Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) - Karen Rose Page 0,201

of Ephraim. He got several of the younger girls pregnant. Ben couldn’t say Ephraim was a pedophile, because Founding Elders were important. They were church leaders. So Ben changed the rules so that Ephraim’s raping of young women wasn’t a crime. It was a . . . sacrament.” She spat the word. “I couldn’t stand it, but I also couldn’t change it. Within a few years of being in Eden, it was like the men started believing that women were subhuman. I hadn’t wanted to stay there, hadn’t wanted to go there to begin with, but Ben had promised it would only be temporary. That we could leave when the scandal died down. Maybe six months. A year at the most. But he got used to the power. They all did, I think—the Founding Elders, I mean. Except for Waylon. The others liked having women subservient to them. I begged Ben to revoke the marriage law, not to marry Tracy off when she was still a child. He said he couldn’t make exceptions, even for his own child.” Her face grew hard and angry. “Maybe he did know that the kids weren’t his. I don’t know. I just knew we had to get out. Waylon made it happen.”

“You didn’t report Eden when you escaped,” Liza said.

“Yes, I did!” she cried. “But when I told the police where to find them, they said there was no sign of anyone there. Waylon was angry when I told him. He asked if I wanted all of them to go jail. I did, except for Waylon. He was the only one of the Founding Elders who didn’t have a standing warrant for his arrest. He’d served his time. He wouldn’t have gone back to prison.”

“Unless he’d killed another family to take your place,” Tom said quietly.

Margo whimpered. “He wouldn’t have.”

Tom’s tone remained mild. “At the very least Waylon was selling drugs grown in Eden.”

“Growing a little pot is not the same as murder, Special Agent Hunter,” Margo declared.

Liza frowned, Margo’s words about standing warrants triggering a thought. “All of the Founders got new names. Ben was Herbert when he was the minister of the L.A. church, but he became Pastor in Eden. Edward McPhearson had been Aubrey Franklin, and Ephraim Burton was Harry Franklin. But Waylon kept his given name. Why?”

Tom turned to stare at her, pride in his eyes. “I didn’t think of that.”

Neither had Margo, from the look on her face. “I don’t know,” she murmured.

“Pastor made him the one to do supply runs,” Liza went on. “Waylon sold the drugs. And he had the most recognizable face. He was covered in tattoos, right? Even on his face?”

“Right.” She closed her eyes. “You think that Ben wanted him to get caught?”

Liza thought it was entirely possible. “Do you?”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? Ben knew I loved Waylon first. He hated that.” Margo reached for a tissue, drying her eyes. “Waylon came to see us every weekend in that house in Benicia. Until one weekend he didn’t show up, and that was it. I waited and waited, but he never came back. It devastated my children, Will especially. He loved Waylon.”

“Did he know that Waylon was his father?” Liza asked.

She shook her head. “He’d always called him ‘uncle.’ But when Waylon never came back, Will felt abandoned. He’d always been an angry child, but he . . . Well, he took his own life.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Liza murmured.

Margo’s smile was small and sad. “Thank you. Eventually, I met Hugh and he offered me a better life. This is going to kill him. I assume that Waylon is dead?”

“He died seventeen years ago,” Tom told her, then abruptly changed gears. “What made you offer Craig Hickman a million dollars?”

Margo jolted. “What?”

“A million dollars is a lot of money,” Tom said. “Why did you offer it to him?”

She was quiet for a moment, struggling to regain her composure. “Waylon put it in an account for me when he helped me escape. I never spent it. I was afraid that Ben would know. When Tracy’s first child was born, I offered her the money, for the baby. She was . . . appalled.”

Margo grew pensive. “I didn’t know that she understood what would have happened to her if she’d turned twelve in Eden, but of course she did. She knew I was scared and hurting, so she never said anything. When I offered her money, though . . . She said it was