“Sorry, girls,” Tobias’s wife said with a playful pout.
“Starsha’s right,” Juanita said to Anna. “Anywhere we go, we go in style. You’ll have so much fun that you won’t have time to worry about Martin. Am I right, ladies?” Juanita raised her wineglass and the other women followed suit.
Anna watched skeptically as the five wives clinked their glasses and drank to their ability to temporarily forget their husbands. It was the oddest toast that Anna had ever seen, and she wasn’t sold. “Come on, be honest,” Anna said. “You guys have to be just a little worried. I mean, your husbands are out in the middle of nowhere, engaged in a very risky sport.”
Juanita laughed. “Risky? I don’t think so. Like I told you, they splash around in a little kiddie river. They’re probably in more danger when they sit around the campfire getting drunk.”
The women laughed until Anna stopped the conversation cold with what she said next. “I’m sure Mrs. Jackson felt the exact same way.”
The mood at the table shifted instantly. The women exchanged sullen looks as if they were more annoyed by the tragic memory than saddened by it. Juanita frowned at Anna. “Let me guess. You read about it on the Internet.”
Anna nodded. “And yesterday, when your husband came to pick up Martin, I asked him about it.”
“Then I’m sure Damon told you that Donald Jackson’s death was a suicide, not an accident like the papers say.”
“He did, but after thinking about it, something occurred to me that I just can’t get out of my mind.” Anna scanned the women’s faces, hesitant to continue. She was certain her next words would not be welcome. “I think your husbands may have lied to all of you.”
For a moment no one said a word. The wives just scowled at their newest member. In an attempt to deflate the tension, Juanita began to laugh. “I’m sure Anna doesn’t mean that the way it sounds. Do you, Anna?”
“Well, actually I do. Just think about it. If your husbands had returned and said that Donald Jackson died while rafting, none of you would ever let them go rafting again. Am I right? It would mean the end of their camping trips. They had a good reason to lie.”
Starsha laughed derisively. “Lady, you got a lot of nerve. You don’t know us from boo and you certainly don’t know our damn husbands.”
“Starsha is absolutely right,” Olaide said to Anna in a firm voice. “Maybe lies are acceptable in your marriage, but between Kwame and me there are no secrets.”
Margaret Stewart shook her head, discounting the idea completely. “No. Uh-uh. Yes, Tobias is a little wild. Yes, he gambles and drinks too much. Yes, he sometimes chases women. But one thing he never does is lie about it. Tobias tells me everything—even though sometimes I wish he didn’t.”
Mrs. Aarons raised an aloof nose to Anna and remarked, “Mr. Aarons and I have been married for longer than you have been alive, young lady. That makes us more than just husband and wife. Your haphazard allegation is not just wrong, it’s extremely insulting.”
Juanita reached out and gave Anna a little pat on the hand. “I really need to freshen up. Why don’t you come with me?”
As Anna rose and followed Juanita across the restaurant, she could almost feel the glares of the women burning into her back.
* * *
“I think you should go home,” Juanita said as she touched up her makeup in the mirror. “You’re ruining everyone’s night. I’m sorry, but there’s just no easy way to say it.”
Anna was standing beside Juanita inside the plush ladies’ restroom as Stevie Wonder wafted from concealed speakers. Anna wasn’t hurt by Juanita’s invitation to leave. She felt that she deserved it. In fact, the instant Anna stepped away from the table, she regretted her behavior. Even if she did find the other wives’ views of their husbands to be absurdly unrealistic, that didn’t give her the right to be rude and obnoxious. And then there was Martin to think about. Acceptance by their influential husbands was important to Martin, Anna knew that, yet here she was making enemies of their wives. How stupid could she be? If Martin fell out of favor with his new friends as a direct result of something she did, Martin might forgive her, but Anna would never be able to forgive herself. Anna sighed and leaned against the sink. “Juanita, I’m so sorry, I really am. I guess I’m just going a little crazy.”
