The Lost Girls (Lucy Kincaid #11)
Allison Brennan
To Mike & Erin Pettingill, missionaries, who left successful careers to serve the less fortunate, first in Honduras, and now Equatorial Guinea.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Lost Girls was an emotional book to write, and required more research than I initially thought. I think Google maps has become my best friend!
First and foremost, I want to thank Mike Pettingill, a friend of mine who used to work with me in the California State Legislature. The year after I left the legislature to write full-time, Mike and his family became full-time missionaries with Missions to the World. Mike answered all my questions about what it’s like to be a missionary, the joys and the fears. I wish I could have used everything I learned. It takes a truly special person to give up everything they own to serve others.
Once again, Deborah Coonts—author, pilot, and all-around extraordinary woman—helped with the plane details. If I got anything wrong, it’s because I messed up.
I was thrilled when my cousin Jason Gifford married the amazing Dee—for more than because I like her. She’s also a nurse! Dee helped me tremendously with a pivotal scene in this book that, without her guidance, wouldn’t have been half as good. Thank you so much, Dee.
Crime Scene Writers led by the wonderful Wally Lind is always my go-to place for all types of crime questions—this time I needed information about warrants, foreign nationals, extradition, witness protection, and more. Thank you to all the cops, lawyers, medical examiners, pathologists, and P.I.’s who are extremely generous with their time and talent to help writers “get it right.” I may have taken a few literary liberties, but I try to stay as close to the truth as possible—while still keeping the story entertaining.
Always, thank you to my agent Dan Conaway who keeps me grounded, and my editor Kelley Ragland at Minotaur who helps each book reach its greatest potential. This time she outdid herself and forced me to dig deep into the emotional well to make The Lost Girls hit all the right notes.
Last but not least, my family—for understanding my crazy schedule, for being patient, for letting me bounce around ideas, and for making me laugh.
PROLOGUE
Father Sebastian Pe?a sat up in bed early that morning, mindful of every ache in his arthritis-ridden joints. Disease didn’t care if you were a saint or a sinner or—like most of God’s creatures—somewhere in between.
Sebastian had always been an early riser. The sunrise was his favorite hour, peaceful, unlike any other moment of the day. But it wasn’t quite five, early even for him. A rustling outside had him thinking a wind was picking up. But then he heard nothing. No wind, no cars. What had he heard in that dream state before waking; what had him rising before the sun?
As soon as his feet touched the cold floor he sought his slippers. He turned on the dim light, then wrapped a thin robe around his broad but frail shoulders. Sebastian had once been a large man. He’d played football in college, before he received his calling. He had been a wild young man, but like Saint Augustine, once he was called, he kept his vows. Still, he wondered at times—as inappropriate as it was—if God had afflicted his joints because of the prideful athlete he’d once been.
That sound again, faint but distinct, came from outside. He parted the blinds and peered out the window into the darkness. A small house behind Our Lady of Sorrows served as the parish rectory, which he shared with Father Peter Mannion. Father Peter was a young priest who had taken over the parish when Sebastian retired last year. Sebastian had both longed for and dreaded retirement. He was tired, very tired, but he loved his church. The families he’d seen week after week, from baptisms to weddings to funerals. The joys and the deep, deep sadness. Our Lady resided in a poor, rural community halfway between San Antonio and Laredo. Sebastian had been in the Laredo Diocese for years, but the last thirty he’d spent here, in this small parish, in this impoverished town. He was here only for a few more months, to help with the transition. By January he’d be settled into a retirement home in Tucson, Arizona—a great relief from the Texas humidity, which worsened his arthritis.
But he didn’t want to leave.
A clang of metal on metal made him pause. A chest-high wrought-iron gate circled the property—easy enough to climb over if someone felt compelled to vandalize or rob the church. Perhaps it was the garbage cans, a cat or opposum in the trash again. Father Peter was far too forgetful. How many times had Sebastian told him to secure the lids?