DJ Belmont looked over the list in his hand. “It’ll take me forever to get all this shit.”
Sister Coleen shrugged in apology, unconcerned about the swear word he’d let drop. They were alone in the clinic—he, Coleen, and Pastor—so Eden rules did not apply.
Rules he’d grown up with. Rules he intended to shred the moment he took over Eden. He was one step closer to his goal, having killed Brother Ephraim a month before. He’d have taken care of all of his problems had he not been shot himself. After a month, his left shoulder still ached and the arm remained basically useless.
The first shot to his shoulder had hurt like fire, and for that he planned to hunt down the bitch who’d pulled the trigger. Her name was Daisy Dawson and her death would serve a dual purpose—payback for the injury and heartbreak for the man who shared her bed.
Gideon Reynolds. The very name had DJ seething with rage. He banked it, unwilling to have to explain it to Coleen and Pastor. Because Gideon was supposed to be dead. Supposed to be dead at DJ’s father’s hand, in fact.
Except now he knew that Waylon Belmont—DJ’s own father—had let Gideon go. He’d set Gideon free from Eden. Lied to everyone when he returned, saying that Gideon had died for the sin of murdering the Founding Elder Edward McPhearson as he’d attempted to flee. Everyone had believed him.
Even me. The banked rage flared anew and he shoved it back. He hadn’t realized the extent of his father’s betrayal until last month when he’d learned that Gideon was still alive.
His father had been punished, though. It had been DJ’s first killing and it had felt so damn good, watching the light dim in that bastard’s eyes. He’d been seventeen years old and had finally understood that true power lay in the ability to grant life. Or death.
DJ granted a lot of death.
“It’s been a month since your last trip,” Coleen said, unaware of his mounting anger. “And you came back wounded, so you couldn’t bring back the supplies you’d gone to buy. We had emergency rations, but they’re gone. The women stretched the rations as far as they could, but a hundred and fifteen people require a lot of food. We’ve run out of most of our essentials.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it.” They were scraping the bottom of the supply barrels, and DJ was already tired of the jerky that seemed to be their remaining source of protein. “I’ll pick up the supplies and scout out a new place for us to live.”
That was the plan, anyway. The compound was freezing and hungry, huddling in the caves as they were. The caves had never been intended to be a long-term location, but DJ’s injury had forced them to remain far longer than was healthy for any of them. Especially me.
He had other priorities for this trip, however. He’d search for another location if he had time.
She studied his left arm, resting in a sling. “You’re sure you’re okay to drive?” A tiny brunette in her early fifties, she was Eden’s healer, their only medical “expert.” To his knowledge, she’d had no formal training, but she’d done the best she could with his wounds.
At least he wasn’t dead, although he’d apparently come pretty damn close.
“I’m fine,” DJ grunted. He flexed his left shoulder, then moved that arm around, swallowing the pain. “See? Full range of motion.”
Which wasn’t nearly true. Fortunately, he’d trained for years to shoot with either hand. He wouldn’t be completely helpless when he left the compound, but the pain was still excruciating. Sleeping on a pallet on a cold, damp stone floor wasn’t helping matters any. He couldn’t wait to get to civilization so that he could sleep in a real bed for a change.
“Not quite,” Coleen murmured, “but I gave up trying to tell you what to do years ago.”
Because she was not stupid and she valued her life. DJ didn’t suffer fools, nor did he allow anyone to give him orders.
No one except the elderly man in the chair. Pastor was the shepherd of Eden’s flock. He was the leader, and he gave the orders. DJ disobeyed him frequently, but Pastor never found out.
Like his father before him, DJ was the only person permitted to leave the compound—at least the only person the community knew about. The Founding Elders had taken leaves of absence four times a year, ostensibly to “pray on the mountain.” In reality, they went to the nearest city and fucked, drank, and gambled like sailors on shore leave.
Now DJ and Pastor were the only remaining elders. Pastor himself was the only remaining Founding Elder. DJ had taken his father’s place after Waylon’s untimely demise. To this day no one suspected he’d killed his father.
Because I’m damn good. He didn’t leave loose ends.
At least none that he’d known about until a month before, when he’d learned that the woman he’d thought he’d killed thirteen years ago was still alive. He could have sworn Mercy had been dead when he’d left her bleeding in front of a bus station.
Mercy Callahan. Gideon’s sister. Except that she’d been Mercy Burton when she’d lived in Eden. She’d been Ephraim’s wife until DJ had let her and her mother believe he was helping them escape. He’d wanted them to hope.
He should have shot both women in the woods outside Eden, but he’d been young and stupid and focused on his cartoon-villain revenge plot. Mercy’s mother was definitely dead, and he’d brought her body back, but he’d been interrupted in the middle of killing Mercy. Someone had come and he’d run, leaving her behind. He didn’t see how she could have survived the two bullets he’d put into her body, but she had.
Which left him a huge mess to clean up now. He’d told Pastor that he’d buried Mercy himself. If Pastor ever found out that she’d survived, DJ would lose everything.
