Page 25 of Scarred By Sin

The infrastructure.

The greenhouse had worktables built into the walls on both sides. Heavy wooden surfaces with storage underneath, shelving above. The shelves held ceramic pots, bags of soil that had hardened into bricks, and a few hand tools scattered without any apparent organization. But the worktables themselves were bare.

Completely bare.

“What does a botanist actually do in a space like this?” Brook asked, figuring Kessler would have a better understanding of the topic. “Specifically, a botanist who believed he was developing a plant-based compound to fight cancer. What would have been involved with his daily work?”

Kessler set her tablet down on the nearest worktable.

“A researcher working at that level would have been conducting extraction and isolation of plant compounds. Identifying active molecules, testing concentrations, documenting growth cycles and chemical compositions. Nestor Ellingham’s rejected grant application referenced hybrid plant compounds with potential cytotoxic properties, which means he was trying to cultivate specific specimens and extract their active ingredients in controlled quantities.”

“You looked into him?” Brook asked.

“I couldn’t help myself,” Dr. Kessler replied with a small shrug. “This is a very interesting case, don’t you think? I’m not sure of your process, Ms. Sloane, but even I’m questioning whether Nestor Ellingham killed these women, only for one of them to fight back. Was he a serial killer? Or did someone else bury these women without his knowledge? If so, did he confront whoever buried these victims in his own greenhouse?”

Brook had considered every one of those questions, but without a profile, they wouldn’t even have a direction. She needed something a little more concrete.

“What kind of equipment would he have required?”

“Quite a lot, actually.” Kessler began counting on her fingers. “A compound microscope at minimum, probably more than one. A centrifuge for separating compounds. Distillation apparatus, glassware, condensers, collection flasks. A drying oven for preparing specimens. Mortar and pestle sets, precision scales, pH meters. If he were doing extraction work, he would have needed Soxhlet extractors and a solvent recovery system. Graduated cylinders, beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, pipettes. Grow lights with specific spectrums for controlled cultivation. Some kind of refrigeration unit for storing active compounds and biological samples. Climate monitoring equipment, and most certainly journals. Extensive journals. A researcher that dedicated would have documented everything. Growth rates, compound concentrations, experimental results, failures, adjustments. Years of data.”

Brook turned slowly and took in the greenhouse with fresh eyes. The worktables. The shelves. The storage beneath the counters. She ran her fingertips across the nearest surface, and they came away coated in a fine layer of dust, grit, and grime. This surface hadn’t held anything in a very long time.

“Then where is everything?”

“That’s not something I can speak to,” Dr. Kessler replied, following Brook’s gaze. “My focus has been on the excavation sites and the surrounding soil.”

“You said yourself a man who spent over a decade conducting advanced botanical research in this greenhouse would have filled this space with equipment. Thousands of dollars’ worth of scientific instruments and years of documented work.”

She paused to let the observation complete itself.

“There’s nothing here.”

Kessler’s expression shifted as she turned and scanned the greenhouse systematically, section by section. There was not a single piece of scientific equipment anywhere in the structure.

“Either someone cleaned this place out,” Brook said, resting her hand on the side of her stomach, “or Nestor Ellingham had a different location for his lab. What’s missing from this greenhouse may very well end up mattering as much as what was buried in it.”

11

Brooklyn Sloane

July 2026

Thursday — 11:17 am

Helen Uche had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer six months before her disappearance, according to the medical records attached to her missing persons file. Her roommate’s original statement to the police noted that Helen had been optimistic about an alternative therapy she’d recently learned about, though the roommate couldn’t recall the specifics.

Alternative therapy.

A woman with cancer, optimistic about something unconventional, who vanished into thin air only to be buried in the greenhouse of a botanist who had spent a decade trying to develop a plant-based cure for the very disease that was killing her.

Brook sat at her workstation in the dining room with her laptop open, a half-eaten bowl of blueberries beside her, and the draft of two profiles on her screen. She’d been working on them since returning from the greenhouse, and the connection between Helen Uche’s diagnosis and Nestor Ellingham’s research had sharpened certain edges of the profile while blurring others.

Theo occupied a chair nearest the window, his laptop open to a database search, his phone facedown on the table. Sylvie was across from him. Bit was at the far end of the table, his knitted cap pulled low, an energy drink beside his mouse pad. The room carried the faint, lingering odor of eggs that no number of open windows could clear from an old house.

“I barricaded my door last night.”

The abrupt statement came from Bit, directed at no one in particular but clearly intended for Sylvie. She didn’t even glance up from her screen.