The Prophet Motive Read Online Free

leader.”
    “That’s an easy one,” John said. “The cult leader’s betting he can hide Daryl, and it’s a fairly good bet too.”
    “Oh? Why’s that?”
    “For one thing, he could off Daryl himself. Or he could have another one of his followers do it. But he doesn’t have to go to that extreme.” John gave Eddie a glance. “Tell the captain what Doctor Michaelsen told us.”
    “Doctor Michaelsen?” Switzer said. “I think I know her. Police psychologist?”
    “Right,” Eddie said, “and our resident cult expert too, you might say. She says cults often have safe houses, where they hide their members from relatives trying to lure them out of the cult, or maybe just trying to reestablish personal contact. She says the cult members can be hidden away for months at a time—or even years. And these safe houses are often out of state. On the other side of the country. Or even overseas.”
    “I see your point,” Switzer said.
    “And here’s the major implication.” John leaned forward in his worn-out naugahyde chair. “If the cult told Tiburon PD the truth, then we won’t find Daryl Finck by searching that farm, and if they lied we won’t find him there either.”
    Eddie grunted in accord. “Hard to argue with that.”
    “At this point,” Switzer said after some more desktop drumming, “I don’t know whether the cult leader is involved or not, but I do know that two people are dead and a corpse has been stolen, and to even begin to find out who’s responsible, we’ll have to conduct an undercover operation inside that cult.”
    John blew out all the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Absolutely.”
    “Just what I was thinking,” Eddie said.
    Switzer said, “Arrange a meeting with Doctor Michaelsen ASAP. We could use her help infiltrating that cult.”
    “Will do,” John said. His headache had dissolved as inconspicuously as fog. The case excited him, which hadn’t happened in months. Partly, it was the bizarre circumstances. Partly, it was personal.
    “Now,” Switzer said, “what do we know about the cult leader?”
    John dipped into his briefcase for a thin bound volume and tossed it across the desk. “Here’s the FBI report on Earthbound. Not much info, really, but get this. The cult leader is known as ‘The Wizard.’ Claims to have psychic powers. Talks to animals.”
    “Just wonderful,” Captain Switzer said. “We’re up against a demented Doctor Dolittle.”
     

     
    Marilyn Michaelsen noticed that the long, black conference table she’d been sitting at was shaped much like a coffin. A macabre joke, she suspected, this being the Homicide unit. But for her the hexagonal shape did not amuse. It only fed her anxieties about the case. Cops just didn’t get it when it came to cults, often with tragic results. Poison gas in a Tokyo subway. Burning babies in Texas . . .
    “The risk for the undercover cop will be extreme,” she said. “A vast range of psychological and emotional parameters will be disturbed, and so, very quickly, the cult might truly convert our cop to its beliefs. In that case, he or she would abandon—or even betray—the operation, and join the cult as a legitimate member.”
    “You can’t be serious,” Captain Switzer said from his seat where the coffin head would be.
    “I am completely serious.”
    Across the table, Inspector Eddie Bourne—fine-looking man, fine suit—frowned at what he’d been hearing. “I don’t understand. I thought the only people who join cults are mentally imbalanced.”
    His partner, John Richetti, whose blue blazer might’ve fit him perfectly twenty pounds earlier, scowled. “That’s bullshit.” He turned to Marilyn. “Ain’t that right, Doc?”
    She nodded, surprised a cop would know even that much about cults. “That’s just a popular fallacy. No more than five percent of those who join cults have a prior record of major psychological difficulties.”
    Captain Switzer met her eyes. “I’m