Ritual Sins

by Anne Stuart

  He didn’t want to find out. He preferred his nightmares, the haunting that never quite left him. It was his own penitence, and the people around him recognized it without words, strengthening his hold over them.

  But he would have to do something about Bobby Ray Shatney and the others before he left.

  Rachel was seated between Catherine and Alfred Waterston, and the two of them were exerting their usual well-bred charm. Catherine came from mainline Philadelphia, one of the oldest families in the country. She carried herself with patrician good cheer, the last of a line of harmless dilettantes whose unspoken breeding instilled awe in most of his nouveau riche followers. Alfred was just as impressive, combining the stuffy bedside manner of a cancer specialist with the sharp-brained diligence of a financial wizard.

  Rachel was succumbing to Catherine quite nicely, coming dangerously close to smiling. He suspected a smile would transform that pale, unhappy face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to discover just how much. A challenge was one thing. A weakness was another. Not that he counted much in this life as a weakness. A good steak, maybe. A plump, tender woman who asked him no questions and made no demands. And they weren’t weaknesses, merely some of the things he occasionally allowed himself. When no one was looking.

  She turned in his direction, but he’d already looked away, guided by that preternatural instinct that had saved his ass on more than one occasion. He smiled benevolently at Bobby Ray, mentally calibrating the dose he’d need to keep him peaceful. Maybe just a simple overdose when the time came. Murder by remote control. He could do it if he had to.

  The time was coming closer, and Luke knew it. Stella Connery had been a herald, and Luke had always been a man to pay attention to signs and omens.

  Her daughter’s arrival was the beginning of the end. The end of the soft, cushy life he’d been living. And it wasn’t coming a minute too soon.

  The Grandfathers wouldn’t like it. He didn’t make the mistake of underestimating them—at least Alfred would have noticed his restlessness. They’d be making contingency plans, to keep the Foundation going, to keep the money rolling in, keep the faith alive without their charismatic messiah.

  He wondered what they had planned for him.

  Evil was all around, in this large, peaceful room, full of gentle, passive people. Evil was an old enemy, a close companion.

  Maybe it was time he introduced spoiled, angry Rachel Connery to its hungry grip as well.

  Georgia Reginald closed her eyes, smiled, and slipped peacefully closer to death. It had been a long wait, it seemed, since she was first diagnosed with that particularly virulent form of cancer. Thank God she’d already been a follower. Luke had shown her the way, and when the doctors at the Foundation hospice had made their devastating discovery she found she’d almost welcomed the news.

  She’d never been in any pain, and she knew she could thank her newfound faith for that. She never would have guessed that cancer had invaded and spread throughout her seemingly healthy, sixty-year-old body. After all, there was no cancer on either side of her family, and she’d always prided herself on how well she took care of her health.

  Ah, but fate had been a trickster, as Luke and his disciples had warned her. The cancer had come with no sign, no warning, as it had to so many of her friends. They’d done everything they could, the poison, slash and burn of cancer treatment, and nothing had helped. She was weak now, and ready to go, but she wanted to see Luke one last time.

  They’d sent for him. If she could just hold out for a little while longer, she could look at him and dream that she was young again. That those eyes were looking only at her.

  She wanted to be the one to tell him about the money. The Grandfathers knew, of course. Particularly Alfred, who’d overseen her care. He’d helped her make the arrangements, but she knew that Luke paid no attention to the financial aspects of the Foundation. His mind and soul were settled on higher things—that was why he had the Grandfathers around. To take care of business.

  Her estate would help take care of a lot of business, and it was the one thing that brought her joy.

  There was a scraping sound, and she used the last of her energy to open her eyes. Luke stood there beside the bed, his face almost obscured by his long hair, and she wished she could reach out and stroke it, when no one was ever allowed to touch him. Surely he’d allow her that much.

  She tried to lift her hand, but she had no strength. There were others in the room—she couldn’t quite focus, but it didn’t matter anymore. Just then she wasn’t interested in anyone but Luke.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She felt Luke’s warm hand pressed against her icy skin, but it was too late to warm her.

