Divine Evil

company, the one that owns it now?”
    “Solid as a rock. Holdings all over the East Coast, specializing in malls and shopping centers. The transaction was handled over the phone and by letter. Almost immediately after the grand opening, it came out that your father had bribed inspectors and two members of the planning commission. And that he had misrepresented the deal to his client by claiming the land was sold for seven hundred an acre, when it had actually been sold for twelve hundred. With the Trapezoid Corporation foldingtheir tents, Kimball Realty took all the heat. Your father wasn't around to confirm or deny.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “I'm saying it's strange that all the paperwork on Trapezoid seems to have vanished. That there's no record of who worked with your father on the other end. Kimball Realty's records were confiscated during the investigation, but no one, no one at all from Trapezoid was ever implicated. Doesn't that strike you as unusual?”
    “It struck me as unusual that my father would be involved in anything illegal.”
    “It's hard for me to buy that he was involved alone. Clare, cults form for several basic reasons. The biggest is power. Power requires money. At five hundred an acre, somebody made a lot of money on this deal. Were you in trouble financially when your father started drinking?”
    “No, the business was doing very well. We were talking about taking a family vacation to Europe. Both Blair and I had college funds, substantial ones. No.” She shook her head. “Kids know when their parents are worried about money. Mine weren't.”
    “Yet your father risked his business, his reputation, his family's security on this one deal. He'd never done anything unethical before. Why then?”
    She rose. “Don't you think I've asked myself that same question for years? It didn't make sense. It never made sense.”
    “Maybe he did it for a reason other than personal gain. Maybe there was outside pressure. Maybe he wasn't given a choice.”
    “I appreciate what you're doing. What you're saying. But would you think this way if it was someone else's father?”
    It was a question he had already asked and answered forhimself. “Yes. Because it doesn't add up.” His eyes followed her as she wandered the room. “I'll tell you what I figure. He was involved with something, maybe out of defiance toward his upbringing, maybe out of curiosity. Whatever, he was in over his head. Something made him pull out, and he felt strongly enough about it that he went back to the church. But you can't just pull out, because you know names and faces and secrets. So you continue to do what you're told to do, and you start to drink.”
    “You're circling right back around to the cult.”
    “That's the root. You, Clare, see something you weren't meant to see, twenty years ago. A few years later your father juggles a deal that everyone who knew him would say was totally out of character. And when he's dead, he's the only one the finger points at. Parker's the sheriff, which makes it pretty handy.”
    “Parker? You think Parker was in on this whole businessr?”
    “I think he was in on it right up to his fat neck. Maybe his conscience started to eat at him or maybe he just couldn't think straight when the blood drained out of his head into his dick, but he tells Sarah Hewitt things best kept to himself. He's losing it, and he packs up, leaving his cushy job, his home, his security. A few months later, he's dead.”
    “Dead? You didn't tell me he was dead.”
    “I'm telling you now. What do we have since then? A kid hitches the wrong ride a couple miles outside of town, and she's dead. Somebody kills Biff and dumps her body in the field so it looks like he did it all by himself. And he's not around to say different. Lisa MacDonald is attacked. Sarah Hewitt disappears, after she drops hints to me about Parker.”
    “And the books,” Clare murmured.
    “Yes, the books. I can't see Biff and your father having the same taste in reading material without a reason.”
    “No,” she said faintly. “No, neither can I.”
    “And if they were both involved, others are, too. Carly Jamison was murdered, Clare. I don't think she was the first, and I'm dead scared she's not going to be the last.”
    Saying nothing, she got up, went to her tote bag and took out a sketch pad. She brought it to the couch and handed it to him. “I did these this afternoon.”
    Cam opened it. The first page was a drawing of