by Jen Blood
I returned my attention to the table, and opened the plastic box. There was a small, old stuffed bear that used to be mine. A blue-eyed angel, its blonde hair pulled back in a tattered braid—Allie’s angel. The rest were odds and ends that meant nothing to me, but would have been treasured by a twelve-year-old boy.
I removed everything, thinking again of Will Colby.
I would have saved you, if I could. But I can’t save anybody.
At the bottom of the box, stuffed there as though Will had known these would be the key one day, I found what I was looking for: three more photos, weathered and worn.
Isaac, handing a paper cup to a woman. The light was dim, the image itself barely discernible. I could see candlelight in the background. They were inside the church. A second photo showed a cluster of women with glazed eyes and serene smiles, seated together. The third photo was another of Isaac.
He stood beside Rebecca Ashmont and a much-younger Cameron, as Cameron struck a match outside the chapel.
My hand shook. I got snow on the side of the Polaroid, and tried to wipe it away.
“He was dead,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “You said Isaac died.”
“That was the story we told,” Cameron said. “And we told it so many times, it became the truth. Reality is all about perception. And perception is malleable—that’s what J. taught me, years ago. You know, now, just how malleable it is.”
“But Will,” I said. I thought back to the police reports. Thirty-four bodies recovered, only thirty identified conclusively. Will Colby’s name hadn’t been on the roster of the dead. Neither had Allie Tate’s. Now I knew, that was because Allie had already been dead for a year. And Will… “He wasn’t in the church?” I asked Cameron.
“He was hiding,” someone said from just outside the room.
The voice sent me back twenty-five years. Eight years old, hiding with Will. Trembling in fear.
Isaac Payson entered slowly. At the same time, the door opened beside Jenny, and an attractive dark-haired woman came in with her gun up. I recognized her immediately from the photo Edie Woolwich had shown me.
“Guns down,” she said to Jenny, Cameron, and me.
Cameron set his down.
Jenny didn’t.
Instead, she aimed at Isaac. Lilah shot her where she stood. Cameron uttered a cry that was more animal than human, part surprise and part horror, as Jenny fell. Lilah’s gun shifted to me in an instant.
“I know you don’t want to lose her, too,” Lilah said. “Give me the gun.”
She stepped over Jenny’s now-limp form without looking at her. Isaac took another couple of steps, but he still remained apart. His hair was silver, his eyes bright. He had aged well—he had to be in his early seventies, but he still stood tall, with broad shoulders and a lean frame.
When he took in the room, his gaze fell to the painting above the mantle. “One of my favorites. How thoughtful, Cameron.”
He came into the room fully, and Isaac’s familiar eyes found me. It was like the blizzard had found its way inside; the world went cold.
“Erin. I’d imagined this moment differently, I have to say.” I remembered that friendly, affable tone. How powerfully he used to weave his spell. He took a step closer. I could see Cameron tensed, poised to make a move, but I couldn’t imagine how he could with Lilah’s gun pointed directly at him.
“What happened that day?” I asked. “What the hell did you do?”
“Is it story time, then? After all these years, all the lives lost, all the bloodshed, you still want to know?” He smiled at me. “Very well then, Erin Solomon. I’ll give you your truth.”
Chapter Thirty
SUMMER, 1990
Payson Isle, Maine
It is a hot summer—sweltering. Dry. They’ve been on the island for fourteen years, since Isaac first started the church, in 1976. It is a good life. He has the isolation he needs; the power he craves. An empire, all his own.
But it is a tiny empire.
He was a student of Jim Jones; he watched the People’s Temple as its ranks swelled. Watched Jones cast his spell, draw people in. Money, women, complete control over an adoring congregation—that’s what Jones created for himself.
That is what Isaac longs for.
But in coastal Maine, still hiding from the hierarchy at Project J., he has few opportunities to grow his following the way Jones did. His entire life, he has been a slave to the organization. Even now that he has run, Dexter Mandrake still controls him.
