The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(41)

She sighed. “About as well as can be expected. I have some information, but I didn’t get as much snooping done as I wanted to before Abram caught me.”

His chest tightened at the thought of her facing off with Abram. Zach had seen some scary motherfuckers in his time in the desert, but Martha’s right-hand man put them all to shame. He’d seen some things—done some things, too, if the lack of emotion was anything to go by. As far as Zach could tell, there was only one thing the man cared about, and that was Martha. If he thought Eden was a threat to her mother, he wouldn’t hesitate to take action.

Permanent action.

He gripped the phone tighter. “You promised you’d be careful.”

“I was careful.”

“Funny, but getting caught by Abram doesn’t count as careful in my book.”

Another pause, longer this time. Finally Eden said, “Did you call to lecture me, or are you canceling for tonight?”

He couldn’t figure out if she sounded hopeful or disappointed. Hell, asking her out had been an impulse he couldn’t deny, no matter how questionable an idea it was. Everything she’d said was correct—this was the worst possible timing for him to start having potential romantic interest in anyone, let alone Eden Collins. But he couldn’t help wanting to know more about her outside the case.

That wasn’t why he was calling now, though.

“I’m still taking you out to dinner, but I’m about to head over and see if I can get some information out of Neveah’s best friend.” Chase had tried yesterday, and Zach had talked to Rachel at the high school, both to no avail, but he got the feeling someone of the feminine persuasion might have a better chance with her. “Want to tag along?”

“As if you have to ask.” Her voice brightened right up. “I can be at the station in fifteen.”

“Perfect. See you then.” He hung up, mentally going over everything he knew about Rachel Carpenter. She wasn’t a wild child like Neveah, but she didn’t quite fly under the radar, either. The few times he’d talked to her, she’d nearly jumped out of her skin, which he’d chalked up to her being intimidated by the focus of the sheriff. Now, he wondered. With Neveah still missing and the mental clock ticking down in his head, he was grasping at straws, and he knew it. It didn’t matter.

Either Rachel Carpenter was irrationally terrified of cops . . . or she knew more than she was saying.



Eden was almost pathetically grateful for the distraction Zach offered her. She had too much stuff circling her head, over and over again, and sitting in her hotel room would only make it worse. After parking in front of the station, her gaze was drawn once again to the flower wreath lying in the passenger seat. It looked so innocent there, not sinister in the least. There was no proof that it was sinister.

Except her gut said it was exactly that.

It was too late in the year for daisies. She hadn’t touched them yet, but a few of the petals had fallen onto the car seat itself, and they looked like they’d been dried, which indicated that someone had woven this wreath a while ago—probably last spring—and then hung it to dry.

Someone planned this.

But that was impossible. It had to be impossible. There was no way anyone could have known that she’d come back to Elysia ever, let alone be able to pinpoint the season well enough to plan in advance.

Unless that someone was the unsub.

She shook her head, but the thought wouldn’t dissipate. Martha knew she’d joined the FBI. Her mother liked to keep track of her over the years, and what Martha knew, Abram knew—possibly Joseph, too, since apparently he was in the inner circle now. But her mother wasn’t going to go advertising that fact to anyone else.

Eden had a solid record since she’d joined the BAU, but she hadn’t handled any cases that had made the national media. Even if she had, the Bureau tended to try to foster goodwill with local law enforcement by stepping out of the limelight as much as possible. Sometimes it worked better than others, but Eden had no interest in people knowing her face or name. If they did, they might track her back to her mother and Elysia, and that potential scandal would be a nightmare, as far as she was concerned.

It wasn’t a secret that she was with the FBI, but it wasn’t exactly advertised, either.

If she was smart, she would have changed her name before she joined. But doing so felt like giving in, like hiding something she refused to feel ashamed about. She hadn’t joined a cult. Her mother ran one. It felt like the first choice she’d made was to leave, and she wouldn’t back down and hide once she was free.

So she’d kept her name.

She huffed out a breath. “It’s entirely possible that I’m being paranoid. This place does that to me—in addition to making me talk to myself like a crazy person.” She needed a second opinion, but everyone here was so freaking close to the case. If she told Zach she was starting to suspect someone had killed a local girl with the intention of drawing her home . . .

It sounded insane, even in her head.

Especially since there wasn’t proof.

Except that someone had gone through a lot of trouble to send her a photo of the dead girl. It was practically an engraved invitation back to Clear Springs.

Back to Elysia.

I’ll call Britton. I hate to put him on the spot, but he, of all people, will have a clear, unbiased view of this. If I’m nuts, he won’t hesitate to tell me. And if I’m not . . . if I’m not, then I’m in over my head, and I’m going to need help in a big way.