Chapter Five

Bexley checked her watch. After seeing Tiberius this morning, the rest of the day went to pot until she saw him less than an hour ago on TV giving a press conference. His confidence was professional and assured, not arrogant. If Ahnah wasn't missing, Bex might find solace in his words to the community that they would put in their best efforts to catch this killer. The promise in that statement made its mark. But Ahnah was missing, and there was a possibility that they wouldn't find her before he killed her.

They'd been through a rough patch lately—the whole family. Josiah was sullen and angry all the time. She was to blame for sure. A boy needed a father, and he'd been bringing it up more often. The hostility was new, which she'd been passing off as teenage boy hormones with a side of "I need a dad."

Milo's session had been a debacle earlier due to her lack of undivided attention and had resulted in agitation, but the man who had Ahnah had called her place of business and knew her name, talked with Tiberius. He knew where they were, and she worried Josiah and she might be in danger. She grabbed her voice recorder and pressed Record, forcing herself to concentrate on the job. "Patient exhibits positive parental transference due to a core belief that it's his job to protect. This stems from guilt associated with domestic violence in his own home." Milo obviously believed Bexley was meeting his emotional needs that his own mother, who had been terribly abused, couldn't at the time. Bexley had helped his mother and as a favor agreed to help him work through the trauma.

"Earlier today he interrupted me in my office with someone. Loud voices triggered the deep-seated need to protect. I'll continue to monitor him and work through the transference through cognitive recognition. If it escalates, I'll reevaluate and assign him to a new counselor." She clicked the stop button and leaned her head against the chair headrest, rubbing her temples.

After three minutes of breathing exercises and prayer, Bexley collected her purse and keys, then left the office with her admin assistant, locking the door before walking outside. Exhaustion weighted her limbs, and a sharp pain hammered against the side of her head like a woodpecker to a tree.

Seeing Tiberius brought up her own past trauma, and she'd taken fifteen minutes earlier to call her own therapist. After fleeing that night, she'd felt this same kind of exhaustion and anxiety, which had resulted in her passing out at a bus station. Renee Helton, a therapist who rescued girls like Bexley in all kinds of situations from trafficking to domestic abuse, found her and Ahnah and brought them here to the island and to this home. She missed Renee terribly and wished she was still with them.

Bexley unlocked her car door and all but collapsed inside. How was she going to tell Josiah about Ty? What would he do? Terror that her son would contact the Family to find his roots had kept her silent so far. The Family of Glory was a sick, twisted institution using a real and good God as a front to wield male authority over subservient women and abuse them however they saw fit. Women were born to be wives and mothers and to pleasure their men. If they succeeded in complete submission, they were awarded great honors in heaven and the assurance their children would be with them—if they abided by the rules and laws and weren't disfellowshipped or left willingly. Leaving or disfellowship resulted in eternal condemnation in darkness and torment. Isolated and burning with the shame of failing their families.

Renee had worked tirelessly for months helping to deprogram Bexley and Ahnah from these wicked beliefs. Rand Granger was nothing more than a charismatic, rich pervert. A narcissist and immoral predator seeking greater wealth and pleasure at the expense of broken men and women. The therapist deserved many crowns for that alone. Bexley wanted to give back in the way Renee had given to her. But it had cost her by consuming her. Desperation to see other women set free had fueled her ambition to open up further facilities across the South.

The terrors that she and Ahnah endured should never be faced by anyone else.

She pushed her ignition button and inhaled deeply before buckling her seat belt. "We were gonna risk it all," she murmured. But not at first. At first, they believed that eventually Garrick would marry. Then Tiberius could officially propose to Bexley, and their lives would be perfect. But Garrick's torment of Ahnah increased, and Bexley had divulged the things he'd done and made Ahnah do. Tiberius had taken that information to his father, which kicked off Garrick's heinous plan of asking for Bexley's hand himself.

They'd had to decide: stay and be miserable now. Or go and be miserable in eternity. Their love for one another and desire to keep Ahnah safe had won. They had planned to leave.

From day one, Renee had drilled into Bexley that she could never return to the cult or to Tiberius. He was the son of the Prophet, and it was always a possibility that Rand would find favor with him and have him reinstated. Rand carried all the power, and that meant making new rules and changing rules that benefited him under the pretense that God had spoken to him through his meditation.

