Jake felt heat rise in his chest—not sun heat.
Anger.
The quiet kind older men know. The kind that doesn’t explode right away. It simmers, slow and deadly, because it’s built from the sick feeling of seeing something good used as a shield for dirt.
“I found letters,” Elise continued. “Books with numbers that make no sense.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of numbers?”
Elise shook her head, lips tight. “Enough to know it was wrong.”
She swallowed again.
“I told one of the older sisters,” she said. “And the next morning… she was gone.”
Jake leaned forward. “Gone where?”
Elise’s eyes darted away like she hated the memory.
“They told me she left on her own,” she whispered. “But I saw the sheriff speaking to Father Whitlock that same night.”
Father Whitlock.
The name landed heavy.
Jake knew him by reputation—polished voice, clean collar, a man who could make a crowd lower their heads with a single sentence.
Elise’s voice tightened.
“After that… the sheriff started watching me,” she said. “Following me. Asking where I slept. Where I prayed.”
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