Haven of Swans

by Colleen Coble

  “So am I, Nicky. So am I.” She walked away.

  Man, he was a jerk, taking his pain out on his mother when she only wanted to help. He started to go after her, but the phone rang on the bedside table. Eve had been gone over two months. No one should be calling this number.

  The phone vibrated against his palm like a rattler when he lifted it. He punched the talk button. “Nick Andreakos,” he said.

  He heard only silence at first. Then a high-pitched laugh hit his ear, the Daffy Duck inflection from his nightmares.

  “It’s a fine joke, don’t you think, Nick?” The caricature of a voice chortled. “Did you like the way she looked in her pink nightgown? She wouldn’t look that lovely now. Not at all. But you already know that.”

  Nick leaped to the window. As he peered through the glass, he saw a van pull away. The signage read “Mount Sinai.”

  “Hello? Hello?” he said into the phone. But there was only silence.

  7

  Samson lay sprawled on the rug. Gracie, her back arched, prowled around on top of him, pausing occasionally to knead him. He opened one eye to see what she was doing, then flopped his head back down and went back to sleep.

  “Leave him alone.” Elena scooped up the kitten and sat down on the sofa with her. Terri sat on the floor, building a house with LEGOs. It was almost five. Bree and Kade would be home anytime.

  She heard the front door open, then Bree’s voice called her name. “I’m in here,” Elena said. Bree’s face was white and strained when she entered the living room, and a worried frown replaced her customary smile. “You look upset. What’s wrong?”

  “My dad wasn’t well today. He didn’t know who I was.” Bree settled on the sofa beside Elena.

  Her father had escaped the nursing home just last week, Elena knew. She wished she could confide to Bree that she didn’t even remember if her father was alive or dead, but she didn’t dare. Not only would it be insensitive; it would also tip off Bree that Elena remembered less than she pretended to. If she kept up the facade long enough, maybe she could slip into this new life and the old would be gone forever. Rock Harbor had cast a healing net over her, and she didn’t want to slip from under it.

  Her past was bound to catch up to her though.

  “I’m sorry,” Elena said finally. “It has to be hard.”

  “It’s not going to get any better.” Bree dug into a bowl of pistachios on the coffee table and offered some to Elena, who shook her head and made a face. “Um, your clothes don’t match.”

  “They don’t?” Elena glanced down. “I guess I was thinking about something else when I got dressed.”

  “Any new memories today?”

  Elena’s smile faded. “No.”

  It was a familiar question. For a while the dance memories had come fast, but they led to no real insight. Bree wanted to contact some dance studios, but Elena didn’t want to run the risk that her attacker might be connected to her profession. Every discreet path they’d followed had led nowhere.

  “Let’s make some more calls tonight,” Bree said.

  Elena nodded. The women had been methodically calling every Cox in the Detroit area and asking if they knew Elena. So far, out of fifty-two calls, no one had heard of her.

  Through the glass, they watched Kade park his truck. The passenger door flew open. Davy tumbled out. Moments later the sound of his small feet thundered across the entry floor, followed by the heavy tread of Kade’s boots.

  Davy burst into the living room. “Hey, Mom, I got to help Dad feed the peregrine falcons. One falcon ate three mice!”

  “Ew,” his mother said. “You’re a ghoul.”

  “Birds have to eat too,” Kade said, dropping a kiss on her red curls when he reached her. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Whatever you want to cook tonight. I’m beat.”

  “I’ll cook,” Elena said quickly. “I picked up stuff for spaghetti.” She put Gracie on the floor, and the kitten immediately went back to pester Samson.

  “I knew we kept you around for a good reason.” Kade sat on the sofa on the other side of his wife. “Nice house, Terri.”

  The toddler frowned and knocked over the house. “Daddy help.” She looked at her mother. “Where Daddy?”

  Elena struggled for some excuse, but nothing came to mind. “Oh, look, Terri. Samson is cuddling Gracie.” The kitten nestled between Samson’s front paws. They were both asleep.

