CHAPTER 4

June heard him banging as she went down the passage and her jaw tightened, hands fisting at her sides. She wasn’t going to be able to contain him in there much longer. She could even face legal implications down the road. Her pager sounded again.

Tension strapped tighter across her chest.

Now that she’d found Lacy, she needed to head down the mountain, back to Cold Plains, to her job. What in hell excuse was she going to give Bo Fargo?

She couldn’t tell him she was out of pager range. Although there were dead cell-phone zones in these mountains, the pager system had greater reach.

She entered the living room, which opened out onto the kitchen. Gray light streamed down from skylights and a fire crackled in the stone hearth to ward off the underground coolness that permeated the cave house. It was safe to burn wood now, with the cloud socked low over the mountains—no telltale smoke would be seen from afar. Otherwise, they burned only at night.

June found Lacy pacing in front of the fire, rubbing her arms in a nervous gesture.

“I need sleep, June—but I can’t rest with that man in the same house as my twins. I just can’t.” Accusation, bitterness filled her eyes. “I don’t know why you brought him here. Maybe I should have stayed in Cold Plains. At least if I’d stuck it out with Samuel my children would be safe.”

June took hold of Lacy’s shoulders. “Look at me, Lacy. That’s exactly where Samuel gets his power—by subtly threatening violence or death for disobeying him. He’s a sociopath. He’s sick—evil. And his is the worst kind of mental abuse. It’s no way to live, and you know it. You did the right thing, for your children, for yourself, for your future. I’m going to get you into an exit-counseling program real quick, okay? Which will mean moving you out of the house as soon as we can.”

“I thought you did the counseling yourself.”

“I do some of the initial work, yes, but I want you to get out of here and into a good program as soon as is feasible.”

She sniffed, wiping her nose. “Why? Because I’m more vulnerable than the others?”

“No, Lacy, it’s because you’ve been through an incredibly stressful experience in those woods, and you have your children to think of. You all need critical-incident stress counseling as much as you need deprogramming work. Your fear right now is your worst enemy.”

Tears filled Lacy’s eyes and June hesitated over what she was going to say next, but decided she had to press forward. “Lacy, I need you to walk me through what happened in the woods just one more time. Can you do that?”

Lacy’s mouth thinned.

“Please,” June said. “Come sit here by the fire. I know you’re tired, but this is important.”

Lacy lowered herself into a chair next to the hearth, her hands clutching the armrests. June drew up an ottoman, sat in front of Lacy and took her hands. They were ice-cold. Her face was ghost-white.

“Close your eyes,” June said gently. “Try to go back to when you first saw the two men near the rock sentinel. What did the air feel like on your face?”

Lacy was silent for a few minutes, then she inhaled deeply.

“It felt damp, full of moisture.”

“What could you smell?”

“Soil. Pine needles…” She hesitated, then smiled. “And cherry. Bekka was eating a candy. She smelled like sugar and artificial cherry flavor.”

“This is good, Lacy, really good.” June was careful to keep her voice calm, soothing. “Now you see the two men—tell me what you’re seeing.”

“I’m looking at them through bushes—berry bushes, I think. The boughs from the conifers are hanging low. I’m peering through them.”

“What’s the ground underfoot like?”

“Squishy. Quiet. No noise giving us away.”

“Are you holding the twins now?”

She shook her head. “I told them to wait a few yards back. They were so quiet in the forest, the two of them. They must’ve read my fear.” A tear slipped out from under her lashes. “I guess that’s where Abby dropped the first shoe.”

“And that’s where I found it, Lacy. I took it and planted it on the east flank of the hill so they’d think you went in that direction. That’s where Bo Fargo, his men and the other SAR volunteers are searching right now. They don’t know you’re here. You’re safe.”

Another tear slipped out from under Lacy’s lashes and tracked slowly down her pale cheek. “I saw Jason Barnes and that guy Lumpy.”

“Monica Pearl’s friend?”

