Page 11 of In Her Prayers

Jenna watched as Pete selected the Sunday School room and aligned the edge of a ruler with the blueprint’s faded lines.“See here,” he said, pointing to the outline of a particular wall, “the depth doesn’t match up—which makes sense, considering what we found there.”

When Jenna leaned closer, she could see the discrepancy between the plans and reality.The wall they had broken to remove the body wasn’t part of the original plan.That closet had once been two feet deeper.

“Father, do you know of any renovations that might have changed these dimensions?”Jenna asked.

“None that I was made aware of,” replied Father Walsh, shaking his head.“But I never gave any thought to the depth of that closet.Or, for that matter, any other spaces like that.”

“Then we check for other disparities,” Jenna decided.

Together, the group pored over the blueprints, compiling a registry of potential caches.Jenna’s hand was steady as she jotted down measurements with cool efficiency.

With the list complete, Jenna moved to the photocopier, its whirr and flash sounding oddly mundane.She produced duplicates, distributing them to each member of the team.

“Jake, take the south transept.Pete, you’re with me.Officers, start from the parish hall and work back towards us.”

With copies in hand, they split off in their different directions.Jenna and Pete headed towards the nave, then paused at the threshold, taking in the solemn beauty of the church.The pews stood in orderly rows, light coming through the tall stained glass windows painted the room in colorful hues.

The search began, and the quiet of the church was soon filled with the rhythmic tapping of their investigation.Pete started working his way along nooks and corners in one wall, and Jenna’s own taps soon joined the chorus.Her hands brushed over surfaces, feeling for anomalies, tapping to identify any areas that sounded hollower than they should be.As she worked, memories of recent terrors in Genesius County surged through her mind—the Sablewood Reservoir drownings, the ranchers’ murders.

They were acts of violence that had shattered the peace, yet some of them had long remained hidden.It was a bitter denial of the idyllic town she remembered—or thought she remembered—from her childhood, a town where neighbors greeted each other with smiles, and where local legends were shared at the diner over coffee.How many more secrets did the tranquil facade of Trentville conceal?And was her twin sister Piper’s disappearance just another of those mysteries?

As Jenna considered the mounting evidence, she recognized a chilling truth: This was not the idyllic little world of innocence she once believed it to be.Its charm and warmth were undercut by darkness that crept along its edges and had seemingly burst forth without warning.

Jenna wondered, was it always like this?If so,why was the darkness only coming to light now?

She and Pete separated to check nooks and corners and closets around the nave.With the list clutched in her hands, Jenna opened a nondescript door to see a few hanging vestments.She measured the closet against the faded lines and annotations of the original design.

The dimensions did not match; the depth was off by a foot or more.

She tapped lightly, then harder, and a hollow sound confirmed her suspicions.The space before her held more than vestments —it was a potential crypt.

Jenna’s thumbs moved with precision as she composed the text message, an urgent summons in digital form: “Found something.Come to the back closet nave ASAP.”She sent it to Jake, Pete, Father Walsh, and the officers.

As she waited, Jenna’s gaze remained fixed on the closet door.Was whoever had desecrated this holy ground still out there?How many more lives had been claimed?How long had this predator moved among them undetected?Jenna knew the answers would come at a cost—the innocence of Trentville was already fraying at the edges.

The response to her call was swift, concern on each face as they arrived.She gestured toward the closet.“The dimensions are wrong,” she said, her voice devoid of inflection.

“Let’s see what’s behind it,” Pete muttered with dread on his face.Father Walsh crossed himself, a silent prayer fluttering on his lips.

The false wall soon yielded to Pete’s efforts, giving way with a reluctant creak.A draft of stale air rushed forth, the musty odor of decayed time assailing their nostrils.For a moment, no one spoke.

The sight that met their eyes was obscured, but visible enough to confirm their fears—the yellowed plastic, the linen shroud, the way the corpse seemed so eerily preserved.Another victim was right there before them.Pete stood frozen, his features drawn into an expression of disbelief.As the church’s caretaker, he had walked these floors countless times, unaware of the gruesome secrets they harbored.And now there seemed to be no end to them.Jenna knew that feeling all too well—the sense of betrayal when the familiar turned sinister.

Jenna dialed Dr.Melissa Stark’s number, her eyes never leaving the grim parcel behind the wall.

“Another one,” she said, the words tasting like ash.“In the nave.It looks the same.”

Melissa assured her she was on the way back to the church.

Jake stood beside her, his sandy hair catching the dim light, his face solemn as he began recording the scene.They moved with practiced efficiency, an unspoken language between them in the quiet clicks of the camera shutter and the soft scratch of a pen on a notepad.

Father Walsh’s retreat to the nearest pew pulled Jenna’s attention away from her task.The priest’s head was bowed, hands clasped as if in prayer, his vestments muted and dull against the polished wood of the church furniture.Jenna felt a pang of sympathy.The sanctity of his world had been violated, the very foundations of his faith shaken by the malevolence that lurked beneath the surface of their small town.

When Dr.Stark and her team arrived in their white hazmat suits, the atmosphere shifted.With a nod to Jenna and Jake, Melissa began her meticulous work, her movements sharp and deliberate.Her professional detachment sliced through the emotional fog that hung over the rest of them.

As Dr.Stark’s team swarmed the area, Jenna stepped back, observing the replay of science and investigation unfold.It was a grim scene, the forensics officers moving with purpose around the newly revealed body, tools in hand, voices low but authoritative.

“Let’s move on,” Jenna said quietly to her own team.“We need to keep searching,” she urged.The others nodded, somber determination on their faces as they split up to continue their grim task.The sound of tapping began anew, a morbid symphony that echoed through the cavernous church, as they sought to uncover the full extent of the horror hidden within its walls.There could be more secrets hiding within these walls, and they would unearth every last one.

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