Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) - Karen Rose Page 0,200

found the locket when she’d fought and escaped the killer.

Margo nodded. “The locket was only featured for a few seconds, but my heart nearly stopped. I’ve . . .” She blew out a breath. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell my husband. I wanted to go to law enforcement and tell them what I knew, but I couldn’t blindside Hugh that way. Especially if I was held accountable for my part in Ben’s scheme.”

Ben. “Benton Travis,” Liza said. The name Pastor had been given at birth.

“Yes. He stole a lot of money from our church, the one in L.A. I didn’t know about it at first, but I didn’t tell anyone when I did. I know that was wrong. Now I’m going to have to tell Hugh. He’s going to be very disappointed in me, but he’ll support me. I hope.” She folded her hands in her lap. “What do you want to know?”

Liza thought Tom would begin with the banker but was stunned when he asked, “Did Pastor know that Waylon fathered your children?”

Margo’s mouth fell open, her laugh brittle. “You certainly go straight to the hard questions, Agent Hunter. No. He never knew. I think . . . I don’t know what he would have done.”

“So you continued your relationship with Waylon after your divorce.”

Margo nodded. “Waylon was my first love.”

“Why did you divorce?” Tom asked.

She sighed. “It was this thing that Ben and Waylon cooked up between them. Ben figured they could start a church and get donations. Then he realized that if he became the minister of an established church—a wealthy one—he could have a steady income for not a lot of work.”

“You were at the L.A. church for ten years,” Tom said. “That’s a long time.”

“Ben found that he liked it. He always believed himself superior to everyone else. Being a pastor let him act out that role. Waylon had all the tattoos and looked big and bad, but he was sweet. Ben was the brains, but he was . . . what’s the word the kids are using? A douchebag.”

Liza had to swallow a startled laugh at hearing the word fall from this stylish woman’s lips.

“He was a born swindler,” Margo went on. “He and Waylon met in prison and . . . I guess Waylon was as snowed by Ben as everyone else. Me included, for a while. By the time we realized what a monster Ben was, it was too late.”

“Waylon brought you to his parents when he helped you escape Eden,” Tom said. “You lived in their house on Elvis Lane.”

Margo nodded. “I was terrified that Ben would come looking for us. I didn’t step foot from that house for years.”

“Did Waylon’s parents know that they were the children’s grandparents?” Liza asked.

“They did. My William and Waylon’s other son, DJ, resembled each other.”

“Did you know that Waylon produced bodies that he found in a ravine and claimed they were yours?” Tom asked abruptly.

Margo gasped, all the color draining from her face. “What? No. That’s impossible.”

“That’s why Pastor didn’t come for you. He believed you were dead,” Tom said. “No one is sure who those people were, but Waylon brought back the remains of a woman and two children.”

“No.” Margo shook her head violently. “No. Waylon would not do that.”

“He did.” Tom was insistent, but gently so. “He did again when Gideon Reynolds escaped eight years after you did.”

“Gideon? I don’t . . .” She looked away, thinking, then her gaze flashed back. “There was a little boy whose mother came to Eden, not long before we left. His name was Gideon.”

Tom nodded. “His younger sister was Mercy. She was only a year old when you escaped. But if you saw that news program on the serial killer, you saw her, too. Mercy Callahan was thirteen when her mother got her out. Mercy was married to Ephraim Burton for a year.”

Margo looked as if she’d be sick. “Not him.”

Her reaction made Liza’s stomach churn, thinking about what Mercy had suffered.

Margo twisted her fingers together, nerves on display. “That’s why I ran. My daughter was going to be twelve. I hated that rule. I tried to get Ben to change it, but he wouldn’t. I knew that my daughter was going to be given to one of those brutes and . . . I couldn’t let that happen. Neither could Waylon. So he got us out.”

“Who made the rule about twelve-year-olds being married?” Tom asked.

“Ben did, but it was because