“Saved him?” My voice rose in tandem with my eyebrows.
“Yeah, sure. A bunch of gang guys came tearing up to Father out in Eau Claire there. Bunch a meth heads, probably, wanting the donation money. And there was Eli— jumped right in before our fellas knew what was going on and chased them off.”
Moses scowled during Jala’s recital of Eli’s heroics. I looked at Eli for confirmation.
“Just a bunch of EZ-rider wannabes,” he drawled.
More code, but one I understood. The Valentine brothers must have had a blast pulling this one off. Chewing my lip, I turned away and noticed the dining hall filling up.
“Uff da—here they come.” Jala said with a squeal.
Chapter Eleven
I was able to sit next to Beth during breakfast, although there were too many people around for us to really talk. We caught a few moments after the breakfast rush. She walked with me back to the lodge.
“How’s Jimmy?” were the first words out of her mouth.
“Worried sick,” I said. “Why haven’t you called?”
“They have one phone here, and they guard it like it’s the freakin’ Holy Grail. They took my cell, and I’ve only been off Megiddo one time to work at their restaurant. It’s driving me crazy. I almost got to the phone there, but Justus caught me and I had to pretend I was looking for something else. I’m going to try again at my next shift.”
“Okay, my turn,” I said. “What the hell is Eli doing here, and how did he manage to work his way in like that?”
Beth stopped in the middle of the drive and pointed toward the barn. “Act like I’m describing the place. The first part of the question you already know. He’s here because you are. Second part happened after Eli came to the rescue when some guys on motorcycles attacked Father after one of the Peace meetings. Bet you can guess who that was.”
“Eli’s brothers, of course. Manny and EZ must have had a blast.”
“No doubt. Eli figured Father would feel indebted, and it seems to have worked. Still, even Eli didn’t expect Father to hire him for security. I think Father wanted somebody from the outside. There have been some strange things going on here. Maybe Father is trying to get some checks and balances in his little security force. They’re called ‘the Seven,’ by the way.
“From what Eli’s told me,” Beth continued, “he’s not pretending to be all spiritual or under Father’s spell or anything. Basically, he told Father that he’s taken the job for the money and power. I guess Father respects that. For now, anyway.”
We turned and started walking again.
“Money and power, huh?” I said.
“And women. They tend to go together.”
She laughed at my frown. Then she reached over and quickly squeezed my hand. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For coming, I mean. I’ve been so… I’m glad you’re here.”
“Oh, shut up.” I pulled my hand away. “And don’t forget, you owe me.”
As we neared the lodge entrance, Naomi walked out. We had to let it go. Besides, it was time for me to meet with Maliah. Beth walked me to the office.
The large room held three desks, but only two women—Rachel and another I hadn’t met—were working. They both looked up when I entered, and from the previous evening’s conversation, I identified the other woman as Maliah. Baara was right; Maliah wore makeup.
Rachel smiled, but Maliah gave me a rather blank stare. Thinking maybe there’d been a scheduling mix-up, I introduced myself and told her Moses had instructed me to meet with her.
“I know,” she said. “It’ll be a few minutes.” Then she turned back to her work.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “I’ll just… uh…”
Rachel said, “Why don’t you sit at Abigail’s desk? She won’t be back for a few minutes, and I’m sure whatever Maliah’s doing will be done shortly.”
The two eyed each other with catty hostility. Must be fun working in the cramped office space.
“I’ll be done when I’m done,” Maliah muttered.
Rachel slid her gaze to me and rolled her eyes.
Just then, Baara came bustling in, breaking the tension with her happy exuberance. She carried two steaming mugs, but as she crossed the room to Maliah’s desk, she stumbled. Hot tea slopped over the edges. Yelping, Baara dropped them on the floor, tea spilling everywhere. A lemon wedge lay stranded in the middle of the puddle like a dead fish.
Maliah jumped up. “You stupid cow. Can’t you watch where you’re going?”