He hates them, but he still hasn’t found a way to strike back. Someday, he tells himself. Someday, Mandrake will pay. The organization will pay.
That summer, he brings Rebecca Ashmont and her son to the island.
He’s never seen two people in the flesh who are as beautiful as this mother and child. And he’s never met anyone quite so malleable.
“You will stay here,” he tells Zion one afternoon, when they are alone in the greenhouse. “You’ll become a great leader one day, son.”
He sees himself in Zion—particularly in the way the boy listens. How much he aches to please. Isaac remembers those early days with Mandrake and the Project. Here, with Zion and Rebecca, he suddenly holds the same power.
He takes Rebecca again and again, his thirst for the woman never sated. She brings something out that he has never felt with another woman. He is more beast than man, all-powerful. She quakes beneath his touch. Sees him as the good man he knows he is, deep down. Regardless of what he does to her, around her, she sees nothing but that goodness.
“She’s dangerous,” Adam tells him one day. “And you’re dangerous when you’re with her. We left the Project behind for a reason. We came here because we’re better than that. But we might as well have never left—”
Isaac turns on him. He relishes the fear in the younger man’s eyes. This is the power he’s ached for.
“You’re afraid of her,” Isaac says.
“She’s trying to undermine me,” Adam says. “Trying to cause a rift between us. If she keeps digging, she’ll learn the truth. She could bring J. here. Is that what you want?”
Isaac doesn’t say that there has been a rift between them ever since Adam sent his daughter away from them—proving his allegiance to her over Isaac.
“Of course not,” Isaac soothes him. Adam still serves a purpose here—he keeps things moving smoothly. Makes people happy, when Isaac’s mask slips. Despite everything, he has earned his place at Isaac’s right hand.
And so, Isaac talks to Rebecca. It occurs to him that Adam is right: there are people on the mainland desperate to get her back. The more attention they pay to Isaac and the island, the greater the risk that this will be taken away. If he can get her to see the wisdom in leaving peacefully, allowing him to keep Zion with him, then he can continue as he has.
“You want me to leave the island,” she says to him one night.
“I don’t believe this is the best place for you any longer.”
She remains calm, in control. Her dark eyes always captivate him—mesmerize him. They are in the greenhouse. It’s dusk, the air heavy with impending rain. “What do you believe is the best place for me, then?” she asks.
He tells her about a couple in Boston. When she doesn’t immediately balk at the idea, he breathes an internal sigh of relief. The rest of their conversation is unremarkable. Rebecca doesn’t agree outright to leave Zion, but she doesn’t refuse, either. The fact that she tells him she needs time to think about her decision sends a prick of annoyance through him, but he doesn’t let her see.
And then, Adam arrives. Rebecca turns on him.
Isaac sees the fear in the man’s eyes. He feels something visceral, primal, at the blood in the air.
“Matt spoke with some of the men still looking for you,” she tells Adam. Isaac realizes she has no idea that the same men are looking for him. “Some of the men who have believed you dead for years now.”
Adam is a trembling man—he always has been. The
y argue, and he once again turns to Isaac. His savior.
“Do you see what she is—what she’s done? This place is supposed to be a refuge, a healing place. I gave up my daughter to keep everyone safe, but Rebecca isn’t willing to give up anything. Anyone. And you can’t see what they are doing to you. To our church.”
Rebecca turns to him. There is power there that she hasn’t possessed before—a power that makes him salivate. Rage runs through him when she smiles at him coolly.
“I’ll need to pray before making my decision about Zion,” she tells him. “You understand, of course.”
That rage bears teeth that chew through his outer peace. He nods, and lets her walk away. He realizes then that Adam has been right all along: Rebecca Ashmont will destroy this place.
She doesn’t have to destroy Isaac along with it, though.
And like that, a plan forms.
The next day when Mitch Cameron arrives on Payson Isle, Isaac is expecting him.
