Deceived (Free Indeed Book 2), page 3
After winding through the woods for a ways, she finally came to a closed gate cutting off the rest of the road from access. Blatant no trespassing signs covered the metal rails making it clear whatever was inside did not like company. Well, they were just going to have to deal because she needed to see what Brian was up to.
There was barely enough room, but somehow she managed to get her car turned around in the tight space and drove back to the last turnoff she had passed. Driving just far enough in to keep her car out of sight from anyone on the main road, Cara parked and then climbed out. She grabbed her phone and turned it on silent before thrusting it in her back pocket. Then after locking the car, she turned and started walking through the woods in the direction of the locked gate.
When she reached the fence, Cara slipped through the metal railings and continued on down the road, keeping close to the side so she could dash into the woods if she heard any other cars approaching.
The trees finally broke into a massive clearing. Houses were littered about unevenly spaced apart. They weren’t much to look at, most of them were manufactured homes on concrete slabs. There were some haphazard tiny houses parked in various spaces as well. Only a handful of the houses were actual one or two story traditional wood homes. One of the houses up on the right had a really large building attached, the biggest one around. It had a wooden sign nailed above the double door entry with the words Free Indeed Sanctuary engraved, and on the roof was a large wooden cross. That cross was most likely visible from anywhere in the little community since it was the highest point of all the buildings.
Ok, so it looked like whoever lived here really cared about their church, considering all of the effort they put into the building in contrast to the bare minimum they had done to their rundown homes. Cara reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone. With a swipe of her finger, she activated her camera and quickly snapped some photos of the various buildings and lodgings.
The main road ran right through the center of the little town with even smaller dirt walking paths connecting each building. Cara kept to the outskirts of the clearing, so she had the safety of the woods to her back in case she needed to hide. People were milling about the buildings doing various chores. Some women were hanging laundry on lines next to their homes. Others were tending gardens and harvesting vegetables. Cara’s jaw dropped as she took in their appearance. It was like stepping back in time to the 1800s. High necked dresses covered the women’s bodies from head to toe, with sleeves extending down to the wrists. Long hair that reached to their waists hung down their backs in braids. Oh my God, some of the dresses even had puffed sleeves. The men, on the other hand, were much more simply dressed. Khakis or jeans along with button-down or polo shirts seemed to be the norm.
Cara snapped a couple more pictures before turning her attention back to the sanctuary. That building definitely seemed to be the hub of the community. People were walking in and out, some just standing around outside the big, wooden double doors talking. And sure enough, there was Brian, chatting it up in the thick of it. All big smiles like he didn’t have a care in the world. Looking at the guy, one would have no idea his wife had just been murdered in their own home. Cara could feel her blood start to boil with anger as she stared at the man.
When he finally finished whatever conversation he was having, Brian shook hands with the men around him and made his way into the sanctuary. Cara crept around the back of the buildings keeping to the shadows to come up behind the big building. Large windows lined both parallel walls. She snuck up to one and peered inside.
Brian walked past row after row of long wooden pews until he reached the front of the room where there was a raised platform with a pulpit for speaking to the congregation. He stepped up onto the platform and continued walking into another room set off to the left.
Cara edged her way along the wall of windows. Hopefully, the room he walked into had a window as well. When she reached almost the very end of the building, sure enough, the last window looked into what appeared to be Brian’s office.
He sat in an oversized leather chair behind a large oak desk covered in papers and a fancy computer monitor that had to be at least thirty-two inches. Wow, did that screen ever look out of place in this neighborhood. It was like the one ray of technology in a sea of archaicness.
She took a few more pictures through the window as he puttered about doing whatever weird, zealous churchie people did in an office before he once again left the room. Cara snuck along the wall of windows as she followed him. This time instead of exiting through the front double doors, he entered a hallway that connected the sanctuary to a simple, two-story house next door.
Cara followed the hallway through the shrubs to look into the window of the connected house. Brian had entered just in front of her, and she watched as a small boy, no more than nine or ten was talking to him. An even younger girl with pigtails ran into the room excitedly yelling, “Daddy!” before reaching out her arms asking to be picked up.
“Dick,” Cara muttered under her breath as Brian sidestepped around the little girl ignoring her completely as he strode further into the house. She could make out a couple more children in the next room as well. Though now older, she’d still swear the children were some of the kids from the photo in her mom’s safe. And to clinch it, the living room in front of her was the setting where the picture had been taken. Right down to the outdated, in need of reupholstering couch.
Cara pushed up onto her tippy toes trying to get a better look just as a deep voice came from over her shoulder, “Can I help you?”
Chapter 4
FBI Agent Jake Cooper was sick and tired of reporters trying to get a scoop on what was happening behind the scenes at the Free Indeed community. Working undercover as a deputy to get close to the Patriarch was complicated enough, and he didn’t need the extra problems their nosiness brought.
He had been watching the newcomer do her best at sneaking around the town occasionally snapping pictures on her phone for the last ten minutes or so. But when she started poking her nose into the Kensington family’s windows, he’d had enough. Those were good kids who caught enough crap from their dick of a father. They didn’t deserve to be spied on even if they were the Patriarch’s children.
