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“The power isn’t with the child, you see, but with the stronger, the cannier. There are people who, rather than defend and tend the child, do terrible things. There’s little that’s truly evil. But that is. You’ll help her, Charlie. It’s what you do. And you,” he said to Eve.
Taking a moment, Eve sat again. “I think, maybe to protect the child, Nashville Jones killed his brother. He got the kid back, put her back in bed, then he disposed of the body. He didn’t know there were already twelve girls concealed right there. But he still had to protect his brother, his sister. He still had to do his duty, right? So he arranged for this missionary position, and sent someone to pose as his brother. An opportunity, or a mission of faith. However he managed it.”
“Why not send the brother?” Dennis wondered. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to step in.”
“That’s okay. The brother had emotional issues. He was shy, unskilled, inexperienced. If you study his background, his makeup, then you compare that to the reports on the missionary in Africa, they’re two different people. The missionary’s devout, friendly, outgoing, interested in photography, compassionate, and so on. None of those words are used when describing Montclair Jones.”
“But by sending a substitute in his brother’s name,” Mira continued, “he could somehow honor his brother, even while concealing the crimes both had committed.”
“Then fate stepped in,” Eve added, “because sometimes shit happens. The missionary’s killed, mauled by a rogue lion. Nobody does DNA or specific ID, because as far as they’re concerned, he’s Montclair Jones. He’s cremated, his ashes sent back here, and that’s that. Including a plaque in the new building to memorialize him.
“It’s as somebody said to me today, bogus. Jones figured he’d done what he had to do, gave it up to the higher power or whatever worked for him. He’d saved the kid, who’s too traumatized and drug-hazed to remember. He’d stopped his brother from, as far as I think he knew, committing murder, and he’d protected him in the end by the pretense that baby brother followed family tradition.”
“He’d need to find someone willing to masquerade as the brother,” Roarke pointed out.
“Yeah. Jones knows a lot of people in that line. They go to these retreats, plus he was raised in that world. Going to Africa? It’s a big opportunity, right, for a missionary type? It’s . . . a kind of bartering, maybe. And say the missionary wants to come back one day, that’s fine. He comes back as himself, and Jones can say his brother was lost. He’s vanished. It’s a mystery, but he did his good work, and that’s what matters.”
“Fascinating,” Dennis commented and gave Roarke his smile.
“To kill in defense of another. The innocent. The child,” Mira said with a nod to her husband. “A child in his care. His responsibility. The brother, troubled, younger, also his responsibility. Yes, a man who had been raised, trained, indoctrinated to be responsible, to stand as the family head, could make that choice. If he killed his brother, it may have been an accident, a struggle between them with the child at stake.”
“I don’t think so.”
“No, you think, and I largely agree, that while the elder brother was raised to be in charge, the younger was raised to obey him. He would have stopped, at least in that moment. He wouldn’t have defied his brother, not face-to-face. But while again I largely agree, he might have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or simple fervor.”
“Fervor?”
“The religious overtones. A fervor to complete the rite, if indeed it was a rite. If Nashville killed Montclair in that building where he had poured such hope and effort to fulfill what he saw as his duty and destiny, it adds to the complete withdrawal from it.”
Once again, Eve sat on the arm of a chair. “I didn’t think of that. That plays.”
“The abandonment of it, which goes beyond the financial situation,” Mira continued. “The Mark of Cain—fratricide. This would weigh on a man of faith and responsibility, even as he justified it. And rather than report to the authorities, he, too, concealed. Not for himself, but for his brother, his family, and the greater mission.”
“So what, in the end he decides it was a selfless act?”
“How else could he live with it?” Mira asked.
“Why run now? That’s not selfless. That’s self-preservation.”
“Are you sure he’s running?”
“He’s gone,” Eve pointed out. “He took a suitcase and cash. He’s not using credit cards, he hasn’t contacted his sister.”
“I believe he will, contact his sister. I believe his makeup will demand that he come back. It’s his duty.”
“Well, that would be easy,” Eve replied. “Then all I have to do is prove all the other stuff.”
“To continue the theme, I have faith you will. If the girl—woman now—DeLonna—”
“She’s just Lonna now. Lonna Moon.”
“Lovely name. If she reaches out to me, I’ll help her remember. It’ll unburden her, and give you what you need.”
Two for one, Eve thought. Maybe Jones figured the same. He’d unburdened his brother of evil, and given his sister the illusion she needed.
Later, because they were already downstairs, she had dinner with Roarke in the dining room. Another fire simmering, another tree glittering. And some really excellent chunky soup of some kind along with crusty bread slathered in herbed butter.
“Did you ever wish for a sibling?” she asked him.
