Her Anchor Read Online Free PDF Page B

boy to leave with him?”  This part didn’t make sense.  Julie had tried to play it over her mind. “It’s not like a four-year-old was wandering around in the middle of the night.” 
    “No.  So he would have had to have gotten him from the children’s quarters.” 
    “Children’s quarters?”  Julie wasn’t so sure that she wanted to hear this.  Jason nodded. 
    “Men, women, and children over three stayed separately.  I think it was John’s method of control.” 
    “So no parents would have been missing him.”  Julie picked a piece of pepperoni from her slice of pizza. 
    “In fairness,” Jason shut down his iPad, “it probably wouldn’t have been hard to convince a Christ’s Community child to go somewhere with you.  Offer him candy, offer to take him to his mom, super easy.” 
    Julie hated that.  She hated Billy Johns for what he did. 
    “What should we do?” 
    “I was thinking about that.”  Jason attempted eating.  “Maybe we should go out there and try to talk to the police about that night.  Maybe that would tell us something.” 
    Julie shuddered.  The idea of going out to a place where a hundred bodies had been laying only a few hours ago did not appeal to her. 
    “Ok.”  She answered softly.  She needed to know.  She had a different type of passion.  This wasn’t about her anymore.  This wasn’t about her career.  She wanted to do it for all of these poor people who had died.  She hated thinking about their deaths.  They had to find answers for them.  It was the only way that she would sleep at night.
    ******
    There were still a number of people out at the compound.  Julie recognized many reporters from TV that she couldn’t believe she was in the same crowd with.  She reminded herself that this wasn’t the time, or the place. 
    Jason was more aggressive than she, which was good for their cause.  Julie knew that they needed to talk to the local police.  She also knew that she didn’t have the nerve to go running up to them. 
    It didn’t much help.  Most of the officers had no comment, and the few that would talk didn’t know anything.  Julie had to figure that would have happened. 
    One officer, however, had heard talk about some of the goings on at Christ Community. 
    “Off the record?”  He looked from Julie to Jason.  Jason looked at Julie. 
    “Neither of us is recording.  And we need this for some additional information anyway.” 
    “Christ’s Community was a cult-there’s no denying that.  And Johns was weird, especially to his followers-but we never really got any reports of child abuse.  Johns usually let authorities go in to see the children.” 
    “And they were ok?”  Julie pressed gently. 
    “I mean they weren’t getting the medical treatments that kids out here get.”  The officer motioned around them.  “But he certainly wasn’t killing them.” 
    “You think he snapped?”  Julie asked.  “Like do you think that he was disciplining one and-.” 
    “And what?  Accidentally strangled the kid?”  The officer shook his head.  “No.  Sadly I think that Billy Johns was exactly right on this.  I think someone got in there and killed that kid.”
    “But how would you get in?”  Jason tapped the chain link fence that they were standing beside.  “This surrounds it.” 
    “Not all the way.”  The officer turned, looking down the dark line of trees.  “At the very back of the property, it switches over to a regularly wooden fence.  Absolutely anyone could jump that thing.”  
    Julie felt a cold chill dragging along her spin. 
    “So you think that there’s a child killer out there?” 
    “Of course not.  If there was, we’d have bodies piling up.”  The officer shook his head.  “I think it was a parent who lost a kid to that cult.” 
    “Wait, what?”  Julie paused.  She hadn’t been expecting that. 
    “Lots of people left Christ’s Community, even if Johns didn’t