The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(21)

“We weren’t.” Beth shrugged. “Martha had a dream.”

She blinked, trying to process that. “A dream.” That’s new. Or apparently not new, since it had happened ten years ago.

“Yes. It was, well, it was after you left. She was very upset and it opened a channel inside her that was closed previously.”

I’ll just bet it did. Prophetic dreams. Eden looked around, wondering what else had changed since she’d been gone. It struck her once again that she couldn’t take anything for granted. Just because she’d grown up on this land and under the influence of her mother didn’t mean a damn thing anymore.

Good thing I’ve learned a trick or two since then. I’m going to need every edge I can get.

It brought her right back to the reason she was here in the first place. She affected an easy smile. “Well, then, I’m happy for you. I take it things are going well?”

“Oh, yes!” Joy suffused her face. “I’ve reached Adept, and this winter Martha is personally going to be training me to allow myself to be a conduit for Demeter in dreams.”

Adept meant Beth was near the top of the hierarchy, one step below Abram and the rest of the inner circle. Eden searched her gaze for any kind of cold ambition, but there was nothing but childlike happiness. A true believer. It made her skin itch just thinking about it.

But she wasn’t here to convince her mother’s flock of the error of their ways. She was here about the dead girl. “Beth, do you guys get a lot of teenagers from Clear Springs out here?”

“There you are!”

Beth went even paler and fell to her knees. “I wasn’t shirking my duty, Martha. I promise.” She grabbed the brush and went back to scrubbing with vigor, keeping her head ducked so her hair hid her face.

Eden clenched her hands but managed to keep the anger off her face as she turned to her mother. “It was my fault. I saw she was working and distracted her anyway.”

“You always did have the tendency to play fast and loose with the rules.” Martha motioned her forward. “Now, let’s leave poor Beth to her cleaning and have that talk I know you’re dying to have.”

Interesting choice of words. It was deliberate. She had no illusions about that fact. Eden was convinced she’d have a better chance of getting information out of Beth, but that wasn’t an option at this juncture. She made a mental note to corner her former friend at the first available opportunity, then followed her mother deeper into the building.





CHAPTER NINE


“Tea?”

“I’m good.” Eden took a seat across from her mother, the years flashing away as if they’d never passed. Suddenly she was sixteen again and about to receive yet another lecture on how she wasn’t living up to the Collins standards that Martha’s followers expected. She gritted her teeth. I’ve got to stop doing that. I’m not a child anymore, and she doesn’t have power over me.

It didn’t feel like that, though. It felt like her whole life had been working to one moment, to when she sat down across from Martha. Not as mother and daughter, but as adversaries. She studied her face, tracing over the new lines and eyes that practically shone with kindness. Martha had let some gray bleed into her hair, but she was still attractive. She looked like the kind of woman who’d gather lost souls to her and hold them until they were whole again.

Which was exactly why she was so dangerous.

She was like one of those deep-sea fish with the dangling light, drawing its prey in closer and closer until it was too late to escape. By the time anyone realized the danger, they were so far under her spell, they never saw the light of day again.

Martha turned on a freestanding electric kettle and sat back. “You have questions. I won’t pretend to have all the answers, but I will do my best.”

The worst part was that she sounded earnest. So much so that Eden would have believed it was the truth if she hadn’t seen this particular act—word for word—before. She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. There was nothing for it. If she accused her mother of lying right out of the gate, Martha would shut down, and any information she was willing to impart would go up in smoke. There was no guarantee she’d tell the truth, but she was playing along for now, which meant Eden had to do the same.

She’d trained for this. There had been many interviews over the years since she joined the BAU, suspects and witnesses ranging from hostile to borderline comatose. A conversation with her mother shouldn’t even rank in the top ten most difficult.

And yet here they were. She considered Martha, debating her next words. She could ask after Elysia, after Abram, but her mother would most likely call her on trying to butter her up. Better to go directly for the meaty subject—the real reason she was here. “The girl who was found dead—Elouise Perkins.”

Her mother pressed her hands to her mouth. “Oh, that poor, poor girl. I had heard that there was a death, but I had no idea it was her.” There was nothing but surprise on her face, but Martha had learned to lie in every way that counted before Eden was born. Everything from the identity of Eden’s father to the details of Martha’s childhood was fabricated. She knew, because it was the first thing she’d researched when she got access to the FBI’s databases.

No history of her mother attending school in the state of Georgia, let alone the prestigious all-girls school she’d apparently made up as well. No history of Eden being born in Saint Joseph’s Hospital, despite what her birth certificate said.