No way Bexley was going to let her child be raised by a monster like that. Renee made good points to a seventeen-year-old girl. What did Renee know about Tiberius other than those facts? And Bexley would have and did counsel other young women to do the same—cut ties with members. Clean slate. New chapter. Grace to move forward.

Turning left, she wiped her wet cheeks. She had made mistakes, but she'd only wanted to protect herself, Ahnah and Josiah.

Now Tiberius was in her life, busted right in like a hurricane. Which she also had to think about. Most of her neighbors said it wasn't going to be as rough as they'd predicted and planned to hunker down. Meteorologists had to say the worst to cover their behinds.

She couldn't leave Ahnah, but she needed to keep Josiah safe. If it actually swept through the coastline. Right now she was more worried about Tiberius sweeping through her life, leaving a serious disaster in his wake. How could she help him understand her reasoning behind not contacting him about his son?

She glanced at the time on her car clock. Late. Josiah would be angry. He wasn't one hundred percent wrong to be. She hadn't put her job above him intentionally. She was working to provide for him through traveling to raise awareness and funds for the non-profit on top of researching and writing grants. It took time to help those who were alone and destitute. Or maybe he wouldn't care if she was gone. Lately he'd been holing up in his room, online gaming with friends.

As she rounded the corner, a big black SUV was parked on the side of the road. Blood drained from her head, leaving her light-headed.

Bexley's stomach coiled tighter than a rattler. She pulled under the carport, breathed a prayer, then checked her hair in the rearview mirror. It was as curled as her stomach. Even when she had it thinned out, it was still a massive amount of hair. Like Medusa's.

Yanking her purse and laptop off the passenger seat, she stomped inside her galley kitchen, which needed an update. The savory scent of roast permeated the house, and her stomach rumbled.

The sounds of gunfire and grenades exploding on the Xbox in the living room drew her attention away from the slow cooker. Josiah and Tiberius were locked into a war game.

What had Tiberius revealed? Had he gone against her wishes?

"Dude, you should have had that!" Josiah hollered. "You're an FBI agent. You're supposed to be handy with a gun. Remind me to never ask you to protect me in a gunfight." He laughed at his burn.

Tiberius snorted. "How many guns you handled in real life? If any, you'd know this is not the same."

Josiah shared Tiberius's mischievous grin. "Whatever, dude. You suck."

Tiberius's laugh was deep and genuine. Guilt leaked like acid in her lungs. He did deserve to know his child.

"Hey," Bexley said, drawing their attention and unable to continue watching them bond; it was too heart-shattering and reminded her of so much she'd lost. So much they'd all lost. Even so she'd made the right decision in the end.

Hadn't she?

"Mom, don't expect much out of Agent Granger. He sucks at gun battle."

"What did I tell you about saying ‘sucks'?" she reminded him. Josiah's mouth had slowly been creeping into lewd territory, and he had a bigger brain with more creativity.

"Not to," he said with a roll of his eyes. "I could say a lot worse, you know."

Tiberius's eyebrows rose. What did he think a child he fathered would be like? Obedient and always polite? Pfft. Josiah was Ty's mini-me when it came to the mischief department. The disrespect was new and all his own, but that snark came from Tiberius.

"Except you won't." She gave him the perfected mom-eye.

He sighed but didn't argue. "I sketched Skipper for Agent Granger. He says I totally have a career in art. So maybe I won't do architecture like you suggested."

Bexley's cheeks heated. Great. Wait... "Who's Skipper?"

"A man who Ahnah knew. We can talk about it later," Tiberius offered.

Okay. "Josiah, Agent Granger and I need to leave." She stressed the words for Tiberius to pick up on. He was here uninvited by her, and she most certainly didn't want to discuss their son with him in the next room. They needed to take this somewhere far away. "Dinner's in the slow cooker. You can—"

"Eat alone. Par for the course." He tossed his controller on the couch and stomped down the narrow hallway before slamming his bedroom door so hard the artwork on the walls rattled.

Tiberius gave her a reprimanding wide-eye. "If he knew who I was, and I was a figure in his life, I'd say something about his lack of respect. Is this a habit of his? And do you let him do this often?"

Bexley rubbed her temples again as the ache became sharper. "He's a good boy and usually sweet-natured, but lately he's been...well...the opposite. I'm sure Ahnah's disappearance has him frazzled and on edge. I know it has me on edge." She wished she could go to bed. Crawl under the down comforter and bury herself in her pain, pity and pride. "I am sorry for all of this. I know it's my fault. You deserve an explanation."