Baara’s face crumpled. She buried her hands in her skirt and twisted them. Tears pooled in her eyes.
“Maliah!” Rachel said. “That’s enough. You have no right to—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I was just kidding.”
“Then how come no one else is laughing?” I said.
Dead silence.
After a moment, Baara snuffled and used her sleeve to wipe her face. Rachel handed her a box of tissues. Instead of using one to blow her nose, she knelt and began wiping up the tea. The tissues quickly turned into a sodden mess.
Maliah sighed like Cinderella’s stepmother and swept past us all.
“We’ll meet in the den while this gets cleaned up,” she said.
The large room was decked out in leather armchairs and three slightly worn tables. Although lacking a computer, it still functioned as a retreat for reading and study. Windows framed with heavy maroon drapes allowed a view of the lot to the south and the dining hall to the west. They lacked the high drama of the lake view, but backdrop of birch and fir trees wasn’t exactly ugly.
Neither was Maliah.
Except maybe on the inside. That’s probably why she clung to the makeup, I reasoned. To cover the ugliness that was probably leaking out.
Given everything I had been going through, it should have been a small thing, but lately, I had been consumed with feeling vulnerable. Being forced to walk around with my face bared somehow made everything worse. Because no matter what anybody else said, Maliah wore makeup.
She could’ve washed her face in boiling water and laundry detergent and I would remain convinced she was lying through her Dusky Rose—stained lips.
Ironically, her lecture began by describing the standards expected for Elect women regarding modesty in clothing and deportment. Then she handed me a manual and a cloth-covered writing journal and told me I needed to keep a detailed log of my daily sins.
“Father offers confession once a month in a private session. You’ll need the journal to remember everything. You’ll also be assigned a female mentor,” she said. “You’ll meet weekly with her for scripture study and to discuss your progress, if any. It’ll be one of the higher standing women, such as myself. In fact, maybe I’ll suggest working with you to Father. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
I smiled. “So much fun,” I said while silently grinding my teeth to powder.
She went on to describe the chores and options for work within the church structure. I learned those who entered the church already employed in a decent job—or a job that helped further some aspect of the Elect—were encouraged to continue on there. The out-workers.
Everyone else was funneled into several of the Elect-owned businesses in neighboring communities: the restaurant, the combination-gift-and-craft store called the Farmers Market, and a custom furniture shop. It still didn’t seem like enough income to run an organization this size. Then Maliah asked about my work history.
Her lip curled. “A therapist?”
We had a brief glaring contest.
I won.
“Well, we could always use extra wait staff before the holidays.” She glanced out the window as a car pulled up. Momentarily distracted, we watched as a lanky passenger unfolded his body from the vehicle in sectioned installments.
I brought Maliah’s attention back to the subject. “That’s fine. I waitressed my way through college. Grad school too.”
“Of course, there are assigned chores here as well,” she said. “We’ll hav
e to figure out where you might help out, although with your skill set…” She shrugged as if finding any possible use for me would be hopeless.
“Maybe the kitchen?” I ventured. I liked Jala, and it would put me in the thick of the community, side by side with several gossips.
“No,” Maliah said. She took her time, drawing it out. “I think… maybe the kennels.”
“The kennels?” Okay. This time I reacted.
She smiled slightly with her big, fat, fake lips. “Yes, that should work. You like dogs, don’t you? Everybody likes dogs.”
“Well…”
A knock. A woman, flustered and clutching her hands together as if in prayer, entered.
“Abigail, I’m in a meeting.” Maliah sounded like an irritated CEO.
“I’m sorry, but there are some policemen here to talk to you.” Abigail looked over her shoulder into the dim hallway where two men waited. As she hovered in the doorway, the taller of the two slid past her, stepping into the office.
An ill-fitted, generic-blue suit contributed to an initial expectation of gangly awkwardness. Despite this, his manner and movements were sharply controlled and his eyes, fixed on Maliah, steady and noncommunicative.
