Victoria watched Katy end her call.
“What happened? Where’s Trinity?” Victoria glanced at the clock on Katy’s microwave. Almost 4 P.M. “Was that the police?” She placed her briefcase on the kitchen desk as she slipped out of her wet coat. She’d managed to get an hour of work in at the office after her hotel break with Seth. She’d returned to Katy’s to grab her things and go back to Seth’s hotel. She was tired and ready for a quiet evening watching TV from the bed with Seth.
Katy jumped, clearly unaware Victoria had entered the kitchen during the conversation. She turned teary eyes Victoria’s way.
“I don’t know. This isn’t like her. She always calls when she’s going to be late, but she’s been gone all day, and I can’t reach her. That was the police. I called Detective Callahan.”
“Good.” Victoria slid into a chair at the kitchen table next to Katy. She gripped one of the woman’s hands, holding her gaze. “She’s going to be okay. Her phone’s probably dead and maybe she’s having some car issues.”
“But she hasn’t called. She always calls when she’s gone this long,” Katy repeated. “Surely she could ask someone to use a cell phone.” Her eyes were red-rimmed. “After all the crap she’s been through in the last week, I don’t like this. Something is wrong.”
“I heard you say she doesn’t have a boyfriend. Are you sure that’s true?”
The woman snorted. “I can’t say what’s true anymore. You were a teenage girl once. Did you always tell your parents the truth?” Victoria saw her eyes shadow a bit as she recalled Victoria’s circumstance with her parents.
“Actually, I almost always did. But I’ve learned I was an exception to that teen girl rule,” she said slowly. “You know, Trinity asked me some odd questions about a friend this morning.” She thought hard to remember the conversation. “And it was a boy she was asking me about.”
Katy studied her. “She’s said nothing to me about a boy.”
Victoria had a small sting of guilt. “I think I was in the right place at the right time. If you’d been in the room, no doubt she would have asked you. Anyway, she said he’d asked her to do something, and she wasn’t comfortable.”
Katy sat up straighter, her hand stiffening in Victoria’s. “What did he ask her to do?” Panic rang in her tone.
“No! Nothing sexual. Not like that. I didn’t get that vibe from the conversation at all.” She crinkled her nose in thought, looking out the window. “It had to do with his parents. He was trying to avoid them and asked her for help. She’d told me she didn’t know him that well.”
“Then why did he ask her?”
“That’s what I asked her. I told her he must have closer friends he could ask. She did say he was worried about some sort of punishment from his parents.”
Katy didn’t relax. “How horrible to put that sort of guilty request on her. But I don’t think she took your advice. She gave someone a ride this morning, and I’ve talked to all her girlfriends. None of them have heard from her.”
“Maybe the thing to ask them is if she has a new boyfriend or has been talking about a boy.”
“That’s what Detective Callahan said, too,” Katy admitted. “But I’m afraid she’s in trouble.” She looked at the kitchen window. “This rain has been insane. There’s flooding all over the place. Maybe she got stranded.” Her voice lowered. “What if someone took her somewhere? What if whoever she gave a ride to had different ideas?”
The door between the garage and kitchen opened. Seth entered, stomping his wet shoes on her large mat. “Katy, you had a street drain clogged out front. I managed to move the debris with a branch. The thing was packed with leaves. That lake out there should vanish in a minute.” He looked up, his gaze flickering from the women’s grasped hands to their faces. “What’s happened?”
“Trinity’s missing. No one’s seen her since this morning and her phone is either off or dead,” Victoria stated.
His eyes filled with concern, and he shrugged out of his wet coat. “You’ve talked to her friends?”
Katy patiently updated him. His frown grew deeper as he listened.
“This isn’t right.” He squeezed Katy’s shoulder, holding her gaze. “We’ll find her.”
Victoria’s heart melted. He’s a good man.
“I’m freaking out,” said Katy, her eyes wide. “What if the same person who killed those girls got Trinity? She told the police Brooke was with a photographer. What if he decided Trinity saw or knows too much about him? What if this person contacted her for a ride?” Hysteria elevated her tone.
Victoria bit her lip. Why hadn’t she asked Trinity more questions this morning instead of giving advice? Police had theorized a man had used the photography cover to recruit the girls. What if Trinity had fallen for a similar ploy?
Katy stood. “I’m going to go call her friends again. God help them if I find out one of them is hiding Trinity’s relationship with a boy or knows more about this photographer. They better understand how serious this is.” She left the room.
“This isn’t good,” Seth said. He pulled Victoria out of her chair and into his arms in a deep hug, kissing her forehead. “God, I’m glad my Eden made it home safe and sound. And I’m thankful I was blissfully unaware she was missing for a few hours when her mom couldn’t reach her. I would have been sick with worry. Exactly how Katy is feeling right now.”
“I’m worried,” Victoria whispered into his neck. “I’m afraid she might have done something stupid, trying to help this friend. What if it wasn’t a friend? What if Katy is right that someone is upset with what she told the police?”