“You ran,” Cameron says. “Mandrake doesn’t like it when people run from the Project.”
Isaac used to mentor Cameron when he was younger. He helped him through the Project in those early years. Showed him the ropes. Now, Cameron is a killer. There is something raw about him, something painful—a want so deep that Cameron himself can’t even acknowledge it.
“You’re not happy,” Isaac says.
Cameron smiles at him. A cold, bloodless smile. “Happiness isn’t important,” he says. “The goal is important.”
“That’s just a company line, Cam. What if I told you there’s a way we can change things? Help me.” He looks deep into Cameron’s troubled soul. Picks through, until he finds what he’s looking for. “You want a family? Something to believe in? Start over with me.”
“Mandrake knows you’re here,” Cameron argues. Isaac can tell he’s leaning, though. Almost ready to topple. “If I don’t come back, he’ll send someone else.”
“I’m not saying you come here with me,” Isaac says. He has Cameron’s full attention now. “I’m saying we make something new. We make it whatever we want it to be.”
◊◊◊◊◊
“But you got shot,” I argued, thinking of Matt Perkins’ account of that night.
“Illusions are a beautiful thing, Erin. Magicians make entire buildings vanish—surely I can make three people already blind with grief believe that I am dead. I wasn’t shot. Zion was.” He looked genuinely saddened at the thought. “The boy was remarkable. Losing him was a blow. Matt showing up that night was never part of the plan. Cameron’s intent had always been for Adam to strike the final blow, but of course your father went into hiding and left us to do it ourselves.”
“So, Zion was dead,” I said. “What about Rebecca, Matt Perkins, and Joe Ashmont? You still had to deal with them, didn’t you?”
“Matt and Joe returned to the mainland. Cameron left me with Rebecca. By that time, I already had the congregation up in the chapel—they were more than happy to drink the henbane your father left for me, though they of course had no idea. I ministered to Rebecca. She was understandably bereft. And, again…so malleable. I planted a few suggestions, Cameron returned, and from that point on she believed that Cameron had done the whole thing alone… That I, like Zion, was dead.”
“What about my father?” I asked. “Did he know by then what was going on?”
“He did,” Isaac confirmed. “I left the island after that and went underground once more. Cameron very kindly kept my secret—as far as J. was concerned, he had done his job. Adam and I had paid for our betrayal. Me with my life, Adam with…his life, essentially. And Cameron, meanwhile, had a little bit of a breakdown around that time, didn’t you? A crisis of conscience. I’d been counting on him to help me on the frontlines, give me some inroads into the organization, but he was really no help at all.”
I thought of the story Cameron had told me before—about coming to Kat after the fire. About how she’d helped him. How he’d saved us both.
“He fell off the radar for a while,” Isaac continued. “But by then Adam was back in with Dexter Mandrake again, so I had an in.”
“Wait,” I said. “My father… I don’t understand. He hid from J. until the fire, when Rebecca outed him and Cameron came here. But then he stayed on the island for ten years, until he faked his death. He was working for J. that entire time?”
“He was—it was easy enough for him to get off the island when he was needed, and he was well above suspicion as far as the rest of the world was concerned. So, while he continued to work with J., I took a step back. For three years, I planned. Organized. Infiltrated the organization, one operative at a time. And then, I orchestrated the coup.”
Cameron looked up for the first time. The hate in his eyes was so deep, so black, that I half expected Isaac to drop from that alone. But he just smiled.
“My second-in-command on that mission, funnily enough, was a woman named Susan Stargill. Did Cameron ever tell you about her?” He looked at me. I didn’t answer one way or the other. “No, I don’t suppose he did. Susan was Cam’s lovely wife. Jenny’s mother. Jenny was…what, seven years old by then? And Susan had been raising her primarily on her own for those three years, while you nursed your grief. Watched over your other family. We went into the Mandrake home late that night. I took Mandrake’s wife—a pretty thing. Weak, but pretty. Killed his daughter. And Mandrake watched, every step of the way. And then, I killed him.”