“Mrs. Nichols?”
“Yes?” Maliah answered politely, but with a distanced wariness as if answering a trick question.
“Ma’am, we’d like to speak to you in private, if you would?” Without waiting for her response, he turned to Abigail and me. “Perhaps you could wait in the office next door.”
My good-girl, listen-to-the-cop instincts were warring with my rampaging curiosity. I had no choice but to follow directions and leave.
“Maliah, do you want me to stay?” Abigail offered, ignoring Tall Guy’s frown.
“No, thank you. But maybe you could call Father?” For the first time, Maliah’s steely control broke, and a quiver ran through her last words.
They shut the door as we retreated to the church office. Abigail rushed to a phone and punched in three numbers for an inside line. After several seconds of silence, she hung up.
“Nobody’s answering,” she said.
“Are you trying to call Father?”
“Yes. I know he’s home, but he doesn’t always pick up.”
“What do the cops want?” I asked.
“They wouldn’t tell me, but it has to do with Enoch. They asked for his wife.” Abigail shifted back to her immediate concern. “I just wish I knew what to do. Father has to be told.”
“Do you want me to run over to the house and tell him?”
“Of course not. You can’t just barge in there.”
Yeesh. Obviously there were rules about approaching Father. I mulled over what I had learned about the hierarchy.
“What about Moses or Eli?” Apparently those two were approachable because she sent me off to find them.
It wasn’t until I was standing on the porch that I realized I had no clue how to find either man. But I knew someone who might.
I was in luck. Jala was pretty sure I would find Eli in the barn taking inventory, so I hurried across the spindly scrub grass and let myself in through the heavy wood door. I paused, letting my eyes adjust to the dim interior.
That’s what I told myself, anyway. Really, fear had short-circuited my brain, causing my muscles to lock. For several moments, I worked at relaxing. Epic fail. I just had to wait it out. Even panic couldn’t last forever.
Bars of sunlight dense with hanging dust motes slanted in through chinks in the wall planks. The section I stood in held four large empty stalls, two on each side of a wide cement aisle. A battered wheelbarrow, handles shined smooth from decades of use, held a mound of manure and squatted next to a plastic bag filled with wood shavings for bedding. Behind them, an enormous set of sliding double doors led deeper into the structure. Directly in front of me—so close that I might have tripped over them had I continued forward while sun blind—rose a set of thick planked stairs to the second floor. Bales of stacked hay rimmed the opening overhead, obscuring a clear view of the loft.
I stood still, listening.
The thin sound of whistling, like an auditory haunting, rose from the barn’s interior, too faint to pin down the direction. Moving to the set of double doors, I heaved them open a couple of inches. Lost the tune.
Moving back to the stairs and up a couple of steps, I picked out the haunting melody as “Amazing Grace.” Hoping I wasn’t going to run into the ghost of Farmer Brown, I shakily climbed the stairs.
The space surrounding the stairway opening, almost a quarter of the whole area, was traditional hay loft. Bales stacked like bricks, and about as solid, rose twenty feet high. A chute, which I’d missed when down below, provided a convenient hole to drop bales through to the livestock. Dangerous, if you weren’t paying attention to where you walked, but standard in old barns.
The rest of the haymow was turned into storage for the church’s shop. Aisles of furniture ran across the barn’s width, a broad center aisle bisecting the middle. The whistling drifted from the maze, echoing off the timbered, upside down Noah’s-ark barn ceiling.
I finally did what I should have done earlier and called out. “Hello?”
The whistling stopped.
“Yo.” Eli’s deep voice graveled through the dusty air, and he appeared midway down the aisle.
“The police are with Maliah. She asked for Father, but he’s not answering the phone, so Abigail sent me to find you.”
