Sylvia passed a paper to Tony, who scanned it. Then said, “We’ve discovered several unsolved murders committed in the same way as Doctor Splitfield was killed. Same MO. Hands nailed to the table, tongue cut out. Tea set for two.”
The image of it rolled through Eliana’s mind. In a way that she knew she would never forget seeing the doctor left like that.
Sylvia continued, “The locations of these unsolved murders track with where we know Lydia has lived throughout her life.”
“Hold up,” Eliana said. “I thought she was born and raised in Chicago.”
Sylvia shook her head. “Almost all of the bio that exists for Lydia online is a fabrication. We traced her college years back to childhood in Arizona. Your mom actually met her, in a fashion,in Phoenix years ago. Lydia was eight at the time, but already not a normal child.”
“Great.”
Sylvia closed the file. “She has been in and out of facilities for people with psychoses, but never officially charged with a crime. We believe she considers herself to have a special bond with you, likely because of your mother.”
“She’s been coming after me. She even snuck into my apartment to bring me that blade you gave me after I lost it.”
Sylvia frowned. “That’s concerning.”
“It’s less concerning than being nailed to a table and having your tongue cut out.”
“Good point,” Sylvia said.
“So you believe that Lydia is the one who killed Splitfield? What about my neighbor?”
“I’ll get to the Dreamer in a minute.” Sylvia sniffed. “First, I need to know if the Reverence Sisters ever approached you after you moved here, early on. Maybe trying to recruit you to a Bible study.”
The only person who had ever invited her to a Bible study in Chicago was Carolena, but she wasn’t about to tell them that. Not when her friend was missing and hadn’t turned up yet. “The only person who ever knocked on my door was Patience. She had my mail, and we got to talking.”
Both Tony and Sylvia perked up hearing that.
“She’s my neighbor and she’s eighty-four.”
While they absorbed that information, she unlocked her phone and sent Carlos a text.
Where are you?
Then she turned to Sylvia. “So you think Lydia is the Mother of the Reverence Sisters? It could be she has a grudge against mymother, and that’s why they were trying to kill me. But it seemed like there was someone else involved as well.” She shook her head, confused by the whole thing.
“We haven’t been able to identify the Mother as yet.” Sylvia paused. “But what we do know is that Lydia used to be in a relationship with Michael Edmondson. He’s the CEO of The Underground, the web collective who developed the Elysium app. Their company has control of a whole lot of subsidiaries, including the pharmaceutical research group that developed those canisters used to dose people across the city with a chemical mixture that incorporated Elysium and some other drugs.”
“So she’s connected to that as well?” This was starting to sound more like a justification for why Maizie had told her to leave town as soon as she learned Lydia’s name. But her sister couldn’t possibly have known all this.
Sylvia nodded. “Lydia Rosenberg is possibly now fully in control of the app.”
“Why is that?” Eliana shook her head.
“Michael Edmondson disappeared six weeks ago,” Tony said with a tight voice. “And no one has seen him since.”
That didn’t sound good. “You think she got rid of him and now she’s in control of the whole organization?” Eliana paused a second. “And she organized the agreement between religious leaders. She is spearheading cleanup of the chaos that happened on the streets. She’s in the middle of everything, and you also think she’s behind it all?”
“It could explain the connection to the dreamer’s death in your building. Maybe.” Sylvia shrugged. “Or she could have come to your apartment looking for you, found him instead, and decided to amuse herself.”
Eliana bit the inside of her lip. Sylvia didn’t even know about her current nightmare. But then how was she going to explainhaving seen the woman before she’d ever even met her in person? It was likely just some kind of bizarre way for her brain to cope with something she didn’t understand.
“Where does that leave us?” Eliana asked. “If she’s behind the murders, the canisters, and the app, but we don’t know if she’s the Mother or not.”
“We still need the FBI to ID the leader of the Reverence Sisters,” Tony pointed out.
Sylvia said, “But the meeting is tomorrow, so she’ll be in the Shrine.”
