Page 100 of Running to You

“Yeah. From then on, I kept my eyes open. I started digging into the files. I looked at the women’s applications. They were selective about who they let in. Jed said they’d only take women they were sure they could help. But the applications told me the criteria was based on one thing. Every young woman who checked the needs financial aid box got denied. But the women whose families could pay got in.”

Okay, so they were greedy. But still… “I don’t understand. Could the women not contact their families?”

“They could. They had access to phones at certain times.”

“Then, if they wanted to leave, why didn’t they just say so? And if they said so, why would the families keep paying?”

“That confused me too. As far as I could tell, all the women were there voluntarily, and all their parents were happy to pay for them to stay until they were”—she lifted her fingers for air quotes—“recovered. Obviously, I was missing something. I started hanging out with the girls, trying to figure out what was really going on. That’s how I met Nicole. She’s in her twenties, a big fan of Jed. She thinks his tactics are brilliant. She got me a copy of the curriculum Jed wrote, which I read. I listened to his teaching. But I saw it very differently than Nicole. He wasn’t trying to make the women free and independent. He was manipulating them to make them dependent. It was like a…a—”

“A cult.” His stomach cramped. And not because of the burger and fries.

Cults were dangerous, sometimes deadly. And Eliza had been in one.

No, not in one. Financially managing one. Which was…

Too disturbing to wrap his mind around.

“I don’t like that word.” She sighed. “But…yeah. I guess so. I mean, most of the girls loved him. No, they worshipped him. And he ate it up and wanted more.

“I would slip into gatherings and watch. It was masterful and horrifying the way he drew them in, acted like he was encouraging them but actually making them feel small and insignificant. It made me sick.”

She was quiet a long moment. Sam wished he weren’t driving so he could read her facial expressions.

“A lot of the women were pregnant.” She blurted that like it was the worst news so far.

“You already told me that, that some were pregnant when they got there.”

“I counted four in a group of fifty once. Four who were showing. But they weren’t new to the community. They’d been there more than nine months.”

“Whoa. What are you saying?”

“There weren’t that many men around. Gilbert and Elliot, but they weren’t allowed anywhere near the women. And it wasn’t like they were handsome or even nice. Maybe Elliot could’ve seduced one of them, but four? No, I never thought they were the fathers. Which meant…” The long pause had him guessing, but he kept his lips clamped shut. “It was Jed,” she finally said. “He was sleeping with them, fathering children with them. They built this huge nursery for kids early on, much bigger than I ever thought they’d need. But it was filling…with Jed’s children.”

“And you didn’t realize any of that? For years?” How could she have missed so much?

“I always thought money was my superpower,” she said. “Turns out, my gift is overlooking the obvious.”

He reached across the console and took her hand. “Sorry. I don’t mean to… I’m sure you were busy.”

“I was. And until last year, I didn’t pay attention. I did my job and figured they were doing theirs.”

“Did the wife know what was going on?”

“I don’t know. Lola was my closest friend there. My confidant. She helped me understand so many things about myself, about my relationship with my mother. I never sought out the young women because I had her. But she worships Jed. The way she talks about him… I used to think it was sweet. My mother was so demanding with my father, and he just did what she wanted. But Jed and Lola seemed to have a great marriage. There’s a scripture that says women should respect their husbands, and she was a good example of that.”

Eliza knew Bible verses? Interesting. They’d need to come back to that. “There’s also a verse that says men should love their wives like Christ loves the church. Not sure ol’ Jed was living up to that.”

“Right. Maybe Lola knows about the women, maybe not. Either way, I don’t think she has the courage to stand up to him.”

“This woman’s a psychiatrist?”

“Psychologist.”

“Close enough. She should have known better. Did you notify the authorities?”

“We’d had investigators—even FBI—poking around more than once. They’d gotten tips that the place wasn’t what it purported to be. But it never led to anything. Jed was good at deceiving people, starting with the women. They said what they had to say to protect him. The ones who hadn’t drunk the Kool-Aid were conveniently absent when anyone came around asking questions. I needed hard evidence.”

“No, you didn’t!” The flash of anger surprised him, and he tempered his voice. “You needed to leave. Get somewhere safe. You could have told the authorities what you knew. It wasn’t your job to…to take them down.”