She nodded. “They were standing near the tall black rock sentinel where Hannah told us to wait for you. From there you were supposedly going to lead us to the safe house. But we were early.”

June swallowed. “And Jason and Lumpy had guns?”

“Rifles and pistols in their holsters. They were pacing in front of the rock, as if waiting for someone—me—to arrive.”

“And you never told a soul you were coming here?”

“Not even Gemma Johnson, and she’s the one who helped me see the Devotees for what they really are.”

A sinister sense unfurled in June. She had to check on Hannah, see that nothing had happened, or that her cover hadn’t been blown. Glancing at the clock on the mantel above the fireplace, she said to Lacy, “And that’s when you backed away, sneaked off into the woods.”

“Yes.”

A banging resounded from down the corridor—Jesse trying to get out. Molly could be heard yelling back at him. Tension wound tighter.

“Let’s go right to where you encountered the man in the denim jacket. What was the scent in the forest like there?” June said, trying to get her to go deeper in a form of cognitive interview.

“Still wet, loamy. It was raining heavily, and it was dark, misty. He…the man, just appeared, looming out of the forest, blocking my way. I—I guess his backpack made him seem even bigger than he was.”

June’s heart kicked. “Backpack?”

“A large one. Like one of those backcountry camping things you take when you go out for a couple of days, with a tent and sleeping roll.”

June frowned. There had been no backpack near Jesse. Eager would have found it. Could Jason and Lumpy have taken it? Did it have identification in it?

Blowing out a deep breath, June asked calmly, “What was the first thing Jesse said to you when he appeared in the dark?”

“He…held up the palms of his hands, like this,” Lacy said, lifting her hands. “And he said, ‘Whoa, where are you off to in such a hurry?’ Then he looked at my twins, and he—” Lacy paused, surprised. “He appeared startled, concerned.”

“As if he didn’t expect to see you and your kids in the dark, rainy woods?”

“God, maybe.” She opened her eyes and put her hands to her face. “I…didn’t notice that at the time. I just dropped Bekka and Abby on the ground, lifted the first thing I could find, a log, and swung it at him.”

“And what did he do then, exactly?”

Lacy made a motion, arms defensively going up to her face, ducking back.

“He ducked from you?”

“I guess. I was in panic, not thinking clearly.”

“Close your eyes again, Lacy. Tell me what happened next.”

She inhaled deeply. “I yelled at him, saying, ‘No henchman of Samuel’s is going to hurt my babies.’”

“You said all those words?”

Lacy nodded. “He reeled from the blow and then went down like a rock. I heard the others coming from behind him, crashing through the woods. I dropped the log and picked up Bekka and Abby, one on each hip, my bag over my shoulder, and I just ran. He started shooting at me.”

“Did any bullets hit near you?”

“I was too busy running to notice. It was dark. I didn’t want to fall. My only instinct was to get away as fast as I could.”

June thought of the .40 caliber shell casings she’d found near the log with blood on it, not far from where Jesse appeared to have fallen down into the ravine. The 9 mm casings were a distance away from that spot.

She bent forward. “Lacy, was there any chance Jesse could have been shooting at the other two men and not you? Could he have been trying to protect you instead of hurt you? And they fired on him because of it?”

Tears ran fast down Lacy’s face now. “I—I suppose…”

“Lacy, listen to me, you did a great thing. And thank you for doing this. Now go try and get some sleep.”

Lacy’s gaze darted nervously to the passage that led to June’s room.

“I can’t sleep with him in here.”

“He might not be a bad guy, Lacy. You just told me that yourself. We have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He might be lost and in trouble, too.”

“We don’t know for sure.”

We sure as hell don’t.

“That’s why we’re going to keep him locked up with a guard outside that door until the FBI takes him away. I’ll call Agent Hawk Bledsoe when I go into town.”

“You’re leaving?” Panic showed in her face.

“I need to put in an appearance, cover my bases. It might take some hours, but you’ll be safe with everyone else here.”

Lacy got up from her chair. “Are you sure?”