"You think?" He resumed his seat on her worn cream leather sofa, toying with Josiah's controller. "He's good at this game, though. Does he do anything else? Sports? Fishing? Books?"

She snorted, snatched Josiah's shoes by the couch and placed them near the front door. "Drawing. He played basketball for a while, and he was on the swim team in junior high. Now it's drawing and video games and hating me."

Tiberius didn't respond. He hated her too. Couldn't blame him.

"Girlfriend?"

"No. He's always been a loner, and his closest friend was Ahnah. She's been more like a sister than an aunt."

"Can I see Ahnah's room?" Tiberius asked. Guess she'd given a good segue into it.

"Sure." She motioned for him to follow her down the hall; Ahnah's room was across from Josiah's. Music filtered from underneath his door. She'd talk to him later about his disrespect, but she'd have to tread lightly. He'd know if she was shrinking him. He hated when she got inside his head.

Ahnah's room embodied who she was as a person. Neat. Tidy. Colorful.

"Nothing appears to be missing?"

Bexley shook her head. Tiberius perused the room, her photos of them from trips to Nags Head and Disney World. He grunted but said nothing. A vacation like many he'd missed out on. He opened her closet and sorted through her hanging clothes. "No empty hangers. Her luggage bags are in here." Everything pointed to an abduction, not a vanishing of her own making, but she prayed it was the latter.

"She ever mention a Skipper to you?" he asked.

"The guy Josiah sketched? No. Should she have? Is he someone you're looking at? Why does Josiah know?"

He raised a hand to halt her. "Slow down. His name came up in connection to Amy-Rose. How long did Ahnah know her?"

"Couple years when Amy-Rose was hired at the boutique. She was a bit of a wild child, I think. But then maybe Ahnah was too. I feel like I didn't truly know her at all."

After combing through Ahnah's possessions, Tiberius walked into the living room and perched in the rocking recliner that matched her couch.

"Now that work is out of the way, let's talk other things, like you not telling me I have son. And make it good, Bex. Because it better be good."

"I don't want to discuss this where he might hear."

"He's not going to hear anything. Not over the music going in his room, and he's probably wearing headphones to game online. You know it, and I'm a guy who games online so I know it too."

"Fine." Bexley huffed but sat on the couch and tucked her bare feet underneath her, leaning on the edge of the sofa and praying her headache away. "I don't know if it's good, but it's the truth. You were kicked out and gone. I had no one, nothing. When my mom came to approve of the wedding, I stole her sedatives, and Mother Mae caught me about to take the whole bottle."

"You were going to kill yourself?"

That night was the darkest of her soul. She nodded. "But Mother Mae told me that if I would go through with the ceremony, she'd make sure afterward I could leave. She needed time to pull it together."

Tiberius shook his head, his mouth slack. "What did she do? I had no clue she wasn't happy in the Family or being married to my father."

"Neither did I. But your half sisters were minors, and she wouldn't leave them behind. Instead, she helped me. While our families were at the chapel, she packed us each a bag but not from our own closets, and gave me a thousand dollars. Told me to get on a bus and go to Johnson City, Tennessee, and to a church where someone she'd known from her high school days—before she joined the Family—was the pastor. She gave me an address and his name. She said he would help us. But we met Renee first, and I never made it to Tennessee."

She shuddered, remembering the wedding ceremony. Her white dress and the flowers in her hair. Rand at the bottom of the stairs as she descended. He was quite attractive, but he was old to a seventeen-year-old girl, and he was Tiberius's father. After their nuptials, he'd bent and given her a chaste kiss, but she'd never forget his whispered words.

You've only been with a boy. You'll like being with a man so much better.

She inhaled deeply and pushed through. "After the ceremony, I was to go to my bridal chamber to prepare. Mother Mae was with me with Ahnah—she knew I'd never leave without her. Ahnah didn't protest. She was frightened and confused. Mother Mae had placed a ladder at the window, and we climbed down and ran."

"But how does that come to dying in a boating accident?"

"I'm not sure how Mother Mae worked out all the details. She was clearly crafty, but she did say that we had to be dead. Or they'd coming looking for us both since we were minors. She said to take the boat across the lake but not to dock it. It would float downstream. Leave the life vests inside. She'd tell Rand we ran with the clothes on our backs in a rush to escape and stole the boat, and Ahnah must have fallen out—unable to swim. In our hurry, we didn't wear life vests. I must have died trying to save her. For good measure, I tossed one of my shoes near the shore so it would appear it drifted from the water."

