“Maliah?”
“Oh, you met her,” said Reilly. “This morning on the steps.”
“Ah.” Wren nodded. “It’s good to know that workplace relations are so, um, tight.”
Reilly cleared his throat. “It’s not really like that. It was just…”
“It’s fine, it’s not of my business,” said Wren.
Reilly coughed. “So, if you were a consultant, you’d come with me to crime scenes, to interviews. Advise me on what you know about the Fellowship. Flesh out that profile you were putting together the other night. Is that the kind of stuff you’d be willing to do?”
“Yes, definitely,” she said. “When do I get to look at the files?”
He eyed her. “Why’d you drop out of the FBI Academy?”
She looked away.
“Is it personal, like your grandma died or something?”
“I got kind of… I don’t know, fixated on memories from my childhood. Memories about Vivian. Things she did and said.”
Reilly noted she’d just called her mother by her first name, but well, with a mother like that, you probably wouldn’t call her mommy. “Well, that can help us. That’s all connected to these current murders.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“There’s got to be more to it than that.”
She sighed. “I’m obsessed. I can’t stop thinking about it. I hate it here. I hate this place, and I swore I would never come back, but because of this obsession, I’m here.” She hung her head. “I got phone calls from David Song.”
“That’s, uh, the leader of the Fellowship?”
She nodded.
“I thought he was dead.”
“Well, they never found his body. Anyway, the phone he was calling from, it belonged to some student at VCU, and he claimed not to remember calling me, and either there’s some kind of black magic at work, or I’m going insane, and—”
“You have the number that the calls were made from?”
“Uh…” She nodded.
“Give it to me. I’ll look into it.”
“You’d do that?”
“Sure.” He looked her in the eye. “I don’t believe in black magic. Do you?”
“No,” she said. And she broke their gaze. “Look, I get it. If I’m too messed up for you to let me work here—”
“I didn’t say that,” said Reilly. “You’ve got a unique perspective on this stuff. You said that I needed you. So, the way I see it, all you got to do is prove that I do.”
* * *
“You did what?” said Kimora, who was standing on her porch with her baby on her hip.
“I sort of got another job,” said Wren. She was standing beneath the porch, looking up at Kimora.
“What happened to thinking it over?” said Kimora. “What happened to two weeks’ notice?”
“I, uh, I’ll work it out, okay. I can fit the tours around my schedule at the task force for two weeks. Reilly said the schedule was sort of flexible.”
Kimora shrugged. “Actually, I’m just giving you shit. The truth is, Sheila came by this morning, hoping I would have something for her. Turns out, Donnie isn’t in Hagerstown anymore. No one knows where he is, and he’s not going to be paying anymore child support.”
“Donnie and Sheila split up?” Wren said. “But they were together since…” She didn’t finish the sentence. Donnie and Sheila had been paired up by David Song, just like she and Hawk had been. Admittedly, it was better for Donnie and Sheila, considering they were closer in age. Wren still remembered watching them go everywhere together, their fingers always entwined, their shoulders always touching.
“Yeah, like two years ago,” said Kimora. “Anyway, Sheila’s going to do the tours, so you’re off the hook.”
“Thanks,” said Wren. “I realize if I’m not working for you, then I should probably be paying rent for the cabin, so—”
“It’s just going to be sitting empty if you’re not there. It’s not like anyone’s losing money. But if something goes wrong, you are fixing that crap yourself, got it?”
“Got it.” Wren nodded. “Thanks.”
“It’s fine,” said Kimora. “I’m glad it all worked out. You want to stay for dinner? I’m making hot dogs and mac and cheese, because that’s what the kids eat.”
Wren chuckled. “No, I’m good. Thanks, anyway. Hey, you mentioned you had a list of the people who were still living on the compound?”
Kimora furrowed her brow. “I do. But why?”
“Well, it’s for the case,” said Wren. “Whoever’s killing those girls knows things about the Fellowship.”
“Everything there is to know about the Fellowship is on the internet these days. Knowing shit doesn’t mean it’s someone from the FCL.”
Wren hesitated. “How often you see Hawk around?”
“Why are you asking about Hawk?”
Wren looked down at her feet. “Could I have the list, anyway?”
“Sure, sure.” Kimora shifted a little, balancing the baby, and got her phone out of her pocket. “I’ll email it to you. Cool?”
“Perfect.”
“And if you want to know about Hawk, you should talk to Major.”
“Major Hill?”
“Yeah, they’re like peas in a pod. Together probably ninety percent of the time.”
“Thanks,” said Wren. “Thanks for everything. I really don’t know what I’d do without you, Kimora.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Kimora. “Just don’t trash the house, okay?”
“Me?” said Wren. “Trash a house?”
“Oh, come on, you know you would have done it back in the day.”
Wren laughed. She turned and waved. Over her shoulder, she called, “I’ve matured.”
“Oh, sure you have,” said Kimora, who didn’t sound entirely convinced.
