Cozbi yanked her arm away and turned on Rachel. “Are you crazy? How dare you—”
“Cozbi,” Rachel pleaded. “Don’t do this. You of all people know what goes on in this place. Can you really tell me you believe Priella is on some mission trip?”
In a tight, cold voice, Cozbi said, “I believe what Father tells me to believe and nothing else.” She turned her back, and Rachel and the rest of us and walked away.
“Oh, dear,” Jala said.
“Cozbi,” Rachel called to the woman’s retreating back. “Cozbi, listen to me!”
Baara let out a shriek, scaring me half to death. She had her hands fisted over her ears. “Stop it! Just… shut up.”
“Baara, it’s okay,” Rachel started.
“Don’t talk to me, you… you serpent! I don’t want to listen to your poison.” Baara took off in a run, heading for the barn.
Rachel made as if to go after her.
“Rachel, wait,” I said. “She’s too upset. Let me go.”
She looked as if she might argue, but, face fallen, she agreed to let me go. Jala caught up to us and patted Rachel’s shoulder.
“Come on, honey. Let’s get you a cup of nice, hot tea. I’ve got some honey set aside for just such emergencies.”
I did not want to go into the barn. I hated barns. Especially dark, creepy ones. Still, I went in.
I found Baara standing with her head buried in the dusty neck of a jumbo-sized, brownish horse. The beast stood patiently with its head hung over the cutout window, but despite that, it didn’t look all that interested in providing comfort. Mostly it was grinding hay between big yellow teeth, turning aside every now and then to tug another mouthful from the sheaf that had been tossed into the stall.
A pang of longing for my Siggy almost blindsided me. I missed the little guy. And cats, now they know how to comfort. Even if Siggy acted like he was totally ignoring me, I knew, deep in my heart… Oh, who was I kidding? We take comfort wherever we can get it.
I walked over to Baara, careful to avoid the chomping teeth. I had grown up on a farm, but we had beef cattle. Horses always seemed like exotic animals to me, and despite reading every Misty and Black Stallion book that hit the market, they secretly scared me.
The horse blew out a huff of air, making me jump back. It looked at me like I was crazy and pulled its head back into the dark recesses of the stall. Baara laughed.
“You don’t have to scream,” she said.
“I didn’t scream. I just… It got snot on me.”
“She just had a nose tickle, didn’t you, Nanna? Nothin’ to be scared of.”
Right.
“I just wanted to see if you were okay,” I said. “You got so upset at Rachel.”
The smile evaporated from Baara’s face. She turned to lean on the sill of the window. Nanna shuffled around inside, and I approached warily. Horses have been known to jump over obstacles at least as high as the window. Nanna seemed more interested in her hay, but you never knew. She could be a fooler.
“Baara, I know you don’t agree with some of the things that are worrying Rachel, but she’s still your friend.”
She stiffened. “The Bible says, ‘Everyone must submit to the Authority which God has established. He who rebels against the Authority is rebelling against God, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.’ Father taught me that. And Father is the Authority, so—”
“I thought that was God,” I said.
She looked confused. “Well, it is, but Father is our leader, so first it’s him and then it’s God.”
“You said it’s in the Bible. Do you know where?”
Baara shook her head. “I don’t know, but it’s in there. Rachel needs to get with the program. If she keeps disobeying Father, I’m not going to be her friend anymore.”
“How is Rachel disobeying Father?” I asked. “By asking questions?”
“It’s not right to argue with Father, and asking questions is arguing with him.”
The stubborn set of her face told me I wouldn’t be able to talk her out of it. Maybe it was time to change the subject. “Baara, where’s Casper? Isn’t he feeling well?”
“He had to go talk to the police. Father’s going to go get him when he’s done.”
“Father is?” I said.
Her eyes narrowed when she picked up the disbelief in my voice. She wasn’t smart, but she had a sensitive streak when it came to protecting Father.