"She is clever. My father would have no reason not to believe her. She was devoted—outwardly. They probably combed the lake and hospitals. The lake pours out into the river. The fish and turtles could have eaten you."

"Ew."

"I'm just saying. If you had run out of fear with no clothing, no bags, then it made sense to not think to put on life vests. You would have been unskilled at driving a boat and could have hit something, tossing out Ahnah. At night in the pitch black, you legit could have died from exhaustion trying to find her in the murky waters."

Bexley had wondered about all the details, the conversations, the combing of lakes and her mother's tears. "Renee often visited bus stations looking for transient girls before some sicko found them first. If she hadn't found me, we'd have made it to East Tennessee."

"Why not try to find me? You knew I was going to Atlanta."

"At first, I was afraid and didn't know how to contact you. Your phone would have been cut off, and I had no phone. I didn't know what apartment you secured for us because when you returned, we were separated. Later, when I didn't believe the Family doctrine anymore, I couldn't be sure if you still did. If Rand found out we had a son, he might offer you forgiveness simply to secure Josiah in his clutches. I wouldn't allow him to grow up in that nightmare. I didn't know I was pregnant until Renee took me to the doctor and had me checked out a couple of weeks after giving us sanctuary."

Tiberius rocked back and forth in the chair until she squirmed. What was he thinking? Did he believe her? Did it matter? Finally, he spoke. "I understand that fear, but you knew I never wanted to go back, and for the record, I don't believe that junk anymore."

"What do you believe these days?"

Ty's laugh was hard and cynical. "I believe in me, myself and I. How's that for a trinity?"

She brushed wayward curls from her eyes. She'd say it was pretty blasphemous. "You must be disappointed on the daily, then." No person could rely or depend on themselves alone without failed expectations. She didn't have the strength or power to fight her battles, which were many, and sometimes more than she could bear.

"Mom." Josiah stomped down the hall. "I thought you were leaving."

"We changed our minds."

He folded his arms over his chest and glared. "Whatever." He proceeded to stomp with equal force into the kitchen. "Where's the ciabatta bread?" he called from the kitchen.

"It's—" She paused. Palming her forehead, she groaned. "Sorry. I thought I bought it, but I forgot," she called.

More murmurings.

Tiberius stood and stretched nonchalantly. "How about we grab pizza or a burger? You can be privy to the case, dude. You earned it." He put an index finger to his lips before Bexley could protest. "I won't relay gritty details," he whispered, "though it's already in the news. You clearly need a win, and I want time with my son."

Lord, help her, she did need a victory. "Sound good?" she reluctantly asked.

"Yeah," Josiah said with more inflection. "I'll put this slow cooker on Warm unless you're still freaked out about it since watching This Is Us."

Bexley laughed and enjoyed the millisecond of Josiah acting more like himself. "No, it'll be fine." It wasn't a slow cooker catching fire she worried about. It was some deranged killer who might be toying with Bexley.

The items that had been stolen had been taken after Ahnah vanished.

Ty sat on one side of the booth in the small local pizzeria specializing in seafood pizzas. Josiah and his mom on the other. Dim lighting screwed with his eyesight. Fishing nets and photos of generations of fishermen holding their catches lined the rustic walls—croaker, striped bass, speckled trout, drum, flounder and spot. Garlic, basil and oregano wafted through the cozy eatery, reminding Ty he was starved.

Out the window, the Pamlico Sound stretched before them. Not even a hint that a terrible storm might be hurtling through these parts in a matter of days. Residents could take precautions, but it wouldn't necessarily save them if Hurricane Jodie—Why did they give hurricanes mostly women's names? Was there something to that? Most of the evil storms he chased materialized in the form of men. But if she chose to exert her power and destroy everything in her path, none of their efforts would save them. They would be rendered powerless. Helpless. At her mercy if she chose to show any.

Hurricanes, like killers, never did.

Bexley sipped her diet drink while Josiah gulped down two-thirds of his sweet tea as they waited on a large pepperoni with mushrooms and a lobster pizza that Josiah promised they'd die over.

"Do you take all your missing persons' families out to eat?" Josiah asked, through chewing on his straw. He was a ball of fidgety energy, and Ty wondered if he'd passed on his ADHD too along with his keen observation skills.

