Edmund Harrow's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Edmund crouched behind the cypress until his knees ached, watching the house on stilts. The cult leader didn't come back out. One hour passed, then two. The sedan sat silent beside the porch, its trunk still open. Edmund's camera hung useless around his neck, the film exhausted. He could leave and meet the sheriff at dawn, but the charlatan might vanish before then with everything loaded. He could stay and watch, but that meant losing a night of sleep with nothing to show for it except cold mud soaking through his boots. The decision crystallized when a light went out on the second floor. The cult leader was settling in for the night. Edmund moved closer, using the darkness as cover. The porch boards creaked under his weight. He peered into the nearest crate beside the sedan. Recording equipment, wire spools, and a tangle of microphone cables. The second crate held folded tapestries and bundled candles. The third was empty except for a set of robes crumpled at the bottom, one sleeve torn half off and the hem thick with dried mud. Too damaged to be useful anymore. Edmund photographed them anyway with the last exposure on his roll, then grabbed the torn robes and carried them back to his truck. The fabric stank of mildew and swamp water. Tomorrow the sheriff would see this costume for what it was — not holy vestments but stage props for a con man. Edmund draped the robes across his passenger seat and drove back toward town. The cult leader might finish loading before dawn, but he couldn't run far. Not with Edmund's photographs and now physical evidence linking him to the fraud. Headlights appeared in his rearview mirror a mile down the road. Edmund's grip tightened on the wheel. The sedan came fast, closing the distance between them. The cult leader must have seen something — a footprint on the porch, the missing robes, some sign that someone had been there. Edmund pressed the accelerator, but the old truck had nothing left to give. The sedan pulled alongside him on the narrow road. Through the window, Edmund saw the man's face twisted with rage. Then the sedan swerved hard, metal screaming as it clipped the truck's front fender. Edmund's wheels left the road. The truck plunged sideways into the ditch, water rushing through the floorboards as it settled. By the time Edmund kicked his door open and crawled out, the sedan's taillights were disappearing into the darkness. The robes floated in the flooded cab, already sinking. Edmund stood in the knee-deep water, watching his evidence drift away. The cult leader knew he'd been discovered. And now he had a head start.