Eliana shook her head and walked toward a different kind of building. Bigger, single story, with shutters on the windows. “I didn’t like seeing that doctor, and I’m trying not to think about it. I can’t do anything to help him. He’s already dead and I don’t investigate crime.”
At this point in her life, she didn’t know if that was because she’d been taught that it wasn’t what her future should hold, or because she actually didn’t want to.
“You could,” Carlos said. “If you wanted to.”
He didn’t really think that, did he?
Eliana stopped outside the front door of the building. “You want me to invade your life even more?”
He’d made it clear enough how he felt about her, years ago, when she’d poured out her heart and handed it over. He’d shredded it in front of a cafeteria full of people.
She should hate him, but they were family. There was an ease to being together—something she needed in a place like this.
“Maybe not.” Carlos thought for a second, then said, “There was a point in college where I considered changing my major from psychology to something else. Giving up the idea of becoming a cop.”
She lifted her brows. “I didn’t know that.”
“I don’t think I’d have made it as a cop if I’d simply followed in my dad’s footsteps. I had to go into it because it’s what I wanted to do. Because I chose it. Same with faith. We’re taught as we grow up, and we see how faith works through the people around us, but unless we claim it for ourselves the foundation will always be shallow. We have to be who we are because that’s who we decided to be.”
Eliana looked aside at the land and the trees. Buildings. Birds flying overhead. She wanted to choose, but she didn’t know who to be.
A rustle behind her drew her attention. She spun around, Carlos caught her, and a second later she was behind him. She grabbed two handfuls of the back of his jacket to keep herself from falling over.
She peered around his shoulder just in time to see a raccoon rush out of the building, dragging behind it a white sheet, or dress.
“Stay behind me,” he told her.
Apparently, they were going in.
“Did you bring a gun?” she asked.
He drew it from a holster at the small of his back. “Do you carry?”
“I have this.” She drew out the knife the Board of Governors had given her, unsure why she’d even brought it tucked in the sheath she’d found under the velvet in the box. Fit pretty well in the thigh pocket of her pants.
It wasn’t like she actually wanted to stab someone.
“Fancy.” He took a step inside. “Doesn’t look like there’s anyone in here.”
“Just that raccoon.”
Carlos grunted.
Eliana peeked out from behind cover. She wasn’t going to contemplate what it would mean for him to take a bullet for her.He totally would, if only because of family loyalty. But that didn’t mean she wanted to stand back and let it happen just so he could be a better person than her.
The room had a short stage at one end, only a foot or two above the floor. A huge painting of Mary with Jesus in her arms hung on the wall behind the stage. Around the room lay white…
“Are those dresses?” She crouched and lifted the nearest one. “It is. This is like a nightgown.” Though not one she’d seen. It seemed more like something from Victorian times.
“And cups.” He crouched to lift one. Light from the window glinted off the metal. “Or is this a goblet?”
Eliana shrugged. “What happened in this place? It’s beyond creepy.” She didn’t even want to know what kind of people would occupy it. Or how Luci could’ve been caught up in this. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen.
“Who would lay out a group of nightgowns like this? There’s even one on the stage.” He shook his head. “It’s like they just disappeared and left their clothes behind.”
“That makes no sense.” She straightened out of her crouch and wandered between more of the nightgowns. It looked as if the person had been lying down and—what?—evaporated out of their clothes? “Someone went to a lot of trouble to set all this out. But why do it if no one is meant to see it?”
“Maybe everyone left and whoever it was lost their mind. There are other options, like the mass disappearance theory. But that probably comes from watching too many old sci-fi shows.”