Her cell phone vibrated inside her big bag. She reluctantly pulled out of Seth’s arms to address it. An unfamiliar number showed on her screen. Trinity?
“Hello?”
“Ms. Peres?” An old man’s voice came through her cell. “My name is Cecil Adams. A reporter contacted me, saying he was helping you search for your birth parents.”
Victoria’s heart jumped. “Yes. Michael Brody is helping me.”
“That was his name. He called me asking about some records of the Leader’s Way church. He was wondering if any of the records still existed from when they used to organize adoptions.”
“Yes. I knew mine was through the Leader’s Way church from the coast.” Her parents had continued to attend until she was nearly ten. Her memories were faint.
“Well, I’ve kept a lot of things. You’re not the first to come searching for adoption records over the years. I’ve helped out a few times.”
Victoria exhaled. Would he have a record of her parents’ names? Would Isabel Favero be on it?
“Are you the pastor?”
Seth was watching her conversation closely. She covered the phone with her hand. “Michael found someone with the church records,” she whispered. His eyes lit up and she tilted the phone away from her ear so he could hear the other half of the conversation.
“Oh, no. He passed away a while back. The records have been stored in my barn since the fire destroyed the original building twenty-five years ago.”
“They’ve been in a barn that long? Are they legible?” Images of water damage and mold crept into her mind. She remembered the church had burned soon after her parents had left.
“Oh, yes. It’s dry and the containers are waterproof. Last time I dug through them was about six months ago. Everything looked good.”
“Do you think you could go look for—”
“I can’t get up the ladder these days,” Cecil cut her off. “I’ve got a bit of a bad leg. You’d have to do the looking yourself. Or get someone to bring them down for you. Sorry about that.”
Victoria paused, her mind racing. She and Seth could easily handle it. Seth met her gaze, reading her mind, and nodded.
“Are you available tomorrow? We could come out in the morning,” she said.
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Disappointment rang in his voice. “I’m flying out at the crack of dawn tomorrow. But I’ll be back in about two weeks if you want to set up a time for then.”
Her heart fell through the floor. Could she wait two weeks?
“Ask him if we could come tonight,” Seth whispered.
“Mr. Adams, what about this evening? Where are you located? I have someone I could bring with me tonight to take a quick look if that works for you.”
“I’m about ten miles east of the coastline. Just over the Coast Range on Highway 26.”
Victoria did some quick calculations. “We could probably be there in about forty minutes.”
“Are you sure you want to come out in this weather? It’s pretty stormy tonight,” Cecil spoke slower, a bit of hesitation and regret in his voice.
“You don’t even have to leave the house,” Victoria said rapidly. “Just point us in the right direction.” Right now she didn’t care if they were imposing; she wanted a look at those records tonight.
“Now, you realize these aren’t legal documents, right?” Cecil said. “These are just some simple church ledgers. But it’s probably enough to give you some leads on your birth parents.”
Would something in there name her mother? What about a father? There was no guarantee that her answers were in a box in someone’s barn. But she’d never know until she looked. “We’d really like to come out tonight, Mr. Adams.”
He gave her his address and Victoria promised to see him within the hour. She ended the call, adrenaline buzzing through her veins.
“What about Trinity?” Seth asked. “Are you okay leaving Katy right now?”
“All I’d be able to do is hold Katy’s hand. I think all three of us know that won’t do a heck of a lot.”
“What’s going on?” Katy asked as she stepped back in the room.
“We’ve got a lead on some church records that might list my birth parents,” Victoria told her. “We’re going to run out there tonight if you’re okay with that. Otherwise we can’t see the records for two weeks.”
“Of course,” answered Katy. “Sitting here doing nothing isn’t helping Trinity. I’m doing enough sitting around waiting for the phone to ring. All of us don’t need to participate. I’ve got more calls to make, and I know how to reach you if I need to.”
“That’s what I thought. We’re going to meet a guy from Leader’s Way church and see what he has.”
“Leader’s Way?” Katy’s brows shot up. “That was the church? Those guys?”
Seth scowled. “You know them?”
“I’ve met some of the castoffs. Women seem to have a third-class citizen role in that organization.”
“I thought the church no longer existed. It burned down quite a while back,” Victoria stated.
“The building may have been gone, but the teachings lived on. What a bunch of pigs. They don’t care for me. I’ve held a few women’s hands as they made the decision to break ties with their families because of the belief system of that church. I have a hard time calling it a church. It’s more of a bunch of old men sitting around telling women to stay barefoot and pregnant.”
“I think that’s one of the reasons my parents left,” Victoria said slowly. “I remember hearing them discuss what the role of a woman should be. My mother wanted me to be more. I think things had started to change in the church back then. It’d suddenly gotten stricter. They moved closer to Portland and never went back.”
“Sounds like they made a good move,” said Seth. “I can’t see you growing up in an environment like that.”
“Me neither.” Victoria straightened her back and squeezed Seth’s hand. “Let’s go. I want to look in that guy’s barn.”