So he had loose ends to take care of. He’d almost done so a month ago, but a second shot had damaged the nerves in his left arm, leaving him unable to shoot and bleeding profusely. He didn’t know who’d fired the shot, but when he found out, the fucker was dead. He’d barely made it back to the compound alive. He’d barely managed to stay conscious long enough to tell Pastor they had to move. Immediately.
Luckily Pastor trusted him implicitly. The old fool.
DJ had only let him live this long because the old fool was also a crafty fucker. He’d memorized the account numbers and passwords to the online bank accounts that held Eden’s fifty million bucks.
DJ needed those passwords before Pastor kicked the bucket. The old man was still in decent shape, though, goddammit. He was seventy-two, but his heart still beat soundly in his chest.
Coleen glanced at Pastor, technically her husband. Coleen had gone through three husbands in the thirty years she’d been at Eden. Two had died of natural causes. One had been murdered.
Not by my hand. Although DJ had longed to kill Ephraim’s brother, Edward, more times than he could count. No, the thanks for Edward’s death had to go to Gideon Reynolds. Gideon had claimed it was an accident, and DJ had believed it. At thirteen, Gideon had been a goody-goody. And strong enough even then to best Edward McPhearson in a fight.
When DJ met Gideon again, he’d kill him slowly, making sure it hurt especially badly. Partly for denying DJ the satisfaction of killing McPhearson himself, but mostly for escaping. For having a life, when DJ had been stuck in this hellhole, serving a narcissist with a god complex.
Even putting all of those reasons aside, Gideon would have had to die, simply for becoming a goddamn FBI agent who had apparently been searching for Eden since the day he escaped.
Pastor cleared his throat gently. “You seem agitated, DJ. Are you not healed enough to take this excursion?”
“I’m fine,” DJ snapped, then blew out a breath at the unamused look on Pastor’s face. It was never a good idea to make Pastor angry. “I’m sorry. It does hurt, but we need supplies.”
And I have loose ends to snip.
He needed to find Gideon and put him down like the dog he was. He needed to find Mercy and make her suffer the way she should have suffered thirteen years ago.
And then he’d find Amos Terrill, Eden’s former carpenter and Gideon and Mercy’s stepfather. The month before, that bastard had smuggled himself and his young daughter out of Eden in the back of DJ’s pickup truck. Which Amos had then stolen. Asshole.
Hopefully he’d find Amos in a graveyard somewhere, because one of DJ’s bullets had struck the man in the throat. He’d need to die eventually, because he’d found Gideon and Mercy and had probably updated them on everything about Eden since they had left. For that, if he was still alive, he’d pay.
And then I’ll come back, force Pastor to give me those damn account numbers once and for all. He’d stayed in the same toxic pattern, serving Pastor for far too long. He hadn’t realized how much time had passed until he’d been shot.
Nothing like a near-death experience to reset one’s priorities.
“It’s all right,” Pastor said evenly, making it clear that DJ’s outburst wasn’t all right. The fucker. “Will you locate little Abigail? She may have been taken into the foster care system.”
Because he’d told Pastor that he’d killed and buried Amos after finding him hiding in the back of his pickup when he’d stopped in the next town. He hadn’t mentioned Abigail at all. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she was a child and he hadn’t considered her a threat. Pastor had assumed she’d escaped.
“I’ll try,” he said.
Pastor’s lips pursed, a sign of his displeasure. “She’ll tell someone about us. Luckily she’s so young that no one will believe her, and luckily she’s the only one to have gotten away.”
For a career criminal, Pastor was damn gullible. He actually believed that all the escapees had been rounded up over the past few years. To be fair, DJ had used surrogate bodies, like his father had before him. When the escapee couldn’t be found, he found a random person—usually homeless or a runaway—about the same size and coloring, then killed them, mutilating the body so that it couldn’t be identified.
Pastor believed that no one had ever escaped Eden.
Pastor was an idiot.
“Luckily,” DJ agreed. “I’ll get the supplies, scout out a new location, and search for Abigail Terrill. Is there anything you’d like to add?”
Pastor shook his head. “No, but I would like you to fix the satellite dish before you go. I haven’t been able to get online since we moved here to the caves.”
A move that had been necessary because Amos Terrill had been thick as thieves with the FBI. If Ephraim hadn’t spilled his guts, it was almost certain that Amos had. So they’d moved the community to their ultimate safe space, a series of caves just outside the border of the Lassen National Forest.
It had been DJ’s storage spot for their drug harvest for years and his father’s before that, the rock shielding their stash from government eyes in the sky. Neither conventional satellite imagery nor infrared cameras could find them here.
“I’ll try,” DJ promised, but he was lying through his teeth. There was no way he was fixing the Internet. He hadn’t allowed Pastor online while his wounds were healing, claiming he was too weak to manage it. But the truth was that Pastor could not know that Mercy and Gideon were alive, and, given the shoot-out the month before, they could still be in the news. “But the dish was damaged in the last move.” DJ threw an accusatory glance at Coleen. “She didn’t pack it correctly.”