As soon as I had delivered the message, I realized what a seamless transition I had made from investigative outsider to involved group member. Here was the first chance I had gotten to speak with Eli in private, and I was babbling about church business. He set a clipboard on a cherry bureau and moved down the aisle to me.
“Guess I better go see if she needs my help,” he said.
He sure was awfully willing to fly to her aid all of a sudden.
“I’m sure she can take care of herself just fine.” My voice was dry enough to spontaneously combust and set the barn on fire.
Reaching my side, a small smile tugged at his lips. No fool, he. His ability to laser through my defensive smoke screens had always been the scariest thing about him.
He stood motionless in front of me. Silent. Chocolate brown eyes locked on my own, searching, drinking me in. Heat flushed through me and my breath caught short in my chest, lungs competing for space with a wildly thumping heart. New form of panic attack.
Grabbing a fistful of shirtfront, he pulled me into a bruising kiss. Nothing ambivalent about his reaction to our reunion. He released me just as abruptly, and I nearly dropped to the floor.
“She in the lodge?” he asked, moving to the stairs.
Still in a full-lust flush, I stared open-mouthed at his retreating flannel-clad back.
“She wears makeup, you know!”
His laughter bounced off the timbered ceiling as he trotted down the stairs.
As I left the barn, I had a choice of heading back to the dining hall and sharing the news with Jala or returning to the office to see if Abigail had learned anything new. After consideration, it was doubtful Abigail would spill anything.
A flicker of movement from the farmhouse danced at the edge of my vision. The window curtains were drawn back against the morning sun. Had someone been watching me?
Abigail’s shrill reaction at my offer to take a message to Father still irked me. It would have made a perfect opportunity to make contact with the church leader and observe his reaction to police involvement.
Although… It wasn’t like he would know I had been ordered not to.
My footsteps slowed in contrast to my racing thoughts. Moses might be in there, too. And I had been told to fetch him, hadn’t I?
Before I lost my nerve—or started to think sensibly—I turned off the driveway and trotted up the path to the front door. I knocked and waited. Knocked louder. From the window in the door I could see a tiled foyer and hallway leading to the back of the house.
A door at the end of hallway stood partially open, revealing a truncated view of a blue-and-white kitchen beyond. Very cheery.
The tiny seed of bravado that had sprung up inside me withered and died before I could knock a third time. I had either been mistaken about the movement or was being ignored. The waning adrenaline left a tinny taste in my mouth. Time to go.
As impulsively as I had left the driveway, I turned and bounded down the stairs. My hasty retreat might have been to blame for my ramming into Father, knocking us straight off the porch and into the bushes. Unexpectedly straddling an irate church leader with my skirt hitched up around my hips, and twigs digging furrows into my legs deep enough to plant corn in, propelled me into another full-blown panic attack. Which meant I was now panting and sweating while barelegged and astride said church leader.
Beneath me, Father lay gasping as well, eyes rounded like chocolate donuts, staring up at me in utter disbelief. As comprehension dawned, his face flooded a purple-red color, and his panting shifted into teeth-gritting hisses. Not a very spiritual look at all.
From above us, somebody’s hands grabbed under my pits and hauled me nearly to my feet before tossing me aside on the lawn. This time I fell on the grass, which was marginally better than irate church leaders or spiky twigs. Moses pulled Father to his feet, anxiously checking for injuries and brushing dead leaves and dirt from the man. Father had landed on top of the Elect manual; the writing journal lay tossed underneath a bush.
“I’m fine,” Father said. He pushed Moses’s hands away, stiff-arming his second-in-command back a step. They both turned to glare down at me.
I sprawled at their feet like a deranged beggar woman. In the melee, my hair had escaped its bun, swirling around my head like I had stuck my finger in a socket. Moses’s gaze shifted, and his beady eyes crawled up my legs to where my skirt twisted and rode high on my thighs.
“Woman, who are you?” Father’s outrage roared across the yard. I did the only thing I could think to do.
The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (A Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mystery Book 4) Page 9
