The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (A Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mystery Book 4)

by Donna White Glaser

  As the Elect leader continued, I noted another charismatic talent he wielded with ease: the skillful manipulation of the rise and fall of emotions. Naturally, a person who is drawn to spend an evening in a dismal back room listening to a lecture on the world’s ills already has the potential to be a tad negative. Depressed, even. If he wasn’t before he got here, after a few hours of unrelieved doom and gloom, he was going to be. In fact, the auburn-haired woman spent most of the talk sobbing into a tissue and blowing her nose. So it didn’t impress me that Dr. Abe could bring the group down. That was a given. But his ability to bring them back up was unexpected. And, I had to admit, impressive.

  After thoroughly condemning modern science’s failure to either prevent or relieve the world of evil, Dr. Abe offered the apple. The key that was lacking, he quietly asserted, was the spiritual side of healing.

  With a jolt, I realized that his argument, while taking an unbelievably long time to develop, was essentially the same as Tracy had given me for her decision to practice Christian counseling.

  For the last hour, I sat and squirmed under the duel pangs of a full bladder and the realization that truth holds a lot of manipulative potential. During the entire two-hour-long monologue, no break had been offered and no one had displayed the initiative to step out of the room. Yet another example of the man’s ability to mold outsiders in a remarkably short time. Group pressure vs. bladder pressure. If I hadn’t needed to pee so badly, I would have been amazed at the level of discomfort the audience members were willing to suffer in order to avoid swimming against the current. Then I wished I hadn’t thought of currents.

  As soon as he finished, Dr. Abe shot out the door in the back. Maybe he needed to pee too. Nobody noticed because we were pelting en masse to the bathrooms in the other direction.

  Thankfully, since coffee is a diuretic, the shop had wisely installed a three-booth potty. The sound of three women simultaneously power tinkling rivaled Niagra Falls.

  Instead of leaving, I returned to the conference room where the Elect members were busy cleaning up. The crying woman and her pals were still huddled near the front, talking. The woman who had sat next to me was gathering up leftover pamphlets. She looked up, taking note of my entrance. Pretending not to see her, I made for the trio. As I neared, an almost palpable wall of exclusion rose from her escorts. I veered off to take a seat three chairs away. Almost immediately, I was joined by my own assigned guardian.

  I smiled as if to imply that I had crossed an entire room in the opposite direction from her just so we could have this little chat. She smiled back as if pretending to believe me, and we introduced ourselves.

  “What did you think about tonight’s message?” Rachel asked.

  Although she hadn’t the dark magic of Dr. Abe, her voice was also soft and evenly modulated. She held herself very still. Proper, but not stiff. Free from makeup, her face radiated an old-fashioned quality—understated and dignified. Her dark hair was caught up in a fat bun and some tendrils curled around her face, softening the effect. Brown, intelligent eyes focused intently on me.

  “It was fascinating,” I answered. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, but my life has been so crazy lately, when I saw the notice at the school I decided to come. When Dr. Abe talked it just seemed like he had such an understanding of the world.”

  “He’s a wonderful man.”

  “I wish I could have spoken to him. I would have liked to have asked his advice.” I let my voice trail into a slight whine.

  “Are you troubled, Letty?”

  No need of acting skills here.

  “Yes. I am. Things are… scary.” Just saying the words closed my throat and made my heart accelerate wildly. I flushed warm and sweat pooled in my arm pits. Knowing Rachel was watching my distress made it even worse.

  Although aware, she continued talking, her words indistinguishable over the thumping in my chest. But then the clear sound of her voice, calm and gentle, began to cut through, bringing relief. I focused hard, trying desperately to anchor myself to the isolated words and phrases.

  “…the world is scary... we’re not... Dr. Abe... alone... troubled times...”

  Slowly, the wave subsided. The onslaught loosened its hold, and phrases became sentences again.

  “... can see you are a very sensitive soul. The world is wearing you down, Letty. We can understand that, but you have so much to offer. We’d love to get to know you better.”

