Darkness at the Edge of Town (Iris Ballard #2)(36)

“Did you point this out to him?” I asked.

“Hell yeah! But he wouldn’t fucking listen. He just shut me down and started lecturing me on how miserable I’d be for the rest of my life if I didn’t go back. It was like talking to a brick fucking wall. I just gave up.”

I nodded. “Tell me what happened the day Billy quit.”

“Well, we weren’t talking much. I know he felt guilty about what happened with Betsy.”

“The affair,” I prompted.



“Yeah. It started up right before I left the group. They were going off on ambassador duty and one night, one thing led to another.”

“Was it a long-running affair?”

“Not really. I think it just happened once or twice. I was shocked, though. He adored Gia, and Betsy sure didn’t strike me as a home-wrecker. She used to be Amish or something. I noticed she had her eye on Billy, but she was real shy. She never took part in the free-love perks that I saw. But who the fuck knows what happens at The Apex.” He bit into his burger. “Anyway, a few days ago Billy walked into work late and just up and quit. He was in, he was out. When he was cleaning out his locker I tried to get him to talk to me, but all he said was, ‘I know my path now.’ Then he just left. That’s the last I seen or heard of him.”

“It seems he moved to the farm and married this Betsy. She’s allegedly pregnant.”

Kevin scoffed. “Figures. Billy’s probably over the goddamn moon right now. Not only was he chosen to live at The Apex but he has a baby on the way? Hope you brought the fucking Jaws of Life to pry him out of that place. Of course if anyone can rescue him it’d be you, right?”

“Do you think he needs rescuing?”

“Isn’t that what you’re here for?” he asked.

“I’m just here to make sure he’s all right. That he’s not in physical danger or being taken advantage of.”

“I’d say no to physical danger, but hell yes to the taken advantage of. Gia told me he gave them all their savings.”

“What do you know about this Apex place?”

“It’s somewhere in Niagaraville, in the farm country. I can’t be more specific than that. I never went there. But the way people talked about it, you’d think it was the Garden of Eden and you were chosen by God himself to live there.”



“God being Mathias,” I said. Kevin nodded. “What goes on there?”

“Growing food. Milking cows and goats. Sweat lodges and meditation.”

“It sounds like a fucked-up spa,” I said.

“Yeah,” Kevin chuckled. “One thing that really stuck out for me was if you agreed to go, you couldn’t leave for a whole month.”

“What?”

“Yeah. It’s supposedly to strengthen your focus on the universe. All you do is meditate, work the farm, sweat in some tent, fast, then work some more.” He shuddered. That wasn’t the sales pitch Megan gave me the night before. “Fuck that, right? I turned them down every time.”

“You were asked?”

“Yeah. Toward the end. Megan practically begged me.”

“How many people do you think live there?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Twenty? Thirty? After the first month, I heard some stay forever and others go back and forth from The Temple or their own homes.”

“Who would you say were the ones chosen to go? Is there anything similar about them? Was it people like you who were about to leave the group?”

“No. Hadley got asked my first week there, and she was gung-ho about the Movement. There were a couple of us on the fence who were asked, but only one said yes. For me personally it did seem like a last-ditch effort to keep me around, what with, you know, hindsight.”



“Did they try anything else to keep you around?”

“There was one thing. But…you’re not still a cop, right? This stays between us?”

“You’re helping me. I won’t jam you up. I promise,” I said.

He nods. “Okay. It was actually Billy who did this, which really knocked me for a fucking loop. It was the last straw. Why I asked to be moved down the line. He…mentioned it would be a shame if someone told our supervisor about how I allegedly smoke pot. That the group could help me out with my problem before it got me fired. I basically told him to fuck off. Now I don’t got any proof it was him, but the next day I got selected for a random drug test. I tested positive for pot and almost lost my damn job. I know someone put him up to it.”

“Let me guess. As part of the process you had to share all your deepest, darkest secrets,” I said. “It’s another cult tactic. ‘We know all your secrets, so stay in line or else.’?”

“Then thank fuck the statute of limitations is up on most of the shit I pulled as a youngster, and I’m open about it already.”

“So who would have told Billy to blackmail you? Megan? Do you think she’s in on the con or is she a true believer?”

He scoffed. “That girl eats, breathes, and shits that place. She was one of his first members. She told me all about her hooker days, her cons, and the rapes and beatings and shit. Then one day she met Mathias, and he plucked her off the street. He even found her a place to stay. With Helen, in fact.”