Robert tried to call Hope House repeatedly on his way up the mountain, but no one answered. He recalled Katie saying that she had a staff meeting and hoped that it—not something awful—was the reason for the lack of response.
He turned off the paved road and onto the dirt drive that led to the halfway house at 9:17, having broken a few speed limits. About five hundred yards into the trees he saw the house, lit as normal by porch lights and lamps in the offices and rooms.
Only then did he admit to himself that he had thought the house might be ablaze.
There were four cars in the unpaved lot, which he recognized as the community van and Kia, plus two vehicles owned by residents who had jobs in Santa Fe.
Maybe Sanso had not arrived.
Maybe Robert’s mind had made connections that didn’t really exist.
He slowed the car as he approached and made the final curve before the lot. His headlights caught something reflective on the opposite side of the drive, and he braked. Put the truck in reverse and backed up until he spotted it again.
A convertible, parked between two pines, top down.
A Mazda Miata, here, hidden.
In a flash of memory Robert remembered passing a car like this on his way down toward Santa Fe. He could not recall the driver.
Robert looked at the house again and decided that Sanso was there, playing a game of stealth this time rather than acting out a pyromaniac’s fantasy. Waiting, no doubt, for Robert’s return. Which meant that Sanso might prefer hostages over dead bodies. Something to hope for.
Was Janice one of Sanso’s lackeys? Had she found Robert here and told the drug lord? How? And what was their connection to Jane Johnson’s car? Robert didn’t have the time to sort any of this out, but the sense that Janice knew Robert and that he ought to know her continued to gnaw at him.
Robert cut the lights and the engine and decided to leave the truck right where it was, blocking Sanso’s exit. He retrieved his firearm from under the seat and climbed out of the cab, then retrieved a spare bulletproof vest from the tool kit suspended across the truck bed.
He did a quick scan of the convertible and found nothing that tied the car to Sanso. But keys dangled from the convertible’s ignition, and he took those too.
His hiking boots sounded loud on the coarse red dirt as he approached the house’s long porch. He stepped up onto the concrete slab and looked through each window that he passed, gun out and pointed down, trying to gather as much information as he could. Most of the curtains had been drawn. The office that he believed to be Lucille’s was brightly lit but empty. No sign in any of the front rooms of Sanso or the staff.
Robert began to build a strategy in his mind. He decided to find Katie first, hoping that Janice had no connection to her that would explain why Sanso had come here of all places. Secure Katie’s safety, then find out where Janice’s room was.
He slipped in through the front entry and listened for voices that would indicate a meeting. When he didn’t hear anything, he moved across the atrium and adjacent hall and into the garden room. Two table lamps had been left on, and he saw the rear door ajar. He wondered if Katie had returned.
In the hall again, he caught a sound in the direction of the kitchen. Cups being set out on the counter maybe. He entered from the back, under the plaque about God’s protection from enemies, and judged by the tenor of voices that if they were in any danger, they didn’t know it.
The five women on staff, including Katie, were gathered on stools around the kitchen island, sipping coffee and flipping through notebooks and talking in low, happy tones. Lucille jumped up at the sight of him, almost knocking her stool backward.
She recovered quickly. “If you’d give us a few more minutes we’ll be finished and you can—”
One of the other women gasped at the sight of Robert’s gun. Katie stood and said, “What is it?” Robert thought she had gone pale.
“You’ve got an intruder on the grounds,” he said to Lucille. Two of the women started murmuring.
“One of our girls probably brought someone home,” said the one he thought was Frankie. She stood and took one more sip of coffee. “I’ll find out who.”
Robert held up a hand to stop Frankie at the same time Lucille said, “Whoever it is, I’m sure a gun isn’t necessary, Lukin.”
He ignored her. “Katie, I need you to explain to your colleagues who Salazar Sanso is.” Her hand went to her mouth. “And then I want you all to go outside. Take a flashlight. Start walking out to the road and stay there until I come get you.”
Someone said, “The residents—”
“Are safest in their own rooms for now.”
“One of us needs to stay with them,” Katie said.
“All of you will go. And you’d better be the first one out that door, Katie.” Robert left no room for argument, but he didn’t know whether she would actually do it. “Tell me where Janice’s room is.”
“What?”
“The woman who arrived today. I think she might be connected to Sanso. Or me.”
“She’s at the end of my wing. Room 28.”
“I think Janice is using an alias. That she goes by the name of Jane Johnson and that somehow I should know who that is. You ever heard of a Jane Johnson?”
Katie shook her head.
“Go with them and I’ll come get you. How many women are here tonight?”
“Nineteen,” Lucille said.
“How many on your hall, Katie?”
“Six.”
“Okay. Sheriff ’s on his way. Go on and leave now.”
He headed toward Katie’s wing without waiting for them to obey, hoping they had a strong enough sense of self-preservation to do what they were told.
Salazar Sanso. For fifteen years she had hidden from him behind the identity of a woman he couldn’t possibly care about. How had he found her? Why was he here, on the heels of Robert and Janice? He couldn’t possibly know her true identity.
Unless . . . Sanso wasn’t here for her. He was here for Janice. For Janeal Mikkado. The one Janeal Mikkado he knew about.
Sanso’s presence became the deciding factor Katie needed, confirmation that there were two Janeal Mikkados walking the earth at the same time. As it had the night of the fire, the moment she chose to save Katie’s life, all her indecision faded away.
Right now, the only thing she couldn’t understand was why the drama was unfolding in this simple little desert home, where she had finally extracted a purpose from her reborn life.
Frankie was practically yelling at her. “I said who is this man he’s ranting about?”
Katie turned slowly toward Frankie’s voice. “He’s a drug dealer.”
“And what’s your involvement with him?” Lucille asked.
No answer was brief enough for the time they had. “I’m not involved with him. We need to get the women out.”
“Wendy and Trish have already gone for them.”
“I need my cell phone,” Katie said. She walked out the kitchen door.
“Katie,” Lucille protested.
“I’m the only one who’s got one,” Katie said without looking back. “I told you we’d need it someday.”
Right now, Katie didn’t care that she was right. She was more concerned with Sanso’s arrival, and why Robert thought he was here. How was she going to explain all this when she barely understood it herself?
Was there any reasonable explanation for what had happened to her? No. There was only the spiritual at work here. A battle of unearthly, paranormal proportions.
A battle between the light and dark halves of a heart.
Now, as she raced toward her room, grief over losing the real Katie overcame her in a fresh wave, because now she feared she was likely to lose Janice too. The other Janeal, her mystic twin, who had listened to Sanso’s lies again and again until they became her truth and he became her master.
Janice, not Katie, was the one who needed saving now. After she found her phone, she would find her other self.