Chapter Twenty-One

Thunder shook the beach house. The sky had darkened like an evil beast who'd been woken from slumber. One wicked battle at a time. Ty's phone rang again as he grabbed the hot-pink umbrella with purple unicorns that had been left by a preschooler, no doubt, but it would do in a pinch. This time he answered it. "This is Agent Granger," he said.

"It's me."

"Lysander?" Ty had given him his card with hopes he might be in touch, but he hadn't been holding his breath. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," he whispered, as if trying to keep his conversation discreet. If he lived in the main house with his wife and son, then ears were everywhere.

Emotion clogged his throat. He'd always tried to look out for his little brother and wished he could have taken him with him, but Rand would never have allowed it.

"It's good to hear from you, but if Rand finds out, you could be in serious hot water."

Lysander sighed. "I know. After you left, I overheard some of the conversation between Father and Garrick. Truth is, Tiberius, I've wanted to reach out over the years, but...it would have been a sin against the Prophet, and that's a risk I'd never take—until now."

"What's changed now?"

"I need to ask you something. Will you tell me the truth?" His voice was soft, hesitant and yet urgent.

"I will." He was the only one who would.

"Garrick and Father had a conversation about the crimes. Garrick told Father that Bexley and Ahnah are alive, that you helped make them appear to be dead. That they didn't drown. Is that true?"

"What did Father say to that?"

"Just that Garrick was mistaken and must have seen someone similar. But is it true? What he said?"

Ty was at a crossroads here. The news hadn't fed a list of the missing women to the public, so the knowledge that Ahnah and Bexley were alive hadn't spread yet. "No. It's not true. I didn't help anyone escape. I wish I had." He hated lying through half truths, but if Lysander believed they were alive, he might tell Bexley and Ahnah's father. He had to protect them. And Josiah.

"Why would he say that?"

"I don't know for sure." Why would it benefit Garrick to tell Rand? How long had he been sitting on this information? Long enough to put a plan in motion? "Hey, do you remember Matt Devlin?" He would have been six years older than Lysander, but he was mean enough he might remember him.

"Vaguely. Why?"

"I was wondering if his name ever came up that you heard of? He got into trouble, and then his family left the community. Would you know anything about that?"

"No. I remember him eyeing Bexley often. And that you punched him in the face for it and broke his nose."

"How did Dalen become Rand's successor? Could you tell me that?"

The line hung with silence.

"Lysander? You still there?"

"Yeah. I'm still here. Look, Dalen isn't taking Father's office. Father is protecting Garrick. Look, some ugly things have gone down here. Garrick got into trouble. Families talked amongst themselves, and the rumors reached Father's ears, so he had to give Garrick penance. He named Dalen as his successor and made his mother the first wife. You should know that he never intended to keep that decision in place. He was waiting on the talk to die down."

"How did Dalen take that—or did he know?"

"Well...he had an affair with Garrick's wife and left the Family, taking her with him. Threatened to bring the whole thing down, but that was a little over a year ago."

Dalen left? He wasn't on the list Rand gave him. Who else had he omitted from it? And why?

Dalen's stealing of Garrick's wife seemed like revenge enough. If Dalen was the UNSUB, tattooing women with the Family's logo would be another way to disgrace them and implicate them in the murders later. Maybe that's why he never retaliated in other ways. But it didn't explain his personal beef with Ty—if it was Dalen. Unless Garrick had fed him some kind of bogus junk about Tiberius to help him join the let's hate Ty club. But what could he have said to sway Dalen into a grudge like this? "Do I know this woman?"

"No. She made friends with Garrick on his business trips and joined the Family."

"Does she have a name?" He'd like to talk with her. She might know things, or she might not realize she knew things. This could be a break for him, and if she left Garrick, she would have no reason to refrain from answering questions about him. In fact, she might be all too happy to spill the tea.

"Carrie. Why?"

"This has been helpful, Lysander. Thank you." And yet Ty was lying. His entire job was focused on finding truth, letting truth bring justice, and he was concealing it like a common criminal. Hiding under all the lies and half truths. "But I have one more question. Have you heard any buzz about a son and mother disfellowshipped because he was carving the logo in animals and causing disturbances within the family? He'd be older."

The line was quiet. "No, but I could find out. Why?"

"He might be killing women in the Outer Banks."

Lysander hummed. "I'll try to find a way to secure the information without looking sketchy and text you if I get it."

"Great. This means a lot."

After he ended the call, feeling like a jerk, something niggled in his chest.

Carrie. The name sounded familiar. As if he'd seen it recently. He replaced the umbrella back in the metal can and retrieved the list of missing women from Blue Harbor and the surrounding areas, scanning the names.

His chest constricted. He had seen it and remembered because the spelling was unique. Not C-a-r-r-i-e but C-a-r-r-i.

Carri Evans.

Missing ten months ago from Kill Devil Hills. Her car had been found empty at a Food Lion, and there had been no video footage of the parking lot. She'd vanished.

Retrieving his cell phone from his pocket, he Googled the name in connection with a flower.

His search popped.

Carri could be short for carrion.

