Page 52 of Veil of Silence

Austin studied the empty square between them. “Nothing on Friday.”

“Nothing on the calendar,” Roscoe corrected. “But once a group accepted both dates, they needed somewhere to stay in between. A church member’s home. A ministry property. Somewhere free.”

Cold slid through Nora. “They weren’t paying for the performances.”

Roscoe’s expression sobered. “That’s what Roy eventually decided. Somebody was paying to put certain families on certain routes.”

“Who arranged the places where they stayed?” Austin asked.

“Sometimes Jimmy Vance. Sometimes Roy. Sometimes a pastor or promoter called and said they knew somebody willing to host the family.”

“Would Jimmy have known who was behind the money?”

“He might have.” Roscoe’s expression shifted. “But he died six years ago.”

Austin stared at the markings. “Did Roy ever talk to you about this?”

“Once. Not long before Christian disappeared. He asked whether I’d noticed that the same groups kept being pulled through the same areas.” Roscoe ran one finger down the page. “He said somebody wasn’t funding ministries. They were moving families.”

“Did Roy know why?” she asked.

“If he did, he didn’t tell me.”

Austin turned another page. “What made my father connect the routes to the children?”

Roscoe’s humor disappeared. “Zander Dalton.”

Nora’s heart kicked harder. “The boy who ran away?”

“That’s what people believed. Zander was seventeen, and everyone said he was rebellious. But his parents never heard from him again.”

“And his family had followed one of these routes?” Austin asked.

Roscoe nodded. “Jeff wanted to know which other groups had children traveling with them.”

Nora pictured Christian asleep across two seats in the church van. Doing schoolwork at folding tables while she and her sisters rehearsed. Wandering through unfamiliar churches and parking lots where everyone assumed someone else was watching him.

One missing teenager and one abducted seven-year-old didn’t prove a connection. But both families had been steered through the same area with expenses someone else had paid.

And both Roy Callahan and Jeff Donnelly had begun asking why.

Now both men were dead.

Roscoe closed the binder. His expression brightened with obvious effort. “Before you leave, I have something for you.”

“If this is another attempt to reunite me with my sisters⁠—”

“It’s history.” He pulled a CD from the shelf.

Nora froze.

Homecoming appeared across the cover in gold script. Beneath it, the three Loveless sisters smiled in matching dresses.

Austin studied the younger Nora. Her smile came without the guardedness he saw in her now. She had no idea her brother would disappear the night that album was released.

Roscoe handed her the case. “I was honored to work on your record. It was a terrible production, but I was young.”

“You were at least forty-five.”