Page 93 of The Sister's Curse

I stared at the footage, over and over. Something black washedover the lens. It looked to me like spray paint—black spray paint, like the kind used to create the ouroboros symbols that kept appearing.

I listened to the audio, hearing whispered female voices. The speech was too indistinct for me to understand what they said, but it sounded as if they approached and then receded into the distance. The alarm company’s log showed that the front door opened three times after the Sumners left. Once was moments after the video was killed; the second time was a half hour later; and the third was fifteen minutes after that, when, I calculated, I’d found Leah in the field.

Witches.I thought of the cape I’d found. I’d been expecting Jeff or one of his cronies to be at fault here, and disappointment flashed through me.

Leah was involved with this.

The log showed a fault in zone 16, the back door, around the time Mason must have left.Interesting.

I changed the view to the back cameras, and a chill settled over me. I saw the back door open, but I didn’t see anyone open it. Maybe it was because of the angle, but it looked creepy as hell.

Mason walked out onto the back deck. He was holding his left arm up, the way a child does when their hand is being held by an adult. But there was no adult there.

I watched as Mason moved off the deck and out of the camera frame, still holding his arm up. It looked a helluva lot like the kid was being led by someone unseen.

I also checked the cameras for the night that Viv disappeared. I wanted to see if the Kings of Warsaw Creek were in the living room, watching the game.

But I got nothing.

I went through Leah’s phone records. Thanks to a warrantissued by Judge Chamberlain, the private messaging app she was using had coughed up the user profiles and associated phone numbers she’d been texting. It took only a little time to match them up to the other girls in her homeschool pod—seven of them. The numbers matched the girls’ numbers saved in Leah’s contacts.

But there was one number that wasn’t in her contacts.

It belonged to Viv Carson.

I exhaled, only beginning to understand the rebellion that had begun to foment beneath the nose of the church.

I got a call from Kara from CPS and picked up right away.

“Leah wants to go back to her house to get some of her clothes,” she said, “but she says she’s afraid to go. Would you mind accompanying us?”

“Of course I can help.”

“Great. I’ll meet you at the church.”

I exhaled. This was my chance to poke around Sims’s haunts without a warrant.

—

The church parking lot was empty except for Kara’s station wagon. I parked next to it and approached Leah.

“Hey,” I said awkwardly. “How are you holding up?”

Leah met my gaze and nodded. “I’m good.”

I glanced at Kara, behind her. She nodded.

“I’m happy to help you, however you need,” I said.

The parsonage was still, locked up, with no porch lights on. Maybe Sims had never intended to return the night he died.

“How long have you lived here?” I asked Leah.

She lifted a shoulder. “We didn’t move in here until after Mom died. I hate it.” Leah opened the red front door with her keys, leading us inside.

I stared at the cross made of railroad spikes above the door.

“Leah,” I said, “do you know what that is?”