“Do you know who they were?” he asked. “Their names, I mean? Maybe I could interview them, see what drove them out.”
“Unfortunately, no,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if they took off when someone told them what happened there. I doubt they were aware of the history of the place. Or maybe they picked up on it on their own despite not knowing where they were living. Some people are really sensitive to those types of things. On some level, I think we’re all a little psychic. Maybe they just couldn’t handle it.”
“Handle what?” Lucas asked.
“The shift in energy,” she said.
“I don’t know.” Lucas leaned back in his seat, skeptical. “What’s done is done.”
Echo gave him a thoughtful nod. “Yeah, you’re right.”
The coffeemaker blipped behind her. She rose from her seat and moved back to the counter, poured two cups, and returned to her seat. “Jeff wasn’t a bad guy,” she said. “None of them were. I just hope that your book reflects that rather than rolling with the whole, you know . . .” She frowned, shook her head, and took a sip of coffee. “The satanic thing.”
Lucas nodded, though he couldn’t help but wonder where Echo was garnering her sympathy for Jeff. He was a murderer. Except, rather than killing with a knife, he did it with the power of persuasion. If Echo’s mother had been as close to the group as it seemed, she’d been lucky to escape Halcomb with her life, regardless of whether she had cut that life short in the end. If Echo’s mother had had the slightest inkling of what Halcomb would end up doing to Audra Snow, he doubted she’d have been posing for family photos with Echo in tow.
He tapped his fingers against the rim of his mug, a question balanced at the tip of his tongue. He wanted to ask if Echo’s mother was close enough to Halcomb to be in the group, but he wasn’t sure it was appropriate. He didn’t want to push, didn’t want to put her off and risk having her take back the photos.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, cutting him off midthought.
Lucas glanced up at her, reflexively feigning innocence.
“There were a lot of people like my mother out there, a lot of outsiders who began to creep in. From what I understand, Jeff never was one to turn away a willing set of ears. He loved to talk about his philosophy and people loved to listen.”
“Your mother—” he began, but Echo didn’t allow him to finish.
“My mother is beside the point,” she said. “What’s important is that the people who died that day weren’t the only ones who believed in what Jeff was preaching. The kids that died here . . .” She shook her head with a knowing look. “I’ve read all the news articles and the biographies, probably as many times as you have. The media spun it so that it was sensational. Demon worship, satanism—all that is a lie. My mother was a good person, just like Jeff and his family were. She would have never associated with the type of person the papers painted Jeff to be. But that stuff sells.” She leveled her gaze on him. “That stuff sells books.”
“I only want to tell the whole story,” Lucas told her.
“After the papers scared everyone, they dispelled public fear by saying that Halcomb’s true believers were limited to the kids who died here that day. Everyone seems to think that the ones who were here were the only people who loved Jeff enough to sacrifice themselves for him. But they’re wrong.”
Because there was January Moore, a self-sacrifice thirty years too late. Lucas had no doubt there were others, but how could he track down nameless ghosts? Lucas furrowed his eyebrows, picturing dozens, maybe even hundreds of Halcomb’s Faithful living quietly out in the world. Guys like Charles Manson got mail because they were accessible, they wanted to talk. But Halcomb had become a ghost himself. He refused interviews and TV appearances. Guys like Halcomb were forgotten, their own crimes buried beneath more recent, heinous acts played out by far more vocal criminals. And yet Jeff received stacks of envelopes from a secret fan club. And here, at Jeff’s old stomping ground, Lucas was seeing people in the orchard, he was hearing things, items were being moved. Pictures hung upside down.
“And what was Halcomb’s philosophy? Do you know?”
She shifted in her seat, stared at her coffee cup. Eventually, she spoke. “That if you live right, you can live forever.”
“Literally?”
She lifted a shoulder to her ear.
“Like what he was telling the kids in Veldt?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never been to Veldt.”
His gaze settled on her face. “But do you believe it?”
Echo stared at him for a long while, and for a second he could see it in her eyes—the uneasy spark of being found out, of being caught. “I’m just a helper,” she reminded him. “I had what I thought you might want, that’s all. Speaking of which . . .” She placed her cup on the table. “Here I am rambling about my mother without ever asking to what I owe the pleasure of your visit.”
Lucas blinked, suddenly shifting his attention from his mug to his cell. He yanked it out of his pocket and checked the time. Shit. He’d been at Echo’s place for over forty-five minutes, and Selma had yet to return his call. “Christ.”
“Gotta run?” Echo asked.
“Yes, I do. But that’s exactly why I came over.”
“Oh?”
“This is going to sound crazy, but I’m kind of out of options here.” He gave her a pleading look. “Would it be possible for you to come over for the afternoon and watch Virginia? I have an interview with a couple of guards . . .”
Echo straightened in her seat. “Guards?”
“Yeah, from the prison out in Lambert.”
She glowered, as if disturbed by the news. “For the book?”
“I’m not sure yet. I hope so. But I have to leave in, like, fifteen minutes.”
Echo’s gaze flitted to her cup, then back to him.