A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(103)

A deafening explosion at her side, her ears ringing. Karl lurched backward, eyes widening. Several more shots echoed in the darkness around them, accompanied by screams, and Karl tumbled to the ground. Abby glanced sideways at Wong, who had been the one to shoot Karl and was already training her gun on the second guard.

“Drop it!” Wong shouted. And despite the impossible uproar around them, he seemed to hear her and dropped his rifle to the ground.

People were running, ESU forces intercepting them, the chopper hovering above. Someone shouted, his voice intensified with a bullhorn, but Abby couldn’t parse the words with the ringing in her ears. She stared at Karl, who lay on his back, eyes wide and vacant, a medic by his side. More and more vehicles poured into the compound. Somewhere, a woman was crying.

An agent grabbed Otis, forced him to his knees, and patted him down, pulling a long farming knife from Otis’s belt. He tossed the knife aside. Abby glanced away from Karl and spotted the blade discarded in the dirt. It was long, maybe six inches, and quite narrow.

Just like the knife that had killed Eric and Liam.





CHAPTER 69


The evening stretched into the night, fragmented in Abby’s consciousness, a disjointed sequence of events.

Bright spotlights and flashlights casting blinding beams in the darkness, illuminating the terrified residents of the compound as they were herded back into the dining hall by armed men. Crying children, furtive glances at Karl’s inert body on the ground. Horror and fear etched on people’s faces.

A busted door, then another, then another. A room that looked like a lab. Another that was filled with papers and computers. A basement full of chemicals. No sign of Nathan anywhere.

Two K-9 handlers with dogs. One of them a search and rescue dog, the other a cadaver dog. Noses to the ground, sniffing and searching. Abby hoped one would find Nathan. Dreaded that the other would. But she wasn’t even sure which dog was which.

An ambulance driving into the compound, red lights flashing. Karl’s body raised on a gurney. Wong standing to one side, staring at the medical crew, her expression inscrutable.

More boots, all matching the same type. All collected and taken away to be examined for one pair with a specific tread-wear pattern. The boots of a murderer.

And more farming knives with a long, narrow blade. Found in trunks in a storage room, discarded under beds, two in the possession of congregation members.

Then, already exhausted, she stepped into Otis’s office, where Carver and Marshall stood by Otis’s desk, staring at a laptop’s screen. Carver’s face was twisted with disgust.

“What is it?” Abby asked.

“Found a flash drive hidden in a drawer,” Marshall said. “It’s full of videos.”

Abby stepped over, the laptop’s screen shifting into view. Was that . . . a porn video clip? No, it was much worse. The man in the recording was Otis Tillman. The video had been taken in this very room. Abby’s eyes flickered to the corner of the room where the camera would have been. The shelf of books.

“We found the camera,” Carver said, following her gaze. “It was impossible to see if you didn’t know where to look.”

Abby gazed back at the laptop. The sex on the screen was rough, Otis’s mouth locked in a visceral sneer, the woman’s face turned away from the camera. The volume was muted, and Abby was thankful for that fact.

“Some of these videos are just conversations,” Carver said. “Between Otis and one of the community members.”

“Confessions,” Abby interjected. “He filmed their private confessions.”

On-screen, the woman turned her head, facing the camera. Abby shut her eyes. Ruth. It was Ruth.

“Can you turn it off?”

“Done.” Carver’s voice sounded brittle.

Abby looked down at Otis’s desk. The desk on which Ruth had been lying. She took a step away, distancing herself from it. How many confessions like that one had taken place there? The air was suffocating, rancid. She crossed the room to the window, flung it open, letting in the chilly night wind.

“Why did he film those confession sessions?” Marshall asked.

“Blackmail, probably,” Abby answered after a moment. “Jim Jones did something similar. When people were about to leave—or to report him to the authorities—Jones would threaten to expose their secret confessions. I guess Otis went a step further. He wanted actual videos.”

“Those videos go back years,” Carver said.

“How many?” Abby whispered.

Marshall checked. “Over two thousand videos. Going all the way back to 2011.”

That probably meant there was a video of Eden here. Had Otis threatened her with it? Shown her video to the rest of the community when she left? Abby didn’t want to know.

“Any luck out there?” Carver asked, glancing through the window at the shadowy trees.

“A lot of paperwork, which might give us some good leads,” Abby said. “No sign of Nathan. And the people here aren’t talking so far.”

“Where’s Tillman? And David Huff?”

“They were taken into Suffolk County Police custody along with Richard Styles.”

Carver let out a long breath. “Okay. Let’s go talk to them.”





CHAPTER 70