“Hundred percent.” June forced a smile. “Trust me, everything is going to work out fine.”

June watched the young woman walk out of the living room. She wished she believed her own words.

* * *

A white polo shirt enhanced Samuel Grayson’s tan, which in turn brought out the vivid green of his eyes. His dark hair was impeccably cut—he was movie-star handsome, and he knew it as he stood in front of his office window waiting for Mayor Rufus Kittridge to arrive. He’d positioned himself so the sun coming through the window would backlight him. It gave him an edge and sent a subliminal message of superiority, godliness. He used lighting to similar effect when he gave his seminars.

A bottle of his Cold Plains Creek “tonic” water had been carefully positioned on his desk beside a clean glass. The creek was the reason Samuel had chosen Cold Plains to establish his business five years ago. Legend dating back centuries claimed water from the creek possessed rejuvenating and healing properties. It was this legend that Samuel sold.

His Devotees bottled the creek water for him out of a sense of duty to their community. And he sold the bottles back to them at $25 a pop, usually at his seminars where peer pressure helped them fork over the dollars. Samuel personally pocketed a hundred percent of the profits. He was now shipping a set quota of bottled water to other towns, too. It was a nicely growing concern.

A rap sounded at his oak door.

“Come in!”

Mayor Rufus Kittridge, in his fifties, limped into the room. His face was round, friendly, and the touch of gray at his temples bespoke experience. The limp was all that remained from injuries sustained in a car-bomb attempt on his life three months ago. Jonathan Miller, the demolitions expert responsible for the bomb, had since been taken into custody in Cheyenne.

“Rufus!” Samuel said warmly as he stepped forward and clasped the man’s hand.

The mayor had a firm grip and easy smile. Everyone in town knew him to be a keen Devotee, but few knew their congenial mayor also oversaw two groups of Samuel’s militia-style enforcers. One of the groups was headed by Lumpy Smithers, who’d taken over from Charlie Rhodes after Charlie was shot during an FBI raid on the community center. The other group was headed by the deceptively sweet Monica Pearl. Compartmentalization was key to keeping the unsavory—but necessary—deeds committed by the groups at a legal arm’s length from Samuel. If the FBI ever got evidence on any of the murders, it would be Rufus, Monica and Lumpy who went down—nothing would stick to Samuel. He was incredibly careful about that.

But he was worried right now.

Special Agent Hawk Bledsoe and his FBI team were closing in. On top of this, a total of eleven Devotees had disappeared without a trace in the past three months. And these were not “disappearances” sanctioned by him.

Samuel had begun to fear that he had a mole—possibly even a network—working on the inside to get vulnerable Devotees out of Cold Plains, and he’d heard rumors of a safe house.

Under Samuel’s orders, Rufus had engaged eighteen-year-old Molly Rigg to pose as a Devotee desperate to get out, and it seemed to have worked—Molly had vanished. But she’d made no contact with Rufus or his men, and Samuel was beginning to fear she’d been deprogrammed. The idea enraged him.

And now Lacy Matthews and her kids had gone missing. The whole town was abuzz with talk of her disappearance from the coffee shop, which was a gathering place, and Samuel needed to quell the fire, make an example of Lacy and her twins, fast.

This was why he’d summoned Rufus to his office.

Before she’d vanished, Lacy had written some words on a notepad in the coffee shop and then ripped off the page. However, the imprint of her words had remained on the pad. They’d read: “Black rock sentinel, west flank @ 7:00 p.m.”

Police Chief Bo Fargo’s men had found the notepad, and Fargo had reported the find to Samuel.

He cut right to the point. “Are you sure your men were waiting at the right location?”

The smile on Rufus’s face faded.

“It’s the only big black rock on the west flank that could be called a sentinel. Lacy never arrived. My men found her around 1:00 a.m. She was screaming at a stranger in the woods but fled as my guys approached. The stranger fired on my guys. One of his bullets hit Jason Barnes in the neck. Lumpy Smithers returned fire. He thinks he hit him because he fell down into a ravine.”