Coleen looked down, her jaw clenched. “I did my best, considering how heavy it was, and that I had to move it into the truck by myself. I couldn’t ask for help, because you were hurt and Ephraim was dead and nobody else is supposed to know we have a satellite dish.”
She actually had done well. There was nothing wrong with their dish, but he couldn’t let them know it.
“We need to bring in another elder,” Pastor said thoughtfully. “One young and strong enough to help with things like that, but old enough to bring some wisdom.”
“Also one who won’t go crazy with rage, knowing we lied to them all these years,” Coleen added carefully.
Pastor chuckled, because Coleen was the only person allowed to be candid with him. She’d earned the right through thirty years of being Pastor’s lapdog, but even she tiptoed around the man. One never knew what mood he’d be in at any given time, on any given day.
“True.” Pastor studied his manicured nails, a sure sign that whatever he was about to say would not be what DJ wanted to hear. “I’m considering Brother Joshua. He was extremely helpful in coordinating our move, and considering we only had the one truck you brought back, DJ, this move was one of our most stressful. We packed the congregation into the truck like cattle, but with over a hundred people, plus the heavy equipment, he made at least ten trips.”
“And I had to keep everyone calm, because no one wanted to live in these caves,” Coleen added. “There was an unusual amount of unrest. It took us four days to get everyone settled. You don’t recall because you were unconscious.”
“Brother Joshua behaved admirably under pressure,” Pastor finished. “He would make an excellent elder.”
To an untrained observer, it might have seemed that Pastor was asking for input. DJ knew better. He exchanged a glance with Coleen, long enough to see her slight grimace, because she didn’t like Joshua. Well, mostly she didn’t like Joshua’s first wife, and if he was chosen as an elder, his first wife would be elevated in status as well. But Coleen’s expression was wiped clean by the time Pastor lifted his gaze from his hands. That was the purpose of him looking at his hands—to give the receiver of orders time to appear okay with his edicts.
“I’ll be ready to brief him when I return,” DJ promised. Like that was ever going to happen. Once he had control of Eden’s money, he’d leave Joshua and Coleen and all the other Edenites to do whatever the fuck they wanted.
Pastor stared at him through narrowed eyes. “Find Amos’s child. Bring her to me. I will not allow her to become a symbol of concern or discontent in my flock. Make it your priority.”
DJ gritted his teeth. The “or else” was always left unsaid. “Yes, sir. If she’s in foster care, it might take a while to find her and, once I do, extracting her will be a delicate operation.”
But DJ knew that the child wasn’t in foster care. Her father, Amos, had reconnected with Mercy and Gideon, and there was no way those two would allow Abigail to go into the system. Once he found Mercy, Abigail wouldn’t be far. It would, however, buy him more time to snip off all of his loose ends.
Pastor sighed, visibly irritated. “I suppose that’s true. How much time will you need?”
DJ pretended to ponder. “A week? Maybe more.”
Pastor looked to Coleen with a frown. “Do we have enough supplies to last us a week?”
Coleen shifted uncomfortably. “It’s going to be tight. We have the chickens that we’ve been using for eggs. We can slaughter them if we must. We’re running out of feed, so they’d starve soon, anyway. But we need fresh vegetables and milk. The children haven’t had milk in weeks.”
Pastor nodded grimly. “One week, DJ. And then you’ll return with supplies and news of Abigail. At least whether she’s alive or dead.”
“And a new location,” Coleen added meekly.
Pastor nodded again. “That, as well. Goodbye, Brother DJ. May God be with you.”
DJ managed not to roll his eyes. Pastor didn’t believe in God. He only believed in himself. The blessing was Pastor’s way of donning his pastoral persona, his signal that their business was completed.
DJ inclined his head wordlessly. Waiting until he was back in his quarters, he whispered, “Goodbye, Pastor.” Because this was the beginning of the old man’s end. Once Mercy and Gideon were no more, DJ would return to claim leadership of Eden.
He only wanted the money. The others could have the rest.
It would be the first time in a month that he’d left the compound. With any luck, Mercy Callahan would have let her guard down.
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 8:45 A.M.
“Well?”
Special Agent Tom Hunter looked over his shoulder, unsurprised to see Special Agent in Charge Molina standing in the doorway of his office. He’d expected the visit from the SAC of the FBI’s Sacramento field office. Today was her first day back after the attack that had left her injured and several other agents dead. She looked paler than normal and tired. But determined.
He automatically rose, because his mother had raised him right. This put him more than a foot taller than his boss, which made her look up with an irritated glare. At six-six, he towered over almost everyone in the Bureau, which was a new experience. He’d been average height during his three years with the NBA. Shorter, in fact, than many of the men he’d met on the court. He hunched his shoulders a bit to offset the difference, but Molina’s glare did not soften.
As her chin lifted, her dark eyes bored into him. “What do you know?” she demanded.
Tom gave her a warm smile. “Good morning.” The woman wasn’t the coldhearted beast she wanted everyone to think she was. He’d watched her manage two crises in the past few months, and while she was quick-witted, with razor-sharp focus and an even sharper tongue, she did care. He suspected she might care too much and fought not to let it show.