  The distraction worked. Terri crawled over to the dog and laid her head on his flank. “Terri sleep.”

  Elena knew the questions weren’t going to stop. And she had no answers. Every time she thought about the man who had fathered Terri, she ran up against a blank wall and stark terror.

  Kade yawned. “I found a place to relocate the mute swans,” he told the women.

  “That’s wonderful news,” Bree said. “I really thought they’d make you shoot them.”

  “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I’m going to move them in a couple of days. I’ll have to sedate them or they’ll peck my eyes out. And then I’ll have to destroy the eggs in the nests. I can put oil on them so they won’t hatch.”

  The phone rang, and Bree answered it. Listening for a moment, she handed it to Elena. “It’s Anu for you.”

  Her boss had never called her before. Elena told herself it was nothing, that maybe Anu wanted her to work some extra hours. Anu normally let her off at four. She took the phone Bree held out. “Hi, Anu.”

  “Elena, I must have written down your Social Security number wrong. I got a letter today saying it was incorrect. Could you give it to me again?”

  Elena’s fingers tightened on the phone. She’d known this day would come sooner or later. “I thought I had it memorized, but I must have slipped up. Let me get ahold of the Social Security department and double-check it. Of course I don’t have my card any longer.”

  “That would be fine, kulta. I must respond to this letter within thirty days though, so you must handle this as soon as possible.”

  “I will.” She ended the call and handed the phone back to Bree, who gave her a curious glance. “Everything okay?” Bree asked.

  “Fine. My Social Security number is wrong. I need to get it straightened out.”

  “You made it up, didn’t you?”

  Elena nodded. “I couldn’t remember it at the time.”

  “Do you now?”

  She shook her head. “But if I go to the Social Security department and give them my name, they can look it up, can’t they?”

  “Yes, but will they give it to you without any identification? We’ll have to check that out.” Bree’s gaze stayed on her face. “Elena, is there anything you’d like to talk about? I have a feeling there’s still something you’re ashamed to reveal to us. We’re your friends. You can tell us anything.”

  Elena looked down at her feet. “No, there’s nothing.” She waited to see if Bree would press the issue, but her friend let it ride. The silence stretched out until Kade got up and left the room.

  Bree touched Elena’s arm. “Are you sure? Kade’s gone now, so if you just didn’t want him to hear, we can talk now.”

  “There’s no reason to talk about the past. The present is all that matters.” Elena dared to raise her gaze to meet Bree’s.

  “Oh, honey, that’s so not true. The past affects everything we do, all that we are. Believe me, I know. You’re going to have to face it sooner or later.” Her eyes went to the scar at Elena’s temple. “I still want to know who hurt you. Don’t you want to know too? We could go to the police, get them to discreetly ask some questions.”

  “I’ve told you before—I can’t risk tipping off the man who attacked me. I’ve got Terri to protect. He didn’t hurt her last time, but he might if he finds us again.”

  “The police would protect you.”

  Elena nodded at the familiar argument. They would try hard, but what if they failed? She clasped her hands together and stood up. “I’d better go fix supper.”
<
br />   NICK LOOKED UP EVERYTHING HE COULD ON MOUNT Sinai and discovered a survivalist community that went by the name. It had offshoots like Liberty’s Children and the newly formed Job’s Children. What he learned about them only intensified his hunch that Gideon might have a connection with them.

  Some of the derivatives weren’t as radical as the Mount Sinai group. The parent organization was suspected of an assassination attempt on the governor last year. They had unknown quantities of stockpiled arms, and there were consistent rumors that the group was affiliated with white-supremacist efforts and even the occult. Not a group to mess around with. Several murders had been laid to their account, though nothing had been proven.

  The only way to prove anything would be to get inside the organization. Doing something would be better than sitting around staring at four walls. He needed a diversion to make him forget that his wife was dead and his daughter still missing.

