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At least he appeared to have been cleaned up. Worried sick, Fiona watched as they carried him back to the empty cell he’d occupied before. Setting the stretcher down, one man unceremoniously rolled Jake out and onto the floor.
“Is he alive?” Fiona asked, drawing the attention of both Bart and Randall.
“He is,” Bart answered, his smirk and leer making her skin crawl. “He’ll probably be around long after you’re gone. He’s way more valuable to Micheline than you’d ever be.”
Randall laughed at this, pushing his glasses up his nose. The other two men simply stood there, expressions bored, waiting until they were given the okay to leave.
“Come on,” Bart finally said, when she didn’t give him the reaction he’d evidently been waiting for. “We’re done here. Let’s go.”
They clomped back up the stairs and left, locking the door behind them.
Damn. Scooting across the concrete floor, she tried to peer around the dividing wall separating her cell from Jake’s. But she couldn’t.
“Jake,” she said, raising her voice. “Wake up.”
“We’re all awake now, lady,” Underhill complained. “Would you mind keeping it down? I’m trying to get some sleep back here.”
“Wouldn’t you rather get out?” she countered.
“Hell yes, but how do you think you’re going to manage that? Even if you could get out of the cell, there are two locked doors between this basement and the main house. If by some miracle you were able to make it through those, there are cameras everywhere between there and freedom. They’d grab you before you made it anywhere near an outside door.”
Wisely, she didn’t share the fact that she possessed a key to the double doors. “You’d be surprised at what I can do,” she said instead.
Underhill laughed and didn’t reply. The other prisoner, the poor woman in the last cell, didn’t make a sound at all.
As the hours passed, Fiona would have thought the pain from her broken ankle would have subsided. Instead, it seemed to intensify. She’d never broken a bone before, and how badly it hurt came as a shock.
Finally, she drifted into a kind of uncomfortable doze. But every movement, no matter how small, brought a sharp reminder of her now swollen and black-and-blue ankle. She’d had to take off her shoe earlier, and now even her sock felt too tight.
When the door at the bottom of the stairs opened, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, muffling a groan at the pain. No way did she plan on letting Bart catch her unprepared.
Instead of one of Micheline’s male henchmen, Leigh came through the door, striding directly to Fiona’s cell. She stood a few feet back from the bars, as if she thought Fiona might reach through and grab her.
Fiona spoke first. “Please tell me you’re here to get me medical help.”
Instead of answering, Leigh just stared, frowning. The look of distaste on her perfect features made Fiona’s skin crawl.
Not knowing how to react, Fiona settled for refusing to break eye contact. Simply staring back, she wondered how long this would go on.
Finally, Leigh shook her head. “I have just one question,” Leigh said, her cold tone dripping disdain. “Why? Why would you do this to us? After all we did to help you? We took you in, set you on the path to becoming a better you, and you betray our trust? Why?” Her voice rose with the final sentence.
So much drama. With a Herculean effort, Fiona managed not to let her face reveal any expression. “Leigh, are you aware you’re part of a cult?”
Leigh’s face contorted. “AAG is not a cult. I wish everyone would stop saying that. We do so much good, helping people—”
“Find their best selves,” Fiona finished for her. “I know, believe me. Cut the nonsense, Leigh. You need to strip the blinders off your eyes and sit down and take a long, hard look at what you’re a part of. If Micheline goes through with this little born-again gathering she’s planning, you’ll be an accessory to multiple murders. Do you honestly think she’s going to stick around to see the results of the horror she’s unleashed? Do you?”
Something—Fiona wasn’t sure what—flitted across Leigh’s expression. Realization, maybe? Fiona could only hope.
But immediately, the stubborn, intractable look came back. “Everything Micheline does is for the good of the AAG.”
This time, Fiona refused to let a comment like that slide past. “Is it now? Do you truly believe asking your followers to commit a mass suicide is a good thing? Bilking confused and lonely college kids out of their money with a bunch of false promises, is that a good thing? Tell me, Leigh. Honestly. Tell me some real and true good things the AAG has done.”
Leigh opened her mouth to speak. And closed it. When she finally did offer up her thoughts, her tone carried way less confidence. “What about our seminars? We help people feel good about themselves. We give hope, often to those for whom there is no hope left.”
“Reciting from the leaflet?” Fiona asked dryly, moving just enough to set off more throbbing in her ankle. She sucked in a breath, trying like hell to ignore the pain, but perspiration broke out on her forehead just the same.
“What do you want, Fiona?” Leigh dropped all pretense of her gung-ho attitude. “What’s your angle in all of this?”