He knew the type. He’d been raised by a wickedly smart group of women. His mother’s friends were cops, social workers, and attorneys. When pressure was high and risk to humans they cared for even higher, they’d pasted on the same face Molina wore right now.
He held out the chair next to his desk, motioning her to sit.
She shot him a dark scowl but took the seat, tugging at the jacket of her suit unnecessarily. No fabric worn by Tara Molina would have the nerve to wrinkle.
“I know a lot of things about a lot of things,” he said, retaking his seat as he answered her question. “But I’m assuming you’re specifically referring to Eden.”
The cult he’d been actively seeking since mid-April. The cult that’d provided a hiding place for vicious killers for the past thirty years. Vicious killers who had abused two of the people who, in a short period of time, had become Tom’s friends. Both Gideon Reynolds and his sister Mercy Callahan had been children when they’d escaped Eden, but both were scarred for life, physically and emotionally.
Because the killers hadn’t simply hidden in Eden. They’d thrived there, starting a cult that condoned—no, encouraged—the rape of twelve-year-old girls by middle-aged men, calling it “marriage.” They condoned the rape of thirteen-year-old boys, calling it an “apprenticeship.”
Gideon and Mercy had been only two of their victims.
“Yes. I’m talking about Eden.” Molina rolled her eyes. “And here everyone said you were some wunderkind,” she drawled, but her tone was light. Almost teasing.
“I don’t know about that,” Tom muttered, his cheeks heating. He was good at what he did—specifically hacking. He was very good at what he did, in fact.
The fact that he still hadn’t found the cult’s compound after months of searching left him thoroughly irked. But they had made progress.
“I got into their offshore bank account,” Tom stated. Which, under most circumstances, would have been cause for congratulations and maybe even a promotion. Or a prison sentence, if he hadn’t been working for the good guys. Either way, it had been damn difficult to do.
“You did that three weeks ago,” Molina stated flatly, popping any hope he might have had for an attaboy. “My temporary replacement briefed me weekly. What have you learned about Eden recently?”
Tom could only imagine what Molina’s temporary replacement had told her. He and Agent Raeburn had not gotten along well at all. “From their bank account, not much,” he admitted. “No money’s been moved either in or out, not since they pulled all of Ephraim’s money out of his personal account and back into the main Eden coffers, three days before he was killed.”
It was Molina’s turn to grimace. “I must say that I hate the sound of that man’s name. All of his names,” she added bitterly.
Ephraim Burton, a Founding Elder of the Eden cult, had been born Harry Franklin, under which name he’d earned a record as a bank robber and murderer, before going into hiding thirty years ago. Burton had other aliases that had allowed him to mingle in the real world during the times he left Eden.
Which wouldn’t be happening ever again, because Burton was dead. Tom wished that he’d been the one to do the honors, but one of the other cult elders had killed Ephraim Burton, possibly to keep him from telling the FBI of Eden’s whereabouts. A lot of people had died in connection to Eden. The stakes were high. Its bank accounts held in excess of fifty million dollars.
It was more likely, though, that the other elder had killed Ephraim to keep him from spilling the biggest secret—that two of the cult’s runaways hadn’t died trying to escape but had been living free for more than ten years.
Gideon and his sister, Mercy, had been abused by Eden in their youth but were fighting back now, helping the FBI track down Eden and end it, once and for all. Tom respected the siblings more than he could say.
“I put an alert on the offshore accounts,” Tom said. “If they move any money, we’ll know.”
“But they haven’t yet.”
“Not yet. However, someone resembling DJ Belmont did withdraw some cash from a different bank account outside Mt. Shasta an hour after Ephraim Burton was shot.”
“Belmont?” Molina hissed, anger flashing in her eyes.
Belmont was second-in-command to Eden’s leader, a charismatic man known only as “Pastor” to his followers. Luckily the FBI had learned a bit more than that. Pastor’s name prior to his starting the Eden cult had been Herbert Hampton. Prior to that he’d been Benton Travis, serving a sentence in a federal penitentiary for forgery and bank fraud.
They knew the identities of the cult leaders. They just didn’t know where the cult was. It was a small community that moved around remote sections of Northern California, and they were clever at evading detection.
Belmont was more than Pastor’s second-in-command, though—assuming he was still alive. He was a dangerous, ruthless, alarmingly competent killer who’d taken out five federal agents, most of them SWAT. He’d also fired the bullet that had taken Molina out of commission for the past month, so her reaction to his name was understandable.
Tom pulled up a file on his computer, then turned the screen to show her the photos taken from surveillance cameras. “The resolution of the bank’s drive-through camera is good, but he was wearing a bandana over his face, sunglasses, and a cap with a wide brim. Facial recognition couldn’t pick up anything useful. The body type and size fit Belmont’s description, though.”
“If he didn’t withdraw cash from Eden’s offshore account, which account was it?”
Tom gave her a sideways glance. “I thought you got weekly briefings from Agent Raeburn.”