“Thinks he hit him?”

Rufus remained silent.

Samuel smiled benignly. “Did they look for him?”

“Lumpy made the decision to bring Jason into the hospital right away—he was hurt bad.”

Samuel inhaled, slowly. “I presume they got a good look at this stranger’s face?”

“No, they did not—”

“What do you mean?”

Rufus moistened his lips.

“It was dark, raining,” he said. “The situation was fluid. Lumpy returned to the site where the man had gone down the ravine, but there was no one there.”

“So the Matthews woman escaped, and so did this unidentified stranger?”

Rufus cleared his throat. “We do have his backpack—he dropped it.”

“Any ID in it?”

“No.” Rufus eyed the water on Samuel’s desk. “The pack contained food, maps, survival blanket, tent, sleeping bag—he appears to have been on an extended hike through the wilderness. But no ID.”

Samuel opened the bottle of water on his desk as he spoke, poured a glass, then sipped without offering any to Rufus. “The priority was to get the woman and her twins, not Jason Barnes,” he said calmly.

Rufus met his gaze. “Jason’s condition was critical.”

“Damn!” Samuel slammed his glass down. “Jason’s not likely going to make it out of ICU, anyway. He’s going to die, and the woman got away! Get back out there, find her!”

“We’re looking. One of the kids’ shoes was found on the east flank of the mountain,” said Rufus. “We have police and SAR crews combing that area.”

“The rock sentinel is on the west flank, and you said your men saw her on that west flank at 1:00 a.m. How do you explain the kid’s shoe on the east side?”

“Maybe she fled in that direction.”

“Get back out onto the west side with a search party of your own. I want that woman, and I want that stranger. Dead or alive. And keep it quiet that you’re looking on that side, understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Mayor Rufus Kittridge did not look a happy man.

“And what about Molly Rigg? What happened to our damn mole!”

Rufus smoothed his hand over his hair. “We’re still waiting for contact.”

Samuel abruptly turned his back on Rufus and stared out the window. It was the mayor’s cue to leave.

But as Rufus reached the thick oak door, Samuel said suddenly, “Who found the red shoe on the east flank?”

“June Farrow and her K9.”

He did not turn around to face the mayor. “Is she there with the search party now?”

“I would assume so.”

Rufus Kittridge exited and closed the door quietly behind him.

Samuel stared into the street. Smiling people walked the sidewalk, greeting each other with respectability. They were his people, it was his town, and it was a clean one—nothing like it had been five years ago before he’d run the drunks and cowboys out.

These people had a lot to thank him for, and he was not going to see a group of renegades taking him down. He made a mental note to ask Fargo about June Farrow and the red shoe.

June attended most of his motivational seminars, but she was not yet a full Devotee. It was time she came to a personal consultation. He wanted to get inside Ms. Farrow’s pretty red head—she was a dark horse, newish in town. Samuel didn’t feel he knew her well enough.

He glanced at his gold designer watch. It was time for his specially scheduled seminar entitled How to Identify the Enemy Within and Stop It from Sabotaging Efforts to Be the Best You.

* * *

June raced up the bank to where Bo Fargo and the SAR team had set up command. Fargo was talking to one of the volunteers under a temporary awning where maps, a coffee urn and radios littered a portable table. It was spitting rain again, more big black clouds rolling in over the mountains.

Fargo caught sight of June and turned to face her as she approached.

He was a big and imposing man in his fifties who’d been widowed mysteriously some years ago.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said, his watery blue gaze running over her.

“I’m sorry, Bo,” she said, breathless. “Eager was bitten by something yesterday and I had to take him to the vet over in the next town.”

“Bitten?”

“I don’t know what got him. He swelled right up. He couldn’t breathe. I administered antihistamine but he just got worse—”

“Your truck was still at Hannah’s place.”

So he’d been to look. This was not good.

“I was too stressed to drive. I got a ride from Hannah.”

“What’s wrong with the vet in Cold Plains?”

“The local vet and I have had—” She inhaled, her brain racing. “Look, it’s personal, Bo.”