  “That would be nice,” I managed. My tongue felt gummy and thick, but the room had come back into focus. Regardless of what she was involved with, she had come out from behind her mask to the aid of a stranger. I was grateful.

  “Would you like to come for supper? It’s my turn to cook tomorrow night, and we’d love to have you.”

  While she went to get some paper to write directions, I sat back, limp, and waited for her to return. Exhausted, it was sheer luck and an eerie sense of déjà vu that caused me to tune in to the conversation on my left.

  The female part of the tag team was speaking to the crying woman. “Cheryl, you’re such a sensitive soul in this terrible world. We understand. It’s difficult to be alone in these troubled times.”

  “I know,” the man said. “Why don’t you come over for supper?” The woman chorused her approval of this plan and reached over to hold Cheryl’s hand. I held my breath and waited for it.

  “We’d love to get to know you better,” the woman told Cheryl. “I can just tell that you would have so much to offer in the right setting.”

  Chapter Five

  I hadn’t talked to Eli since the day before I had found out Beth had taken off. In fact, it had been a week since we’d even seen each other and that had ended in a fight. I hated to think he may have been right when he’d recognized my potential to leapfrog over mere research to a deeper involvement. When he heard about the Peace meeting and my invitation to Corinth House, he was going to be even more disturbed.

  Tonight didn’t bode well.

  Siggy, my green-eyed feline companion (or Master of All He Surveyed, as he preferred), materialized as soon as my guy walked in. Siggy and Eli, both alpha males, had a complicated relationship. I made supper and set out in classic female-manipulation mode to mellow him out with a home-cooked meal. Candles, music, salad, steak, baked potatoes—the works.

  I think it was the candles that made him suspicious. And maybe a little romantic. When I stood to start clearing dishes, he reached out, snagging me by the front of my jeans, pulling me onto his lap so that I ended up straddling him.

  Siggy stalked out of the room. He didn’t like caresses that didn’t focus on him.

  Eli held me with warm hands on either side of my hips. His fingers left heat trails as they rode past my jeans. My heartbeat accelerated with a very non-panic-related emotion while his breathing thickened, slowed. Puffs of heated breath on my neck were replaced with his lips, and a moan escaped my lips. My breath caught. If I didn’t stop this, neither one of us would be able to stop, and it seemed wrong to start this part of our relationship with a secret. Or two.

  Sensing my reservations, Eli pulled back about two inches, his dilated eyes coal black and burning.

  Oh, boy.

  “Was the steak okay?” My inspired diversion.

  Eli sighed and raised his eyebrows at me. Perceptive males are a burden.

  “Beth is in trouble,” I said.

  The bald statement wiped the amused look off his face. He moved his hands to my thighs. I used the opportunity to move back to my chair. I can’t ride a man and carry on a decent conversation.

  “What trouble?”

  “She went into the cult. Alone.”

  Eli ran his hands over his face. “What the hell was she thinking?”

  I shook my head in bewilderment. I still didn’t understand my friend’s actions.

  Eli sat quietly for a moment, thoughts formulating. Then, eyebrows furrowed, he asked, “When did you find this out?”

  “Tuesday. I hadn’
t heard from her so I called her house. Jimmy answered and told me.” I told him what I knew.

  “So you weren’t in on it?”

  “Not at all.” All truth. Every bit of it. So far.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  And there it was. That was the big question, and it wasn’t going to be easy to explain. I cleared my throat.

  “Because I knew you would have a fit.”

  Okay. Even brain-dead, with fear churning my guts daily and unrequited lust twisting assorted body parts into quivering knots, I should have come up with a better descriptor than “fit.” I made my living being sensitive, for crying out loud. My word choice caused him to frown and bristle simultaneously.

  “Why am I going to have a fit?” Eli’s deep, raspy voice always sounded like he was growling, but this growl was more… meaningful. And not in a good way.

  “Because I went to one of their meetings.” I took a deep breath. “Because I’m going in to find Beth.” There. I sat back to watch the storm break.

