Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(27)

“It is the neighborly thing to do,” I said with a smirk. Gia chuckled wryly. I let my smirk drop and steeled myself for what came next. “Okay, uh, there’s something I need to tell you that I found out last night. I debated telling you, but…I’d want to know. And, uh…there’s no great way to say it so I’ll just…”



I sighed and Gia stood up straight in preparation for more bad news.

“Just say it,” she ordered.

I sighed again. “I went to The Temple yesterday to poke around, and someone told me Billy…married a woman named Betsy two days ago. And…she’s pregnant. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Gia just stared at me, face blank, but judging from her trembling hands the news was slowly sinking in. “You’re sure?”

“Megan didn’t know I was his sister, and she had no reason to lie. I am so, so sorry.”

It took her a few more seconds for the information to fully sink in, but when it did, tears formed in her eyes. She turned her back to me. “That son of a bitch.”

“If I had to guess, that’s probably why he ran off. Out of some misguided sense of obligation to the baby. Billy’s always had a chivalrous streak. He—”

Gia spun around, venom all but dripping from her lips and eyes. “How the fuck would you know? You’ve barely spoken to him in two decades. He practically worshiped the ground you walked on, and you didn’t even give him the time of day. You left and never looked back. Do you have any idea how much that hurt him?”

She was pissed and wanted to take it out on someone, I got that, but this information cut me so deep I couldn’t stop myself. “Th-That’s not fair. I tried to help him with schoolwork. I pushed him to go to college too. I offered to help him look for jobs in both Philly and D.C. He wanted to stay here.”



“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes before wiping them.

“And I’m here. Now. And I’m not leaving until I make sure he’s okay.”

“I hope he rots in hell,” Gia spewed.

“You don’t mean that. You’re angry, and God knows you have every reason to be, but I’ve met these people twice. I was trained to recognize their tricks, but even I felt a little pulled in and enchanted by them. Even if he was at his best, Billy didn’t stand a fucking chance. If I had to guess, this Betsy probably got pregnant on purpose to trap him, maybe even at the behest of this Mathias. It’s a trick as old as time. Hell, the only reason Billy and I exist is because my mom thought the same damn thing. They’re playing him, and he’s not hard like us. He doesn’t have a single street smart. It’s not his fault; he’s just built that way. Innocent. That’s why he needs us. So be pissed at him, hell yes, but be really pissed at the selfish bastards taking advantage of him. Warping him. The people who are right now using your hard-earned money to ensnare more vulnerable people and ruin more lives as we speak.”

“And you think you can stop them?” she asked incredulously.

“I think I can damn well try. But I need your help to do it. I need to know anything you can tell me about these people, especially Mathias Morning.”

Gia stared at me for a few seconds—well, glared at me—but finally looked away. She sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m doing this so you can burn those bastards to the ground, not for Billy,” she said, lying to us both.



“Fair enough,” I said as I sat across from her. I pulled out my cell. “Mind if I record this?” She shook her head no. “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. How’d you guys first find the group?”

“Billy’s friend at the plastics plant, Kevin Perry. He’d been to a few seminars and parties and really liked them.”

“Do you have his phone number?”

“Yeah. I’ll get it for you. He’s not involved with them anymore, I don’t think. He was seeing one of the girls there, and they broke up.”

“What was her name?”

“Meg, I think. Young, super pretty, sweet, or at least that’s what she wanted you to think. I didn’t like her. She was trying too hard or something, I don’t know.”

“I think I’ve met her. I know what you mean. So did Kevin take Billy to the house in Dunlop?”

“No, we didn’t go there until like a week or two after our first seminar. They mostly held, like, support groups. They call them seminars, but we all sat in a circle and just vented our problems. Occasionally this woman, Helen, would say something about the universe and try to explain why what happened happened. It was actually nice, you know? No one judged or said a negative word.”

“You mentioned the name Helen. Is she about late fifties, with a round face and grayish hair?”

“Yeah. She was the one who ran all the seminars as far as I could tell. I kind of think she had training in running groups like that, like she used to be a counselor or something. I know Billy often stayed after to talk to her and always came back happy. Well, happier.”



“How many seminars did you personally attend?” I asked.

“Like five over a couple of months? And I only went because Billy begged me to. He really thought it would help me, but I’m not real comfortable talking to strangers about my life. I got my friends, my sisters, my parents, you know? Plus that new-age shit is hard for me to swallow. I was raised Catholic. Lapsed, but still. But Billy was all about those seminars and those people right from the beginning. And he was happy. Really, really happy like I hadn’t seen him since I’d told him I was pregnant.”