Juanita shrugged as she applied eye shadow. “Hey, it happens when you’re pregnant.”
“What?” Anna asked in utter shock. “How did you—?”
Juanita burst into laughter. “Hm, let’s see . . . first I noticed that you ordered iced tea instead of wine, and I definitely remember you drinking wine at my dinner party. Then, this whole clingy business about you missing your husband desperately after just one day. You seemed more levelheaded and independent-minded the first time I met you. Those things made me suspicious, but honestly I wasn’t sure until just this second.” Juanita chuckled again. “Girl, you should’ve seen your face. Congratulations!” Juanita pulled Anna into a hug. When they parted, Juanita noticed Anna’s anxious expression. “What’s wrong?”
“I really wanted Martin to be the first to know. You have to promise me not to say anything to anybody until I tell him.”
Juanita’s eyes lit up with understanding. “That explains a lot. He doesn’t know yet?”
Anna shook her head. “I found out the same day he left.”
“You poor thing. The biggest news of your entire life and you can’t tell a soul. No wonder you’re going nuts.”
Anna looked at her pleadingly. Juanita zipped up her lips and threw away the imaginary key. “Your secret’s safe with me. Promise.”
“Thank you.” Anna watched as Juanita expertly put the finishing touches on her makeup. It was at that instant that Anna decided that she really liked Juanita. Anna couldn’t believe that this was the same glamorous woman from the pages of all those magazines. She would have never imagined that the bigger-than-life Juanita Darrell could be so . . . real.
“So, do you think I should go back to the table and apologize before I leave?” Anna asked.
Juanita shooed the idea away. “The next time we get together, it will be forgotten. Trust me, they’d much rather live in their perfect little fantasy worlds than hold a grudge. Besides, everything you said was completely true.”
“What?” Fear flooded Anna’s eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, no. Not that. I don’t mean Donald Jackson. As far as I know, he really did kill himself. I mean all that crap about their husbands being Eagle Scouts.”
Anna’s tension eased instantly. “That did seem a little odd.”
“Like I said, they live in a fantasy world. They worship their lifestyles so much that they pretend not to see what’s staring them right in the face. Me, I refuse to play head games with myself. I ignore it because I choose to ignore it.”
“Ignore what, exactly?” Anna asked with some hesitation.
Juanita remained silent a moment. Then she sighed and said, “When they go off on their little trips, they literally disappear off the face of the earth for days. They’re completely out of contact, not just from us but from the entire world. Why?”
“What do you mean? When I called, you said it was because they’re in an isolated location.”
“Right. I told you that crap because that’s the crap they tell us. But come on, you’re a smart lady.”
Anna was puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean. Maybe I’m not as smart as you think.”
Juanita chuckled. “Ever hear of a satellite phone? You can make a call from anywhere on the planet with one. And I mean anywhere. I asked Damon to get one for when he goes on these trips, just for emergencies, and he completely refused. It’s the twenty-first century, for God’s sake. And those men have enough money to buy a whole satellite, much less a satellite phone. The only reason our husbands are out of touch is because they want to be out of touc
h. Plain and simple. Whatever they’re doing on these so-called camping trips, they don’t want us or anyone else to know about it.”
“But wait. Donald Jackson was pulled out of the river. I read that. That has to mean that they really go camping. At least that part of their story is real, right?”
Juanita shrugged. “I guess. But why do they need to be unreachable if it’s just a camping trip?”
Anna began to feel overwhelmed. She tried to reassure herself that Martin would never betray their marriage, but she quickly realized that, like the other wives, she was idealizing her man to soothe her own fears. Put in the wrong situation, she believed that any man could lose his footing, even Martin, as much as she hated to admit it. Anna looked at Juanita. “Okay, so what do we do?”
