Chapter 18

Special Agent Fallon Baxter

Scarlett Blaze, aka Heather Smiley, shakes what her mama gave her for the next solid hour. I help myself to the nachos while Jack pretends not to drool.

He's such a man.

After an impressive routine of sideways splits, upside splits, and kiss-the-floor-with-your-keister splits, Scarlett finishes up her set and blows the crowd a kiss before prancing off the stage.

"You can stop swooning," I say to Jack as his eyes stay trained in the direction she disappeared in. With his chin on his chest, he looks as if he's in the middle of a rough hangover. A boob hangover. "Cheer up, sweetheart." I bump my elbow to his in an effort to rouse him. "A whole new slew of women are trotting out next."

"I'm not here to see them." He holds up a hand, and soon a set of pasties is in his face. Jack waves a wad of cash at them. "Private room, please. I'd like to request Scarlett's company."

"Right this way," the woman says, taking the money from him, and the two of us stand.

She shoots me a look and I shrug. "I like to watch."

She threads us through the rowdy crowd, laden with more drooling men than you can shake a stripper pole at, down a dark corridor and into a dimly lit lounge where a series of alcoves sit laden with purple sofas. Most of the cubical-like rooms are occupied by couples, men lying back while getting the naughty lap dance of their dreams. There's a guard at the door, tall, fit, lots of muscles, and he happens to be fiddling with his phone. He looks bored and disinterested and doesn't seem to be paying a lick of attention to anything happening in those lusty booths.

We're set up in the alcove in the back and I take a seat on the far end of the couch. I wait until the walking pasties tell us to sit tight and disappears before leaning toward Jack.

"How far are you going to let this go?"

"As far as I need to." He tugs at his lapels. "There's nothing I won't do for justice."

"I'll keep that in mind."

The lights flicker before dimming another notch, the music is the same boisterous rock from the main room, and suddenly I feel as if I'm stuck in a porn musical starring my co-worker, of all people.

I'm not a fan of porn, and right now I'm not Jack's biggest fan either.

The redhead appears, her hair glowing like a brushfire, a sequin pink negligée hangs onto her by strings, and her glossy red lipstick looks freshly reapplied.

"Hey, big boy." She wastes no time crawling onto Jack's lap before glancing my way and offering me a casual nod. Clearly, she's seen it all before and my presence is no deterrent to her dirty moves. Heck, if anything, she's expecting the tip to double.

She gets right to gyrating and running her fingers through Jack's hair before things quickly escalate from there. The next thing we know, she's peeled off the top of her lingerie and is juggling the girls in his face. She does have glittering pink pasties on, but that's sort of a moot point. She flips around, and suddenly she's twerking and jerking and I have the sudden urge to fire my weapon.

Instead, I whip out my badge and shove it in her face.

"FBI," I shout over the music.

Her jaw falls to the floor. She hops off pop so fast, you'd think he stung her. And I'm beginning to think he'd like to.

She lands kneeling on the sofa next to him with her hands raised next to her head, the whites of her eyes are glistening and her lips trembling with fear.

"Relax," I tell her. "This isn't a raid. We're just here to ask you a few questions."

"Questions?" She looks to Jack for affirmation and he gives a begrudging nod. "About what?"

"The Paradise cult," I say, letting the words sink in for a minute.

"Oh, that." She slides her legs off the side of the couch and shakes her head over at Jack. "You're a fed, too, huh?"

"Afraid so."

She bows her head and gives a pitiful laugh. "So I guess I'm not getting any cash out of the deal." She checks her watch. Time is money, and at this point, we're costing her a night's wage. "So what do you want to know?"

"Everything," I say sharp enough to cut through the noise. "And start at the beginning."

She shrugs. "I married at eighteen to get out of the house. The guy beat me worse than my stepfather, so I needed to get out of there, too. I was already hooked on the self-help course those nuts offered online. I was waitressing, but it wasn't enough to get a place of my own. A girl named Sloan was my higher-up."

My muscles freeze. Same name as the woman I spoke to. If I play my cards right, she'll be my higher up, too.