* * *
“Angela,” said Reilly, sliding inside the door of the coffee shop. It was nearly 5:00, and that was when she closed up shop for the day. Some coffee shops stayed open late, but the Daily Bean was done before dinner. Reilly figured it was because there wasn’t the kind of business around here to warrant it. As it was, the shop was completely empty except for him and Angela James, the barista.
“Ginger latte?” said Angela.
“You in the habit of telling anyone who asks where I live?”
Her eyes got round. “Shit, I guess that was kind of a bad thing to do, wasn’t it? Was that girl someone you locked up for a violent crime? Did she just get out of jail and come looking for you for revenge?”
“No,” said Reilly. “Nothing like that. She’s actually probably coming to work for me.”
“Well, she did have your card,” said Angela. “I guess I figured from that that you had talked to her. You wanted her to call you anyway.”
“Right, on the phone,” said Reilly. “I didn’t want her showing up in the morning at my place.”
“Sorry,” said Angela. “So, you’re not in here for coffee.”
He considered. “I’ll take a single-shot latte. It’s late.”
She smiled. “Sure thing.”
“Just, uh, just don’t tell anyone else where I live, got it? Whether they have my card or not.”
“Got it,” she said. “I will keep that to myself from now on. I really am sorry.” She turned to the espresso machine, packing coffee and fitting it into place.
“Hey, uh, does she come in here often?” said Reilly.
“Who?” Angela didn’t look up from what she was doing.
“Wren, the woman who bought me coffee this morning.”
“I’ve seen her every morning for the past week or so,” said Angela. “Why?”
“Just wondering what she usually gets to drink.”
“Oh, she’s all over the place. Orders something different every time,” said Angela. “I think she’s trying everything before committing to a favorite.”
“Huh,” he said.
“Why does that matter?”
&
nbsp; “I just figured that I should return the favor, you know? Buy her coffee since she bought me coffee. Not right now or anything. Maybe tomorrow morning. I don’t know.”
“Well, you can’t go wrong with a macchiato, I say.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
* * *
Wren knew where Major Hill’s cabin was. She had spoken to him once or twice since arriving back on the compound. She and Major had never really been close. He was older than she was, but younger than Hawk. Late twenties, she guessed. She knew that Major had been out with the others the night of the Walker murders. He’d told her all about it that night, and there had been tears in his eyes.
Hawk, on the other hand, had been stony-faced and quiet.
Neither of them had ever been interrogated about the murders, but she knew that they’d both seen and heard things. That could have affected them both.
If Hawk was a suspect, then Major was as well.
But she wasn’t sure she could see Major doing it. He didn’t fit her profile nearly as well as Hawk did. He was shy and quiet. He didn’t take good care of himself. He often had greasy hair and dirty fingernails. He slunk around the compound as if he wanted to disappear. He didn’t seem like the type who would be in control enough to execute the complicated sequence of the murders. The capture of the girls, the drugging, the change in costume, the suffocation, the posing. It all seemed like it would overwhelm him.
On the other hand, she could believe that he was compulsive. She knew he still used drugs, the psychedelics that were rampant—even today—on the compound, plus other things. She wouldn’t be surprised to know that he was meddling with meth or cocaine.
He might be trying to stop his compulsion to kill with drugs. He might have to give in to it anyway. Maybe after it was over, he tried to make it nice, dressing up the girls and posing them to try to atone for what he’d done.
And the fact that there was no sign of sexual molestation, that could be because he was impotent. Maybe he couldn’t rape the girls. Maybe that was all tied into his motivation.
He could fit, she had to admit.
But honestly, he seemed like such an unimaginative, timid man, she could hardly believe he had it in him.
He answered the door to his cabin when she knocked. “Oh!” He was surprised. “Wren. What are you doing here? Are you looking for Hawk, because he’s not here. He said he might come by later, but I don’t where he is.”
“I came to talk to you,” she said. “I thought maybe you could help me.”
“Help you?” The idea that he could be of service to anyone was clearly foreign to him. He thought of himself as worthless, and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe he was frustrated, though, deep down. Maybe he had something to prove.
“I have a list of people who are living on the compound,” she said. “I was wondering if you’d go through it with me and help me figure out which of these people were also at Vivian’s bonfires.”
He grimaced. “You want to talk about that?”
“Not really,” she admitted. “But I think that if I can narrow that down, that might give me a good place to start looking at suspects for the murders of the girls. You know about the murders?” She carefully gauged his reaction.
But he didn’t react much, other than to nod. “I heard about it.”
“Well, I’m working with the police to try to find the murderer now,” she said.
“You think it’s someone involved in the Children?” he said.
“There’s evidence pointing to that, yeah,” she said. “Plus, all of the victims have been related to victims of my mother’s killings.”
“Really, that’s what you figured out?”
“Yeah, I did,” she said. “And so did the detective that’s heading up the tri-state task force.”
“Well, that’s good.” He looked up at her. “That’s good, because then you can stop him.”
“Do you want that?”
“I do,” he said and he sniffed hard. His lower lip trembled.
“So, you’ll look at this list with me?”
He nodded.
CHAPTER SIX
“So,” said Wren to Reilly, “we’ve got Hawk Marner, Isaac Scott, Major Hill, Fatima Allen, and me.”