Jake softly crept through the foliage until he was directly behind the woman. He then summoned up his most authoritative voice and leaned down till he was practically next to her ear, “Can I help you?”
If he weren’t so pissed, he would have gotten a real snicker out of how high the woman jumped as she clasped her hands over her mouth to try and stifle her scream. Served her right, she needed to get her story elsewhere and stay out of his investigation.
One of her hands moved as she placed it over her heart as if trying to calm it down after he freaked her out. The woman looked him over and sized him up from head to toe. As she took in the sight of his police deputy uniform, he saw her face literally shut down as if she were trying to close off any expression of emotion. Well ok then, it certainly seemed like she had something to hide.
“May I ask what you’re doing trespassing around a private area?” he probed as he sized her up in return. The stranger was actually quite pretty with her very nice heart-shaped face and perfectly defined features. Deep soulful, brown eyes stared up at him above a perky little nose and full pink lips. All of it was framed with the most luscious, dark mahogany hair he had ever seen. If he weren’t on an active case right now, and if she weren’t a pesky reporter, he might even consider her more than pretty. But he didn’t have time for that right now.
“I’m not sneaking,” she defended herself with a defiant chin tilt in the air. “I’m here to see my stepdad, and I saw him walk into this house.”
Jake snorted in response. Yeah, sure she was. “And instead of knocking on the door, you creep through the trees and peer into windows, why exactly?”
“I wanted to surprise him,” she belligerently replied as she crossed her arms across her chest.
“Uh huh, right,” Jake grunted back. “And just who is your stepdad that you’re here to surprise?”
“Brian Landers.” This time the words came out much more confidently, those big, brown eyes of hers staring right up into his in determination.
Dang, she could probably talk her way out of anything with eyes like that. It seemed like one could just melt right into them like a sea of milk chocolate. He blinked rapidly trying to dispel that image from his mind and focus on the task at hand. Bad Jake. He had a job to do here and getting distracted wasn’t going to help him finish it. God knows he wanted to get this investigation done as fast as possible so he could get out of this crazy community and back home. He was so close to having the evidence he needed to put away the Patriarch forever. But he needed to stay focused.
“I didn’t realize Brian had a stepdaughter,” Jake pushed back. Granted he didn’t know everything about the people who lived here but considering divorce had such a stigma around it with this group, if Brian had a wife he left behind, that should have been big news on the gossip-prayer chain. Meaning he most likely would have heard about it when the mean old biddies of the community got together to pray for the poor sinners’ souls.
“Yeah well, I didn’t realize Brian lived in Warren-Jeffsville, so we’re even,” her snarky reply interrupted his thoughts.
Jake just grunted in reply to her sarcasm laced response. The woman seemed to have quite a tongue to go along with those eyes. He silently sized her up for a moment, looking to see any sign of duplicity. Her eyes remained clear as could be as she kept eye contact with him at all times. He’d have to give her props for that. Well, it would be easy enough to prove or disprove her story.
“Fine,” he stated, “I’ll take you to Brian then. Just to make sure you don’t get lost and have to peek through any more strangers’ windows.”
“Fine,” came her instant agreement.
Interesting. So she wanted to keep her story going. Ok, he could take her to Brian and see what she’d say then. He just passed the man a couple of moments ago. Jake gestured with his arm indicating he wanted her to start walking around the house, “Right this way.”
The woman muttered something under her breath too low for him to be able to hear, unfortunately. Too bad, he was sure he would have gotten a chuckle out it. For the most part, not too much happened around here, and it tended to get pretty boring. Just another reason he wanted to finish up this damn case.
Jake led her around Gideon Kensington’s house and down the dirt street to where he had passed Brian. Even on the off chance she actually did know the man, she had no business spying on Gideon’s family like she had. The man was the leader of the community ever since the original founder had passed away. People here called him the Patriarch and looked to him for guidance on everything. Personally, Jake thought he was a narcissistic douchebag, but since he needed to get close to the man, he did his best to kiss his ass like everyone else. It was freaky how much the people emulated the man. Even in the small things like the shirt that he wore or the color of his socks, if Gideon spent a day in red socks, sure enough, the next day the men of the community would be wearing the same shade as if that would bring them special favor with God.
Spotting the man he was looking for, Jake veered them off the street to where Brian was standing. They stopped walking as they came up next to him, and Jake looked over at the woman expectantly. All she did was stare back at him blankly. He narrowed his eyes at her, annoyance starting to spread across his face.
“What?” she finally spoke. “Why are we stopping?” She asked the question as if he were wasting her time when she had better things to do.
In reply, he gestured with his hand to the man standing in front of them while giving her a pointed look like she was the dumbest woman on the planet. Which she might actually be if she didn’t recognize her own stepdad.
His intruder emphatically mimicked the hand gesture right back at him and grunted, “I don’t know what this means. Can you speak, or is that too much to ask?”
Jake sighed in frustration. It was as if this woman was trying to deliberately piss him off, and it was working. God, he just wanted to wrap up this case and go home. Was that too much to ask? Instead, he got the wonderful pleasure of dealing with pesky reporters, and he’d finally had enough.
