The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(35)

She hadn’t received the call demanding she explain what the hell she was up to, and she wasn’t about to call him and bring more attention to herself. It didn’t matter if she was too close, because there was no one else as uniquely qualified as she was to investigate Elysia. Maybe he knew that, and that was why she hadn’t heard from him. Britton couldn’t give explicit approval, but as long as they didn’t speak about it and she was on her own time, he could claim no knowledge of what she was up to.

Stop stalling. You’re running out of time.

It didn’t take long to search his room. Abram had some kind of military in his background—something she’d always suspected—because she’d never seen anyone but retired military do corners on their bed quite like he did. She poked through the nearly empty closet, finding a few jackets and pairs of boots caked with mud, but there wasn’t any collection of serial-killer trophies or a conveniently signed confession letter. She did a cursory search of his dresser and shook her head at the immaculately folded shirts. Even his underwear was folded.

But then, she’d always known Abram was a control freak. This was just further evidence to support that truth.

As much as she wanted to find evidence that he was the killer, the truth was that he was just too damn anal-retentive to kill someone so sloppily. If Abram was the killer, the victim would have been dispatched with a garrote around the throat from behind, or maybe a neat little shot to the back of the head, execution-style, and then buried in the woods where no one would find them. There would be no body, and Elouise’s parents would have spent the rest of their lives believing that she’d moved off to college and maybe finally been happy.

Call her cynical, but that would have been almost preferable.

Except then there would be no justice for Elouise, and that wasn’t right. Eden shut the drawer carefully and checked her watch. Another fifteen minutes of worship, which wasn’t that long at all. There were two other bedrooms to search, but they’d always stood as empty guest rooms when she lived here, so she didn’t expect to find much. Still, she was here, so she might as well check them out. She frowned when she opened the first door. After the entire house being the same, she’d assumed this would be, too.

Except it wasn’t.

The color scheme used to be tasteful neutrals with a few pops of blue, but now it looked like . . . Eden toed the pile of dirty clothes on the floor. It looked like a teenage boy lived here. She moved farther into the room, skirting more clothes of dubious cleanliness, and froze in front of the dresser. It had a few pictures in frames propped up on top of it, every single one showing Martha and Joseph.

Eden swallowed hard, looked again, and gagged. That is so incredibly wrong. Joseph had been proprietary when she’d run into him yesterday, but she hadn’t actually paused to think about the fact that he was living here. There had always only been Abram, and she’d kind of assumed that always would be.

Guess I can’t assume a damn thing anymore.

It was something she should have remembered, but she’d been so caught up in how identical everything was, she’d gotten herself and her instincts all turned around. She couldn’t take anything for granted.

But . . . Joseph?

He was pretty, she’d grant him that, but she would have thought her mother would look for something beyond physical attractiveness for her inner circle. Maybe he’s good in bed. She gagged and shoved that thought into a dark little corner of her mind where she hoped it would never see the light of day again.

Eden went through the drawers, finding clothes stuffed in haphazardly. The last drawer made her pause. The bottom of it wasn’t where it should be. She frowned and pressed carefully around the edge, finding a little gap where she could wedge her finger and pull it up. What do we have here?

Eden started to reach in, thought better of it, and yanked on one of the gloves she’d stashed in her pocket. She was seriously glad she did when the carefully placed black cloth came away to reveal porn. What the hell? The girl on the top one looked to be all of sixteen, which lined up with the BARELY LEGAL! headline running right over her crotch. Eden thumbed through the drawer, finding about a dozen magazines, all featuring petite brunettes that had probably seen their eighteenth birthday in the last month.

Coincidence?

Hard to call it that with a petite brunette found dead and a second one missing.

Outside, the bell tolled, signaling the end of worship. “Shit.” She dumped the magazines back into the drawer, put the cloth over the top of them, and replaced the fake drawer bottom. There was no telling if things were exactly the way he had them, but judging from the rest of the room, she doubted Joseph would notice. Or at least she hoped he wouldn’t.

She shut the bedroom door behind her and hurried for the stairs. The chances of her making it to her car without running into someone was slim to none, but she could say she was taking a walk. Martha would know she was snooping, but she wouldn’t know where she was snooping. If there was one place in this commune not covered in cameras, it was this house.

Eden thumbed the lock over on the back door and shut it as she left the house, breathing a silent sigh of relief when she didn’t see anyone. Safe. She hurried down the back porch, heading for the parking lot.

She barely made it three steps when rough hands turned her around and slammed her face-first into the side of the house.