  “Time to let go, Georgia,” he said, his rich, deep voice washing over her in waves of elegant longing. He held her hand, as someone drew closer, dressed in the pale blue colors of the medical personnel. The needle was cold in her arm, filling her veins with death.

  She opened her eyes wide, looking for Luke. But all she saw was emptiness.

  3

  Calvin Leigh was fifty-seven years old and was often mistaken for a child. It wasn’t just his height—at four feet nine he didn’t quite qualify as a little person, but he came close. His youthful face added to the effect of innocent agelessness, as well as his light voice and his seemingly sweet manner. Over the years he’d learned to use those physical traits wisely.

  It hadn’t been easy growing up on the South Side of Chicago. His ancestry was a racial mix of such varying backgrounds that it was almost impossible to recognize a dominant strain. Which meant, of course, that everyone hated him. Hated him for being black, white, Hispanic, Asian, and Jewish. Hated him for his stunted growth and his strangeness.

  It was a wonder he’d survived the regular, vicious beatings that were part of his home and street life. But he had, and it wasn’t until he was in his late forties, doing time for passing bad checks, that he found out why.

  He’d met Luke Bardell, and known peace. He’d been put on this earth, given these various trials and challenges, to prepare himself to be Luke’s helper. It was all he’d ever asked in life: a purpose. A cause. And Luke Bardell was that cause.

  Not that he had any illusions about the man he chose to follow, out of prison and into the richest con game a man could ever imagine. He knew Luke better than anyone. He was privy to the secrets, the needs, the plans that no one else could even imagine of their sainted leader. He knew where the money was, both his and Luke’s share. And he knew the escape route by heart.

  But he also knew Luke better than Luke knew himself. Knew that his strength, his ability to draw people to him, to move them, was more than a con man’s ultimate gift. It went beyond that into realms so bizarre that Calvin couldn’t attempt to understand it, and he didn’t try. It was simply something he felt with his heart.

  Something Luke himself denied.

  Calvin had known Stella Connery was trouble, and he’d welcomed her death with unholy relief. Only to find it wasn’t that simple. Her daughter was a far greater threat.

  One that had to be neutralized.

  She was here now, and he could see the way Luke watched her. Calvin prided himself on being more attuned to Luke than anyone, and he could practically read Luke’s mind. He wanted her. Despite or perhaps because of, the threat she posed to everything they’d worked for, he wanted Rachel Connery.

  And Calvin meant to see he didn’t have her.

  He wasn’t squeamish about death. He wasn’t squeamish about anything; he did what needed to be done. He would do it again.

  Before Luke could make one mistake too many.

  Considering the fact that she was sick to her stomach by the time she finished the meal the Foundation provided for her, considering she was feeling restless, edgy, and resentful, it seemed odd to Rachel that she slept well in that narrow bed. Perhaps it was simple relief that she hadn’t had to deal with another confrontation with the leader of this odd group of people
.

  Except that she had to admit they weren’t that odd. Alfred Waterston wasn’t that dissimilar from several of the wealthy men her mother had married, although he seemed kinder. And Catherine seemed unquestionably friendly, helpful, and even maternal, with a genuine warmth that was almost unsettling to someone of Rachel’s emotionally deprived background.

  The other Grandfathers were familiar as well—decent, stable, slightly stuffy men and women who seemed more at ease in a boardroom than seated around a table full of lentils and soy. They were the kind of people she’d worked with in New York, the kind of people whose greatest flights of spirituality usually concerned a bottom line. What they were doing dressed in matching cotton and following a charismatic con artist was beyond her comprehension.

  Because that was what Luke Bardell was. Everyone else in this place might be blinded by his otherworldly air, his aura of saintliness, but Rachel wasn’t other people. She had come for Luke Bardell’s head, and she wasn’t about to be blinded into thinking he was anything but evil incarnate.

