CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Sheila's stomach did somersaults as she pulled up to Ezra Thorne's house. A clock was ticking in the back of her head, counting down the seconds until that press conference. She needed to find something definitive before then, or else there was no telling how much damage that press conference might do.

The modest two-story home sat on a quiet street, its white paint peeling slightly in the late afternoon sun. A well-manicured lawn stretched out front, at odds with the sinister suspicions swirling in Sheila's mind.

"Sheila," Finn said, his voice tight with concern, "we shouldn't be here. We don't have a warrant."

She turned off the engine, her jaw set with determination. "I know, Finn. But we're running out of time. If Thorne has a collection of candlesticks, or even a single one that matches the candlesticks used on the victims, we need to find it before the press conference."

Finn sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Assuming we do find such a candlestick, any evidence we collect here won't be admissible in court. We could blow the whole case."

"We're not collecting evidence," Sheila replied, already opening her door. "We're just...looking. If we find something, we'll get a warrant. Come on."

She could tell Finn still wasn't happy, but he didn't argue further. They approached the front door, and Sheila knocked. To the best of her knowledge, Thorne lived alone, but there was no harm in checking.

No answer.

Sheila tried the handle—locked, as expected. She glanced around, spotting a fake rock near a potted plant.

"Really?" Finn muttered as she lifted it to reveal a key. "That's so cliché."

Sheila shrugged, inserting the key. "Sometimes the classics work best."

The door swung open with a creak, revealing a dimly lit entryway. Sheila stepped inside, her senses on high alert. The house smelled of old books and something herbal—incense, maybe.

"You take the ground floor, I'll go upstairs," she said.

Finn nodded reluctantly, still clearly uncomfortable with the situation. As he moved toward the living room, Sheila climbed the stairs, her footsteps muffled by the thick carpet.

The upper floor was a maze of closed doors. Sheila opened the first one, revealing a sparse guest bedroom. Nothing out of the ordinary caught her eye—just a neatly made bed and a dresser with a few framed photos. She moved on.

The next room was clearly Thorne's study. Bookshelves lined the walls, crammed with tomes on religion, philosophy, and astronomy. A large desk dominated the center of the room, its surface covered in papers filled with complex diagrams and scribbled notes.

Sheila rifled through the drawers, her heart pounding. She found more papers, a few USB drives, but no candlestick. Frustration gnawed at her as she moved to the closet.

Boxes of files, more books, but nothing that could be a murder weapon.

She was about to leave when something caught her eye. A small safe, tucked away in the corner of the closet. Sheila knelt down, examining it closely. There was no keyhole, just a smooth metal surface with an intricate design etched into it.

Her fingers traced the pattern. It looked familiar—a series of interconnected lines and dots. Constellations, she realized. Orion, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major—the same ones mentioned in the Confessor's letters.

Sheila's mind raced. Was this a combination lock? She tried pressing the stars in various sequences, following the mythological stories associated with each constellation. Nothing happened.

Frustration mounting, she sat back on her heels, staring at the safe. There had to be a way in. Her eyes wandered to Thorne's desk, which was covered in astronomical charts and diagrams. Maybe there was a clue there?

She rifled through the papers, her heart pounding with every creak of the old house. A sheet caught her attention—a star chart with certain constellations circled in red. But it wasn't the constellations themselves that interested her. It was the numbers scribbled next to each one.

Sheila rushed back to the safe, hope rising in her chest. She pressed the stars in the sequential order indicated by the numbers. Twenty-one, forty-three, fifty-six, seventy-one…

Nothing.

"Come on," she muttered, trying again. Still nothing.

She was about to give up when a new thought struck her. What if the numbers weren't a sequence, but rather coordinates on the safe's surface? She remembered seeing similar systems in some of Thorne's astronomical writings, where he used a grid system to map out star positions.

With trembling fingers, she tried again. This time, instead of following the numbers in order, she imagined the safe's face as a grid. If the top left corner was zero-zero, then each number pair could represent a specific point on the safe's surface.

The first constellation had the numbers two and one next to it, so she pressed the spot two units to the right and one unit down from the top left corner. She did the same for each constellation, using their respective number pairs to determine where to press.

As she pressed the final point, there was a soft click. The safe door swung open. She let out a sigh of relief. She could hardly believe it had worked.

Inside the safe, she found stacks of cash, some jewelry, and a few old books. But no candlestick. Sheila slammed the safe shut, her frustration mounting.

"All that for nothing," she muttered.

Downstairs, she could hear Finn moving around. She hoped he was having better luck than she was.

The master bedroom was her last hope. It was larger than the guest room, with a king-sized bed and heavy curtains blocking out the afternoon sun. Sheila searched methodically: under the bed, in the nightstands, through the closet. Nothing.

