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“Geez.” I hit the steering wheel.
As far as I see it, I’ve got two options—drop him off at the booze and boobs before me or take him with me. And seeing that he has an addiction to both booze and boobs, it’s not the wisest move on my part. Even though he doesn’t have cash or a credit card, there’s nothing that would stop him from trying to down all the booze this place has to offer, and I don’t feel like bailing him out of jail tonight.
“There’s been a change of plans,” I tell him as we hightail it out of the parking lot and get back on the road.
“You’re going to sit in the truck while I take care of a little business,” I say to my brother as I speed us down to Ironwood Springs, to the back roads that lead to Paradise lost, and park as close as I can get to the front gate.
“Don’t move a muscle,” I warn as I get out, climb through the fence, and make my way toward the compound in the cover of darkness.
Every now and again I hear the murmur of a crowd collectively cheering and applauding.
I head in that direction, past the RV graveyard, past the tents, past Nightshade, the house that looks as if it’s about to come to life and swallow me whole. A cache of red canisters sits dotted every ten feet or so around the periphery of the structure and I make a note of it. Odd location to store fuel.
I spot a crowd standing in a mammoth circle, and the fact every last one of them is naked as a jaybird doesn’t seem to surprise me. I shoot across to the woods and duck in a thicket, climbing up the side of a pine until I’m perched about eight feet off the ground. The moon glows over their bodies and makes them shine like aliens. Three figures stand in the middle, clad in black robes. Malcolm, Patty, and a sturdier man with a red hood. A dry laugh thumps through my chest.
I can’t wait to take him down myself.
I scan the crowd. Everyone is solemn, so very focused with the exception of a brunette who seems to be shifting her head ever so slightly from side to side. She turns this way briefly and my stomach drops.
I know exactly where Fallon Baxter is tonight.
She doesn’t have her weapon on her.
She doesn’t have anything on her.
26
Special Agent Fallon Baxter
There he stands before the gathered members of Paradise, his identity obscured beneath the folds of the blood-red hood on his head—hiding like the coward he is.
We’ve just endured close to an hour of community news and reviews, enough to bore my socks off if I was wearing any.
The so-called supreme leader has taken center stage once again, rambling on and on about the benefits of his kingdom.
“He usually doesn’t go on like this,” Sloan whispers and I nod because I had figured he was putting on an extra special show just for me.
“Tonight”—he shouts with the conviction of a madman—“we stand at the precipice of our collective destiny, united in our journey toward transcendence. This recommitment ceremony symbolizes not just a renewal of our vows to our shared vision, but it acts as a sacred pledge, reaffirming the fact we’re discarding the world around us that fought so hard to confine us.” A howl of approval erupts from the crowd. “Tonight we pioneer our way to a new realm, where our spirits will fly unbound and our collective potential will be unlimited.”
A new realm? Spirits unbound? For sure I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid.
A thought comes back to me. Something that left me unsettled the other night at the diner—he said not to spook the killer or he might just want to kill everyone around.
“Oh no,” I moan as my mind dips into the darkest territory yet. It makes sense why he’d want to set up Malcolm and Patty if things went south. And I’m guessing that someway, somehow, the deceased figured out exactly who the man in red was. They needed to be eliminated. But now the feds are here. I’m here.
And like the coward before me said once, he always has a plan B.
I squeeze my eyes tight before glancing over at the silver basin behind him. Busted the mob, confiscated enough cyanide to kill the entire state.
That would give him access to take care of the job.
I try to shake the thought of out my head but can’t.
“Tonight marks the event horizon of our rebirth.” His voice bellows into the darkness and a chill rides down my spine as he says those words echoed from the diner. “Tonight we fly into the darkness as beacons of light, forging a future into eternity.”
I glance to Sloan and she shakes her head my way.
“Isn’t he great?” She giggles as she says it.