  Everyone in that huge room had seemed equally, stupidly devoted to their leader, from the Grandfathers to Luke’s strange-looking companion, Calvin. If her secret cohort was there, she wasn’t able to hazard a guess as to which follower was really a pained disbeliever.

  She couldn’t remember her dreams, which was nothing new in itself. She wasn’t the sort who paid much attention to her dreams if she could help it—what she did remember of them was always unsettling. She knew by the way the sheets were twisted around her body that her dreams that night had been disturbing. It was little wonder. There was death here. She could smell it in the dryness of the air, feel it through her sweat-damp skin.

  There was a new set of cotton clothing for her, this time in a pale shade of blue that was slightly more flattering than the green they’d offered her before. She ignored them anyway, and by the time she emerged from her shower, dressed in jeans and a loose cotton shirt, they were gone from the foot of the bed and her door was ajar. Obviously the chair she’d wedged under the handle was useless.

  The hall was deserted. She was in desperate need of caffeine, and she would have sold her soul for one mug of it, strong and black. She wondered if Luke Bardell would consider that price too high.

  She was about to find out.

  “Looking for breakfast?”

  There was nothing sinister in the question, or the soft tone of Luke’s voice. She didn’t like the way he seemed to materialize in the empty corridor without any warning, but for the possibility of coffee she was willing to be pleasant.

  Rachel stopped, guarding her expression. “I suppose coffee might be too much to hope for?” she said. “Or do you allow caffeine in this place?”

  “We have a grain beverage that’s quite energizing.”

  “I should have known.” She didn’t bother to disguise the disgust in her voice. “You know that when people are deprived of caffeine they become irritable and unpleasant?”

  “That should be quite a change for you,” he murmured without blinking.

  “And they get terrible headaches,” she added, undeterred.

  “Let me know if you develop one and we’ll do a healing for you.”

  The very notion filled her with horror. “No, thank you. I can take care of myself.”

  “But isn’t it better to accept help from others?”

  “Not particularly,” Rachel said.

  He wasn’t that close to her. Luke Bardell wasn’t a man who crowded his audience, who used physical intimidation to gain his power. He didn’t need to. He was several feet away from her in the empty hallway, seemingly relaxed, at ease, almost ethereal. “Ah, Rachel,” he said, “you have so very much to learn from us. I’m glad you didn’t wait too long to visit.”

  “Learn from you?”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To learn everything you can about the Foundation of Being? You want to know our ways, our philosophy, follow our teachings for a while. Don’t you?”

  That was about the last thing Rachel had in mind, but if he was so blindly egocentric to think so, then she wasn’t about to enlighten him. “Of course,” she said.

  “I know perfectly well the only reason you’d want to learn our ways is to destroy us,” Luke continued in the same calm voice, leaning against the stucco wall. “That’s a risk that Catherine and the Grandfathers are completely willing to take.”

  “I don’t want to destroy anyone!” she protested, looking at the man she wanted to bring down.

  “Then why are you here?” The question was simple and unanswerable, except with a lie.

  Rachel knew how to lie when the situation called for it, and she could be very convincing. After all, she’d learned from a master—her mother. “You invited me,” she said.

  “And we’re not afraid of anything you may discover. Stay with us, Rachel, learn from us. And if you can find any proof, any sign of wrongdoing or evil, then we will learn from you.”

  It was a lovely little speech, simple, graceful, calculated to make her hang her head in shame. Too bad it was wasted on a recalcitrant soul like Stella Connery’s daughter, Rachel thought. Too bad it came from the mouth of a murderer. She mustn’t forget that fact, ever.

  She managed a convincing smile. “That’s what I’m here for,” she said.

  “And where do you want to start?”

  “With coffee.”

  She didn’t like his smile. She didn’t like the fact that he was tall, that his voice was gentle, that his eyes were feral. Most of all she didn’t like the fact that he made no effort to intimidate her. As if he already knew the arcane influence he held over everyone, including her.