Finn's voice drifted up from below. "Sheila? You need to see this."

She hurried downstairs, finding Finn in the kitchen. He was standing in front of an open pantry, his face pale.

"What is it?" Sheila asked, peering around him.

The pantry was full of canned goods and dry staples, but that's not what had caught Finn's attention. On one shelf, partially hidden behind a box of cereal, was a small bottle of ipecac syrup.

The same substance used to poison Jason Reeves, Rachel Kim's dog sitter.

"Shit," Sheila said.

This was damning evidence, but not what they had come for. And besides, they couldn't take it without a warrant.

"Any candlesticks?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Finn shook his head. "Nothing. Sheila, we need to go. We've already crossed a line being here. If we're caught..."

She nodded reluctantly. "You're right. Let's go."

As they made their way to the front door, Sheila's mind was whirling. The poison was certainly suspicious, but the absence of even a single candlestick still nagged at her. Had Thorne hidden it well…

Or was its absence proof of his innocence?

***

Sheila's footsteps echoed in the empty hallway of the community center. The building felt different now, devoid of the energy and fervor that had filled it during the Celestial Awakening meeting.

She checked her watch—fifteen minutes until the press conference. Finn was back at the station, probably pacing nervously as he prepared their statement.

And cursing her under his breath.

But Sheila couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something crucial. That's why she'd come back here, hoping to find...well, she wasn't sure what exactly. A clue, a hint, anything that might point them in the right direction.

As she walked, her mind went over everything they knew about the Coldwater Confessor: the disguises, the priest impersonation, the first murder in the confessional, the candlestick... Each piece of the puzzle seemed to fit Thorne, and yet something felt off.

Sheila paused in front of a bulletin board covered in flyers and announcements. Her eyes scanned the colorful papers absently as her thoughts wandered to the other members of Celestial Awakening. Who were they, really? What had drawn them to Thorne's teachings?

She thought about the victims: Laura, Sophie, Rachel, Emily. Their faces haunted her dreams, their unsolved murders a constant reminder of her failure. And now, with the press conference looming, she felt the pressure more than ever. If they were wrong about Thorne, if the real killer was still out there...

Sheila shook her head, trying to clear the dark thoughts. She had to focus. There had to be something here, some clue they'd overlooked.

She moved on, entering the room where the meeting had been held. Chairs were still arranged in a circle, an echo of the gathering that had ended in chaos. Sheila walked the perimeter slowly, her trained eyes taking in every detail.

A movement caught her attention: a piece of paper fluttering in the breeze from an open window. She approached, realizing it was a photograph that had fallen from a nearby bulletin board. Sheila picked it up, her eyes scanning the image of smiling faces—members of Celestial Awakening at what appeared to be a recent gathering.

Her gaze was drawn to a figure standing next to Thorne. A man, middle-aged with salt-and-pepper hair and intense eyes. Something about him seemed oddly familiar, but Sheila couldn't quite figure out why.

Frowning, she pulled out her phone and began scrolling through Thorne's social media accounts, searching for any mention or tag of this mysterious man. As she delved deeper, her phone buzzed with incoming texts from Finn. She glanced at them briefly—he was getting impatient, reminding her of the impending press conference. Sheila ignored the messages. He'd just have to wait.

Moments ticked by as she scoured Thorne's online presence, frustration mounting as she found no clear connection to the stranger in the photo. She was about to give up when something caught her eye: a comment on an old post mentioning a "Dr. R" who had introduced Thorne to some new ideas.

Suddenly, it clicked. Sheila's mind flashed back to Laura Hastings' house, to a framed photo she'd noticed during their initial investigation. The stranger had been in that picture, standing in the background at what looked like a community event.

With renewed energy, Sheila started searching through Laura's social media accounts. It didn't take long to find what she was looking for: a post thanking 'Dr. Calvin Reeves' for his insights at a fundraising event at the library.

Her heart racing, Sheila dug deeper. Apparently, Dr. Calvin Reeves was a psychiatrist specializing in religious counseling. As she scrolled through his professional page, she found connections to not just Laura, but all four victims. Sophie had attended a workshop he'd led. Rachel had been photographed at a charity event where he was a speaker. And Emily had shared one of his articles just weeks before her death.

Then she came across an obituary for a woman named Helen Reeves—Dr. Reeves's wife. It appeared that, three years ago, she'd been struck by lightning while out for a jog. Had this inspired Dr. Reeves's killings? Had he taken it as some kind of a sign?

The pieces were falling into place. Reeves would have had the opportunity to interact with all the victims, to try and convert them to his beliefs. And when they refused...

She dialed Finn's number, her hands shaking slightly with the intensity of her discovery. As soon as he picked up, she spoke urgently, "Finn, we need to stop that press conference. I think I know who the real Coldwater Confessor is."