Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I sighed. “You think that it’s going to go like that? The moment that they’re suspected of anything, the congregation is going to close around them in support. My parents are loved. Their cult-like following won’t believe a word until it’s right in front of their face. It’s all going to blow up.”
“Then let it.” Boone shrugged. “You’ve done everything that you can to distance yourself from them. You’ve been a vocal non-supporter of their church since you turned eighteen. The outrage from them is still talked about.”
“This’ll affect her anyway,” Nettie pointed out sullenly from the back seat. “Half the population has been trying to get her kicked out of her coaching position since she started. They constantly question her morals. What do you think they’re going to do when they find out that our parents are fuckin sickos? She’ll be lucky to keep her job.”
That was definitely a possibility.
“She’s taken them to state almost every single year since she’s started coaching. She’s not going to get fired from her job,” Boone pointed out.
From his mouth to God’s ears…
“We’ll see,” Nettie muttered. “Maybe you should just quit and move to Miami, Eddy.”
“No,” Boone said. “Stay.”
I looked over at Boone and saw the desperation there.
I knew why he said that.
He didn’t care about me, necessarily. He cared about my sister. If I left, she’d have no reason to ever come visit again, ergo never seeing him again.
I just shook my head.
These two would be the death of me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said to Nettie. “I’m not going to run.”
Nettie sighed. “Shit.”
Ten
Kiss her often. Fuck her well. Kill the spiders.
—Weaver’s rules to live by
Weaver
“Yeah?” I asked, half hanging off the bucket as I tried to repair a wire that’d snapped due to the pressure on the line from a fallen branch.
“Good news and bad news,” Apollo said.
“What’s the bad?” Sheriff Black asked just as I was about to ask the same thing.
“How many people are on this call?” I asked.
“You, me, and Black,” Apollo said. “The good news is, I was able to find some information. Every Wednesday, the church does a Mother’s Day Out type program for the young kids in the church. It’s from one to six years old. You’ll never guess who the only two ever there are.”
“The pastor and his wife,” I guessed.
“Bingo,” Apollo said. “And it’s all very hush-hush. I only learned about it through a tex—”
“Don’t tell me how you learned about it,” Black interrupted. “Tell me the rest. Keep the breaking the law part out of it.”
“I acquired the information and was able to find out that it’s all word of mouth. Once the kids turn six, they’re no longer welcome in the program. Parents drop their kids off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. The source was talking with her sister who also had a child in the program. Apparently the source came to pick up her kid early because she had an out-of-town emergency. When she got there the doors were locked. But she could see camera equipment inside. The kids were just running wild, but she saw that her niece was the only one missing. The mom pounded on the door, and the two adults came out of the back room with their niece dressed in some incredibly over-the-top dress with makeup on.”
Black cursed under his breath.
“When the source asked what was going on, the pastor and his wife said that it was a Christmas gift for the parents. And, seeing as it’s nowhere near Christmas, the woman got suspicious and brought it up with her sister.”
“What did the sister say?” I asked as I tightened my grip on the tool in my hand.
“She wrote it off as weird but harmless,” Apollo informed them. “Bad news now?”
“Hit me.” I pulled myself back into the bucket.
“Bad news is, the sheriff’s department has a leak. The parents now know of the charges and allegations against them.”
Black cursed up a storm.
I crossed my arms over my chest, anger simmering in my veins.
“Why am I here?” I asked.
Not that I didn’t appreciate an update, because who wouldn’t be invested after seeing what I saw? However, I figured this was a police matter, not a club matter.
Though, if they weren’t careful, this would become a club matter.
Black knew that as well as I did.
There wasn’t much that went on in this town that we didn’t have a pulse on. Now that we were made aware of the situation at hand, we’d expect it fixed.
Because there was one thing that the club valued above their women. And that was their children.
I wasn’t sure which club members currently went to that church, but I was sure it was at least a few of them, if not their family members.
“You were implicated.” Apollo paused. “You apparently spent the night with her. A girl named Audrey Stanley caught y’all together, then went to her father and shared what she saw. According to text messages between Audrey’s father, Deacon Andrews, and the pastor and his wife, they believe that you were trying to get in there to do something illicit.”