Alone (Bone Secrets, #4)(85)

“Who did this?”

“Cesare Abbadelli. No one dared speak against him.”

The same man that Michael Brody discovered ran the church and who arranged the adoptions.

“The minister?” Ray asked.

She nodded.

“Mrs. Cavallo,” Mason asked carefully, his brain spinning. “Do you know anything about adoptions arranged by that church?”

The woman paled. “What of it?”

“We have a friend who was put up for adoption through this church. She’s trying to find her birth parents. Where did the babies come from who were put up for adoption?”

Esther stared at him. “Some were of the church,” she whispered. “The unmarried women who got pregnant. Others came from the surrounding area. Girls who got in trouble and didn’t know what to do.”

Mason looked at Ray. A different era. Yes, this church was in a rural and rather isolated area, but was there nowhere else for the women to turn?

“Why do you think the minister killed Lucia?” Mason prodded.

Esther looked at her hands, strangling her bag in her lap. “I don’t know.”

Mason believed this terrified woman was reaching out to him to share what she knew. He just had to guide it out of her. Gently.

“Mrs. Cavallo… why do you suspect Cesare Abbadelli was responsible for those women’s deaths?” he asked calmly.

“It was whispered.” Her gaze slowly lifted from her purse, meeting Mason’s. “The other women of the church whispered behind closed doors that Cesare was weak when it came to women. And that he hated his weakness, blaming the women who created it. His own wife vanished decades ago. No one asked questions. He said she ran off with another man.”

“She left before or after the first circle of women?” Ray asked softly.

Mason’s heart was pounding, and he fought to slow his breathing. The conversation had a fragile edge to it that could shatter at the wrong question or tone. He didn’t want to scare Esther away.

“After. I don’t know when. Maybe ten years. And his other son vanished when he was about twenty. He’d been a rebellious boy. Cesare had a difficult time keeping him in line.”

What had this man done to his family?

He glanced at Ray’s composed face. Ray’s shirt pocket twitched over his heart, revealing his rapid heartbeat. Ray’s thinking it, too. We’ve got a serial killer on our hands, hiding behind the guise of a pastor.

“Rumors spoke of women who came to the church. Runaways, women seeking a safe place.” Mason leaned forward to hear Esther’s soft words. “They’d stay at the church for a few weeks, getting back on their feet, and then vanish again. Even the ones who expressed desire to put down roots in that community. They never stayed. All left and never returned. Never communicated with the friends they’d made in their short stay.”

Mason thought back to the previously identified women from the old circle. All women in transition. Had they sought out the church as a sanctuary only to find a hell?

“Who do you think killed the girls last week?” Ray asked Esther.

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. It was exactly as the scene before, but Abbadelli is an old man now. How could he orchestrate it? But I don’t know who else could be evil enough to do such a thing.”

“Abbadelli is still alive?” Ray asked.

“Yes. Lorenzo continued to follow him even though he’d moved to the southern part of the state for a while. Nico and his brothers stopped talking with their father when he railed at them to attend Abbadelli’s sermons twice a week after he’d moved back to this area.”

Sermons twice a week? That sounded like a lot of preaching in Mason’s mind.

“Lorenzo apparently was a dedicated member of Abbadelli’s flock,” Mason stated. “Could he have killed those young women if Abbadelli ordered it?”

Esther shrugged. “I don’t know. How would he convince the girls to do as he says? He was an old man, too.”

Mason agreed. He didn’t see Lorenzo as the type of man to convince a bunch of young women to meet him in Forest Park at night. “From an eyewitness account, we’re looking for a younger man. Possibly one who does photography.”

Recognition flashed in Esther’s eyes. “Abbadelli’s grandson is a photographer for his school paper. My nephew knows him. He goes to the same high school as Kyle.”

Ray pulled a tiny notebook out of his pocket and rapidly flipped through it. He halted on a page and ran his finger down his notes, stopping on a line. “Kyle. Is Kyle Carey your nephew? The one arrested for the shooting at the memorial service?” he asked.

Esther’s shoulders slumped slightly. “He is. I don’t know what he was thinking. He told us he spotted the woman who convinced his mother, Jackie, to leave her family at that memorial service. He was very upset, but he wasn’t going to shoot anyone.”

“Wait a minute? He wasn’t upset at a teenage girl? His focus was on an adult who he blamed for his family falling apart?” Callahan interjected.

Ray put two and two together. “Katy Morris? She counsels women in crisis situations and was there with Trinity. Could she have worked with his mother?”

Esther was nodding. “That name sounds familiar. Kyle tries to follow Abbadelli. Tries to bring back Abbadelli’s teachings. He has been very angry since his mother left. She couldn’t take any more of her husband’s rules. I doubt anyone can blame a counselor for her actions. I’ve heard Kyle say we should return to the old ways.”