Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(10)

That was all there really was about the group beyond an ad in The Dunlop Weekly once a month for nine months offering seminars, and one article mentioning a fundraising barbeque the previous month at The Temple. Mathias Morning proved to be another dead end. It obviously wasn’t his real name, but the guru didn’t even have a Facebook page. That was all the Google gods could provide me.

I studied the photos closer the second time around. To the untrained eye, nothing seemed off. This was a pleasant group of lower-middle-class mostly white just plain folk. But considering the new-age slant the dogma presented, there wasn’t any indication of that philosophy in the pictures. Everyone wore jeans or short cotton skirts and there was no iconography anywhere in sight like totems, crystals, or even peace signs. As I said, just plain folks. Red flag number two was a little more disconcerting. In the soup kitchen and meditation photos, three of the prettiest girls I’d seen outside of Vogue were featured prominently, all wearing shorts or miniskirts. It wasn’t overt sexualization, but the fact that those three dominated almost half the sample size was telling. As was the choice of the dinner scene and reading to the children. Stability, loving relationships, a strong nurturing parental figure, and gorgeous babes all in one convenient location. Come for the family, stay to screw the nubile ladies.



I’d been told on more than one occasion that I often read too much into things. The thought that this was one such occasion crossed my mind. Of course they’d put their sales pitch on the website, and sexy women were a leading sales tool. Using them didn’t mean the organization was evil, just business savvy.

Next, I concentrated on the three images of Mathias Morning. In the photos, he presented himself as someone who had it all together. There wasn’t anything remarkable about him beyond the stark white hair. He kept his beard trim, his clothes—jeans or khakis with plaid shirts—tidy, and he smiled in each photo. He was as far from a hippie guru as one could get. I placed him around early sixties, but the photos weren’t high resolution, so he could have gone gray early and be in his forties for all I knew. The only thing off about him was the slight tension in his eyes, as if he were scrutinizing everything at all times, working every angle, even as he sat with the children. Or he could have just been tired.

Shutting down my computer, I was 90 percent sure that if I went to this “temple,” I’d leave with my limbs intact and brain as dirty as when I walked in. I still wished I had a gun with me. They frowned on packing heat in news studios and at interviews. Not that I had access to Old Faithful anyway. She was in an FBI evidence locker with the other Woodsman evidence. I’d get her back eventually, but that did me no good as I planned to infiltrate an alleged cult. I considered borrowing one of Grandpa’s guns, but I didn’t have a permit to carry in Pennsylvania. No, I would be going in with nothing but my wits and self-defense training courtesy of the FBI. I always felt naked going into the field without a gun. An FBI agent had to carry at all times, not to mention almost dying at the hands of two separate serial killers tended to have an unnerving effect on a gal. Yet I steeled my resolve, kissed my grandparents goodbye, and went anyway.



Twenty minutes later, I parked my rental car on Damascus Lane in what was once the upper-class section of Dunlop. The once opulent neighborhood had become just another row of houses in need of repainting, with dead lawns and boards on broken windows. Suburban decay as far as the eye could see, save for one oasis. The Temple was the only house with any signs of life. A man and woman worked on the roof as another young woman sat on the porch with a mug of something, watching a little boy roll around in a toy car. It was how things used to be. How they should still be.

I said a silent prayer that they wouldn’t recognize me as I climbed out of the car. It would be a minor miracle if they didn’t. I’d traded my anonymity for cash these past six weeks. All the people, even the boy, stopped to look at me. There wasn’t malice or concern; there was only curiosity and welcome as I slowly approached the house. The man on the roof even waved. Friendly bunch, I thought as I smiled nervously back at them.

“Hello,” the pretty young thing called from the porch. I recognized her from the website.

Performance time. I hunched my shoulders and averted my eyes to the ground. “I, uh, hi,” I said with an awkward wave. I stopped walking. I was too “nervous” to proceed any further.



Pretty took the bait. She left the porch and began coming toward me. “Can we help you?” she asked.

“I…” I shook my head at my own stupidity. What was I doing there?

Pretty came right up to me on the sidewalk. She was even prettier than her picture on the website. Thin yet curvy, with bright gray eyes, bee-stung lips, a light smattering of freckles across her pert nose, and chestnut hair now in a side braid. She couldn’t have been much more than twenty or that could be by design. You never knew. She even smelled lovely, like peppermint. “Are you okay, ma’am?” she asked in a soothing voice as she touched my arm.

“I just…kind of feel stupid right now,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I have no idea what I’m doing here or why I stopped, or…” I shook my head. “Th-This is going to sound crazy, but I…I pass by this place on my way home a lot, and I heard you guys were nice, and I don’t know. I had a bad day, and…”

“You felt like you should stop here,” Pretty finished after several seconds, still rubbing my arm.