“How so?”

June reminded herself Fargo was a Devotee, one of Samuel Grayson’s main men. Everyone was supposed to get along happy-happy in this smiling facade of a town, and it was making her so damn tired and angry.

“The vet and I have different perspectives on treatment,” she said quietly. “But it’s not something we can’t work out as we move forward. In fact, I’m going to go around and see him again later, because it’s so much easier keeping all our business in town.” June forced a smile. “I learned that the hard way last night. The vet in the town over is not all he’s cracked up to be, either.”

“Who is he? Which town?”

She glanced at her watch. “Look, Bo, I really need to get to this special seminar Samuel is putting on.” She met his gaze. “I got a serious shock with Eager and I could do with some motivational bolstering right now. Since I don’t have my dog with me, can you manage today’s search without us, while I go sit in on the seminar?”

Bo Fargo studied her. She knew she looked like a wreck.

“I’ve been in a state,” she said for emphasis.

“How’s the dog now?”

“He’s going to be okay. Vet is keeping him overnight to be sure.”

His watery eyes narrowed—he wasn’t totally buying her story. She was on thin ice here.

“I’m beat, Bo. I just—”

“Go,” he said. “Leave things to us.”

She took the gap and rushed off, feeling his eyes burning into her back as she went. He was going to put her under a microscope for sure now. It was just a matter of time before he found something.

“Samuel will be pleased to see you!” Fargo yelled behind her.

June hesitated at something in his tone, then decided not to look back as she hurried toward her truck.

* * *

June slipped quietly into the back of the community-center auditorium. She was a few minutes late, and the audience was already being held rapt by the charismatic man striding across the stage as he spoke—no one even glanced her way as she quietly opened the back door. But Samuel noticed her entrance. He stopped on the stage and smiled, as if right at her.

June felt a little punch to the chest.

She nodded her head and smiled back, hatred filling her body. But she needed to put in an emergency appearance to shore up her cover with Samuel. Her facade had started to slip—the stakes were death.

This was Jesse’s fault, she thought as she edged along the crowded back row of the auditorium and took a vacant seat, her heart racing.

“When you become the best you that you can be—” Samuel was saying into his mike “—it can arouse feelings of envy and inadequacy in others who have not yet attained this change for themselves.”

He stilled, faced the audience. Silence hung. The audience, almost imperceptibly, leaned forward.

The lights dimmed slightly, while a single spot simultaneously brightened on Samuel. His hair seemed to shine, his shirt turn whiter. His eyes appeared to dance.

He was a true master of subliminal effect, thought June—the bastard.

“We’re reformers, all of us here,” he said with a wide sweep of his tanned and muscled arm. “We have found a new way of seeing the world. But—” He paused, seeming to meet each Devotee’s gaze individually.

“Reformers by their very nature are defined by their adversaries, who feel threatened by the change in status quo—they want to tear down the very houses we build!” His voice rose, and he himself seemed to grow in stature. “They want to break down our community!”

Heads in the audience nodded and there were murmurs of assent.

“And it’s appropriate that these adversaries be identified, and the truth of them be told! Our foes are many and they include corrupt and abusive federal officials.”

He was referring to the FBI, thought June, Hawk in particular.

Samuel strode smoothly, deliberately, to the other end of the stage, as if pondering something very grave and heavy indeed. “Our foes include corporations, and they include groups who disguise themselves by offering to help Devotees ‘escape’ the perfection we have created here.”

June felt her face warm. She focused intensely on not showing any further outward reaction, but she feared that somehow Samuel had already seen something change in her, even from where he stood.

Don’t be ridiculous, June. You’re giving him the same power these Devotees have given him.

“These incompetent organizations are filled with even more incompetent individuals who want to tear each and every one of you away from the wonderful thing we have built right here, in Cold Plains, Wyoming! Our home!”

Samuel reached for a bottle of Cold Plains water on the podium. The water seemed to sparkle in the spotlight. He poured a glass, set the bottle down.

