“What about the woman in the last cell?” Fiona asked.
Slowly, Holden shook his head. “She didn’t make it. No idea how long ago she died, but she’s gone. I double-checked to make sure. She has no pulse.”
Fiona didn’t bother to hide her fury. “Micheline did this. When she’s charged, you need to add this woman’s death to the list.”
“Oh, we will.” Grim faced, Holden glanced from her to Jake, who remained woozy. “Luckily, we caught Micheline just as she was about to leave. She seemed stunned that we actually had a search warrant. And we’ve rounded up her closest followers, including Miss Mustang Valley.”
“Leigh.” Fiona nodded. “I warned her. I refuse to feel sorry for her now.”
“We’ve got a full search going on of this entire building. We got a tip that all the poison Micheline intended to feed her followers had been delivered.”
“A tip?” Fiona eyed him. “Is that how you found us?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Dee Walton, Payne Colton’s administrative assistant, called us. Apparently, Micheline asked her to not only extort her boss but to join in the mass suicide.” He shrugged. “Pretty hard to believe, but she claimed she’d never realized she was part of a cult until then.”
“I get it,” Fiona said. “I tried to talk to Leigh about that, and she refused to believe the AAG is a cult. I’m not entirely sure why.”
“Micheline had honed the fine art of brainwashing,” Jake said. “She’s always been good at convincing others to do what she wanted.”
“The paramedics are here,” one of the other FBI agents announced. “We’ve got enough ambulances to transport all four of the injured.”
“One is already deceased,” Holden informed him.
The agent winced. “Also, we need someone to make a statement to the other AAG members. They’re demanding to know what’s going on.”
“I can do that,” Fiona said. “Most of them know me anyway.” She looked from Holden to the other agents. “I’ll just need a lot of help getting up the stairs.”
With one agent on each side, leaning on them heavily and hopping on one foot, she made it out. Someone located a wheelchair and brought it to her.
“We’ve asked them to gather in that amphitheater in the back,” the female agent said. “My name is Bonnie. If you’d like, I can push you there.”
Grateful, Fiona accepted her help.
When she was wheeled into the large arena where Micheline had held her most intense seminars, the noisy room gradually fell quiet as people realized she was there.
She wouldn’t have thought addressing these people, with whom she’d interacted on a daily basis, would be so difficult. Heart in her throat, she looked around, seeing their open, trusting faces, bracing herself for the disbelief and disappointment that was sure to follow.
Since she couldn’t stand to reach the microphone on the podium, Bonnie unhooked it from the stand and brought it down to her.
Fiona swallowed, looking out at the group assembled, making eye contact with as many people as she could. “Good afternoon, everyone,” she said. “Many of you know me as one of the AAG’s newest recruits. In reality, I’m an FBI agent who has been working here undercover.” And then she told them why. All of it, leaving out nothing.
As she spoke, she saw the ripple of shock and disbelief spread through the crowd. Many expressions turned mutinous, as if the instant she stopped speaking, they meant to stand up and accuse her of spreading falsehoods about their beloved Micheline.
She wrapped things up with the worst transgression of all—the born-again gathering, a blithe name for a horrible mass suicide. “We believe Micheline had a secret, offshore bank account, blackmailed the Coltons for ten million and had ordered a private plane to take her somewhere, likely in the Caribbean, like Grand Cayman. At this point, we can only speculate as to her reasons for doing such a thing. She is currently in FBI custody and facing numerous criminal charges.”
At this last sentence, the room erupted in sound. Shouts of denial, some cursing her, calling her names. Some people cried, wailing loudly as if grief stricken, now that the woman they’d revered as a prophet had been proven false. There would be some, Fiona knew, who’d discount what she’d told them, who’d refuse to believe even the slightest stain on Micheline’s character.
There wasn’t anything she could do about that. All she could hope for was in the coming days, as the story played out on both the local and national media, the doubters would come to a gradual realization that maybe everything wasn’t exactly as it had seemed in the AAG. She wondered if they’d ever truly understand how close they’d come to losing their lives. Would they someday look back on all this and wonder how they could have been so foolish?
Since the entire AAG center was now considered a crime scene, she’d pleaded her case and would be allowed to stay and work out of the room she’d been occupying while working undercover. Which was good, since the alternative wo
uld have meant going back to the field office and trying to work remotely.
She’d done well. Micheline had been stopped, pure evil taken down. Her supervisor had commended her and this would look good in her file.
As always when a case concluded, there were statements to make and reports to fill out. But first, she had to get her ankle looked at. Holden drove her to the same ER where Jake had been taken.
Jake. Just thinking about him had her stomach doing somersaults. More than anything, she wanted to explore a relationship with him, to see if the hot intensity of these feelings might do well as a slow simmer. She hoped he felt the same way.