  Nick packed his Durango with camping gear, a rifle, and canned food. Dressed in camouflage gear, he drove to the camp, about 130 miles from Bay City. Fully expecting to have to convince the group that he was sincere, he was surprised to find that no one challenged him when he passed into the confines of the enclave. The lane had more muddy potholes than gravel, and he bottomed out several times before he reached the heart of the camp.

  There were more cabins than he expected and fewer tents. It almost looked like a small frontier town. Men dressed in camouflage hunting clothes and boots meandered across the road and into the woods. Nick saw one man with a dead fox slung over his shoulder.

  It wasn’t hunting season.

  Nick parked his SUV in the lot by the church and got out. With a smile that felt as tight as his new boots, he nodded to two women who walked along the side of the road. They carried buckets of water in their hands.

  “Good morning. I was wondering where I might find Moses Bechtol?” His research indicated that the man with the biblical name was the leader of the organization.

  The women looked at each other. “Maybe you’d better wait at the office,” one said finally. She pointed toward the church building. “He’ll be back sooner or later.” The women avoided Nick’s gaze and moved away from him.

  From the women’s reactions, he had to wonder what this Bechtol guy was up to. When the women were out of sight, Nick moved between the buildings. Everyone seemed to be out. The cabins were deserted.

  He reached the outermost cabin and turned to go back to the church when he heard a woman cry out. The cry seemed to come from the woods. Entering the trees, he saw another cabin hunkered under a huge oak. He glanced around to make sure he wasn’t seen, then approached the building.

  The cabin door rattled, and he darted behind the trunk of the big tree. A man stepped through the battered door. Burly and sporting a blond beard, he attached a padlock to the cabin door, then stalked off. Nick waited until the man disappeared through the trees, then, careful to make no sound, moved to the cabin.

  The door was solid wood, though old and nicked, and the shiny padlock was sturdy. He moved around the cabin, searching for a window. The back of the cabin had one tiny window. The glass had been busted out, but bars covered it. He cupped his palms around his eyes and peered into the dark interior.

  A woman sat on a small cot, her head in her hands.

  “Hey,” Nick whispered. “You okay?”

  Her head came up, and her tearstained face swiveled toward him. Terror marked the twist of her mouth.

  He smiled to reassure her. “My name is Captain Andreakos, with the Michigan State Police. I can help you.”

  The woman looked familiar, but he couldn’t place where he’d seen her. About thirty, she had long black hair and Asian features. Slim and attractive too.

  She stood and cast a fearful glance toward the door before sidling to the window. “Moses will be back. Get me out of here.”

  So the big man was the group’s leader. “I need a bolt cutter for the padlock. I’ll have to go get help.”

  She gripped the bars. “No, don’t leave me here. He’s kept me prisoner for three weeks!”

  Then it clicked. Nick had seen her face on a missing-persons poster. “You’re Iris Chen?”

  “Yes!” She rattled the bars again. “Please get me out of here.”

  “Don’t worry. Let me get some help. Is anyone else held prisoner here?” He couldn’t help but hope he’d find Keri. “Any children?”

  “No one, just me. Please get me out.”

  “I’m going to go for help now.”

  “Hurry!” She hesitated. “Don’t hurt anyone though.”

  He nodded, though hurting these scumbags seemed justifiable. Pulling out his phone, he checked the bars. No signal. The tree cover was too heavy. “I have to get out of the forest. I’ll be back.” He patted her hand and moved off through some thick spruce trees in the direction of his Dodge, keeping off the paths.

  Needles crushed under his boots and released the scent of pine. He finally emerged from the trees and stepped onto the dirt parking lot. A group of six men saw him and headed his way. Led by a burly man Nick recognized from pictures as Bechtol, the men squared their shoulders and clenched their fists, apparently intending to confront him.

  His SUV was only a few feet away. He made a break for it, and the men began to run. They surrounded his vehicle even as he managed to get the doors locked. Flashing his badge was unlikely to do any good. His best option was to get out of here, get some help, and stage a rescue.

  Bechtol pounded on his window. He turned and gestured to another man, who approached with a tire iron.