"No," Ty said, fumbling for the right words. He looked to Bexley for help. She was the one demanding the cat stayed in the bag, and the local pizza joint wasn't the prime place to drop the Dad bomb. Keeping his yap shut was one of the hardest challenges of his life, but he'd learned how to appear impassive and even chill in the most insidious moments. He'd interviewed dozens of killers, forced to hear the grimy details of how they committed heinous acts on innocent men, women and children. Attempting to treat this situation as one of those wasn't panning out as well as he he'd hoped. Josiah wasn't a serial killer. He was Ty's son. After only a few moments, Ty recognized he was a fidgeter and had an impulsive streak.

Bexley twirled the beat-up napkin tighter with each twist. "We, uh. We actually went to the same school in Asheville."

Truth, but a stretch. They lived in Asheville and were homeschooled.

"Cool." Josiah leaned in, mischief pulling at the corners of his mouth. "What was my mom like in school? She never talks about growing up, and Ahnah doesn't remember much before they moved to the Outer Banks."

The atrocities Ahnah likely remembered were nothing she would want to share. No, those were things that poor girl would want to forget, which would be a sweet mercy if she could.

Time to have a little fun at Bexley's expense. She had it coming. "What does she say?"

Bexley dropped the napkin. "I say that I was quiet and followed the rules and made good grades, which is what I expect out of my son." She gave him the eye to tread lightly. When had Tiberius ever tread lightly?

My son.

Ourson.

"Well, she was quiet in class, but she only followed the rules when authority figures were watching." He grinned. "But when they weren't, your mom was a wildcat."

Josiah's eyes lit up, and his mouth made the perfect O shape. "Dude, Mom. No way." He laughed. "Mom doing anything wrong? I can't imagine it."

"I probably have a list somewhere of all her wrongs." They were written on his heart in glass. Bex's cheeks had turned a nice little shade of red, and Ty felt zero shame.

"Let me tell you something," Ty added.

"Oh yay. Life lessons from Tiberius," Bex muttered before sipping her diet drink again.

He swiped his hand in the air, waving her off. "I know some things. Some rules are meant to be followed, but not all rules."

Bexley snorted. "Do not listen to that advice."

"Do listen to that advice," Ty countered. No one should have followed the rules of the Family. Each one was archaic and abusive.

Josiah chuckled as the server approached with their pizzas, disintegrating the rule-following conversation. Ty dove into the lobster pizza. The kid wasn't kidding. In his words, it was bussin'.

"So, how'd you get into the FBI?" Josiah asked through a big bite of pepperoni, cheese stringing from his lips down his chin.

"When I left Asheville, I was on my own." He cut a glare at Bexley. "I had some skills but I decided to attend school. I majored in religious studies and minored in psychology. I guess I was trying to figure out the world. What makes religious people tick—all religions. That degree won me a trip to Quantico to the FBI Academy, and the rest is religious history."

"Your degree had the FBI calling you?" Josiah asked.

"Not exactly. I got a job working with the university doing some case studies for the chair of the department. Then the Harbinger of Death cropped up in Charlotte."

"That serial killer. I saw a documentary on him once."

"Yep. I helped the SCU South division solve that case and was recruited for my specialty, but for fieldwork, you have to go to Academy."

Josiah took his third piece of pizza. Had he even tasted a single bite the way he was wolfing it down? "That's cool. Who's the craziest killer you've caught?"

If Ty had a dollar for every time someone asked him that. People were fascinated with serial killers, and he understood it. The psyche of that brand of monster was impossible for a normal human brain to grasp. What made sickos tick? What or who shaped them? But in his opinion, they were far too glorified and the victims and their hurting loved ones far too forgotten.

"I don't know, man. They've all got their screws loose. Last year we worked a case in a Kentucky holler. Guy was taking his victims' eyes and sewing their lids shut, then leaving those women in a cave for a period of time before strangling them. That was pretty bizarre to say the least, but we got him."

"Who's the scariest killer you never caught?" he asked, and wiped his mouth on a napkin, swiping the string of cheese that had been there this whole time.

Easy enough. "The Fire Ice Killer." If they'd caught him, Ahnah might not have vanished and Ty wouldn't be sitting here. But if Ty wasn't sitting here, then he wouldn't know he had a son.

"In Virginia?" Bexley asked.

He nodded.