“These enemies,” he said somberly, “also hide among us, I’m afraid. They could be our neighbors.” He watched the audience carefully. “They could wear the guise of friends. They could even be members of our own families. And the closer they are to us—” he held up his hand “—the more dangerous they are to our well-being. We must oust them, each and every one, and they must be cast from our souls and our town!”

June’s hands tightened in her lap—he was starting a bloody witch hunt! McCarthyism was going to have nothing on this guy, and she was in his crosshairs.

* * *

It was dark and still raining by the time June returned to the cave house in the mountains. She was beat, her emotions simmering far too close to the surface. She hugged Eager tightly and put her face in his fur. His doggie scent, his soft Labrador ears, his delight in seeing her always grounded June.

After she’d showered quickly and changed, she went to the kitchen to feed Eager and prepare a meal for her captive. Guilt gnawed at her.

Before returning to the cave house, June had checked in on Hannah, who seemed to think their cover was still intact. But they were all on edge now. June had also tried to call Hawk Bledsoe, but the FBI agent’s voice mail said he was out of town.

June had then driven out to the ranch where Hawk stayed with his new wife, Carly, and Carly’s sister Mia. Carly had informed her that Hawk had flown back to the D.C. field office and would be gone for a few days. She suggested June go to the other FBI agents at their cabin in the woods. But it was Hawk June trusted, and it was his input she wanted. June decided she’d think on it until morning. Until then, Jesse was her responsibility, and it weighed heavily upon her.

She’d heard no rumors in town about a missing male, and after what Lacy had described, and what June had seen on Jesse’s GPS, plus the freshness of his tattoo, she was becoming increasingly convinced that he was not one of Samuel’s men.

Then again, after hearing Samuel’s seminar today, June wouldn’t put it past him to try to get a mole into their safe-house system. With eleven of his Devotees suddenly missing now, Samuel knew something was going down. And June couldn’t rule out the possibility Jesse could be Samuel’s mole, and that he’d been sent in over the north mountains with a fresh tattoo as some kind of ruse.

* * *

Carrying the tray of food and some clean clothes, June took a deep breath as Brad, who’d taken over the guard position from Molly, unlocked the bedroom door for her.

She entered and he locked the door behind her.

Jesse was reclined on the bed, shirt off, and he was reading a book. He glanced up. Nerves bit at her.

He made her room seem small, intimate, warm. He made her feel ridiculously feminine. And the partial nakedness of his body, the casualness with which he relaxed in her space, made her ache suddenly for a once-familiar feeling of having a lover, a partner. Someone, just sometimes, she could lean on. A team. As she’d once, so long ago now, been with Matt.

This vignette, irrespective of who he was or where he’d come from, just drove home how lonely June really was.

“It got a bit hot in here.” He closed the book, sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Some fresh air would be nice.”

She cleared her throat and approached the bed. “I brought you some clean clothes and some supper,” she said, setting the tray on the table. The neatly folded jeans, socks, shirt and underwear she placed in a pile on the bed beside him. His belt lay atop the pile.

He stared at the buckle—the bronze letters: Jesse. A strange look crossed his face.

June dug into her jeans pocket and handed him his watch.

“I took it off when I stitched you up.”

He looked up into her eyes, and she felt a jolt of electrical energy.

“So now I’m allowed to know what day it is, even if I can’t see daylight?”

June swallowed, still holding the watch out to him. “I’m sorry, Jesse. It’s only…for a short while.”

“What’re you waiting for? The feds to arrive?”

“You really that afraid of law enforcement?”

Slowly, he reached up, took his watch from her hands. His skin brushed hers as he did. His hand was warm, rough, and the touch sent a wave of goose bumps chasing up her arm. Then suddenly, he grabbed her wrist.

And before she could even think, he had her Glock out of her holster with his other hand.

June cursed her stupidity as panic licked through her stomach.

“June,” he said quietly as clicked off the safety, his eyes intense, “I don’t want to hurt you, but I need to get out of here.”