Molina’s eyes narrowed. “I did. I want to hear your version.”
Tom managed to hide his wince. “My version?”
“Yes,” Molina said coolly. “Agent Raeburn’s version was less than satisfactory.”
Well, damn. “I figured as much,” Tom muttered. “He’s . . . well, he’s not very flexible.”
Her brows lifted. “He is a damn good agent.”
Careful, careful. “Never said he wasn’t.”
“You thought it.”
Tom pursed his lips, unsure if Molina was amused or upset. It was often hard to tell. But of course he’d thought it. Raeburn was by-the-book to a fault and left no wiggle room for the humanity of any situation. He wasn’t going to say that out loud, though. He was aware that Molina knew he bent the rules every now and then.
He had, in fact, bent the rules often since his first day on the job. Which seemed like it had been a year ago, even though it had only been five months. There was something about Gideon Reynolds and Mercy Callahan that made him want to help them, to ease their fears—even when he technically wasn’t supposed to. But the brother and sister had been through too much abuse.
Tom knew abuse. He still bore the scars from his own biological father’s cruelty. He knew heartache, far more recently. He knew that sometimes rules needed to be bent or even broken in order to do the right thing.
But he also knew that if he wanted to continue helping Gideon and Mercy, he’d need to toe Molina’s line. Or appear to, at least. Which meant not badmouthing her temporary replacement, who was still technically his direct supervisor.
He bent his mouth into a smile that was convincing because he’d practiced making it so—a side benefit of heartache. People didn’t ask you questions if you smiled and looked happy.
“The account Belmont withdrew money from at the ATM was an individual checking account in the name of John Smith,” he said, shifting them back on topic. “Assuming this is him in the photo, he withdrew the cash about ninety minutes after he fled the scene at Dunsmuir.”
DJ Belmont’s shooting spree in the forest two hundred miles to the north had left five bodies on the ground that day—the FBI SWAT members and a special agent named Schumacher. Molina had been lucky. Her injuries at Belmont’s hand had “only” hospitalized her for a week and required physical therapy for three more.
Unfortunately, Belmont had also taken out Ephraim Burton that day. They’d hoped that Burton might have led them to Eden, to the people who lived under Pastor’s authoritarian rule.
The adults who’d followed Pastor had perhaps been misled, but they’d made their choice. The children of Eden, however, had not chosen and many were being abused every single day.
But federal agents hadn’t been Belmont’s only victims that day. Tom pointed at the ATM photo. “Belmont was driving an old box truck that was later reported stolen by the surviving family of an itinerant farm picker. He was shot in the head twice with Agent Schumacher’s service weapon.”
“So he didn’t shoot Schumacher from afar, like he did us.” From a tree, far enough away that the SWAT team hadn’t been able to locate him before he’d shot them all. Far enough away to reveal Belmont’s impressive, albeit terrifying, sniper skills. “He took her weapon after he killed her.” Molina swallowed hard. “She was a good agent. A good person.”
“I know. He killed the picker, stole his truck, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”
“Maybe Belmont’s dead,” Molina said hopefully.
“Maybe.”
She studied him. “You don’t think so, though.”
“I don’t know,” Tom said truthfully. “We can’t assume it, though. He wanted to kill Mercy and Gideon that day. If he is alive, he has too much at stake not to try again.”
“You’re right that we can’t assume. Did the picker’s truck have GPS?”
“It didn’t. It was twenty-five years old.” Tom had to draw a breath, the memory of the man’s grieving family still clear enough to make his chest ache. He’d accompanied Agent Raeburn to inform the victim’s wife and five kids. It had been his first time delivering such news, and Raeburn hadn’t been overly sympathetic. Tom figured that was how the man coped, which might be better than the nightmares that still plagued his own sleep. “The family was poor. The truck was all they owned.”
Molina was quiet a beat longer than necessary. “Agent Raeburn said that the family received a gift from an anonymous benefactor a few days later, through their parish priest.”
Tom didn’t blink. That the money had come from his own bank account was a fact he was not prepared to admit. “I hadn’t heard that,” he said mildly. And he hadn’t actually heard it, so technically he wasn’t lying.
“Raeburn said the amount was enough for them to live on for several months, plus a bit more than their funeral expenses.”
He could feel his skin itching, like Molina could see his every secret. But still he didn’t blink. He knew he couldn’t replace every victim’s losses, but he could help that family. So he had. It hadn’t made a dent in his bank account, flush after his three years in the NBA. Being able to help people like that was one of the best things his time as a professional basketball player had done for him. He’d never planned to make the NBA a career, always knowing he’d join the Bureau, but he’d been young and better than decent on the court. It had seemed a shame to waste the talent he’d been given—or his earnings. He’d donated a fair bit and saved the rest.
He was grateful for those years, even if after his fiancée’s death he hadn’t had the heart for it anymore and had retired early. Now he kept his tone bland. “That was a nice thing for someone to do.”
Molina rolled her eyes, but her tone was almost sweet. “Don’t make it a habit, Tom.”