"She was selling courses and living rent-free," the redhead goes on. "I didn't actually buy the course myself because I didn't make that kind of bank. But once a week they offered teaser courses. You know, this is what we offer, now are you in, kind of stuff. Sloan saw that I was interested and we started chatting. I let her know my situation and she offered me a space to bunk with her at Paradise. I sort of fast-tracked my way onto the compound because I didn't have anywhere to stay. She said I'd have to join the community if I wanted to live there, so I checked it out. I'll admit, it had a creepy vibe, but at the time it was the best deal running." She shoots a dark glance to the ground. "I went through all of their ceremonies, you know. And then I started to think maybe it wasn't for me. I mean, I just wanted some money so I wouldn't end up turning tricks on the corner. Sloan let me try my hand at sales. I started out as a Seeker of Enlightenment, that's the bottom tier where all newbies begin. I recruited my butt off and received what I thought was a decent income in return, but it was all an illusion. You have to keep buying courses. Anyway, I quickly moved to the next level, a Pathfinder of Truth, and was invited to special events and retreats. But it wasn't until I reached the top tier, Guardian of Paradise, that I knew it was a scam."

Jack lifts his chin. "How so?"

"I recruited half their force and produced enough sales to cover the national debt of a small country, but I wasn't seeing squat. Part of the problem was that funds always traveled up the totem pole. I was making someone else rich. I thought for sure when I hit the Guardian level, it would be my pockets that were full of cash. More like the trash they try to pass off as a meal. It's pretty common knowledge they scavenge for their food." She shrugs it off as if it were an aside. "And in addition to siphoning my funds to give to my new higher-ups, I was expected to give a sacrificial offering as a sign of my devotion to the freaks that run that place, Malcolm and Patty. And it was a financial sign of devotion. I was already giving it up with my body."

Jack and I exchange a glance.

"So you were asked to give them money," I say. "Like a tithe?"

"I wasn't asked, I was commanded. You don't get to be a member of Paradise unless you give, give, give. It's all for the betterment of the community." She says that last part in air quotes. "Not only that, but they make sure they have you over a barrel. You need to go through a bunch of humiliating exercises until they have enough dirt on you. They basically want insurance that you're not going to scam them and take off out of the blue. They want you by the balls. They want to control you. Dude, I didn't care that I had to sleep with a few creepy men, but they were bent on breaking me. Little did they know, I was broken long before I got there."

"Did they force you to sleep with other members?" I ask, half-afraid I already know the answer.

"Oh yeah, it was required. Once you're there, you're married to everyone else. The women are your sisters, the men your husbands. And guess who gets to call dibs on whoever they want for the night? The men. No contraceptive is provided. I was lucky I was still on the pill. They make them share kids, too. It's so twisted. The moms looked so sad, always scanning the crowd for the kids they knew were theirs. It kind of broke my heart." She lowers her lingerie past her navel. "The supreme leader was a real lunatic. He wears this red creepy hood. No one knows who he is."

"Who do you think he is?" I ask.

"I don't know, but he must be pretty important to feel the need to hide his identity. I do know one thing about him. He's the one who does this." She points to a scar on her side and both Jack and I lean in to examine it

It looks like a triangle on the tip with three lines shooting out from the bottom. One line goes straight, the other two shoot to the right and the left.

"Do you mind if I take a picture of it?" I ask and she nods.

Jack pulls out his phone as well. "At what point did they brand you?"

"Early on. It's done without any anesthetic. You couldn't take as much as an aspirin. The pain is supposed to make you ascend higher or some crap like that. All I know is, it hurt like hell."

"When did you leave?" I ask as she covers up again, this time pulling her teddy all the way up over her shoulders.

She takes a deep breath. "Last spring. And trust me, they don't make it easy. I've seen people ask questions, ask to leave—and soon thereafter, those same people up and vanished. No goodbye or anything. Malcolm and Patty—they're the ringleaders—they assured us that those people left of their own volition. But I don't think they did. I was getting a really dark vibe. Like my life might be over if I asked to leave. So I pretended I was all gung-ho, and the next time I went to a conference in Denver I said I was headed to the bathroom. That was the last they ever saw of me. I guess they didn't think I was a flight risk. Anyway, that's all I know."

I nod to Jack. "Give her your card."

He looks momentarily perplexed before doing just that. I shove a wad of twenties into her hand and we thank her before heading for the door.

"Why didn't you give her your card?" Jack asks as we settle into his truck.

"Because I make a darn good wing woman," I say, glancing at my face in the side mirror. A face that's been prone to lying as of late.

"So what now?" he asks as we head onto the main road, the glow of the moonlight outlining the evergreens as they stretch to the sky.

"I'll talk to Sloan," I say. "It just so happens she's the woman looking to recruit me."

"I'm going with you."

"Not if you want the case to progress."

He grips the wheel and his knuckles press white because he knows I'm right.

I glance up at the moon and wonder if I'm right about my sister and her whereabouts, too.

Paradise, here I come.