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  Hawk fell asleep right away, because life was deeply unfair, and she lay next to him, tossing and turning, fluffing her pillow, and getting up to go to the bathroom every twenty minutes. Finally, she gave up. She got out of bed, pulled a robe on over her pajamas, and went wandering around the house to look around.

  She found that the downstairs den, which Hayes had turned into a room for displaying his collection of vintage action figures, had been transformed into a place for Paul’s things, which meant that bookshelves now lined the walls. Not all of the action figures had been gotten rid of. They were posed in clusters on the top of the bookshelves. Unopened boxes of G.I. Joes took up the bottom shelf of one of the shelves.

  Wren walked through the room, running her fingers over the books on the shelves.

  Paul had a taste for mystery novels. He liked classic stuff. He had the complete Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

  She stopped when she got the row of Paul’s Agatha Christie novels. She pulled out The ABC Murders, thumbing through it. She’d read this book once, on holiday break from college. Paul had given it to her on the beach. All three of them there, under umbrellas. Didn’t you bring anything to read, Wren? Paul had said. Here, try this. You’ll like it.

  She could see the places where she’d folded down the pages to mark her place.

  “Wren?”

  She looked up at the doorway to the room.

  Paul was standing there.

  “Hi,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep. I saw the books. I thought I might read something.”

  “Me too,” said Paul, smiling. “Nothing puts me to sleep like a book.” He pointed. “Didn’t I let you borrow that already?”

  “Yeah.” She put it back on the shelf.

  Paul padded across the room. He was barefoot, wearing silk pajamas. He pulled a Sue Grafton book off the shelf. “You can read it again if you want. I love to read books again.”

  “No, that’s okay,” she said.

  “Listen, your father just wants the best for you. All his memories of Cardinal Falls are negative. And every time he shares one with me, it twists up my stomach. It was a bad place, Wren. He doesn’t want bad things happening to you.”

  “Well, it’s different now,” said Wren. “I mean, I’m staying there, but I’m not going to the services or anything. I’m not involved with the Children.”

  “He was worried when he heard you were bringing Hawk,” said Paul.

  “He was?” Her shoulders slumped. “But he didn’t say anything.”

  “Worried you were going to get sucked back in, I think,” said Paul. “When he first started staying at the FCL, his parents would call and tell him to come home all the time, and he would never leave.”

  “Oh, it’s not like that. Trust me, I’d never join up with a cult or something.”

  Paul nodded. “I know. I think he does too. That conversation at dinner, he was trying to feel you two out for brainwashing, I think.”

  “So, that’s why he was worried about Hawk? Just because he thought that Hawk was part of the Fellowship?”

  “Yes, I think so.” Paul raised his eyebrows. “There some other reason to be worried about Hawk?”

  “No,” she said. “Of course not.”

  * * *

  The wedding took place in a room off of a restaurant downtown. There were probably thirty people there, most of whom Wren didn’t know, because they were Paul’s family. Hayes didn’t have much in the way of family. His parents were dead. They’d died when he was in the cult, and he’d never had a chance to say goodbye, something that he regretted.

  He had tried to reconnect with his extended family—cousins and aunts and uncles—but none of them were there, and Wren was almost glad of it, because she would have felt as though she’d lost more than just Hayes when she found out he wasn’t her biological father if there had been all those other connections in her life as well. It would have been a worse blow.

  The ceremony was simple.

  Both Paul and Hayes wore white suits. They walked up the aisle together and then stood in front of the officiant holding hands. They exchanged rings and vows and kissed and everyone cheered.

  Then there was food and wine and dancing, and Wren was practically teary-eyed at seeing her father so happy.

  Hayes pulled her out on the dance floor for a father-daughter dance at one point, and then afterward, she got pulled into a conversation with Paul’s sister for a while. During all that, she completely lost track of Hawk.

  Then she saw him, over in the corner of the room with one of Paul’s little nieces. Wren wandered over.

  “… not sure why it would be so gross,” the little girl was saying.

  Hawk was chuckling. “Well, to keep kids from drinking it, of course.”

  “But why would adults drink it?” said the little girl. Then she saw Wren and she got to her feet, guilt all over her face, having been caught doing something wrong.

  Wren looked back and forth between the girl and Hawk.

  “There you are,” said Hawk, getting to his feet.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “I’ve just been getting to know Anabelle here,” said Hawk. “She’s ten years old and she likes to paint her fingernails different colors. She says they usually look rainbow-colored, but her mother told her that it wasn’t a good look for a wedding.”

  Anabelle still had that caught-with-her-hand-in-the-cookie-jar look on her face.

  “I told her I thought rainbow fingernails would be just fine,” said Hawk, smiling down affectionately on the girl.

  Anabelle tried to smile.

  Hawk raised his eyebrows. “What’s wrong? This is my friend, Wren.” He nudged Wren. “Shake hands with Anabelle.”