“I mean, it would make more sense for him to send someone,” I said. “Like Moses, maybe. He shouldn’t have to run errands like that himself.”
Her face cleared, and she nodded.
“Are you worried about him?” I asked.
“About Father?”
“No, Casper. Your husband.”
“Oh,” she said. “Him. Father says he’ll be fine.”
“What did the police want with him?”
Her eyes shuttered again. “Father told me not to worry about it.”
The horse shoved its head back out the window, cleaving the space between us. I might have made some noise that sounded like nyaaagh.
Baara laughed so hard she almost wet herself, and she ended up running out of the barn in search of a toilet. I followed at a slower pace.
What did the police want with Casper?
There was so much going on I was afraid I couldn’t keep it straight. I had no idea why Maggie hadn’t been at the supposedly mandatory temple meeting. The police had Casper, and while I guessed it had to be about Enoch, I couldn’t quite picture mild, numbers-oriented Casper taking a cleaver to a man’s hand and then toting it back across the country as some kind of macabre trophy. Or was it meant as proof of his deed? Thinking about Casper reminded me I still needed to examine the papers Rachel had stashed in her journal, and I wanted that deeds file, too.
My room had grown cold, and I was feeling the particular sort of loneliness that breeds middle of the night ruminations. Especially when the ruminations included psychopaths and killers and amputated limbs.
I decided to get Beth. Aside from two tiny children’s night-lights, all the hallway lights in the lodge were turned off after nine. An unspoken rule that we weren’t supposed wander around at night kept most of us tucked away in our bedrooms. Domino roaming the grounds kept us inside the lodge altogether. Of course, the bathrooms were located at each end of the hall, and nature necessitated the occasional midnight trip. It was on those trips that I would notice Gabriel, and sometimes Moses, patrolling the grounds and common areas with a flashlight. Times like those made me yearn for a lock on my door.
But at least the lack of locks meant I didn’t have to worry about being barred from Beth’s room. By now, it was well after midnight, and I assumed Jazzy, who was assigned early breakfast duty with Jala, would be asleep. I tapped lightly on their door. No answer. I tried again. Still nothing.
Afraid if I knocked any louder I would wake the others along the hall, I eased the door open. Although some ambient light filtered in, their room was dark. And smelly. Jazzy’s tummy must have been acting up again. I tiptoed to Beth’s bed and almost wet my pants when I spied a bleached, utterly blank face staring up at me. My strangled gasp awakened the mummy and she bolted up. Beth’s eyes now appeared over the top of the white towel that swaddled her face. I snatched it off and slapped my hand across her mouth before she could let out a shriek.
“Mmff.”
“Sh!” I whispered. “It’s just me. Don’t wake up Jazzy.”
Her eyes squinted in anger and I briefly debated gagging her with the towel, but she finally nodded and I took my hand away.
“What—”
“Sh,” I said again. “Follow me.”
When we reached my room, she smacked me in the shoulder. Hard. “Don’t you ever do that again. You scared me half to death.”
“You? How do you think I felt when I found out I was trying to wake up the Mummy from the Black Lagoon?”
“Mummy from the…? Look, I was j
ust trying to keep from being poisoned in my sleep. I need some kind of filter. They served pork and beans for supper. I can’t believe the EPA hasn’t shut her down. That woman’s ass is more toxic than Chernobyl.”
I rubbed my arm. “In that case, I saved your life. You should be more grateful.”
“Oh, I am, believe me. But I’m guessing that’s not why you dragged me out of my toasty, albeit, stinky bed. What’s up?”
I told her about the notes Rachel had taken and the deeds file and how, as far as I knew, they were both still hidden away in the stack of files.
“But you have no idea what she was looking for?” Beth asked.