“That’s a small list,” said Reilly.
She took a sip of her coffee. He’d brought her a macchiato that morning. She’d never had one before. It was good. “It would have been a longer list, but you have four of the people who would have been present already in jail for the original murders, and then you have Terrence and Karen Freeman, who disappeared. There are maybe three or four others who left the compound and don’t live around here anymore.”
“Well, they can’t be completely eliminated,” said Reilly. “They could have come back to do the murders.”
“That’s true.” She took another sip of her coffee. “This is really good, by the way. Thanks.”
He grinned bashfully, ducking his head down. “Yeah, I thought I’d return the favor, since you got me coffee the other morning. I didn’t know what you liked to drink. Angela said you order something different every day.”
“That’s true,” she said. “I like variety. I don’t like doing the same thing over and over again. When I was a kid, growing up, there was a lot of ritual on the compound. Rituals are really same-y. That kind of creeps me out these days.”
He nodded, considering. “I totally get that. Actually, it sounds adventurous.”
“You should try it,” she said.
“I really like the ginger lattes,” he said, shrugging.
She smiled. “So, we should try to hunt down the people who don’t live here anymore.
“We should,” he said. “But I think we can wait for that until we eliminate everyone else on the list. We should start close to home, and hope we find evidence that proves who the killer is. It makes more sense that they’d be close by.”
“Right,” she said.
“It could be someone completely else,” said Reilly. “Maybe they know everything about the cult from research.”
“Could be,” she agreed.
“There were some tire tracks we found out by Walker house, like someone drove up to the back door.”
“Really?” she said.
“So, if we could match those to someone on your list, that could really help,” he said.
“Yeah, that’s huge,” she said. “So, who are we going to eliminate first? How about we eliminate me, so you stop hinting around that I’m involved.”
“Can you be eliminated?” said Reilly. “Let’s see… You were here in town for the last murder. We’ve got information back from the lab on the body. Vada Walker was probably killed three days ago. She sat for a while somewhere else before she was moved to the Walker house. You got an alibi for that?”
Wren shook her head. “Not for the whole day. I did a tour that day, but it only took up a few hours of the day.”
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“A Honda Civic.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t match the tire tracks, not that that means anything, necessarily. We can’t know that the murderer’s car made those tracks.” He clasped his hands together. “Okay, what about the murder before this one, back in June.”
“I was still at Quantico back then,” she said. “I was about to leave. I guess I could have left…”
“The fourteenth,” he said.
“Oh, no, I was traveling then!” She grinned, triumphant. “I was on a plane. As part of the training, we had to talk to convicted serial killers. I couldn’t have done it.”
“Excellent,” said Reilly.
She folded her arms over her chest. “What about you? Can you be eliminated?”
“The second murder took place on a day when I was at a park with my kid, as can be verified by numerous photos I took,” he said, grinning at her. “I think we might have showed up on the security cameras at the park too, if you wanted to look.”
&
nbsp; “It’s not likely to have been either of us, anyway,” she said.
“Because you’re a woman, you said.”
“Right. Exactly,” she said. “And you’re black.”
“Uh, there are black serial killers.”
“Serial killers usually kill within their racial groups, and the girls are all white.”
“Ah,” he said. “Good point. Well, it’s good we’re both in the clear. Anyone else we can eliminate off your list?”
“I’d say it’s probably not Fatima,” she said. “She’s pregnant right now, eight months along, which would make the physicality of moving around the bodies pretty much impossible.”
“Okay, no Fatima,” said Reilly. “Anyone else?”
“No, I can’t think of a reason to eliminate Hawk, Major, or Isaac. I don’t personally suspect Isaac. It could be him, but he was very hands-off during those bonfires. Near as I know, he never went along during any of the murders. I don’t even remember him being there, to be truthful. So, that doesn’t clear him, but I think Major and Hawk are more likely.”
“Okay,” said Reilly. “Tell me about these guys.”
“Well, they were both present at at least one of the original murders.”
“Are you kidding?” Reilly furrowed his brow. “I don’t have any transcripts for interviews with them. I’ve read through all the interviews. Listened to the tapes and watched the videos for the ones that are available too.”
“I think they closed ranks to try to protect them,” she said.
“Who’s they?”
“The other members of my mother’s army,” said Wren. “Both Hawk and Major would have been young then. When the Walker murder was committed, Hawk was only sixteen. Major would have been thirteen or fourteen, I’m not sure. So, when you’re looking backward, say to the first murder, in 1998, Hawk’s only ten. Major’s even younger—”
“Were you around when that murder was carried out?” said Reilly, looking at her sharply.
She felt her stomach churn. “I was so young back then. I was only four. I honestly… I might have been. Vivian’s idea of mothering was to take me wherever she went and stick me in the corner with some toys or books and then ignore me.” And then she felt like she’d overshared and made herself sound pitiful. She didn’t need him to feel sorry for her. She squared her shoulders. “I mean, I was never… I didn’t go with the people who committed the murders. Vivian wasn’t at any of the actual crime scenes either. But when she gave orders, at the bonfires—”
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