  Wren cleared her throat. “Did you let her drink your wine?”

  “I gave her a sip,” said Hawk. “She hated it. No harm done.”

  “Don’t tell my mom.” Anabelle was pleading with Wren. “I’ll get in trouble.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Wren reassured the girl. “Don’t worry.”

  “You won’t tell?” said Anabelle.

  Wren shook her head.

  “Thank you,” said Anabelle. She bit down on her lip. “I should go. Um, it was nice meeting you, Hawk.”

  Hawk grinned at her. “You too.”

  Wren waited until the girl was out of earshot and then turned on Hawk. “What the hell?” she said in a low voice.

  “What?” said Hawk.

  “You can’t give alcohol to other people’s children.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What? Are you angry with me?”

  “I’m…” She folded her arms over her chest. She turned to look out at the people gathered on the dance floor. “There’s a whole room of people here, and you’re spending time with the ten-year-old girl. You’re giving wine to the ten-year-old girl.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  She turned back to look at him.

  His expression was hard.

  She lifted her chin.

  “You trying to accuse me of something? Go on and say it, then.”

  “I’m not accusing you, it’s only that it’s troubling. I find it very troubling.”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “Why is that? Spit it out, Wren.”

  “Because of… because of everything.”

  “Because of our history? What happened when we were kids?”

  “That, and…” But then she couldn’t say it out loud.

  “And?” He wasn’t about to let her off the hook.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing, I don’t know why I…” She drew in a breath. “Major did it. I know that Major did it. I don’t think you did it.”

  “You can’t let that go, can you?”

  “I didn’t mean it.” It was only that the person who’d lured those little girls into his car would have had to have been charming, would have had to know how to talk to little girls, and she’d never seen Major talk to a little girl like that.<
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  He leaned close, his voice a harsh whisper. “You ever wonder why, if you’re so convinced that I’m a child murderer, that you can’t seem to stop crawling into my bed?”

  “Shut up,” she said.

  “I mean, if I really am so depraved, what does that say about you?” He turned on his heel and stalked out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She followed him.

  Outside the restaurant, she caught up to him. She grabbed him by the arm and turned him to face her. “You knew about it. You knew everything. Major said he talked to you about it whenever you tripped together on the weekend. He confessed it all to you, and you kept it to yourself. You protected him, and you would have kept on protecting him if I hadn’t found that ID card.”

  He yanked his arm out of her grasp. “I’m not going to bother to contradict you. No matter what I say, you just believe whatever you want about me.”

  “Why’d you talk to that little girl?”

  “I just did. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “Did you help Major?” A lump was growing in her throat. “Did you capture the girls for him?”

  “No,” said Hawk.

  “Are you attracted to girls that age?”

  “No.”

  “Were you attracted to me when I was that age?”

  “Stop it, Wren.”

  “That’s not a no.”

  “No, all right? No.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not doing this with you. I’m not denying all of your outlandish accusations. I don’t have it in me.” He walked off down the street.

  This time, she let him go.

  * * *

  She went back into the wedding, and she deflected when her dad asked where Hawk was.

  After a few hours, she felt awful, and she started trying to call him. She still thought that Hawk shouldn’t have given the little girl a drink of wine, but compared to the way they’d been treated as kids by adults, it was positively benign. She had read things into it she shouldn’t have.

  The truth was that she kept thinking the worst about Hawk because she was looking for some reason to stop things from getting more serious between them.

  She was afraid of getting close to him.

  Maybe she was afraid of getting close to anyone.

  Maybe she should try facing her fears.

  But when she finally got Hawk on the phone, he informed her that he was at the airport, getting on a plane in an hour.

  “What?” she said. “How did you manage that?”

  “Uh, I called a cab to take me to the airport, and then I exchanged my ticket for a new flight,” said Hawk. “I’m not a moron, Wren. I can do things on my own.”

  “I never thought you were a moron.”

  “Sure, you did. That’s why you don’t want whatever it is between us to be anything more than us hooking up. Because you think I’m beneath you.”

  “I never said—”

  “You didn’t have to,” he said.

  She took a deep breath. “Okay, we need to talk about all this. Can you undo your exchange?”

  “No, that’s needlessly complicated,” he said. “If you want to talk when you get back, we should do that, though.”

  “I wish you weren’t leaving just because we had a fight.”

  “A fight? Wren, you persist in thinking that I’m the worst sort of person that could possibly exist. You think I’m a pedophile and a murderer and a—”

  “No, I don’t think those things. I really don’t. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Maybe it’s better if we both cool off,” he said.

  “Hawk, come on.”

  “Look, I don’t know how to make this clearer to you. I’m angry with you right now. I don’t want to talk to you when I’m this angry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ll be back tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “So, when you get back, come see me. We’ll talk then.” He hung up the phone.

  Luckily, she didn’t have to worry too much about explaining Hawk’s absence to her father or Paul, because they left early the next morning for their honeymoon. When she left, she had to lock up the place and turn off the air conditioning. Then she took a plane home, alone.