Juanita laughed. “We deal with it.” She nodded toward the restroom door. “Those women at our table, they deal with it by pretending that their husbands are saints. Me, I deal with it by calling it what it is, the cost of living a life that most women can only dream about. Our husbands are rich and powerful men, and your husband will be one soon too. These are men who can have anything and do anything they want. Okay, every once in a while they run off to some mysterious place and do Lord knows what, but then they come back home. They come back home to us, the women they love.”
“But aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to know what they’re up to?”
Juanita shook her head. “Nah, let them have their little secret. And you and I, we’ll have ours.”
“What secret is that?”
Juanita smiled like the devil. “That we’re onto them.”
CHAPTER 59
Martin sat alone in his bedroom, watching the clock and waiting. Trying to remain calm.
Earlier that evening, at the dinner table, only one comment was made about the upcoming ritual. When everyone first sat down, Dr. Kasim, in a formal tone, informed Martin that after dinner he was to return directly to his room, where Damon would collect him at eight p.m. to escort him to the initiation ceremony. When Martin asked where this mysterious ceremony would take place, Dr. Kasim and the others simply ignored the question.
Martin resisted asking any further questions. He didn’t want to appear too worried, and he was also quite certain that none of the men would offer him any clue. For all he knew, watching the new guy squirm with worry was an appetizer for the night’s upcoming festivities. That was certainly true for Carver; he was clearly enjoying Martin’s anxiety. More than once Martin looked up from his plate and caught a gleam of amused anticipation in Carver’s eyes. Whatever Dr. Kasim had planned for Martin, it was obvious that Carver was champing at the bit to get to it already.
Martin glanced over at the clock beside his bed: 7:55. Just five more minutes and it would be time to get some answers. The butterflies in his stomach seemed to multiply in number. Martin took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. It was only an initiation. How bad could it be? But even as he thought these words, Martin could not ignore that tiny yet persistent warning voice in the back of his mind: It could be bad. It could be really bad. There’s a damn good chance that it could be that one awful thing that you don’t even want to think about.
Martin gave his head a little shake, as if he could fling loose the dark thought from his synapses. But it held fast, like an old song you can’t get out of your skull. No matter how hard he tried to convince himself that Damon and the others would never expect him to do such a thing, the possibility was too real to deny. The initiation could be murder.
Martin had never been a member of a fraternity or a cult, but he knew that a typical initiation ceremony could range anywhere from something harmless, like swearing a solemn oath or performing a humiliating act, all the way to the unthinkable: cold-blooded murder. And usually it was the groups who were engaged in malicious activities, the secret organizations with the most to hide, that levied the initiation fee of human sacrifice. Like the street gangs that required an act of random murder before you could join their ranks, or a crime syndicate in which membership wasn’t truly achieved until you’d killed for the family. The high price of entry into these groups was due to their illicit nature. They had the most to lose if details ever got out, so they made absolutely certain that anyone allowed in would put loyalty to the group above all else and take their secrets to the grave.
That’s what was troubling Martin. What secret could be more vital to protect than what was going on at Forty Acres?
When you put it into perspective, the truth became obvious. The initiation into Dr. Kasim’s club wasn’t going to be a simple swearing-in. It couldn’t be. There was too much at stake here, and these men were too smart to admit anyone so easily. Then Martin remembered Dr. Kasim’s comments about his ancestry. The only way they could know that for certain was to do a DNA test. And if they knew that, what else did they know about him? His financials? His medical history? And what about Anna? Did they probe every inch of her life as well? Was she, without knowing it, in the same danger he was?
Martin glanced at the clock: 7:59. One minute.
If some sort of murder was required, what would he do? He needed a plan. An excuse to get out of harming someone.
That’s when that little voice in his head changed its tune. You have to do it. The logic was simple, of course. If faced with sacrificing one man to save dozens, he would have to do it. The police would understand, wouldn’t they? Of course there was a possibility that they wouldn’t. The law had a habit of being really stubborn when it came to murder. They might not believe his story. They could say he changed his mind after fleeing, anything. The legal ramifications swirled in Martin’s mind until he realized one truth: it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what the police said. Right now, in this moment, Martin knew it was the right thing to do. It was the only way that he was going to rescue all those people, and the only way he was ever going to get back to Anna. It didn’t matter what they asked him to do. He had to do whatever it took to get back to civilization. Even if it meant murder.
