AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Actually, I do.” I kept my tone even, mainly because I didn’t want to deal with Kythe’s childish shit right now. The kid relied on information solely through technology, while ignoring the humans who created it. My way of mining information drove him out of his fucking tree. “You see this guy?” I asked, flipping the photo to face our cyber geek. “This isn’t a man who’d ever allow anyone out of his grasp once he had them. Frankly I’m stunned Eden had the strength to get out of this guy’s clutches at all. Most children of cult leaders are by their parents’ sides until the bitter end. History’s shown us that children of charismatic leaders live tragically doomed lives more often than not. ”
“I can attest to that,” Steele said, holding up a hand. “My old man was a charismatic preacher—spoke in Tongues, danced with venomous snakes, the whole nine yards. His flock was so mesmerized by his supposed righteousness that they didn’t even blink when he said God told him to dump a shitload of snakes on my head. Trust me, his cult would’ve let that bastard murder me right in front of them, so to this day I thank my lucky stars that he was the one who wound up getting snakebit.”
“Holy shit,” Kythe breathed, staring at him. “That’s fucking nuts, dude.”
“I survived. He didn’t.” Steele shrugged. “Not all kids who grow up with crazy-ass parents like mine—or Eden Steadfast’s—can say the same.”
“You mentioned cult leaders,” Cap said, frowning at me. “Is that what the House of Enlightened Greatness is? A cult?”
I lifted a shoulder. “For want of a better term, yeah. Truman Steadfast’s followers empty their bank accounts whenever he asks them to, and they do and think whatever he tells them to. I haven’t given it a full look-through, but at first blush their devotion to Truman Steadfast seems absolute.”
“This case is smelling worse and worse,” Nix sighed, looking morose. “Just what we need, a David Koresh or Jim Jones in our own backyard wanting protection, when the dude probably should be taken out like a bag of trash.”
“Koresh and Jones were like my old man—masters at weaponizing religion to ensnare their victims,” Steele said, shaking his head. “Truman Steadfast seems to have a genuine intolerance for anything religious. He hates it when his so-called meeting house—the place where he broadcasts from on the North Shore—is referred to as a church. He immediately corrects anyone who tries to link what he does to any type of organized religion.”
“That’s weird,” Cap remarked. “You’d think a guy on the take like Tru Steadfast would love to have the tax-exempt status a church has in this country.”
“Cap, he hates religion.” It was so obvious it was shocking the whole world couldn’t see it. “Religion killed his family when he was a kid, or at least that’s what his fucked-up teenaged-brain locked onto. It’s also why this particular grift was the one that worked for him. Deep down, Marvin Pankey is devoted to spitting in the face of the tent-revival evangelist who busted up his parents. But since he can’t reach them, he does the next best thing and acts like that evangelist without actually bringing the almighty power of God into it.”
“Why not?” Cap asked, clearly confused. “Is he a believer and he doesn’t want to piss God off?”
“Truman Steadfast believes only in himself. It’s his pride that drives him to constantly stream his charismatic bullshit out into the world. He’s bent on proving to his long-gone mommy and that asshole tent evangelist that they were wrong to leave him behind, because he’s better than God. He knows he’s better than God because he’s compelled literally millions of people to worshiphim, rather than some deity. That’s why he gets pissed off when his meeting house is referred to as a church or a temple. It’shishouse, not God’s. In his mind, the world isn’t big enough for both him and God. There can only behim.”
The room was silent for a heavy beat. Then Steele shifted. “Man, that’s fucked up. And considering my background and what I think meets the level of being fucked up, that’s saying something.”
Yeah, it was. “I could be wrong.”
“You rarely are,” Cap said, making a notation on his notepad. “Okay, jury’s still out on whether or not Tru Steadfast will agree to our terms of protection, so let’s shift to Eden Steadfast. What’s your read on her, Luke?”
Suddenly the room was silent, like the world held its breath. “I don’t know.”
Steele dropped his phone.
Cap stared at me.
Kythe let out a snort.
“What?” Nix didn’t seem to know how to work his mouth, so the words came out like a stretch of uneven road. “What does that mean, you don’t know? Youalwaysknow.”
“Not this time. Eden Steadfast doesn’t have the usual tells that every other human on the planet has. She sat right here during Cap’s interview, and I couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or lying through her perfect teeth.”
“Does she have perfect teeth?” Steele wanted to know, and I glanced over to find my friend smirking at me.Idiot.
“She has a degree in psychology,” Cap pointed out, ignoring Steele. “She knows better than most what we’d be on the lookout for.”
“But she didn’t know that we were on the lookout. She doesn’t know how we operate—you conduct interviews while I watch and figure out whether the prospective client is being truthful or not. She was fully on her guard from the moment she walked in, to the moment she left.” Except, of course, for those glimpses of genuine shock and revulsion when I’d pointed out the dick pics. That had caught her off-guard. And then…
Nothing.
If that wasn’t a mystery worth solving, I didn’t know what was.
“You’re telling me that you can get a better read off her old man, someone you’ve never met, than you can get off a woman who was no more than three feet away from you?” Kythe looked like he wanted to laugh. If Cap hadn’t been in the room, he probably would have. “Must be losing your touch.”
“Considering you couldn’t even find her, the same could be said of you,” Steele returned without missing a beat. “Come to find out, there are some cases that actually make us do the work, Kythe. You’re young, but you’ll learn that soon enough.”
“That’ll do, kids,” Cap said calmly, though an edge of deadly steel entered his tone. “I’m still thinking that since she’s got a degree in psychology, she could be aware of how to guard herself from any type of profiling, and she just does it naturally.”
“If that’s the case, it means she’s better than Luke at what he does.” Kythe seemed to enjoy every syllable that left his mouth. A mouth that someday I’d probably have to smack just to teach it some manners. “Wouldn’t you say so, Luke?”