  Eli ripped his eyes from mine and, jaws clenching, did the thousand-mile stare over my shoulder. At the bare wall. Minutes ticked by.

  “So you’ve made your decision,” he finally managed.

  I nodded and he nodded back, although not in agreement.

  “What’s your plan?” The question itself sounded reasonable, but he was as tense as a loaded bear trap and twice as dangerous.

  “A woman from the group invited me over to the house for supper,” I answered. “Right now, my plan is to let them think they’re pulling me in. Once I’m established, I’ll find out where the main community is and if Beth and Maggie are there.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “We already know Beth got caught up in some kind of undertow. How do you know you won’t as well? What’s your safety plan? How are you going to keep the same thing from happening to you?”

  This was a poser. I didn’t have a plan, and after several seconds of synchronized breathing, we both knew it.

  “Eli…”

  “You can’t just go in there blind,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. You’re talking now about two people who have dropped completely out of sight. Two.” He flashed a couple of fingers that definitely didn’t symbolize peace.

  “Yes, but technically they both could have gone voluntarily. In fact, it’s more likely th—”

  “But you don’t think so or you wouldn’t be going in after them,” he countered.

  “I have to make sure. I’ve already let Beth down.”

  “You’re operating out of guilt, babe. Beth went off half-cocked and now you’re about to do the same.”

  “Eli, quit! I can’t do this with you. You’re making it worse.”

  I regretted the words as soon as they cleared my lips. His face paled, and he sat back as if I had slapped him.

  “Eli,” I said, reaching for his hand. He pulled away and stood so abruptly the chair nearly tipped over.

  “I can’t do this either, Letty. I won’t sit back and watch you put yourself in danger all over again. I won’t.” Bending stiffly, he dropped a kiss on my forehead and shot out the door.

  The swiftness of his decision and abrupt departure floored me. Confusion, anger, and the ever-present spiking panic rapidly cycled through my body, flashing in hot waves like emotional menopause. My body rattled in the chair as it fought with the onslaught of emotions. I was on the edge of something very bad.

  My two best friends had abandoned me.

  Just one drink. Just this once. One won’t hurt.

  So tempting.

  I won’t lie. It was a bad night. I didn’t drink, but I killed off two pints of chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream and gave myself a migraine.

  As dawn approached, I struggled to convince myself that a migraine was a victory over a hangover. I failed. Same pounding, stabbing pain and scrambling thoughts which resulted in a stranglehold on the toilet, barfing. I called in sick, took some medicine, and went back to bed.

  What progress?

  By afternoon, the pain in my head had abated, though the one in my heart had not. I discovered a wellspring of resentment for both Beth and Eli had begun to rise. Beth’s decisions were forcing me into behaving in ways I desperately wanted to avoid; Eli was demanding. I needed to make an impossible choice.

  I needed to talk to someone. Problem was—who? My mother would be drunk and weepy or drunk and nasty. She didn’t come in a lot of flavors. After being instrumental in sending my sister Kris to jail for conspiring to kill me, she and I didn’t have a lot to talk about. Or maybe we had too much. A.A. friends would club me over the head with logic and/or their Big Book. I just didn’t want to hear it. My therapist, whom I hadn’t seen for weeks anyway, would lock me up.

  It took longer than it should have to come up with the idea to call Tracy. She agreed to meet me at her office between clients, so I hauled my ragged body off the couch and stuck it under the shower.

  When I emerged, I felt a smidgen better. Feeling better translated to feeling hungry, so I swung into Wendy’s to order something politically incorrect. I was reminded again of old times and the search for greasy foods to squash a hangover. Been there, hated it, burned the T-shirt, stomped it to ashes.

  I was late and had dripped ketchup on my jeans. Tracy’s office was in the basement of a century-old Methodist temple. I parked in the lot behind it and crunched my way across the season’s first offering of fallen leaves.

  The door was unlocked. I let myself in to a small entryway with a kitchen branching off to the left and the Fellowship Hall before me. The church was quiet. Then a toilet flushed and Tracy appeared in the door, drying her hands with a stiff, brown paper towel.

