Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(25)

“Both doing well. Thank you.”

“Well, give them my best. Aiden’s gotta be, what, fourteen now?”

“Good memory. He is. He’s at theater camp of all things right now. He wants to be a stand-up comic.”

“Could be worse. He could want to be a cop,” I quipped.

“Or even worse, an FBI agent,” Hancock replied with a smirk. “Though from the nine hundred times I’ve seen you on TV the past month, I’d say you’ve done all right.”

“Yeah, and all it took was for me to be tortured and almost raped in my own basement by a serial killer,” I pointed out.

“Well, you look like you’ve bounced back just fine. Really. You look good, Nancy Drew. Did you get the flowers we sent when your husband—”

“I did. It was sweet of you, and sorry I didn’t send a note back or anything. It was rude.”

He waved it off. “It’s all good. You had a lot going on then. And now.” He leaned back in his wooden chair. “I assume you’re here about your brother?” I nodded. “You know your mother almost punched me when I told her there wasn’t anything I could do. What are you gonna do when I tell you the same?”

“Come on. My mom’s way scarier than I am.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he said with a smirk. “But the answer’s the same, Nancy Drew. He left a note. He’s an adult. So if you’ve come to strong-arm me into starting an investigation—”

“Strong-arm? Come on. You know bribery is more my style,” I said, nodding at the pastries.



He didn’t smile. “Iris, you know I can’t officially open a file—”

“I’m not here to ask you to do anything. Officially.”

Hancock raised an eyebrow. “What are you up to, Iris?”

“Nothing dangerous. I’m just…checking into this New Morning group.”

“How?”

“How do you think? With my sparkling personality and keen wit. In one day I’ve already discovered my brother got a girl pregnant and got married not forty-eight hours after he cleaned out his bank account and left his girlfriend of two years to live on a farm. My brother. Who never cheated on a test. Who is afraid of spiders and considers a playground a nature preserve. From what I can tell they’re mostly true believers, but there definitely is an undercurrent of something untoward. Some of them are just too damn slick. Their church is a house in Dunlop. Have you heard anything?”

“As far as I can recall, no.”

“Would it be at all possible for you to do a quick search of the address for me? Please?” I asked with a toothy smile.

Hancock sighed. “What is it?” I gave him the address and he typed it into his computer. “No record of any calls to that address.”

“Anything else you can tell me? Who owns the house, if anyone listed it as their residence with the parole board, anything?”

“You know I can’t divulge confidential information to non–law enforcement personnel.”

“Come on,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I brought you a blueberry muffin and a cheese Danish.”



“Iris…” he said sternly.

My smile dropped. “Sir, you know I wouldn’t be here if I had any other choice. You, of all people, know how much I hate asking for help. But I’m here. Asking. Begging. This is my brother. This is Billy. The kid you kicked a soccer ball around our backyard with. Who you picked up from school and taught how to speak to girls. Something is going on with him. Something is wrong. I just need to find him. Talk to him. Make sure these people aren’t conning him or fucking with his mind. He’s lost, sir. He’s vulnerable. He needs help, or at least a good talking-to. But I have to find him first.” I leaned forward. “You know if the tables were turned, I’d do it for you. Hell, I have. When you had the Russian mob moving meth and assaulting civilians, didn’t I put you in touch with the DEA? Didn’t they help you? And the Rand kidnapping? I got agents here in just over an hour. You kind of owe me one. Or two.”

Hancock frowned. In my eyes he really didn’t owe me a damn thing. I hated using guilt, but I was desperate. Hancock finally sighed, and I knew I had him.

“I can’t open an official file. Whatever I do has to be off the books. It stays between you and me. And I can’t give you officer support.”

“I’m not asking for it. My main goal is finding the address of this damn farm, but to do that I need to know more about a few key players. Mainly I dealt with a girl approximately nineteen to twenty-five, white, named Megan; a middle-aged woman named Helen; and a guy in his mid-twenties named Paul.”

“That’s it? I need more,” Hancock said.

“I know. That’s why I collected cups with some of their fingerprints on them. I got the sense most of the members had records.”



“Clever. And I assume you want me to dust them for prints and run them through the system?”

“Yeah. Anything you can find out about this group would be appreciated. The Internet was all but a bust.”

“And what’s the leader’s name?” Hancock asked, writing everything down.

“He calls himself Mathias Morning, an alias obviously, and the church is the New Morning Movement. I don’t know if they have tax-free status or what. I really don’t know a hell of a lot. I’m going to meet Billy’s ex and hopefully she can give me more. I’ll drop off the cups on my way to her trailer.”