  She didn’t believe in pacts with the devil. She didn’t even necessarily believe in evil. But if there was a devil, then Luke Bardell had partied with him and prospered.

  He pushed away from the wall and she stood her ground. “With the right diet, you won’t need artificial stimulants, Rachel,” he said. He held out his hand to her, patiently, like a hunter trying to tame a wild beast. “Come. We’ll feed you well, and start your training.”

  He had beautiful hands. Long, elegant fingers, narrow wrists, blue-veined and strong-looking. There was a tattoo encircling each of his wrists—a rough, ink-blue bracelet of thorns, like a martyr’s crown.

  There was no way in hell she was going to touch those beautiful hands. “Training?” she said, skirting out of his way.

  “Classes will begin at sunset. A very peaceful time here in the Southwest—I think you’ll find it conducive to the meditative state. Where would you like to work?”

  “Work?” She sounded like an idiot parrot. He’d started down the hallway, expecting her to join him. She did so, keeping a safe distance.

  “Everyone works at the Foundation,” he said. “You can choose what you’d like—physical or mental labor or a combination of the two. You can scrub toilets, work in the kitchen, or help on the grounds.”

  “I’m not much on manual labor.” She managed to sound almost disinterested. “What about office work? It’s what I’m trained for.”

  “Ah, Rachel, your sweet faith touches me,” he said. “But I don’t think so. I’m not certain I want you delving into the Foundation’s records.” He paused at the double doors to the dining hall.

  “Afraid I’ll unearth your dirty secrets?”

  He took her barb with a faint, annoying smile. “What secrets? The fact that I’m an ex-con, who killed someone in a bar fight? That I did time in prison, and might very well have ended up back there, or dead in the next fight, if it hadn’t been for enlightenment? No, Rachel. Everyone knows about my past. We’re a trusting group here, but for some reason I wouldn’t put it past you to plant something incriminating in our computer.”

  “The thought hadn’t occurred to me,” she said with complete truthfulness. She had very little doubt about her own ability to ferret out the truth behind Luke Bardell’s idiot followers, and faking evidence seemed an un
necessary complication.

  There was proof here, proof of monstrous evil, she just knew it. If they’d really killed Stella, then they might have killed others as well. Other rich, foolish women who could be flattered and seduced out of their money. And Rachel wouldn’t rest until she found that proof that had been dangled in front of her nose by the anonymous letter, like a carrot in front of a stubborn mule.

  “You’ll need to learn to be more devious if you’re going to go into battle against the devil,” Luke murmured.

  “Is that what I’m doing? Is that what you are?”

  He looked down at her, his eyes dreamy and far away, his wide, disturbing mouth curved in a holy smile tinged with mockery. “God only knows, Rachel.”

  He told himself he should be disappointed. She was ridiculously easy to read most of the time, and he’d wanted a challenge. She wasn’t afraid to show her hatred, though, which was a refreshing change. He was getting mortally tired of people looking up at him with glazed adoration. Only Calvin dared contradict him, and he did it in private. Everyone else was willing to lay down their lives for the mere gift of his smile. Or at least they told themselves they were.

  Rachel Connery was probably willing to lay down her life for his head on a platter. She wasn’t going to have to pay that price, and she wasn’t going to win that prize. He still wasn’t quite certain what he had in store for her in the long run. Maybe just the perverse delight of seducing her soul and then disillusioning her as he made his escape.

  She still refused to wear the Foundation clothes, but that wouldn’t last much longer. He might miss the sight of her long legs, her trim ass in jeans that were too loose for his taste. But he’d be able to console himself with the knowledge that the body beneath the soft cotton clothes would belong to him if and when he wanted it.

  He knew where he’d start her off, even though Catherine had voiced a protest and Calvin, when he’d heard, shook his head in grim disapproval. She wasn’t ready for the hospice center—it would remind her of Stella and strengthen her rage just when he wanted to demoralize her. He could send her to the meditation center to scrub toilets, but slave labor wasn’t how he wanted to bring her down.