It looked like Cameron had checked out of the conversation. I could understand that—I was getting a little woozy from the whole thing myself. Isaac’s gaze locked on Cameron.
“My own Judas,” he said softly. Almost admiring. “You sat at my right hand all those years after Mandrake was gone. Operation after operation, building it all up… But you still had Katherine. Still had Erin. Tucked away, gently tugging the strings to keep them safe.”
His eyes fell on me again. “Do you know all he did over the years to keep you from me?” He closed the distance between us. His damp hand came to my face, and he cupped my cheek. “Do you know how many have stood between us all these years? What is it about you, Erin, that inspires men and women alike—even a young, angry boy like Will Colby—to risk everything to keep you safe?”
I stiffened at his touch. Cameron had frozen across the table. I moved my head back and thought of Diggs, waiting for me.
“Did you ever think maybe all that betrayal, all those shady deals, don’t have anything to do with what a great catch I am—and everything to do with what a creepy fucking monster you are?” I said.
He grinned. “You are a fighter. So was your mother, you know. I took her—the great Katherine Everett, begging for her life. On her knees before me.” His hand slipped from my cheek to my hair; he tightened the grip painfully, pulling my head back.
“I’ve imagined you—this—for a very long time, Erin.”
“You know I’m in my thirties now,” I ground out. “Isn’t that a little old for you?” Despite the awkward angle and the fact that terror burned through me, I found his gaze. Held it. For the first time, I saw real anger there. I didn’t look away. “Allie Tate,” I said. “She was nine years old. I saw you, rutting on her like—”
Isaac backhanded me, and my head snapped back. If he hadn’t been holding onto me, I would have fallen. “Shut up.”
“You looked all this time, didn’t you?” I forged ahead, pushing beyond the blood in my mouth, my throbbing cheek. “Trying to find whatever Will had on you. Because we saw you that night.”
His hand slipped to my throat. He squeezed, moving closer to me. I could see Cameron behind him. Jenny, on the floor. Lilah, with her gun on us. I clawed at his fingers—thinking again of that night. The frenzy in his eyes when he murdered Allie.
Isaac didn’t lose control—
But he had that day. And I had the proof.
“Let her go!” Cameron shouted. He got to his feet. Lilah didn’t look exactly clear on what was happening.
> “Isaac,” she said, her tone cool now. “We’re here for a reason.”
After another second, he nodded. “Of course.” He loosened his grip on my throat. I tried to cough and gulp air at the same time. He shook his finger at me like I was a naughty child. “You’ve always tested my patience, Erin,” he said. “We’ll work on that later. First—I need you to show me where you put it.”
I stared at him blankly, honestly puzzled for a minute.
“That wasn’t everything that was in the container,” he said. “There was something else. I want all of it. I need everything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. He closed the distance between us again, his hand once more fisted in my hair, his lips at my ear now.
“No more lies,” he whispered, spittle wetting my cheek. I cringed away when he nuzzled my ear with his mouth. His teeth grazed my earlobe. “Tell me where you keep your secrets, Erin.” I felt him, his hand sliding to my breast…
I brought my knee up, hard, and caught him in the groin.
When he hit me this time, it sent me flying. The edge of the table caught the small of my back and I gasped at the pain before I folded. As soon as I hit the ground, Isaac was on me—straddling me, his hands around my neck.
“It’s upstairs!” Cameron shouted. “Goddamn it, Isaac, it’s upstairs. She put it up in that room on the top floor.”
Isaac looked from me to Cameron and back again. I had no idea what Cameron was playing at, but I nodded.
“He’s right. That’s where I put it.”
Isaac stood, jerking me up by my hair. He dragged me toward the stairs. “Where?” he demanded. That frenzy I remembered from my childhood came rushing back to me—the inhumanity. The monster, ready to be unleashed on me the way it had been unleashed on Allie. I fought tears. Pure terror. I looked at Cameron.