  “Hey!” Her smile was wide and friendly.

  “Caught you on a potty break.” I grinned back.

  “Well, you know… with all the coffee I drink…”

  “I know.” I said. “Sometimes I’m scared I won’t make it to the end of the session. And a counselor who wets herself doesn’t inspire much confidence.”

  She led the way down a dimly lit hall to the back of the building. Racks with metal folding chairs lined the wall, taking up half the space, indicating the church had outgrown its storage. The office we arrived in was an oasis of cozy warmth. Bookshelves crammed full with dusty relics and stacks of journals dominated the room with a scarred wooden desk that butted up against the side wall. Farther back, two stuffed armchairs squatted cheerfully in front of a bank of wide windows which overlooked the churchyard.

  As Tracy motioned me to a seat, I noticed she kept a clear path between her and the door. A good habit, especially in a setting as isolated as this. Or maybe I looked as unstable as I felt.

  She only had an hour, so I didn’t waste time. She listened intently, only occasionally asking for clarification. Somewhere in the middle of my monologue, my purpose for coming here shifted. Instead of agonizing between the two opposing forces my friends created, a decision had been made.

  “What can I help you with, Letty?”

  “I need advice on how to infiltrate the Elect, avoid detection, and get back out,” I said.

  Her reaction was a subtle lifting of her eyebrows and a therapeutic tell-me-more hum.

  “Don’t start therapy with me now; I’ve only got twenty-five minutes left.”

  “If this was therapy, I’d be arranging a psych admit.” She grinned. “What do you want to look at first?”

  “I don’t think getting in will be a problem. They’ve already made overtures, and it’s following the same course I’ve seen before with others. I guess I’m wondering about how to prepare myself. Not just educationally, but emotionally as well.”

  “By ‘educationally,’ you mean…?”

  “Research. What do I need to know? How much? Should I spend more time learning about cult formation or Bible scriptures?”

  “And in order to be emotionally prepared?”

  It took longer to answer this one. I had been so action-orient
ed that I had managed to ignore this issue. If I was really going to do this, I had to face the demons I had been running from for months. Like most powerful psychological insights, this one evolved at the end of the hour when there was little time to explore it.

  Since I didn’t have the luxury of time, I forced myself past my usual dread of identifying my weaknesses.

  “I have PTSD,” I said, looking out the window. “Panic attacks, ongoing anxiety. I’m not housebound, but I’ve started avoiding crowds or places I’m not really familiar with. I don’t like driving too far from home either.”

  I stopped. Admitting my weakness was like releasing the evil genie. My heart began to thump blood in staccato bursts, all the moisture in my mouth relocated to my pits, I felt myself begin to separate…

  Tracy leaned over to me and grasped my hands. She began to speak softly, using a steady cadence, soothing. I wrenched my focus away from the consuming fear and reached out with my mind to meet her voice. As I centered on the thread line of her voice, it came to me that she was calling on Jesus to release my body from the captivity of fear. Although she followed a typical pattern of relaxation techniques—controlled breathing, the sequential release of muscle tension, and so on. She also interwove a heartfelt prayer for peace and security in Jesus Christ. A feeling of serenity descended. I came out of it more quickly than ever before.

  The residual effects of the experience buoyed me through the night. The drive home was ridiculously easy. Nearly drunk with relief, I floated through the evening. In the vacuum created by their absence, the power my symptoms wielded over my life was never more apparent. And never more resented. I looked forward to the next morning and the second meeting I had scheduled with Tracy.

  I felt so good, I called Eli as soon as I got home. Despite our fight, he would want to share this with me. He didn’t pick up, and I was stuck with leaving a message.

  Crawling into bed, I tried to remember the last time I had prayed. Really prayed, that is. Not just the infrequent thought of gratitude I tossed UP whenever something good happened. Not even the foxhole prayers screamed from the front seat of a car sinking into the black murkiness of a quarry pond.