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back then. It was January of 1954, and Margaret, three months pregnant and queasy, felt vaguely intimidated by the congressional intern’s vitality and youth. Witnessing the girl’s brainy, breathless charm and wholesome beauty, Margaret had worried Sheryl Ann was infatuated with Charlie, a newly minted congressman and a dashing academic with a bestseller under his belt. But she needn’t have been concerned. After the adventures of that winter, Sheryl Ann moved to Los Angeles, got married, and gave birth to a baby boy named Caleb. Her husband, a struggling screenwriter, reluctantly allowed her to do part-time secretarial work at a UCLA-affiliated think tank. Her academic ambitions had fallen by the wayside.

“It’s the worst of both worlds,” Sheryl Ann told Margaret with a resigned shrug. “Whenever I’m with Caleb, I wish I were at work, and whenever I’m at work, I worry that I’m a bad mom.”

“I sure know the lyrics to that song,” said Margaret.

A radio ad caught her attention:

Norman Vincent Peale, bestselling author of The Power of Positive Thinking and president of the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry, will be preaching at First Methodist on February eighteenth. His sermon—“The Tough-Minded Optimist”—is a must-listen. Come join us…

“Another flimflam man,” Sheryl Ann said, “just like our Mr. Hubbard.”

“People are seeking happiness,” Margaret said. “So some folks gotta sell it.”

“I guess the question is,” Sheryl Ann said, “were previous generations less happy or were they just more focused on the essentials, like food, shelter, and not getting the plague?”

“Post–atom bomb, there’s more existential dread,” Margaret said. “Hence Peale, Dale Carnegie, Dianetics…”

“You’re going to want to take a right onto Hoover in a few blocks,” Sheryl Ann said. “Hubbard bought the Casa de Rosas about a decade ago. You can’t miss it. It looks exactly like a place that would be called the Casa de Rosas.”

Margaret eased the Impala into a spot between two parked cars on Hoover. The snow had stopped as quickly as it started and was already beginning to melt; the sight of it dusting palm trees and flowering shrubs was incongruous. They climbed out of the car and shivered in the unfamiliar cold.

“Let’s leave our purses in the trunk,” Margaret said.

Sheryl Ann must have wondered why but she obeyed. She nervously touched her hair as they made their way to the white Spanish mansion, climbed the steps of the concrete porch, passed a modest bronze sign on the wall that read HUBBARD DIANETICS AND SCIENTOLOGY RESEARCH FOUNDATION, and entered through its red doors. Inside, a young receptionist sat at an immaculate desk in front of a staircase, talking on the phone. Wide-eyed and no doubt an aspiring actress, she acknowledged their arrival with a slight nod of her head and waved toward two orange armchairs.

There was a bookshelf in the waiting area with dozens of books, all of them by L. Ron Hubbard, some science fiction, others religious or instructional: Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health Handbook for Preclears; Electropsychometric Auditing Operator’s Manual; Self-Analysis in Scientology: A Simple Self-Help Volume of Tests and Exercises. Above the bookshelf was an enormous movie poster for The Secret of Treasure Island from the 1930s.

The receptionist continued to speak softly into the phone, ignoring them. Sheryl Ann raised an eyebrow at Margaret and pushed herself out of the overstuffed armchair to examine the spines of the science fiction paperbacks: Death’s Deputy, The Kingslayer, Final Blackout, To the Stars, Buckskin Brigades. Margaret turned her attention to the movie poster, which featured a pirate clenching a knife in his teeth, a ship on fire, a treasure chest overflowing with gold doubloons, and a shirtless captain with his arm around a busty young damsel who looked about fifteen.

“Mr. Hubbard wrote the screenplay for that film,” said the receptionist, hanging up the phone and suddenly addressing her visitors. “Are you here to sign up for our new twenty-five-hour course? I can offer you a discounted rate if you both join.”

Before Margaret could answer, the front door opened, and two men and three women appeared. They all looked to be in their twenties, eager, fresh-faced, attractive, the kind of young people who flocked like birds to Los Angeles every day. The receptionist greeted them warmly. “You can wait in the living room. Your auditors will be with you momentarily,” she said. The group dutifully followed her instructions, none of them uttering a single word.

“I’m sorry, we’re not here to sign up,” Margaret said. “Our brother was a member here, and he died.”

“We’re trying to retrace his last few months,” added Sheryl Ann.

“Who was your brother?”

“Chris Powell,” Margaret said. “He was an actor.”

The receptionist greeted this news with a blank expression, and just as Margaret was thinking that it was strange if not outright rude not to offer any sort of condolence, a tall man burst through the front door.

“Greetings, all!” he said. His red hair was long on the sides and back, thinning up top, and he wore a safari jacket; apparently, he was trying to look swashbuckling and avuncular simultaneously. He took off his safari jacket and handed it to the wiry, bespectacled young man in a Hawaiian shirt who trailed him, then smiled and approached the receptionist, who gasped when she recognized him. “How can we help these fine ladies?” the man said. He turned to Margaret and Sheryl Ann and greeted them with a flirty wink.

“They’re inquiring about Chris Powell,” she said. “They’re relatives of his.”

“Ah, yes,” he said. “Such a loss. Can you get me his file?”

“Yes, I’ll get it now,” the receptionist said.

“Brilliant!” said the redheaded man with a wide smile. “Ladies, won’t you please follow me?” He motioned toward the conference room to their left. “Oh, goodness me, where are my manners?” the man said. He extended a big beefy hand to Margaret. “Allow me to introduce myself—L. Ron Hubbard.”

Chapter TenRancho Mirage, California

January 1962

At that precise moment, one hundred miles to the east, Charlie was on the patio of Sinatra’s two-and-a-half-acre Rancho Mirage estate, which was located on the