He blinked, unprepared for her use of his first name. “Make what a habit?”
She shook her head. “You know, when I was told I was getting a hacker rookie, straight out of the Academy, I was not happy. When I found out you were a former pro athlete, I was unhappier still. I didn’t have the time to train an agent wet behind the ears. Or one with an ego the size of Texas.”
Tom frowned. “I have an ego the size of Texas?”
“No. I assumed that you would, but I was pleasantly surprised on that score.” One side of her mouth lifted. “I’m glad you’re here. If only so I can toughen up that soft heart of yours so you make it to retirement. I’m not kidding, Agent Hunter.”
Tom bit back his own smile. “So noted, ma’am.” His watch buzzed, reminding him of the time. “Morning meeting,” he said. “You coming?”
She scowled at him. “I called the meeting.”
He grinned. He couldn’t help it. If she was taking over morning briefings, it meant that Agent Raeburn was history. Which meant his own life would be a lot less stressful going forward. “You’re back, all the way?”
“Most of the way,” she said cryptically. “But Raeburn is still your direct supervisor.”
Fuck. Tom’s grin disappeared, his expression becoming grim.
She gave him a careful once-over. “Agent Raeburn reported that you’ve been feeding information about this case to Agent Reynolds and his sister. That stops now. Are we clear?”
Tom considered his words. Of course he’d been feeding information to Gideon and Mercy. Gideon had been recused from the case because of his personal involvement, but that shouldn’t mean he got cut off from updates.
“They have a right to know the facts, Agent Molina. It’s their lives Belmont is targeting. Agent Raeburn has been keeping them in the dark.” Which wasn’t only unfair, it was cruel and dangerous. Raeburn was taking criminal chances with the lives of Tom’s friends—and everyone they loved, because anyone around them was also in danger.
“We’ve provided Mercy Callahan protection,” Molina snapped. This wasn’t playful banter. She was reining him in, and he didn’t like it. At all. “Agent Reynolds can take care of himself. If you can’t agree, perhaps the Bureau isn’t a good fit for you after all.”
There it was, then. The choice.
He could hear his aunt Dana’s voice in his mind. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, Tom. And then his mother. Do the right thing, even when it’s the hard thing.
He gave a curt nod, knowing he’d continue doing what needed to be done. “I understand.”
“I have your word?” Molina asked, her jaw taut.
He was tempted to cross his fingers behind his back, but that was childish. “I will not feed Gideon and Mercy information in the future. You have my word.”
Molina narrowed her eyes at him. “Why don’t I believe you?”
He managed a thin smile. “I gave you my word. Ma’am.”
There were, of course, so many other ways to get vital information to them. If it was a matter of life and death, if Gideon and Mercy’s safety was on the line, he’d find another way.
“All right, then.” She gave him a sideways glance, sharp as a knife. “What else do you know, Agent Hunter? I take it that you’ve checked out all of the former Eden sites.”
“Of course. The notebook we found in Ephraim’s safe-deposit box had a very accurate map. None of the locations are currently occupied, though it was still valuable to find that map. We learned that their earlier locations are obvious from the sky, but the more recent ones are not. They’ve effectively utilized ground cover, building earth homes. We thought we might locate them through infrared, checking for heat signatures, but so far that’s been a bust.”
Ephraim Burton had left a veritable Eden playbook in his safe-deposit box, with detailed descriptions of all of the Founding Elders’ sins, meticulous records of the cash stored in the offshore accounts, and the map of previous Eden locations. Tom assumed that it was some kind of dead man’s switch, that if he was killed mysteriously, the contents of his box would somehow be made public. And indeed, it had ended up in the hands of the FBI.
“You found the most recent location?”
“Yes, ma’am. But there wasn’t anything there. Nothing living, anyway. We found evidence of animals—a lot of very fresh shit in a variety of sizes. It was still fresh, maybe a few days old. We also found a lot of animal blood. It appears they slaughtered at least some of their farm animals. Maybe they couldn’t take them all. We didn’t miss them by much.”
“Did you tell Miss Callahan and Agent Reynolds that you have a list of the old sites?”
“I told them we’d found the very first Eden, but not the other sites. That would have made them want to explore each one, and I didn’t want them to be seen there in case Pastor and DJ returned for some reason.”
“Why did you tell them about the first site?”
It had been an impulse decision, but he didn’t regret it. “I thought visiting it might provide them some closure.” He’d had personal experience with closure. “The site was cleared of trees and easily spotted by satellite surveillance. I didn’t think Pastor would bring Eden back there.”
“Did they go for closure?”
“Not to my knowledge, ma’am.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really. Mostly I’ve checked off potential suspects. What I know is right here.” He pointed to the bulletin board next to his desk, on which he’d attached photos and maps and documents relating to his Eden search. He had an identical one in the office at his house. “I tracked down DJ Belmont’s surviving family on the off chance he’d hide with them. His uncle Merle Belmont lives about an hour from here in Benicia. He and his wife filed the missing-person report when DJ and his mother went missing when he was four years old. They claim that they haven’t seen him, though, and thought that he’d been dead all these years.”
