Chapter 27
Sophie
The back room of Pearly Gates smells like old paper and secrets curdled in the dark. Mold. Dust. Something sour underneath that reminds me of meat left out too long. I breathe through my mouth and try not to imagine how many girls stood in this room before they vanished off the face of the earth.
Crowley doesn’t know I’m in here.
Yet.
I thumb through the Reverend’s filing cabinet, labels that look innocent on the outside, hiding rot underneath.
The first folder I open hits me like a punch.
Donor lists mixed with coded initials. Ledger entries that don’t match the church’s books.
Cash amounts next to aliases. Ages next to locations.
At first, I think I’m reading them wrong.
Then I see it. Hidden in Crowley’s neat, looping handwriting.
LOST.
I freeze.
My hand goes numb around the page.
Some of these names… I know them. Girls who left Pearly Gates in a flurry of whispered prayers. Girls Crowley claimed went off to “mission work.” Girls who walked into Sunday service and were never seen again.
One name makes my stomach flip.
Delilah.
Pretty little Delilah who used to sling bourbon in leather shorts at the Fire Pit. Soft-spoken, with bruises she hid under too much makeup. She “found God” too fast. Crowley’s God. She disappeared three weeks later.
But folks said she moved to Florida to live with her sister.
Crowley marked her file with one word.
Handled.
My knees weaken. I slam the drawer shut because if I don’t, I’ll tear every file apart and burn this church down plank by plank.
Footsteps.
Shit.
I step back from the cabinet just as the doorknob rattles.
“Sophie?”
I swallow hard, smooth my hair back, and open the door before he can try again.
The Reverend fills the doorway, tall and serene in that way only the wicked ever manage. His eyes flicker past me toward the filing cabinet, but when he looks back at me, he’s already wearing the mask he’s perfected.
“Looking for something, child?”
I smile that tight smile I reserve for my father when he thinks he knows best. “Just wanted to look at your sermon notes. Thought I might help with Sunday’s service.”
His face shifts, just once. He knows exactly what I’m looking for and what I found.
“You always were such a helper,” he says, stepping inside. “My wife speaks highly of you.”
“She used to. Before she disappeared.” Woman reappeared, in Crooked Creek, dead.
Crowley closes the door behind him, sealing us alone in the stale dark. The air shifts, heavy and wrong. Like the church itself is holding its breath.
“Paradise Falls is blessed to have you,” he murmurs.
“Won’t be blessed much longer if you’re moving girls like cattle through your ministry.”
His eyes go flat.
“Careful,” he says, stepping closer. “Words like that burn.”
“Only if they’re true.”
He’s close enough now that I smell peppermint tea and funeral flowers. The scent turns my stomach.
“You think the Kings will protect you?” he whispers. “You think Legend can save you when the roots rot beneath your feet?”
“I don’t need saving.”
“No?” He smiles without warmth. “Then why are you trembling, child?”
I hate that he notices. I hate more that he’s right.
“I ain’t scared of you,” I say.
“You should be.”
He leaves in silence, like a shadow stepping out of its own skin.
Only when the door clicks shut do my knees nearly buckle. I fist my hands until my nails cut half-moons into my palms. I can’t fall apart now. Not when I’m closer to the truth than anyone in this damned town.
Not when girls’ lives are at stake.
Back at the clubhouse, whispers turn the air poisonous. Krystal and the other girls huddle like vultures picking at scraps. Becki’s name, the Reverend’s name, rumors about lights in the woods and screams that didn’t sound human.
The word Leaper is spreading like wildfire.
I step out onto the porch with my coffee, letting the cold bite the edge of my nerves. It’s not that I’m not drinking. It’s spiked with good bourbon cream. Just need something to warm me after the ice-cold stare of the Reverend.
Royal walks past, boots heavy, shoulders tense, eyes shadowed. He looks like a man who spent the night hunting ghosts and came back without all of himself.
“Royal,” I call.
He stops, blowing a breath, like he doesn’t want to, but walks over.
“She still in the room?”
“Yeah.”
“You watching her every second?”
“Pretty much.”
I look up at him. At the dark circles under his eyes. At the way his hands twitch like they’re wanting to strangle someone. Maybe me.
“You think she knows something?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
“I think she does.”
His jaw jumps.
“She ain’t talking,” he mutters.
“Then maybe you’re not asking the right questions.”
He huffs, almost a laugh. “You offering to play good cop?”
“I’m the only one she hasn’t cut to the bone yet.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t trust it.”
“Royal.” I meet his eyes. “She ain’t scared of you anymore. But she still hates me. If she’s fixin’ to slip, it’ll be with me.”
He looks past me, toward the cold line of the woods.
“Don’t trust her,” he says. Not a question at all.
“I don’t.”
I set my mug aside.
“But I’m done pretending she ain’t part of this now.”
That night, sleep won’t come.
I’m home, at the farm. In my cold dark bedroom. I stare at the light of my phone, a half-typed message to Legend glowing back at me. I want to tell him everything. Delilah’s file, the coded ledger, the word “Handled.”
I want him to hold me and swear he’ll burn Pearly Gates to the ground.
But I don’t hit send.
Instead, I pull on my boots and head to the clubhouse. Barge in, down the hallway. Past bunnies whispering rumors. Past brothers sharpening knives. Past the dead quiet of a clubhouse waiting for the next girl to disappear.
Royal stands outside Becki’s door like a guard dog wound too tight.
“I need to talk to her,” I say.
He doesn’t move at first.
Then he takes out the key.
When he opens the door, Becki looks up, wild hair, narrow eyes, chain clinking as she shifts.
“Well, if it ain’t the Horse Princess herself,” she says. “You here to gloat, or preach?”
“No,” I say, stepping inside. “I’m here to make a deal.”
Becki’s eyes sharpen, fear, fury, maybe hope.
“What kind of deal?” she whispers.
I sit in the chair across from her, keeping my hands visible. I don’t want her thinking I came with claws bared.
“The kind where we stop pretending, we hate each other long enough to expose what your father’s actually doing.”
Her lip trembles.
Just barely.
For the first time, she looks genuinely shaken.
“You think he just wants land?” she whispers. “Or power? You have no idea what he’s willing to sacrifice.”
“Then help me,” I say.
She turns her face away, her voice a raw scrape. “I’m afraid you’ll believe me.”
And for the first time since Becki came crashing into my life like a curse…
I don’t see a threat.
Or a rival.
Or a girl who once tried to steal everything from me.
I see someone who might be the key to all of it.
And I hate that it doesn’t scare me nearly as much as it should.