"The one where your mouthing off about him went viral?" she asked, then froze. She'd made a boo-boo. The Fire Ice case was three years ago, before Bexley came to Memphis and spoke at Fiona's church, giving her the ministry's business card.

She'd known all along where he was and she was never going to tell him about Josiah. He swigged his sweet tea in an attempt to swallow that bitter pill. "Saw that, did ya?"

"Everyone saw that," she muttered.

"I didn't. I'm gonna look it up." Josiah snagged his phone as Bexley's dinged with a notification. She frowned and began moving her thumbs across the screen.

"What's wrong?" Ty asked.

"Nothing. A patient not following rules." She emphasized the not following rules.

"So," Ty said to Josiah as he watched the video and hooted at Ty's remarks. "Do you have a girlfriend?" Bexley had told him earlier that he didn't, but sometimes boys hid things like this from their moms. But not their dads—or guys in general. Not that he'd fess up in front of her.

"No." He smirked. "But I got options." He laid the phone down. "That was epic. I wonder if he saw that video."

Pretty sure he had.

"Options, huh?" He put out a fist. Josiah bumped it. "Nice."

"What about you? You see a lot of action?"

"Josiah!" Bexley squawked. "Inappropriate table talk—or talk in general. Women aren't action. They are people who deserve respect."

Josiah's cheeks reddened. "I meant dating action. Now whose mind is in the gutter?"

Not so much the gutter as reliving the past.

Bexley shoved a mass of hair behind her ear. "Well, either way. His personal life is private."

Ty picked a piece of lobster from a slice of pizza on the pan. "I haven't been serious about anyone in decades."

Bexley met his searching gaze. The air grew thick with tension.

"Yeah, Mom don't date either. Like ever." Josiah didn't seem to notice the clogged atmosphere, and grabbed his fourth piece of pizza.

Ty continued to hold her gaze. "Never?" Ty cycled women like a revolving door, but he had always been up front with them. He was not looking for a committed relationship. Dating was easier than falling in love and then having his beating heart shoved out a fifty-story building only to be run over by a party bus. Pass.

"Okay, enough about my private business." Bexley laid her napkin over her plate and pushed it away.

Josiah opened his mouth, but his phone dinged. "Hey, do you care if I cut out early? Abe wants to game awhile at the arcade."

"How do you plan to get there?" she asked.

"I'm gonna meet him at the arcade at the end of the boardwalk. Cool?"

Bexley let out a tired mama sigh. "Not a great idea."

Josiah rolled his eyes. "The arcade is literally down the strip and public. Abe can drop me right off on the porch. You can track my location!"

Bexley looked to Ty, and he slightly nodded.

"Fine. Be home by nine. We have church tomorrow."

Ty bristled. Out of one cult and into another, forcing it on their child. He had a mouthful to say on that subject as soon as Josiah left the table.

He snagged one more slice and waved it as his goodbye. "I hope that sketch of Skipper helps. It was cool meeting you." He paused, his expression sobering. "And I really hope you find Ahnah soon."

"I'm gonna do my best."

Josiah tilted his head as if measuring him up. "How good is that?"

Ty smirked. "Pretty good."

With that, Josiah nodded, shoved half the slice in his pie hole and rushed out of the restaurant.

"Do you not feed him often? He inhaled half the pizza in thirty seconds."

"He's seventeen, Tiberius." Bexley rubbed her brow bone. "Can you really find Ahnah, or are you giving Josiah a pat FBI answer?"

Ty wiped pizza grease from his hands. "I'm gonna do my best, and my best is pretty good." He tossed his napkin on the table. "Now, when are we telling him the truth? Because never is off the table, Bex."

She rubbed her hands together. "He's worried about Ahnah. They're like siblings. Throwing in more stressful news wouldn't be good for him emotionally or mentally. He's impulsive, Tiberius. Like you. I'm not sure what he'd do, and I'm not sure how to tell him because he cannot go looking for Family members. He's been without for so long, he'll want the connection, and if for no other reason, he'll do it because I tell him not to."

"What have you told him about me?"

Bexley rolled a straw paper between her fingers. "That you come from a bad family, a criminal family, and neither of us are getting involved with them."

"So you didn't say I was but you all but implied it, Bexley. Why would you do that?" The kid thought he was in some kind of mafia. Great.

"He doesn't believe half of what I say, and if he knows you're not a criminal, he might not believe your family is either."