  * * *

  Wren pulled into the driveway of her cabin. It had been a long drive back from the airport, and she was planning on dropping off her bags and then going out to find Hawk and talk to him.

  But there was another car parked in front of her cabin. A man was leaning up against it, and it took Wren a moment to recognize him, but then she did. Oliver Campbell. He had been in school with her, a few years ahead of her.

  Oliver Campbell’s father Adrian had been one of the first victims of the FCL. He was a doctor who, along with orchard owner Benjamin Smith, had been planning to file a suit against the Fellowship. He and Benjamin had been very vocal about it, and so Vivian had sent her army after them.

  Adrian and Benjamin had been shot to death. Their wallets had been taken to make it look like a robbery gone wrong, and that was what everything had thought about it, for a long time.

  It wasn’t until Karen and Terrence Freeman had gone to the authorities and confessed, in detail, to all of the murders that the FCL had committed that anyone knew differently.

  Understandably, Oliver didn’t like anyone associated with the Fellowship. Like the other boys in school, he’d taken to calling Wren and the others “culties.” Unlike the other guys, he was never one to hook up with any of the girls and brag about it. He’d steered clear. Of course he had.

  So, what was he doing here?

  She parked her car, got out, and shut the door.

  Oliver came around the front of his car and gave her a tentative wave. “Uh, hi there. I’ve been waiting for you for about a half hour. I was about to leave.”

  “Well… was I supposed to know you were coming?”

  “No, no.” He scuffed a toe against the ground, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I should have called or something first. I considered friending you on social media, but I had this feeling you wouldn’t respond to my friend request.”

  “Why are you here?” She knew it was rude to be so blunt, but she didn’t know how else to say it. She was foundering here.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “We do?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, we do. I was hoping maybe you’d come on a drive with me. We could chat for a bit. What do you say?”

  “Uh…” She pointed to her trunk. “I have bags. I should get them inside.”

  “Okay.” Oliver nodded.

  She opened the trunk and got out her luggage. She took it up onto her porch and opened her front door, which she hadn’t even bothered to lock. Not a lot of theft on the compound. She didn’t like the idea of Oliver skulking around, though. From now on, she’d lock up. She opened the door and stashed the luggage inside. She turned back to him.

  He was standing at the foot of the porch steps. “I think it would be better if we went on a drive to talk. That way, we’re not on anyone’s home turf.”

  “It’ll be your car,” she said.

  “Well, you can invite me in if you want. We’ll talk in your house.”

  “I don’t want you in my house.” It came out before she could stop herself.

  He took a step back. “Look, I know that we’ve never spoken before, but I’ve never done anything to you.”

  “You’ve never done anything for me, either,” she said. “And considering everything with my mother and your father—”

  “You know about that?” he said sharply.

  She stopped short. “I meant that my mother ordered your father’s death. Everyone knows about that.”

  “Yeah.” Oliver looked down at the ground.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that,” she said. “I never… Vivian is a horrible person, and I have nothing to do with her. I’ve never even visited her in prison. For all I care, she can rot awa
y locked up. She’s… I hate her. And I’m sorry, so sorry about your father. You have every right to… to hate this place. I get it. Just… for whatever it’s worth, I didn’t have anything to do with it. I would never hurt anyone like that, so…”

  Oliver raised his gaze to hers. “My sister Emmaline, she needs a blood marrow transplant. It’s complications with leukemia. It’s really bad.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, completely thrown by this change of subject.

  “Well, I’m hoping you can help.”

  “Me?” said Wren.

  “You’re my half sister,” said Oliver.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Wren buckled herself into Oliver’s car, feeling as though she’d been flattened by a slab of concrete.

  Oliver started the car. “After my father died, my mother found some letters from your mother to my father. She was angry with him, because they’d had an affair, and she was pregnant, but he wouldn’t help her out financially. My mother was grief stricken, but she felt for your mother. She tried to reach out. She wanted for Emmaline and I to know you, and she wanted to know you, too. I guess she wanted another piece of my dead father to love or something. I don’t know. I was angry with him. I hated him for what he did. But my mother…”

  Wren shook her head. “This is insane, what you’re saying. My mother and Adrian Campbell? How could that possibly be? He hated the FCL. She hated him.” Adrian Campbell is my father?

  “I don’t know that it started out that way.” Oliver pulled the car out onto the road. “My father’s hatred may have been influenced by whatever falling out happened between him and your mother.”

  “But then… then everything was personal,” she said. Adrian Campbell is dead.

  “I guess,” said Oliver.

  “And… and the profile for Vivian, it’s all… That changes everything.” I’ll never get to know him.

  “What?”

  “It’s what I do. I profile serial killers,” she said. “If Vivian killed because of personal resentment, then that changes everything. Her first murder, it was motivated by revenge or… I…”