“But the two of you are arguing about something,” Holly observed, pulling her arms out of the gown and sliding it down her hips. “I love that dress, but I can tell you I’m a lot more comfortable in jeans than I am clothes like this.” She set the dress on the bed and pulled on a T-shirt and dark denim pants. “What?” Holly asked, turning around.
Daniel shrugged. “Everything is fine.”
“And I’m a mountain goat.” Holly jabbed her hands to her hips. “I have eyes. I saw the two of you. That was love/hate dance fucking if I ever saw it.” She tucked in her T-shirt and sat on the side of the bed, pulling on her shoes.
“It’s complicated,” Daniel said softly.
Holly stood and went to the door. “When people say that, it usually means it isn’t.” She left the room, shutting the door behind her. Damn, she knew how to make an exit.
“Sister, you have no idea,” Daniel whispered out loud to himself. This situation was becoming more and more complicated by the second. There was little to do about it now, though. He stood and left the room as well, finding James and Margot at the kitchen table.
“Where do we start?” Margot asked.
“Usually with what we know,” James answered. Daniel sat next to him, looking over the things on the table, including notebooks and Margot’s laptop.
“Okay. The guy is creepy,” Margot said. Both he and James chuckled.
“That isn’t enough. In an investigation, we deal with facts and things that are provable. Documentation and witnesses. You use them to build a picture and try to get it as clear as possible,” James explained. “So, what do we know?”
Margot shrugged. “He’s been here about five years. He has a wife and two kids, a boy and a girl.”
James began making notes, but Daniel took the pad, figuring it would give him something to do.
“Where was he before that? Do we know if the congregation and board vetted him before giving him the job?” James asked. Daniel wrote it down with a question mark behind it because it was an unknown. “I seem to remember it happened pretty fast.”
“It seemed that way to me too,” James’s dad said from the doorway. “But I wasn’t on board then.” Daniel added that to the notes.
“Okay. What if they didn’t? What if the congregation was taken in by his charm and personality? That’s what we’re trying to look into, then, and unfortunately, we can’t just go asking around. What else do we do?” James turned to Margot. “What do you think?”
“Okay. If everyone was taken in by Reverend Creepy, then we need to look into his background. But how do we do that?” She thought a minute. “We could break into the church office and try to find the records.” God, she was adorable and had good instincts. He could really see a lot of himself in her.
Daniel chuckled. “The police don’t do things like that.”
“Well, not as a habit, no.” James bumped his shoulder. “Have you done an internet search on him? Publicly available records are always a good place to start.”
Margot began typing and turned the computer to show the results. “It’s all about the church here. Their website comes up, as does his bio and stuff.” Margot began clicking around. “What about where he came from?” She continued searching, and James glanced over. That seemed strange to Daniel. He would have thought there would be a history. “Here’s something,” Margot said. “It says in this old bio from Facebook that he was at the Carthage Community Church in Middleton, Texas.” She smiled.
“Bring up their website and see if there’s anything on him,” Daniel suggested. This was getting a little interesting. He leaned over James’s shoulder to see the screen better, momentarily getting lost in James’s woodsy scent. Daniel shook his head to bring himself back to the here and now.
“Nothing,” she said, deflating like a balloon, her excitement fading away. She needed to be more resilient, but Daniel kept that to himself.
“No. Look. They have a history page. Check there,” Daniel suggested.
“I did,” Margot groused.
“No, that chart over there.” Daniel pointed. “It looks like a ministerial history of some sort.” He leaned closer as Margot brought up the chart. “There he is, but it’s an active link.” Margot clicked on it and a brief history page appeared along with a picture. “That isn’t Reverend Dick.”