The Trust Read Online Free Page B

advertisement began to climb, the message strangely fetching. It read: HIP—TWENTY THOUSAND SQUARE FEET OF FANTASIES OPENING NEXT WEEK.
    As the men unfurled the vinyl sheet, the middle section hinted at the coming horror. To the left, the tarp listed what customers would find inside those twenty thousand square feet: costumes, novelties, restaurant and bar, shower facilities, CDs, and toys, toys, toys. There was an ad burst proclaiming, TRUCKERS WELCOME.
    To the right was a woman’s face, not quite in profile but close. Her unnaturally blue eyes were sultry and stylized, one closed in a salacious come-hither wink. Her red lips were pouty and lush. They evoked images of Park Avenue clinics and other epicenters for plastic surgery where collagen sightings are a dime a dozen. She was sucking on the biggest chocolate-covered strawberry ever seen in those parts. And her radiant face suggested steamy sex at its best.
    The bottom three feet eliminated all doubt. The ad copy was big, black, and beckoning. It read, HIGHLY INTIMATE PLEASURES. THE SOURCE FOR ALL YOUR ADULT NEEDS.
    Next week an adult superstore, twenty thousand square feet of lechery and fetishes, was opening off exit 55. The billboard ended speculation, all the guessing over the last six months about who was putting up what just a few clicks from the Temple Baptist Church.
    The uproar, however, had just begun.

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    FAYETTEVILLE 28312
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
    “Hey, Biscuit.” Mrs. Jason Locklear wedged her way to the front of the room. She was a plump woman, her ample bosom jutting forward like the nose cone of a 747. “What do we tell our children?”
    The crowd hushed and waited. They were homeowners. They were military families, stretching for their piece of the American dream. Above all, they were kindred souls united by a common problem.
    Mrs. Jason Locklear was the reliable neighborhood activist. She had proven herself time and again, whether organizing block parties or staving off tax hikes on their homes. Now she was assembling resources for the fight of the young subdivision’s life.
    Parents had packed into her 3,100-square-foot colonial with wraparound porch. It was by far the largest home in the neighborhood, the only residence that came with a bonus room from the builder. Liberty Point Plantations was a community on edge.
    Most days the development resembled other suburbs near exit 55. The houses were uniform, two stories, two-car garages, and too much red brick. Their timber trim—whites, blues, and greens bordering on black—kept things interesting.
    Bikes were sprawled across front yards. The lawns were a tangle of crabgrass and regret, a dappling of bare spots underneath towering pines that dropped needles everywhere.
    The communal swimming pool was a notch too small. Kids were always landing cannonballs on each other, every summer marked by three or four 911 trips to the emergency room for broken bones. Liberty Point Plantations was the kind of place where young families would grow old—were it not for the cycle of active military that moved in and out every few years.
    Today the neighbors had forgotten the routine complaints of suburbia in the South. Whose kid was a bully. Whose dog was a menace—lock it up or put it down. Who made too much noise, either partying all night or sitting on a horn in the driveway, trying to hurry the kids off to school, church, or whatever. To a man, to a woman, they had declared war on their common enemy:
    Highly Intimate Pleasures.
    Biscuit Hughes scanned the crowd of fiery eyes, furrowed brows, and tense fists. He was a towering man, though his size was not especially intimidating. He fell more into the category of lovable bear, his pudding body shaped by Denny’s every morning.
    Bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, syrup, whipped butter, and a stack of pancakes—Biscuit believed a Grand Slam breakfast was the only way to start the day. The calorie intake was monstrous, 1,100 of those bad boys, but he