The corpse flower.

Rain had mercilessly continued and slicked down the windows like tears, matching the ones on Mrs. Evans's cheeks. After Ty conveyed the new information in the group text, Selah sent him an address for Mrs. Evans in Kill Devil Hills, where Carri grew up.

Mrs. Evans lived in a two-story cedar-planked house on the beach. Sand dunes rose like mountains on either side of the home, and her private boardwalk was only steps from the semi-private beach.

Could Carri leaving Garrick have triggered his plan? On his hunt for his wife who'd left with Dalen, did he discover Ahnah and Bexley? Did his revenge plot take shape then?

Mrs. Evans sipped tea from a tiny china cup with red blooms. Her haircut was more for comfort than style and was streaked with gray, matching her weary eyes. "I was suspicious of the Family of Glory. I know a cult and commune when I see it, but Carri had been obsessed with Garrick. She met him when she was a server at Jimmy Jo's Bar and Grill." She handed Ty a photo of the woman. Average height, slender. Long, dark hair and dark eyes. Pretty smile.

"She's very lovely." Presently, they had no way to know if she was deceased. No evidence she'd been tattooed in flowers that were known to smell like rotting flesh, though beautiful.

Mrs. Evans went on to share the best about her daughter. Kind and sweet to everyone. She lit up a room. If he had a dollar for how many times he heard that exact phrase... It might be somewhat true, but in his line of work, he discovered far more secrets about the "lights in rooms." Dark secrets. But he let a grieving mother grieve and think of her baby girl as a perfect human being with no dark parts, no ill behavior.

"Did you mention that he belonged to a cult?"

"I tried. But he was a smooth talker. Even I got caught up in him for a moment with the way he discussed the Family, and even the uglier sides—I'd seen them in the news a couple of times. I wasn't in love with him, though, and wasn't as enamored as Carri."

If anyone was a carrion flower, it was Garrick.

"After he had her in his grips, he isolated her from me and her friends and eventually took her to Asheville to his big fancy home. I had no contact with her for three years. Then she called me and said she was coming back to the Outer Banks. Never said much about her time there. I met her for lunch at the Blue Marlin in Blue Harbor. I tried to coax her into telling me about her time in the Family, but she said things weren't as they seemed and that was it. We never talked about it again."

Mrs. Evans shrugged. "Two weeks later she vanished again from the grocery store. That was over ten months ago now. I assumed she'd had a change of heart and gone back, but I reported her missing anyway about four days later."

Had local law enforcement talked with Garrick? If Carri had left the Family with Dalen...had Dalen done something to her? Why didn't he report her missing? Did she think she was in the arms of a lover only to discover she'd been trapped into the arms of a madman who wanted revenge on Garrick and the Family?

"You think that flower killer person has her, don't you?" Mrs. Evans wiped her nose. "Because she's named Carrion and we call her Carri for short. I know it's a flower. But that's not what I named her after. He has to know that. She has to have told him it was my maiden name. Sharla Carrion. My husband and I divorced, but I kept his last name. It was easier."

"I'm not sure where Carri is, but we're doing everything in our power to find the person who might have taken her." A gust of wind knocked over something outside, and the clanging startled Mrs. Evans.

"I wonder if hunkering down and waiting out the hurricane is smart," she said. "What will you be doing?"

That was the million-dollar question. "I have family here, so..." Family that didn't even know about him. "If you think of anything, please call me." He stood and dreaded heading out in the downpour. The wind alone was fierce. News said it could get up to seventy miles per hour before landfall and then...then it was going to be unbelievable. He hunched forward, pushing against the gales to the vehicle. He'd been pushing against dark gales since this case had begun. But he wasn't giving in or backing down.

As he opened the car door, the wind assumed control, and it flew from his grip. He ducked inside, soaking, and put some grit into shutting the door. Once inside he called Owen.

He answered. "What's up?"

"Just left Carri Evans's mom." Glancing upward, he frowned. Rain pummeled the roof, making it hard to hear but he relayed the conversation to Owen. "Why wouldn't Dalen—if she was still with him when she left the Family—not report her missing? Why didn't Carri tell her mother about Dalen? What happened to make her want to leave without a trace? Is she in the clutches of our killer?"

"I firmly believe this killer is someone from the Family. While coming after you is personal, it feels like a shot at your father too, even if he did write you off. Maybe he talked of you fondly after you left. Showed remorse and regret, and it infuriated someone. Maybe they feared you returning to the fold and usurping their upcoming power."

"For every question we have, we accumulate more questions instead of answers." A streak of white-hot light flashed through the gunmetal-gray sky, and the car rocked. "We don't have much time left, O," he whispered. "And we don't have what we need." Any moment the text would come from Asa.

Evacuate.

"I know. It's getting nastier by the hour. I checked two houses and got zip. No way to check the private islands. Have you seen that water? Pass."

But women being held captive might be out there in an abandoned home. Their lives were in danger from their killer and a hurricane. There had to be a way to fight through the storm to rescue them. On the other hand, if they were wrong, Ty would be sailing straight into his grave.