The Devil's Daughter (Hidden Sins #1)(84)

Jon was young and attractive, but he’d spent his entire life behind the walls. She doubted he had the social skills necessary to slide into a group, pick out the people most susceptible to Martha’s influence, and manipulate them into thinking about joining up. It just didn’t fit with what she knew of him.

Maybe you don’t know him anymore.

Beth kept twisting her mug, the scrape of porcelain on the counter setting Eden’s teeth on edge. “He’s become very intense in the last few years. He spends more and more time outside the commune. He’s . . . searching for something.” She looked up, her blue eyes shining with unshed tears. “I don’t understand. Why isn’t Martha enough for him? Why aren’t I enough?”

Eden didn’t have an answer to that. What she did have was a growing fear that she could now put a name to the unsub. “Beth, do you know if he was gone the night of September seventeenth or September twenty-second?”

“I don’t . . . He was.” Beth’s lower lip quivered. “He’s gone more often than he’s here.”

Oh, God. Not Jon.

But it fit. Jon had grown up alongside Eden. He could have very easily seen her making the garlands out in the fields when she was a child. And if he was disillusioned, maybe he’d thought trying to bring Persephone—to bring her—back would help. It made her sick to her stomach to think about. “Beth, I’m going to need you to come with me.”

“Come with you? Where? Why?” She clutched her mug to her chest like a shield. “I can’t leave, Eden. It’s time for resting. I’m leading small groups tonight. I have to be here.”

“I know that.” She carefully took the mug out of her friend’s hands. “And I’m sorry. But we need to go get Jon.” We need to bring him in. “You need to call him and tell him to meet you . . .” She thought fast. “Meet you at the Gas ’N Go. Tell him it’s about Martha, and you don’t feel safe here.” The Gas ’N Go was close enough to the outskirts of Clear Springs that the chances of anyone being caught in the cross fire were minimal.

Beth looked doubtful. “I don’t know, Eden. I’m worried about him, but this seems like it’s too much.”

She stomped down on her impatience. The only person whose call he’d answer if he was off the rails was Beth. Even then, there was a chance he’d ignore her. Rachel. She cleared her throat. “Does Jon have anywhere in Elysia that he goes to be alone? Somewhere he wants to be undisturbed?” It was a long shot, but if they could get to Rachel before Jon knew they were onto him, it would ease everyone’s mind.

Beth frowned, but then her expression cleared. “He built a little cabin out by the forest line. We share the chores out in that quadrant with the Jones family, and we, uh, go out there . . .”

“To be alone.”

Beth blushed, her fair skin going pink. “I love living so close to the center, but there isn’t much privacy with the houses so close. We haven’t been out there this summer, but we used to go a lot after we were first married.”

Eden understood, to an extent. They’d known each other the same way she and Jon had known each other—somewhat at a distance. To go from that to the single most intimate relationship a person could enter was jarring, to say the least. It made sense that they’d wanted to carve out a little spot for themselves and get to know each other.

Except apparently no one had known Jon as well as they’d thought.

She debated, weighing the need to track Jon down immediately against every instinct she had screaming that the cabin was the key and that was where Rachel was being kept. The priority has to be Rachel. If we can secure her safely, then we can focus on bringing Jon to justice. She took Beth’s hands, looking into her eyes. “Beth, can you take me there? We’ll call Jon afterward, but it’s important that you take me there right now.”

“I can take you there.” The words were little more than a whisper. Beth’s lower lip quivered. “Is this about those girls who were hurt?”

“It might be.” She wasn’t willing to say one way or another until they had Jon in custody and Rachel safe. Beth was a good girl, but she’d had ten years to get used to putting Jon first—and her entire life submitting to Martha. Eden couldn’t trust her to be left alone for a minute or she’d tell someone, and that was all they needed for vital information to escape. “Come with me, okay?”

“Okay.”

Movement at the edge of her vision had the small hairs at the back of Eden’s neck rising. She turned, reaching for her gun, but something hit her head, and the last thing she saw before blackness claimed her was Beth’s horrified face.

Then there was nothing at all.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


Zach took the last swab, closed the bag, and sealed it. He looked from one face to the next, taking in the set jaws and the flinty eyes. They might be a house divided right now, but they were unified against the enemy—him. Even Lee looked furious. Zach stored the bags in the bag he’d brought and straightened. “If you’re innocent, you have nothing to worry about.”

Martha lifted her chin. “If it’s all the same to you, Sheriff, please get the hell off my property. Unless you’re planning on arresting one of us?”