be part of the reason they brought me on, to keep an eye on me. I know things about them. I saw it firsthand. It’s a reason to keep me close, keep me in the fold so to speak. As a son of Farrow, they’re considering me to join the Guild.”
“Oh,” she breathed. “And Mason?”
“Mason hasn’t inquired. For our purposes, only one of us needs to join.”
She pressed her lips together momentarily. “And Georgia?”
Camden shook his head. “The Women’s Guild? No. Women, especially women like Georgia, are not . . . thought well of in Farrow, Scarlett.” He felt a pang to his heart. They had made Georgia the “type of woman” she was and then castigated her for it. That alone had fed his hatred for years.
He worried his lip for a moment. “That flyer? The one you said you found on the street in Los Angeles? The one with the Lilith House sale information?”
She tilted her head. “Yes?”
“I think I was the one who dropped it.”
Her eyes widened. “You? How do you know?”
“Because people from Farrow rarely leave, much less guild members. But . . . I was in LA a few months ago. I’d . . . needed to get away.” He looked away, recalling that day. “I’d requested to become a guild member, and attended an informal meeting. They didn’t divulge anything useful, just questioned me a lot about my time away from Farrow, but on my way out, I was handed a flyer that held basic guild information. I stuck it in my pocket as I left.” He paused. He’d felt trapped, edgy. “I got in my car and just started driving, following the signs to Los Angeles.” He shook his head as a sigh emerged. “That restlessness we talked about . . .” He looked up, met her eyes. “It led me here, Scarlett. To you.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it, looking away for a moment. She was quiet for several minutes and he left her to gather her thoughts. Finally, she asked, “How do you even have birth certificates? Paperwork?”
“There are ways to apply for that if you were home birthed and there was no record created at the time. It happens somewhat often in religious communities. But in any case, the guild is in charge of—”
“Farrow public records,” Scarlett finished. She brought her hand to her forehead and left it there for a few moments as if she had to physically hold in the information her brain was processing. “The whole school, it was a racket?”
Camden considered that. “I guess you could call it that, but, Scarlett, like I said, these people believe in the righteousness of what they were doing, just as the original guild did. I don’t know if that makes it better or far worse, but it’s just the way it is. Even Jill—Ms. West—justified some of it until the end.” His brow dipped momentarily, the complex feelings he still had for her coming to the surface. She’d participated in the heinous things that went on at Lilith House, but then she’d rescued him from it, refusing to speak of it after that, though she always seemed to be a basket of nerves. Sometimes he wondered if it had eaten away at her to such an extent that she’d literally made herself sick. He knew now she worried needlessly. No one was coming after her. Farrow was where their power lie. And neither he nor she were valuable enough to them anyway.
“That’s why you became the sheriff’s deputy? Why you’re trying to become part of the guild? To catch them doing something you can use against them?”
“We’ll use whatever we can to try to bring justice to those who deserve it.”
“Including yourself. And . . . your friends.”
He nodded once.
Scarlett sat back, sinking into the couch. She looked shocked and angry and confused. Overwhelmed.
“Right now, we have no proof. We have nothing.”
Her eyes met his. “Especially since I bought Lilith House.”
“Yes.” It was true. They’d had this grand plan. It’d kept them going. They’d take the town down. They’d own the place where they’d once been made victims. They’d rule it all. Only, the more their plan had taken shape, the more specific it’d gotten, the more lust for power and revenge he’d seen in his friends’ eyes . . . and in all honesty, even in the reflection staring back at him from the mirror, the more he’d