nodded. At that moment she’d have agreed to anything to ease the torment in her mother’s eyes. That was two days ago. And her mother was gone. She was alone.
Something toxic burned in Darcy’s chest—a combustible mixture that was equal parts rage and grief with a healthy dose of insatiable need to know the truth about her mother—and she knew she’d lied to Louise.
She had to know where her mother was, had to know if she was safe and she had to know what part Samuel Grayson played in this whole twisted drama that had somehow attached itself to her formerly happy life.
Darcy wanted answers—and nothing was going to stop her.
She shifted in her coach-class airplane seat, wishing she’d had the extra money to spring for at least the business class to accommodate her long legs, but pushed her discomfort aside to take in every detail of her birth mother, Catherine. Even though the picture was more than twenty-two years old, Darcy could tell her mother had been beautiful. If only she’d inherited her fine bone structure, she lamented privately. The only physical attribute she seemed to have been gifted with of her mother’s was her blue eyes. She lightly traced a finger down the curve of her mother’s cheek, wondering what she’d been thinking when the picture was taken. How had Catherine gotten mixed up with someone like Samuel Grayson? Darcy had unearthed a few news articles on the man. On the surface, he seemed legit, but the cultlike following creeped her out. According to the news clippings, Cold Plains was his utopia. Except everyone knew a utopia was an illusion, so how did Samuel keep everyone happy and playing along? It smacked of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Where was the freaky twist?
Darcy closed her eyes and tried not to let the grief that hovered on the edges of her sanity creep in. She couldn’t lose focus. Any semblance of a normal life had shattered when Louise had dropped her bombshell. And, if the truth were known, chasing after answers kept her from acknowledging her bone-deep grief over Louise’s death. It was too soon, too quick. They’d had no time to prepare. The cancer had moved in quickly, without mercy. Before they’d known it, Louise had been given a death sentence. In spite of her closed eyes, a trail of moisture leaked from them, and she wiped it away on her sleeve.
“Are you okay, honey?” the woman next to her asked, a kind expression on her middle-aged face. “I have some tissues if you need some.”
Darcy smiled at the kindness. “Thank you. I’m all right. I’m just tired. Stuff’s getting to me, I guess.”
“Might help if you talk about it. I’m a good listener.”
Darcy withheld a sigh. It was a nice offer, but it wasn’t as if she could actually share what was going on in her life. She smiled briefly to let the woman know the offer was appreciated but gave a little shake of her head, murmuring her decline.
The woman nodded and let her be. Darcy was thankful for the window seat. At least she could watch the states go by in shades of green, gold and blue as she flew from her cozy world, where everything had once made sense, to her new existence, where danger lurked side by side by the secrets she felt compelled to uncover.
Likely, it was stupid—reckless even—and the very thing Louise had cautioned her against.
But she couldn’t stop herself. Maybe there was a slim chance that Catherine was still alive and Darcy could help her.
Then again, maybe Catherine was dead, and Darcy was heading straight into the arms of the man who’d snuffed out her life.
It was a cruel coin flip of possibility.
But she wasn’t turning back. Hell no, she wasn’t turning back.
Chapter 3
Rafe’s smile faded as soon as his last patient walked out the door and climbed into his car, his attention riveted to the man waiting patiently, a seemingly placid expression on his otherwise rugged face.
Rafe locked the door and flipped the sign that said his little practice was closed for the evening, and any emergencies should be directed to the urgent-care clinic. “Any news?” he asked, but by the grim tensing of the man’s mouth, Rafe had his answer. “He’s here. I know it. That sonofabitch has my son somewhere in this little creepshow of a town, and it’s killing me that I’ve been unable to find out where.”
“Keep your voice down,” Hawk Bledsoe, an FBI agent who’d grown up in Cold Plains before it became the stomping ground of Samuel Grayson, the man Rafe was sure had Devin hidden somewhere, warned. “You know it’s not safe to go running your mouth without consequence. I came to tell you there’s someone new in town, and I think as soon as Grayson takes a look at her, he’s going to be on her like stink on crap to recruit her as one of his breeders.”
Rafe grimaced at the crude term that had sprung up at the realization that Grayson fancied himself a matchmaker of sorts and always sought out the best-looking candidates to match up in the hopes that their progeny was equally perfect aesthetically.
“Not my problem,” Rafe said, hating himself for being such a cold bastard, but if he worried about every single person who stumbled into Grayson’s clutches, he’d go insane. He was here for one reason: to find Devin and then get the hell out.
But in the meantime, he had to play the game. He’d shown up in Cold Plains three months ago, pretending to want to relocate to the picturesque town, even going so far as to appear interested in the ridiculous garbage Grayson preached every day in his seminars—all in the name of finding his son.
It hadn’t been as easy as he’d thought when he first started. He figured someone was bound to talk eventually, but Grayson ruled with an iron fist and fear rode shotgun with these people. So far, he’d gotten nowhere. When he discovered that Bledsoe was an undercover FBI agent, he’d been relieved to find someone who wasn’t drinking the crazy juice, but thus far, even Bledsoe had come up empty.
“She’s young and she needs a job,” Bledsoe continued as if Rafe hadn’t spoken. “Don’t you need a receptionist to handle your phones?”
“I hadn’t planned on staying this long,” Rafe grumbled, not exactly answering but not denying it, either. True, he was running himself a bit ragged trying to keep his office as self-sufficient as possible, not because he was a control freak, but rather, he needed to be able to trust the people he worked with, and frankly, trust was in short supply in this town.
“How do we even know she’s not a Devotee?” Rafe asked, referencing the people who followed Samuel Grayson, marching along like good soldiers in Grayson’s utopian army.
“We don’t. But this could be a good way to gain some additional insight if she is. If she’s not, think of it as good karma points.”
Rafe looked away, caught between his urge to protect an innocent person and keep a healthy distance away from anything that might distract him from finding Devin. “How do you know she needs a job?”
“She arrived yesterday. She’s staying at the hotel and I heard through the grapevine that she’s asking around to see if anyone’s hiring. I’ll make it known to her that you’re looking for a receptionist. Do me a favor and hire her. Do yourself a favor and hire her. You’re looking a little frayed around the edges, and you need to stay sharp in this shark tank or you’ll get eaten.”
Rafe nodded wearily and rubbed at his eyes. “Right. So, still nothing out there about Devin?”
“Not