There was a soft knock at his bedroom door. Martin glanced at the clock by the bed. Eight o’clock on the dot.
Martin opened the door and Damon stood on the threshold. His usual sly smile was gone. He laid a firm grip on Martin’s shoulder. “You ready?”
CHAPTER 60
Martin asked no questions as he trailed Damon across the moonlit compound. The storm clouds that loomed earlier in the day had moved on. The twinkling sky above was now as clear as glass. Martin felt as if every star in heaven were watching him at that moment. That the universe had paused. The future of everything seemed to hinge on his ability to pass the test that he was about to face.
They walked down a stone-lined dirt path that cut through a brief stand of pines. The earthy crunch of their footsteps and the pillow talk of night creatures were the only sounds. The muted outdoor lamps that illuminated the path attracted churning swarms of gnats and a few fluttering moths.
They emerged from the narrow path into an open field, and finally Martin could see where Damon was leading him. Fifty yards ahead loomed a large horse barn. Unlike the other structures on the compound that appeared to be meticulously maintained, the barn’s wood-plank facade was pitted and weather-beaten. Whether the barn’s decrepit appearance was intentional to add character to the place or truly the result of neglect was impossible to tell, but to Martin one thing was certain: he did not like it. The brooding and rotted structure looked like a bad place where bad things happened. The closer they got to the old barn, the tighter the knot grew in Martin’s gut.
One barn door was cracked open and a glow of warm light could be seen within. “They’re not going to ask me to ride a horse, are they?” Martin asked, trying to make light. “I mean, I really suck at horses.”
“No horses in there,” Damon replied flatly, without looking at him. Damon just kept marching forward, quiet and distant. His cold single-mindedness ratcheted
up Martin’s fear another notch.
A few steps before they reached the barn, Damon paused and turned to Martin. Squeezed Martin’s shoulder. “Whatever happens in there,” Damon whispered, “do not show weakness. You must be strong. Got it?”
For three weeks Martin had battled the man in court, and never had he seen Damon Darrell appear more serious. Fighting an invisible battle to push back his fear, Martin met Damon’s gaze and nodded. “I got it.”
Damon patted Martin on the arm. “They’re waiting. Let’s go inside.”
CHAPTER 61
The first thing that struck Martin when he entered the horse barn was its emptiness. He expected the interior of the old building to be strewn with rusted farming equipment, the walls shrouded in monstrous cobwebs. Instead the high-ceilinged structure had been stripped to its timber columns and rafters. All that remained were ten vacant horse stalls, five on each side, that ran the length of the space. Vintage oil-lamp-style electric sconces infused the barn with a dim glow that left the empty stalls in shadow.
Dr. Kasim, Oscar, Carver, Kwame, Tobias, and Solomon were gathered near the center of the barn. With the exception of their elderly leader, they were all dressed in simple black suits, with black collared shirts and black ties. Dr. Kasim was draped in a full-length black dashiki trimmed with ornate gold embroidery. Perched upon Dr. Kasim’s head was a matching kufi hat. The kufi hat’s embroidered design was so elaborate and striking that the doctor appeared to be wearing a golden crown.
The men stared at Martin in silence. The warm, brotherly smiles that had lured him so far away from home were gone. In their place were expressions so stern and frosty that Martin barely recognized the men.
There were also two black-garbed security guards flanking the main door. Both men wore hard stares and had handguns ready at their hips. During his stay Martin had encountered several members of Dr. Kasim’s private army, but these two he did not recognize. Martin watched as the two guards pulled the creaking barn doors shut, swung down a wooden latch, then retook their original positions.
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