“Not really, but if she was hiding it, it might be important. It’s obvious something has been bothering her, even to the point of her not trusting Father. Unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to sneak them out, and I go into isolation tomorrow. That means you’re going to have to get in there and slip the papers out of the office without getting noticed. If you volunteer to file, they’ll all be thrilled. Nobody wants that job. But you’ll have to—”
“Letty,” Beth interrupted. “I’m not going to be able to sneak them out from under Maliah’s nose any easier than you did. We have to try something else.”
“Like what?”
“I guess we’ll have to figure out a time when no one’s around,” Beth said with a grin. “Like when the office is closed. And when it’s dark. Like at night.”
Groaning, I pressed the heel of my hand into my suddenly throbbing forehead. “Please tell me you’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”
She leaned over and patted my leg. “No guts, no glory. In for a penny, in for a pound. If at first you don’t suc—“
“Oh, shut up,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
We played around with the idea of breaking into the office from inside the lodge, but my education had involved unlocking traumatic secrets from the past, while Beth’s lone fling at education had been a fashion-design course twenty years ago. And she’d flunked it. Neither of us had any useful skills like lock picking or breaking and entering. We waited inside until after we saw Gabriel do a walk-through of the lot, heading up to the dining hall and temple. Once he disappeared into the dark void, we scurried out to huddle in the shrubbery next to the office window. November had turned the corner, moving away from autumn and trudging with grim determination into winter. The night chill sliced through the fabric of my sweater, cutting an icy trail along my spine.
Beth, demonstrating previously unforeseen criminal tendencies, giggled and held up a rock and the towel she brought along to deaden the sound of breaking glass. On second thought, her tendencies were pretty foreseeable.
“What are you mumbling?” she asked.
“I’m not mumbling. I’m praying there isn’t an alarm.” I felt like I was going to throw up. Just as she reared back to take a swing with the rock, I grabbed her arm.
“Now what?” she whispered.
I pointed to a crack an eighth of an inch thick running along the bottom of the window. Despite the evening chill, it had been a gloriously warm fall day. I shoved at the frame and the window eased up. Beth scowled and set her tools aside.
Once it was raised, I tried to figure out how to get inside. It wasn’t as easy as it looked in the movies. Or maybe I’m not as limber as I used to be, a little voice whispered. I hauled myself head first over the sill, scraping my thighs raw and almost kicking out the window as gravity deposited me in a contorted mess onto the floor. I lay there, moaning.
Beth stuck her head through the window, gazing down at my inert form. “Well, that was entertaining. Now get up and find those notes.”
The moon poured so much light into the office that I worried about being seen through the windows. The sooner I was out of there, the better. As long as I was already on the floor, I crawled over to the box filled with the to-be-filed files I had shoved against the wall. Since I had stuffed it in next to Rachel’s confession journal, I found the deeds file fairly quickly. Despite my thumping heart, I took a minute to use the mini flashlight from Beth’s key ring to scan through Rachel’s notes.
The loose sheet of paper had been folded into quarters and stuffed into the middle of the journal. She had written a list of six familiar names—the Seven, minus Enoch and, of course, Eli. Rachel had titled it, SEARCHERS, and listed four cities: Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Las Vegas. I remembered Talitha—or maybe it was Rachel—telling me that after Enoch had taken off, Father had sent people out looking for him. Had it been to these four cities?
Next to Houston, Rachel had penciled in, “Gabriel.” I wondered what proof she had, but maybe he had mentioned it to her. Next to Vegas, she had written, “Moses,” but it had a series of question marks after it.
Given Moses’s high creep quotient, I had no trouble picturing him as a murderer. I could even see him bringing back a grisly souvenir appendage to show to Father, but Rachel had also penciled in a couple of notes. The first said “extra Delta ticket?-who else?” And she’d jotted, “Ad-hosp” next to it.
An extra Delta ticket? So what did that mean?
Beth hissed from the window and I almost wet myself. Knees popping, I crawled over to her and explained what I’d read.
