Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            “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 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.”