Finding Eden (A Sign of Love Novel)(16)

I looked down.
"Your father took it hard. Not just the loss of his job, all the stuff, but the disgrace. The shame ate at him like a cancer. And that's when Hector came along."
My eyes flew to hers.
"He first came to us as a man who had lost everything and understood where we were. At first we were skeptical, naturally, but . . . the more he talked . . . told Ben, your father, that it wasn't his fault, that the greed of society had seeped into his soul . . . well, it sounds ridiculous now. But at the time, and with how far we'd fallen, I guess we were searching for something, anything—"
"I understand, Mom. I do."
She looked back at me sadly. "Of course you do. I'm sorry for that."
I shook my head. "Please go on," I said.
She sighed. "Well, your father, he became almost obsessed with Hector, although, at the time, we knew him as Damon Abas. Your father was intrigued with this society that Damon . . . Hector had started, this place where there was supposedly no greed or sin, no pain or competition. This community had started several years earlier, but Hector had spent that time constructing the buildings and finding the first people who would live and work there. Hector and your father talked non-stop about how it would all operate . . . the things people would need down the line, what was working, what wasn't." She shook her head again. "Even with the talk of gods and visions and other things that were difficult to believe in . . . it healed something in your father for a time, gave him something to cling to, a purpose, an escape, and so for that I was so very grateful. I ignored my suspicions about Hector . . . I did just what your father had done. I looked the other way because I was benefitting from it." Tears welled in her eyes again. "I guess if you choose to trust a snake, you deserve his venom."
"Carolyn . . ." Molly said, but Carolyn shook her head and wiped at her eyes.
"Anyway, Hector came to your father specifically because Hector had this idea about a council. I know now from the news reports on Acadia what came to be as far as that went, but when he first spoke of it, he spoke of a group of men who understood what it was to fall in the "big society" as he called it—a group of men who had personal knowledge about the evils of our culture—men who could guide and mold this 'land of plenty.'"
I thought about what I'd learned from the news reports on the Acadia council—things I hadn't understood when I'd lived there. Hector had gone around the country gathering together a group of men who had been disgraced in one way or another and were desperately looking for a place to find respect again, to reclaim some small measure of the power they'd once had. And of course, there was the financial gain. Hector was paying them a yearly salary—far more than any of them had been making in their previous jobs. The police had looked for the money trail, but apparently Hector had known how to hide it. The property had been paid for in cash and put in his false name as well. They'd never found a thing that would clue them in to Hector's true identity.
And of course, the council had been chosen to benefit Hector in a myriad of ways as well . . . a judge . . . a police officer . . . I moved that aside.
Sadness welled inside me as she discussed Acadia, even the idea of it. It had been my home. It had been where I fell deeply in love. And somewhere inside me, just speaking of it, sparked a longing so intense, it shocked me, because it had also been the place where life ended. Of course, it wasn't the place I longed for, but a person. And for me, that's where he'd always be. I swallowed heavily.
"What happened to make my father see Hector for who he really was?"
"You," my mother said quietly. She looked off behind me as if she was recalling something specific. "He had met you, but one day you ran in while your father, Hector and I were talking, and you had a sundress on. Hector saw the birth mark on your shoulder and he got this look." She shivered. "The look in his eyes . . . it was . . . hungry." She paused for a minute. "Things changed after that day. Your father saw the way Hector looked at you, the way Hector became obsessed with you. He was obsessed with this idea that you were the key to this journey to the afterlife the gods had planned for the people that would live in this perfect utopian society of his." She shook her head. "After that, your father started distancing himself from Hector . . . made excuses when Hector asked to come to our home. I had hoped your father was on his way back to being the man he had been. But then one day, we came home from a hearing about your father's old company, and . . . you were gone. The nanny we'd left you with thought you were playing in your room." Tears welled up in her eyes again. "Just like that, you were gone. And then," she sucked in a breath, "your father was, too."