Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(14)

“Iris, you’re not a mother. You can’t understand. Not really.”

She had me there. When I thought my dog was dead I about lost my goddamn mind, forget if my actual child were in danger. “I’m sorry, okay? I am.”

“You could have died! What the hell were you thinking going back to that job?” she hissed.



“I thought I could stop innocent women from getting killed by a madman,” I said defensively. “And I was right. I did.”

“And we’re damn proud of her for it,” Grandpa called from the kitchenette. He and Grandma remained there, out of the line of the fire. Smart people. Lucky people. “Right, Faye?”

Mom pouted and burrowed into her husband further. “I just wish you’d thought about how it would make me feel. You’re my baby girl. You are a part of me, Iris. They couldn’t pry me from your bedside when you were in a coma for a day after the last time you thought you could stop a serial killer.”

This conversation was a long time coming and one of the reasons I’d barely called her in two years. “And I’m sorry you had to go through that, Mom. I am. But it’s over. I can’t change the past. And right now we need to focus on Billy. Okay?”

I always hated when Mom got overwrought. She turned into a petulant teenager, which was the worst when I was also a petulant teenager. My grandparents had to step in once or twice to separate us before one of us slapped the other. I got better at handling her after my hormones equalized and I realized feeding off each other’s negativity got us nowhere. Like that night. I felt my anger rising and shut it away to focus on the task at hand. It worked. Mom nodded and stepped away from Khairo. “Okay.”

“Let’s all sit down, okay?” I sat in the ancient brown leather recliner and they took the matching couch. “So, how did this all start? When did you first begin to worry?”

“Not really until Gia called yesterday,” Mom said. “He hadn’t been coming around as much, and mentioned this church of his a handful of times, but nothing he said really concerned us. He’s actually been in better spirits than he’d been in years.”



“Years?” I asked.

“Things haven’t been great around here, which you’d know if you were around,” she said with an air of superiority. I suppressed an eye roll. “The only work is part-time, so he’s been holding down two, three jobs at once or none at all. Then the baby died and he just…lost his sparkle. He didn’t smile for months. He even lost one of his jobs for not showing up.”

“Mind you, we didn’t learn about this until yesterday,” Khairo added.

“I knew something was wrong with him before, but the past few months he’d gotten better,” Mom said. “He was his old sweet Billy self again. Then Gia called and…” Mom shook her head as tears brimmed in her eyes. “We have no idea where he is. What if they’ve done something to him?”

“I very much doubt anyone has harmed him, but have you spoken to Sheriff Hancock or—”

“Of course I have! That…bastard said Billy left a note. There was nothing he was willing to do. Of course he wouldn’t lift a finger to help me. He’s had it out for me ever since I—”

“Cheated on him?” I cut in.

“That was not…it doesn’t matter,” she said, literally waving that truth away. “It’s ancient history, but he must still hold a grudge. Why do you think I called you? You can talk to him. You can get your FBI friends to put pressure on him. Have you called that Luke? Are they looking into this…cult?”



“Mom, I’m not…If I feel the need, I will pull some strings at the FBI, but for right now—”

“?‘Feel the need’? Are you insane? The need is now! They—they could be Satanists for all we know! They could be making him sacrifice goats or babies or something or are cutting him for his blood right now! They have his money; what more do they want from him?”

“Mom, first of all, Satanists don’t usually sacrifice people or babies. It’s a religion like any other. And even still, these people don’t strike me as the violent type. They—”

“How would you know?” Mom asked.

Shit. “I…went to this so-called temple of theirs in Dunlop today. They—”

“You did what?” Mom practically screamed.

I knew she’d flip out. Me and my stupid mouth. “It’s fine. It was like a hippie commune. There were children there. Happy children.”

“I don’t care if the president was there! I’ve already lost one child to their madness; I cannot lose another. You are not going back there, are you?” I didn’t say a word. “Iris!”

“Mom, I put my life on hold to come here and look into this for you. You have to let me do it my way. I do know what I’m doing.”

“Like you did with The Rosetta Ripper? Like you did with Jeremy Shepherd?”

“Those were psychopaths, Mom. At most, at most, this is just a con job and the worst that could happen to Billy already has. The fact is, he is an adult. He is allowed to drop out of his life if he so chooses. And if this group makes him feel better about himself, then who the hell are we to tell him he’s wrong?”