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“Bruh,” Ty said, and pounded his heart with his fist. “Nothing but love for that weekend.”
“You get the list yet?” Owen asked, sipping his coffee. He’d already cleaned up and shaved. Ty noticed the new purple tie. Dude loved purple.
Ty had been tasked with acquiring a list of women who had gone missing from Blue Harbor and neighboring islands within the past year. He’d asked Selah to put the women with flower names at the top of the list. “Waiting on an email, and then I’ll get started. You want some help while I wait?”
“You putting pushpins in my map? Pass.” Owen hated anyone messing with his maps. Once Ty had spelled out LOSER in orange pushpins, and in retaliation Owen had mixed vinegar with the water in the coffeepot when it brewed. Fortunately, Fiona had gone for a cup before Ty.
“What do you think about Violet’s theory? About the Fire & Ice Killer?” The idea had needled him since she said it in her creepy, nonchalant way.
Owen set his cup on the railing and then leaned over it, gazing out at the still waters. “It’s possible. But I know you. If it’s true, it ain’t on you.” He smacked Ty’s back in a brotherly gesture. And Owen was most definitely his brother—by choice, not by blood. It had been almost twenty years since he’d even spoken with either of his full biological brothers. Truth be told, there was no love lost between him and the eldest of them, Garrick. The younger, Lysander, had only been fourteen when Ty had been disfellowshipped and led out of the gates of his community in Asheville.
“You hearing me, Ty?” Owen asked. “If it is this guy, you can’t take blame.”
Ty wasn’t so sure. “It’ll feel like it’s on me.”
“Violet’s stretching based on the locale being North Carolina. I’m not saying he hasn’t evolved and moved locations, but it’s a serious stretch as far as I’m concerned.” Owen finished his coffee and brushed his lavender dress shirt.
Ty’s phone dinged with an email notification. “Got the list of missing women, concentrating on those with flowers in their names only—for now. Selah said eight women with flower names have gone missing in the past year.” He scanned the list. “Amy-Rose Rydell from Roanoke, but worked in Blue Harbor. Dahlia Anderson—a travel agent from Nags Head. Ivy Leech, a schoolteacher at Cape Hatteras and Lily Hayes, souvenir shop employee from Blue Harbor. Iris Benington was a nurse in Nags Head, Heather Wade was a barista in Ocracoke. Susan Mayer lived and worked in Blue Harbor and went missing eight months ago.” He paused on the last name and location.
“What is it?” Owen asked.
He read it again. Two times, then three to be sure he wasn’t misreading the name. He unbuttoned his top button, which was choking him, and swiped at the sweat gathering above his lip. “I know the most recent woman who’s gone missing. She lives here. In Blue Harbor.” His mind wouldn’t process the information. How was this possible? “Owen, I’m not sure Violet is stretching about the Fire & Ice Killer.” Not now.
“Who is it? How do you know her?” Owen leaned in to read the email.
He didn’t have a clue where to begin. His past was complicated, unbelievable and disturbing. Not to mention shameful and humiliating, especially the events that occurred the night he was disfellowshipped. “I grew up in the Family of Glory. A cult. The missing woman—Ahnah—is the little sister of the girl I wanted to someday marry. To make a long story short, a lot of crazy things went down when I was eighteen. Bex was only seventeen, and we were going to sneak away since she was a minor.”
“Why? You realize it was a cult?”
“No. We one hundred percent believed we were condemning ourselves from heaven for leaving, but we loved each other, and Bex’s hand had been asked for by my older brother, Garrick.”
Owen frowned. “So?”
“In the Family, the eldest son of each wife—it’s not bigamy to have many wives in the Family—marries first, then the next is allowed to be married, and so on. My eldest brother from our mom asked for her, and it was granted by the Prophet.” He still wasn’t sure why when he knew how much Ty loved her.
“You were running away and breaking all the rules for love,” Owen said.
“Yes, and we were taking Ahnah with us. She was only twelve at the time. The Family wasn’t a safe place for girls or women. Bex wouldn’t leave her, and neither would I. I went to Atlanta to find an apartment for us and a job—hoping to lose ourselves in a big city so they couldn’t find us and haul her and Ahnah back to Asheville. In the end it didn’t matter how many miles we put between us.”
“Why?” Owen asked.
“When I returned, I found out that Bex had been taken into the Prophet’s marriage circle—or harem, if you want to get technical. I broke the greatest law.”
“Which is?”
“I slept with her outside of the marriage bed, and it was brought to the Prophet’s attention. See, in the Family, if a woman is engaged to a man and he finds out she’s not a virgin, then the proposal is forfeited. She’s ruined for any other man...except for the Prophet, who takes her into his home as mercy. She’ll marry him and bear him more children.” Ty paused at Owen’s shocked expression. “I know. It’s archaic and sick, and honestly, the Prophet’s way of adding to his collection of young brides.”
“Did she admit to it?”
“I don’t know. Probably not, but the wives examine her to prove it.”
“You are kidding me.”
Ty’s neck flushed hot. “I wish I were. I didn’t see her. I was promptly escorted to the Prophet’s office and rebuked and disfellowshipped, then escorted to the gates and out of the commune.”
“Which is where?”
“A community in the mountains on the outskirts of Asheville. But only the leadership lived in the gated community. The Family has tens of thousands of followers all over North Carolina, and they attend church by satellite, and there are monthly gatherings in the mountains for everyone.”