  Nick started the engine and pressed the accelerator. They’d either get out of the way or get run over. The two men standing in front of his vehicle leaped aside a fraction of a second before the bumper could hit them. A thump sounded behind him, and the back window shattered. A tire iron lay in the back amid tiny crystals of glass.

  A man was only about two feet behind, his hands reaching out to grab the back of the SUV. Nick accelerated, and the vehicle leaped away from the man’s outstretched hand. Nick zoomed out of the compound. When he reached the highway, he thumbed a Rolaids into his mouth, got out his cell phone, and called his father.

  “We got trouble, Dad.” Nick launched into an explanation of what he’d found.

  “Let me try to get ahold of some help close by,” Cyril said. “I’ll call you back.”

  Nick closed his phone and looked back at the lane into the compound. He decided to try to circle back and lay low. If the group moved Iris now, he might never find her.

  The only weapon he had was a pistol. He’d be hard-pressed to withstand the firepower the group was likely to muster. Rolling forward in his vehicle again, he searched for a spot that would hide his SUV. There—a tiny opening in the forest that grew thick along the road. He jerked the wheel and drove the vehicle into the tiny space. Branches whipped around the cab and screeched along the metal. He doubted his shiny paint would emerge unscathed.

  The branches closed behind him. It was all he could do to force open his door and exit the vehicle with his gun. Pressing forward through the brush, he stumbled clear of it into a copse of spruce. A cut on his arm bled, and he wiped the smear of blood away with his thumb, then struck out in the direction of the camp.

  Stopping for a moment to get his bearings, he listened for voices but heard only the wind and birdsong overhead. The cabin was back this way. He’d always had an innate sense of direction, and he plunged through the cool shadows toward the compound.

  His phone was set on vibrate, and it shuddered in its case on his waist when he stepped into a meadow with clear skies. Nick pulled out his phone. “Andreakos,” he said softly.

  “Nick, I got some help from Alpena. They’re at the entrance to the compound now,” his father said. “Where are you?”

  “On the south side. Tell them to wait for my signal. I’m going in now.” He closed his phone and jogged on. When he got close enough to see cabins, the place was ho
pping. People ran from the buildings to pack up vehicles.

  The compound was bugging out.

  Iris’s face peered desperately from the window of a van. He had to do something right now. He darted into the road and out of the trees. Pulling out his phone as he ran, he called his father. “Send them now,” he said and ended the call.

  They still hadn’t seen him. Pulling his gun from its holster, he slipped off the safety and approached the van where Iris was imprisoned. There was no one else in the vehicle that he could see. She hadn’t seen him either.

  He was dressed like the others, so he didn’t stand out. Maybe he’d be able to get to the van and get her out unnoticed. He had to try at least.

  The big man he’d seen earlier headed toward the van. Car keys dangled from Bechtol’s right hand. His head turned, and his gaze locked with Nick’s.

  “Get him!” he shouted, waving his arm toward Nick.

  Nick dove behind a boulder as gunfire erupted around him. Revved engines sounded over his shoulder, and he saw the police vehicles come tearing into the compound. Peering over the boulder, he saw Bechtol fumbling to unlock the van door. He was going to escape with Iris.

  The gunfire intensified as the Alpena police returned the bullets from the men crouched behind vehicles, rocks, and trees.

  Nick narrowed his focus, blocking out the sounds of shouts and car engines. He rested his gun on the boulder and took aim at the van tires. He sighted down the barrel, and his finger hovered on the trigger.

  Bechtol looked up. He fumbled for his own gun and swung it up to face Nick. The steady black barrel of the pistol pointed right at Nick’s chest.

  Nick adjusted his sighting, aiming the crosshatches on Bechtol’s trigger hand. His finger tightened on the trigger, and he squeezed. Bechtol moved. The bullet Nick had meant to strike the man’s wrist hurtled toward his chest. Nick saw Bechtol jerk when the bullet hit, then the man’s big hand pressed against his chest, and he slowly crumpled into the dust.