“Look, ma’am, just talk to your damn dad and go about your damn business so you can get out of my damn town.”
“First of all, he’s not my dad, he’s my stepdad.” She made a point to correct him before continuing with emphasis. “And second, I’d gladly talk to him if he were here.”
He didn’t even try to hide his eye roll from her at her comment. Instead, he turned to the man standing next to them and muttered, “Brian, take care of your pain in the ass stepdaughter. I’ve got more important things to take care of.”
Brian spun around to face them at the sound of his name. “Oh hi, Jake,” he greeted just before a frown creased his features.
Jake knew he probably shouldn’t have used the ass word around here. The straight-laced, stick up their butt members of the community tended to wrinkle their noses on that kind of vulgar unchristian talk. But what could he say, this woman was starting to piss him off.
The crease in Brian’s brow turned into a full frown as he looked the newcomer over and said, “Uh, I don’t have a stepdaughter. I’m not married, never have been. You know that.”
“What are you, an idiot?” Cara snorted as she tossed a look of disgust over at Jake.
He didn’t know why she was being such a snot to him. It’s not like he even really had time to get on her bad side. Maybe she just hated cops in general.
“He’s not my stepdad,” she continued with a huff. “I said Brian Landers.”
“He is Brian Landers.”
“Uh no, he’s not.”
That’s it. He was done. Her little charade had gone on far enough, and he really had more important things to do. Like wrap up this crazy frustrating case and finally moving on with the rest of his life.
“Yeah, he really is. And I’ve had enough of this. I don’t know where you got Brian’s name because obviously you two don’t know each other. So I’m going to go with you have no idea what you’re talking about and are making things up to barge in on these people’s lives.” Jake reached out and firmly grabbed the woman by the arm ushering her back toward where he had parked his vehicle, leaving Brian behind with a confused look on his face. “I’m escorting you off of the premises. Despite my gut instincts, I’m going to let you go with a warning. Don’t show your face around here again.”
The woman sputtered in displeasure and tried to rip her arm free of his grip, but he held firm. He was going to put her in her car himself and watch her drive away before he took his eyes off of her. She protested and struggled all of the way back to his police car. As they walked up to the door, he spun her around to face him, “Is your car close by or do you need me to drive you out of town?”
With a huff of exasperation, she grudgingly replied, “It’s here. Down one of those side streets a ways back.”
“Get in the car. I’ll drive you over there.” Jake made his way around the front to open the driver’s side door while the woman just stood there with her hands on her hips.
“Do I have to get in the back like a criminal?”
A sigh of annoyance escaped his lips at her attitude, “Not unless you want to.”
With another unintelligible mutter under her breath, she finally gave in and climbed in the passenger side where she sat down in a huff. Jake ignored her and started the car, following her directions until they came to her car parked just a ways down a bumpy back road. He trailed behind her as she exited the car and made her way to hers. As she opened her car door to enter, he leaned in and said, “License and registration.” The woman’s head snapped around, and now she looked like she wanted to smack him, which just made him want to smile. With a small grin tugging at his lips, he added just to annoy her, “Please.”
The woman literally growled as she grudgingly turned away from him to reach into her glove box and ruffled around for a moment before finally pulling out some papers. After adding her license from her purse to the mix, she slapped the documents into his palm.
Jake looked through them quickly, scanning over the important information. So her name was Cara. Somehow the name seemed to fit her. Pretty name for a pretty woman. He handed the items back and said, “Ok, Miss Elliott, you’re free to go. Don’t let me catch you around here again.”
Without a response or another look, Cara started up her car and drove off, her tires kicking up dust behind her. Even as he watched her go, his gut told him he hadn’t seen the last of her. Reporters tended not to give up until they found what they were looking for. If she were smart, she’d leave this town and whatever story she thought she had behind.
Jake sighed as he strode back to his car. Well then, back to work. He had his own dirt to find so he could finally place this investigation behind him. After climbing in, he turned the car around and headed back to the tiny town.
In theory, his mission shouldn’t be that difficult. It was only a matter of time before Gideon fully accepted him into his inner sanctum. Unfortunately, he’d been undercover for just under a year now, and while he was technically one of the Patriarch’s trusted confidants, he needed to get even deeper into the thick of things. And it finally seemed like he was on the cusp of achieving that goal.
However, there were a couple of problems in his way that delayed the process. Probably the biggest one was the obvious fact that Jake didn’t believe their hell and damnation religion like everyone else in this town did. When an entire town is made up of people who still think they live in the 1800s, always carrying Bibles under their arms, an outsider stood out like a sore thumb. And it wasn’t just the fact that he was bored to death in the occasional church service that he couldn’t get out of attending. He tried. He honestly, truly tried to at least pretend he was paying attention to the sermon. But damn, Gideon was extremely long winded, and his monotone three-hour sermons could make even an angel give up its wings. So yeah, he didn’t go to services very often. A fact that caused many of the religious crowd here to look down their noses at him. That along with the occasional swearword that he just couldn’t seem to stop from slipping into conversation. Yeah, they tended to judge him for that too.
