodies discovered within these hallowed walls. The sight was a visceral punch, dragging her back to the grim reality of her investigation. These remnants were a macabre breadcrumb trail, and she knew they bore significance—a clue or perhaps a trap.

Steadying her nerves, Jenna focused on the task at hand: confronting the figure who defied explanation. It was time to reveal the face of the person who sat so still, strangely joined with the shadows and the endless tolling of the bells.

She stepped cautiously to the side of the seated figure, her service weapon held at the ready. The dim moonlight filtering through the bell tower’s windows did little to prepare her for the ghastly sight that awaited her.

Instead of a living, breathing suspect, she found herself staring down at the time-ravaged remains of a corpse.

The desiccated body was dressed in remnants of clothing that might once have been familiar to the townsfolk of Trentville. Its skin, drawn tight over brittle bones, gave the impression of antiquity—a relic hidden away in the hushed confines of St. Michael’s. A shiver of realization ran down Jenna’s spine. This was no recent death; this was a macabre monument to a crime long past. It was the body they hadn’t been able to find, none other but Ezra Shore.

Her thoughts halted abruptly as someone grabbed her from behind, and a cord bit into the flesh of her neck. The cord tightened, strangling air and sound alike, as Jenna clawed desperately at the garrote locked around her throat. Then, chillingly clear against the strain of her gasping breaths, came a voice both known and feared.

“I never knew you had such a lovely voice, sheriff,” Larry Clark rasped into her ear, his words laced with a perverse admiration. “You’ll work wonders for the bells, just like the others did.”