Javier doesn’t say a word when he walks in; he just gives me a hug and sits down. From him, that’s a lot. Banter is his usual way of expressing emotions, but when he’s silent like this, he’s very, very focused. I wouldn’t want to be his enemy, ever, but especially when he’s in this mood.
Kezia’s right behind him, and her hug lingers a little longer. “You all right?” she asks me. I try to smile. “Yeah, okay, I see.” She glances at Vee and Lanny, both in the kitchen taking down mugs from shelves. The last time she saw my daughter was when she took her statement taking the blame off Olly Belldene. “Girls okay?”
“They’re all right,” I say. “Worried, of course. I’m trying to keep them occupied.”
“Anybody else coming?”
“A few more,” I tell her. It’s a bit of an understatement.
When I try to step away, she holds me in place. “You made a deal with the Belldenes, didn’t you?” I don’t answer that. I don’t want to lie, not to her, but I can’t tell her the truth either. She finally just shakes her head, lips pressed into a hard line of disapproval. “You’re on the wrong side of this, Gwen.”
“I’m on the side of my kids,” I tell her. “And I know you are too. Thank you for being here.”
“Well, Prester would have come, too, but one of us needs to be here in Norton. He also said thank God whatever mess you’re in is not in our town for a change.”
I have to laugh, because I can almost hear Detective Prester saying it. I didn’t ask him to come tonight, but I’m not surprised, either, by the fact he knows. Norton doesn’t deserve the two detectives it’s got, and I’m sure the locals don’t know how lucky they are.
J. B. arrives next, but when I open the door she doesn’t come in. She gestures me outside and points out at the far end of the road, where it disappears down a dip in the hill. “I really hope that isn’t a problem.” I see the line of cars as it comes around the curve. Six of them—big, black SUVs. Two of them park down on the road. The other four turn in, and maneuver into our already-packed space in front of the house. It’s a lot. I imagine our neighbors around the lake are paying close attention and wondering what kind of trouble I’m in this time.
We stand quietly together on the porch and watch. J. B. says, “FBI?”
I nod. “Go on inside,” I tell her. “I’ll be there in a minute.” She goes, and I wait, breath misting in the cold air. This is the kind of night Sam and I like—crisp, bracing, the sky full of stars and the lake shattering that light into glitter. We’d sit out here on this porch with a bottle of wine, sharing a blanket, fingers twined together. Blind, contented peace.
I want that back so badly.
FBI Special Agent Mike Lustig unfolds himself from the passenger side of the first SUV. A big, powerful African American man with a handsome face that eases into a restrained smile when he sees me. More people start getting out of the SUVs—like Lustig, they’re serious people in suits. Lustig’s wearing his FBI badge on his hip, which he normally doesn’t; he’s in full Bureau mode right now.
“Agent,” I say, and offer my hand. He shakes it. We’re a little more formal than the rest of my friends, at least right now, after Wolfhunter. He made choices I didn’t like. One of them was working with Miranda Tidewell to try to get Sam away from me. He’s never fully trusted me, and I doubt that’s going to change. “Thanks for coming. And”—I gesture to the rest of it—“bringing the cavalry.”
“Pretty much emptied out the Knoxville and Memphis field offices,” he tells me. “Specialized teams are coming down out of headquarters and heading straight for the location you provided.”
I’m not stupid enough to think he took my word for it. “You have confirmation that’s where their compound is?”
He nods and pulls out his phone, and in a few swipes brings up an image. It’s taken from a satellite, and it’s difficult to make out exactly; the area is thick with trees. But I can see an open area, and what looks like at least two buildings visible through the tree cover. One looks like a church. What seals it is the wide stream that wanders along the border, and the rocky falloff into a small lake. Bitter Falls. It matches what Carol—Daria—described.
“We’re tasking a drone to get a better look at the compound, so we should have images real soon.”
He’s holding something back. That isn’t surprising, but it is aggravating. “You couldn’t have gotten all this done without more than what I told you,” I say. “What did you find?”
He doesn’t want to tell me. At all. But he can see I’m not moving until he does. “We took a look at that abandoned camp you talked about. Fact is, we were behind the curve on this; they never had anybody coming forward, escaping, selling stories. Nothing. People who were in the cult kept their mouths shut, or didn’t know enough to matter. We went all the way back in the records and came up with a man called Tom Sarnovich. He started out a regular-type preacher back in the seventies, took over a church in Wolfhunter around then. One day, the church just closed down, and they moved out to Carr’s property, where they built their first compound.”
“The one you and Sam found.”
Lustig nods. “Turns out they were there for about ten years, then Preacher Tom wanted a bigger slice. They moved to that camp you sent the video of; it was an old mining camp sold at auction.” He doesn’t want to tell me the next part. I can see him hesitating.
“Agent,” I say. Then, in a lower tone: “Mike.”
“Okay. We sent a team out there to look around. It was pretty much like the video showed—weird and disconcerting, but no real signs of anything criminal. But there was a small lake on the property, too, an old quarry. Smelled rotten around there. On a hunch, the agent in charge sent down a diver to take a look.”
My mouth goes dry. I don’t blink. I just . . . wait.
“They found bones,” he says. “No way to tell how many bodies there are down there, a lot of the bones are scattered. They’re all skeletonized. Divers found one still weighted down with junk iron and chains.”
My lips part, but I don’t say anything. All this fits. It fits with everything that Carol told me. It fits with the baptism, Father Tom’s army of saints.
“My guess is, they moved because when you put that many bodies in a body of water that shallow, the stench can’t be covered up. The whole place must have reeked. So he found some new spot to relocate and start over.”
“Bitter Falls,” I say, and swallow. It feels tight and painful, and my nerves are crawling with horror. “How deep is this lake?”
“Deeper than the first one,” he says. “And my guess is, they’re using it the same way.”
I have to brace myself against the porch railing because my knees are shaking. I can’t stop imagining my son out in that water, a weight around his ankle, being dragged down in the cold, black water. Then, in a blink, it’s Sam. Nausea rushes up. It’s too much. Too close.
Melvin anchored his victims’ bodies in water. He liked to take us out on the lake where he knew they were, gliding his boat over his garden of dead women. I never knew until the trial, and I still dream about it, about plunging off the side of the boat and being down there with them. Sightless eyes and reaching arms, welcoming me.