Something cold settled in Jake’s stomach.
That mission was supposed to be a place people trusted. A place mothers sent their children when they needed help. A place men dropped coins into when they wanted to feel decent.
Elise looked up, eyes shining with truth she didn’t want to hold.
“There’s a man there,” she whispered. “A man everyone respects. But he is not who they think he is.”
Jake didn’t interrupt. He didn’t rush her. He let her words come the way they needed to.
She swallowed hard.
“He’s using the mission for money,” she said. “For things no one should ever hide behind a cross.”
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.
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