“You believed them?”
“I did, but you’re welcome to interview them yourself.”
“I might. What else?”
Tom wasn’t offended. He was new. He expected others to check his work, especially on a case as important as this one. “I’ve interviewed a number of people who knew Pastor when he was the minister at the church in L.A. The one he embezzled from and defrauded.” The one he’d fled to hide in Eden to escape a criminal investigation. “Those people told us what we already knew—Pastor was a sociopath who could charm the bark from a tree. We have the rifle that Belmont used last month. We’ve pulled prints, but they don’t match anything in the system. Other than that, we haven’t had any new leads. Raeburn’s had me working on a few other projects until we do.”
Which was a waste of valuable time. But if they had no leads . . . Tom knew all they could do was wait for a break, but he hated it.
Molina examined the board. “What is the significance of the key?”
Tom glanced at the photo of a key bearing the GM logo. “It was in Ephraim’s pocket when he was killed. It’s old and didn’t belong to any of the vehicles that Ephraim stole last month.” Of which there’d been quite a few. “That’s all I know.”
“All right, then.” She rose abruptly. “Let’s go to my morning meeting.”
Exiting his office, they walked in silence until she said, “How is Miss Barkley?”
Surprised, Tom almost stumbled. He smoothed his gait and his voice. “She’s doing well.”
Liza Barkley was indeed doing well. Deep irritation blossomed within him at just how well his best friend was doing. The memory of her arriving home way too late the night before grated. She’d been holding the hand of the ass who’d believed that paying for her dinner entitled him to a whole lot more.
She’d called him Mike. Mike had been too familiar, too handsy. It had taken nearly all of Tom’s self-control not to throttle him when he’d groped Liza’s butt like she was some kind of . . .
He had to take a deep breath, conscious of Molina watching him.
Liza hadn’t objected, though, so he’d remained silent. At least Mike hadn’t stayed long enough to do anything more than groping. Because, yes, Tom had stood at the window watching until the man drove away.
“I’m glad,” Molina said. “I enjoyed her visits.”
Tom stared down at his boss, and she had to crane her neck to look up. In heels, Liza could look him in the eye comfortably.
And he wasn’t sure why he thought about that now. “Liza Barkley? My Liza Barkley?”
Except she wasn’t his. She was Mike’s.
Molina looked amused. “Tall? Long auburn hair that she wears in a Heidi braid? About five-ten, but likes heels? Always smiling? She’s your Liza Barkley, is she not?”
Yes, she always smiled. Yes, she wore her hair up in a braid, a habit she’d picked up during her years in the army. He preferred her hair down, but his preferences didn’t count. Because she wasn’t his. “Liza visited you?”
“Both in the hospital and after I went home. She brought me crime thrillers and lasagna and homemade caramel brownies. She even did my laundry a few times. I appreciated her kindness.”
“I didn’t know,” Tom murmured. Because Liza hadn’t mentioned it. His best friend hadn’t mentioned a lot of things lately. She’d been steadily pulling away from him for the last month and he didn’t like it one bit.
Molina frowned. “I figured you’d asked her to come.”
“No. I didn’t.” He recovered his composure and cleared his expression, because they were nearly at the meeting room. “She’s good at caregiving. She’s going to make an amazing nurse.”
“She told me that she’s starting nursing school in July. UC Davis is one of the best nursing schools in the country.”
“Yes, it is.” He’d been stunned when he’d learned that she was headed to Sacramento. She’d told him about her acceptance to UC Davis at his parents’ house over Christmas dinner six months ago, having just arrived back from Afghanistan. He’d been working up the nerve to tell his mother that he’d been posted to the Sacramento field office, knowing she’d be disappointed. His mother had been so hopeful that he’d get assigned to Chicago so they could live in the same city again. That Liza would be joining him in Sacramento had taken some of the sting out of the announcement.
He’d been happy. As happy as he’d been able to get, anyway. He’d still been numb with grief over Tory, and seeing Liza had . . . he wasn’t sure, but it had been like a kick in the gut. He’d been so glad to see her, but sad at the same time. She’d known that he’d fallen in love with Tory. She’d known that Tory was pregnant. But he hadn’t told her that Tory had died, and she’d been so shocked. She’d tried to hide it, but he’d been able to tell.
The past five months of having her just next door in the duplex he’d bought had been . . . nice. More than nice. Her very presence had helped him heal.
Molina cleared her throat, yanking him back. “You must be very proud of her.”
“I am,” he said fervently. “So damn proud.”
Liza had overcome so much to get where she was in life. It was too bad she was too proud to accept his help when he offered it.
He wondered if she allowed the butt-groping Mike to help her.
Molina paused in the doorway, giving him a calculated look. “I think that might come as a surprise to her.” And then she entered the meeting room, leaving him gaping at her.
Why would Liza be surprised to learn that he was proud of her? They’d been best friends for seven freaking years. She had to know.
“Agent Hunter.” Raeburn’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Are you planning to join us or not?”