"And whose fault is that, Liar, Liar Pants on Fire?"

She grimaced. "Mine. It's my fault. I'm taking ownership. I'm not perfect, Tiberius. I was his age when I had him. Remember how seventeen-year-olds think? They don't."

"'Kay, but you aren't seventeen now. You can't blame bad decisions after seventeen on your seventeen self, and you absolutely knew how to contact me. You didn't want to. Whatever the reason, you can't keep coming back to the teenage mom blame game." Harsh words? Yes. True? To the core.

"I'm in agreement we tell him. But can we hold off long enough to find Ahnah? It's a lot for him to take, and he's clearly going through something right now."

"How did you get Ahnah to comply?"

She huffed. "She remembered Garrick and didn't want to go back or see Josiah get sucked into the Family. It wasn't that hard."

Garrick had been untouchable.

Touch not thy Lord's anointed.

He'd done things like block her path and not let her get to the head mistress's house for school. Sometimes he pinned her against trees and told her things a twelve-year-old girl should never know, but he was "training her to be a good wife" for some man someday.

Ty wasn't sure what else Garrick did that Ahnah never confessed, but the last straw had been one afternoon when she'd been in the woods with friends and Garrick had found her. He'd forced her to kneel in front of him with all the other girls watching and commanded she lick the mud off his boots.

All of it.

Slowly.

She had no other choice but to drop down and do it. Garrick was God's future prophet and to question Rand or his heir—or any man for that matter in the Family—was complaining against God Himself. Questioning, rebuking or refusing was strictly forbidden. One could be disfellowshipped for it, and that meant eternity burning alone and miserable in outer darkness.

Ty had taken a chance anyway.

"The best I can offer," he said, "is two weeks. I hope she's found by then. But I'm not leaving here without him knowing."

She nodded once.

"I guess what's done is done, Bexley. I don't think I'll ever forgive you for robbing me of being a father. But what happens from here on out, I'm involved in, and that begins with why you're keeping him from one cult but forcing him into another. Christian church? Really? Let's count how many pastors and leaders abuse women and molest children. Immorality abounds. I can't believe you were duped twice!"

Bexley sat up straight. Resolute. "I am not duped. And you're right, there are a few bad apples in the bunch. That doesn't make the rest of the apples bad. They're what apples should be. As far as Josiah, he's never been forced to believe anything. He has to make his own decision."

He rolled his eyes. "You make him get baptized or handle snakes or something?"

Bexley snorted. "Tiberius, don't be an idiot. We don't handle snakes."

"I don't like it."

"Noted."

A server asked if they needed anything else. Her way of letting them know she wanted to turn the table. "No, thanks. Just the check." A crowd gathered at the front, taking up the benches and standing around.

Suddenly, an alarm blared, and people began to chatter and hop up from their tables.

"Fire!" someone shouted.

Ty stood to assess the situation. Had a fire started in the kitchen? A manager came running, calling out that it was a false alarm. A kid pulled it. Panicked people ignored him while many others sat idly by as if nothing had transpired.

"Tiberius, what's going on?" Bexley stood and grabbed her purse.

"Stay put, Bexley. The manager says it's a false alarm."

Hardly anyone showed Southern charm now; it was every man and woman for themselves.

"It's a false alarm!" the manager hollered again. "You have to pay your bills!"

Ty stepped into the aisle, and a man bumped into him. "Oh, my apologies, sir," the man said.

"Yeah, no worries," Ty muttered, but the man had already disappeared into the crowd.

"Tiberius," Bex said. "What's this?"

She held up a white letter-sized envelope.

"I don't know." The pizza churned in his gut, sending fiery reflux into his esophagus. He searched for the man who had moseyed by with no reason to bump into him other than to distract him and Bexley.

"Should I open it?" she asked, concern raising her voice a few notches.

"No. Let's get out of the frenzy first." After dropping a fifty on the table, he snatched the envelope in one hand and Bexley's in the other, then led her through the throng of people and outside onto the deck overlooking the water. He sat on a bench, wishing he had a pair of gloves.

His nerves hummed as he cautiously opened the envelope. Inside was a solid white note card identical to the ones nailed to the victims' palms. He turned it over to see the same black lettering as well.

Don't be so sure in your confidence, Agent Granger. I got you here, didn't I? I plan to keep you here until I'm finished with you. Plan to suffer.

PS My work's a step up from painted lips and nails, don't you think?