Tom jerked to attention, realizing too late that he’d been standing in the doorway while the others took their seats. Seven of Raeburn’s agents, most of whom worked on cases other than Eden, watched him curiously, and he had to fight to keep his cheeks from heating.
Gideon Reynolds wasn’t in attendance, which meant Eden would be on the agenda. Gideon had been his trainer for the last few months, but Raeburn had assigned him to someone new after Gideon had been recused from the investigation.
His new trainer was Ricki Croft. She was in her late thirties and could be abrupt, especially before she’d had her morning coffee. She was a good agent, though, her career on a trajectory to make Special Agent in Charge one day. She was more by-the-book than Gideon had been, but far less than Raeburn, so Tom liked her well enough. She eyed him now, travel mug clutched in her hands, one brow lifted. She indicated the empty chair to her left, which Tom took, still feeling off balance.
Raeburn welcomed Molina back, then ceded the meeting to her. She allowed each agent to give an update on their cases, and Tom found his attention wandering for the first time during a briefing of any kind. He was known for his laser focus and his ability to remember nearly everything he heard, even the assignments that had nothing to do with Eden.
But his thoughts were on Liza now, on Molina’s startling disclosure. He needed to talk to Liza, as soon as possible. He needed to mend this rift between them. He needed to make sure she knew he was proud of her. She needed to know what she meant to him.
She wasn’t his oldest friend, but she was the one whom he trusted above all others. Liza knew his deepest secrets. For a long time, she’d been the only person in his life who’d known about Tory, about what she’d meant to him. About the life Tory had carried.
She understood what he’d lost.
His attention was brought back to the room by the buzzing of the cell phone in his pocket. It was his work phone—not the burner he never left home without—so he peeked at the text.
It was from Jeff Bunker, a sixteen-year-old budding journalist who, despite authoring a trash piece on Mercy Callahan that had hurt her deeply, had since made amends. Now Tom considered the kid a friend and ally.
Call me. Please. It’s important.
Tom glanced up to see Croft frowning at him. He winced and slid his phone back in his pocket.
Only to have it buzz again.
Again, he peeked. Again it was from Jeff. PLS CALL ME! About Eden. CRITICAL.
Jeff knew the buttons to push. He knew that anything “Eden” would bring Tom running. Wincing again, he pushed his chair back, grateful it didn’t squeak.
Raeburn still whipped around to glare at him. “You are not dismissed, Agent Hunter.”
Tom held up his phone. “An informant. It’s about Eden.”
Molina held up her hand, silencing the retort poised on Raeburn’s lips. “Hurry back.”
Tom nodded and left the room, dialing Jeff Bunker as soon as his ass cleared the doorway. “What is it?” he asked when Jeff answered.
“I put an alert on any news articles about Eden,” Jeff said. “Last night I got a hit from an article by a guy named Cameron Cook. His pregnant girlfriend disappeared two months ago. He got an e-mail from her, saying she’d been taken to Eden and she needed him to bring the cops to spring her. He said she sounded scared. She’s due in two weeks.”
Tom sucked in a breath, both excited and dismayed. Eden’s conditions were primitive at best. Many women died in childbirth. “How did she get an e-mail out?”
“He doesn’t know. He told the police and they went to the coordinates in the e-mail but the place was just forest.”
Tom stood straighter. “She sent him coordinates?”
“Yes, but they were bogus. The cops got mad at him, threatened to have him arrested if he kept bugging them, because he kept calling. He finally went to the newspaper. He’s desperate. He’s been searching the area around the coordinates for weeks all by himself.”
“Where is he?” Tom asked, his pulse ratcheting up. This could be the break they’d been hoping for.
“With me, in the lobby of your building. I drove to San Francisco to get him. I figured you’d want him to stop talking to the newspaper.”
A grin pulled at his mouth, so wide it hurt his cheeks. “You thought right. I’ll be down to get you both as soon as I can.” He started back for the meeting room. “Don’t let him leave.”
Jeff whooshed out a relieved breath. “Thank God you believe me. I told him that he could trust you.”
Tom paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Thank you,” he said, then ended the call, reentered the meeting room, and smiled at Molina when she stopped talking to meet his gaze.
“Well?” she asked.
“We may have someone on the inside. Of Eden.”
Molina’s eyes sparkled. “Yes.”
Raeburn looked reluctantly impressed. “Explain.” Then pointed to Agent Croft when Tom had finished giving them the details. “Check it out.”
Tom held up his hand. “The kid came to see me. He was told to trust me. I don’t know that he’ll be as forthcoming with Agent Croft.” He glanced at Croft. “No offense.”
Croft’s lips twitched. “None taken.” She turned to Raeburn. “I’ll take Tom with me. It’ll be good training for him.”
Raeburn glared. “I want regular updates. Report back directly to me. Go.”
Tom looked at Molina questioningly, because Raeburn’s orders excluded her.
“Come on,” Croft muttered. “I’ll fill you in.”
With a last look over his shoulder at Molina, he followed Croft.