“A list of cities the searchers went to? That’s what I call a clue, Watson. Haul your ass out of there and let’s—”
“I thought so too, but look what she wrote there,” I pointed to the Delta notation. “Someone else must have gone looking for Enoch too, but for some reason, he or she took a Delta flight. And I don’t know what the heck the other note means. A hospital ad?”
Beth thought for a few minutes. We were whispering through the open window, barely making any sound over the slight breeze rustling the few remaining brown leaves. But with the nearly full moon, Beth would be sighted pretty quickly by anyone walking up the driveway. Every few seconds she scanned the parking lot.
This was stupid.
“Move. I’m coming out.” I decided to go feet first this time, but Beth needed to get out of the way or I’d land on her.
“Wait. There’s got to be other paperwork,” Beth said. “It’s a church, but it’s a business too. I have no idea if these flights could be used as a tax deduction, but I bet Father would try to figure out some way to use them as one.”
“Do churches need deductions?” I asked. “They’re nonprofits.”
“It’s America. Everybody needs deductions. Try to look for a file with travel receipts. Even if they use accounting software, they would keep hard-copy receipts.”
“Damn it.” I scurried back to the files, but I was certain I hadn’t seen a travel or receipt file when I had been sorting them. On the other hand, if it was information that was referred to frequently, maybe they kept it in easy reach. I checked Rachel’s desk first, just in case she had done deeper research. The little flashlight flicked, then dimmed. Afraid the batteries were about to die, I crawled over to Abigail’s. I could feel bruises blooming on each kneecap. How did babies—or hookers—do this all day?
The bottom desk drawer was locked, but her keys were in the pencil tray of the middle drawer. Duh. But helpful for nefarious, criminal types like me.
And there it was. TRAVEL RECEIPTS.
I snatched the whole thing out and duck walked back to the window. Way worse than crawling. By the time I reached Beth, the flashlight had completely died and my thighs were threatening to burst into flames. I took a moment and lay there whimpering, trying to massage the cramps out of them. Where was Justus when I needed him?
Beth leaned over the sill, snapping her fingers under my nose. “Come on, come on, come on. We don’t have time for you to take a nap.” I tried to bite her fingers, but she was too quick and I was in too much pain.
And she was also right. I hauled myself to my feet and flung my body out of the opening.
When we finally made it back to my room, I threw myself face down on the bed. After a few minute
s, I rolled over.
“This is crazy,” I said.
Beth, sitting on Priella’s bed where we dropped the paperwork, nodded. “Let’s take a breather before digging into all this.”
“Can you feel how everything is falling apart?” I said. “You can almost hear the community unraveling. You should have seen Father tonight. By the way, where were you?” I rolled to my side.
She sighed and shoved the papers aside. “I just couldn’t take sitting in the temple all quiet and submissive while Father ranted. Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m ready to jump out of my skin. I snuck into the office and called Jimmy.” She rubbed her eyes and sighed again. “Was Maggie there?”
“Nope. And that’s another weird thing. The meeting was supposedly mandatory for the entire community, but I didn’t see her or any of the people we’ve seen her hanging out with. How come we never see any of them? Where are they staying?”
Beth held up the deeds folder. “Maybe this will help. I’ll look at it in more detail while you’re stuck in the isolation cabin.”
It occurred to me that Beth wasn’t aware of the incident between Maliah and Rachel after the temple meeting, so I filled her in.
“Everyone’s tense,” Beth said. “If the police came and took Casper in for questioning, that would explain why Father’s so pissed.”
I sat up. “What do you think they want him for?”
“Gotta be related to the finances. I bet Father’s freaking out about all his secrets coming out.”
“He’s certainly on a keep-your-mouths-shut-or-else kick. I think Father was referring to Rachel when he was talking about a serpent in our midst. She’s been meeting with the detective.”
“How would Father know that?”
“Cozbi saw her having lunch with him. I tried to spin it that they were innocently flirting, but I don’t think she bought it.”
“Cozbi doesn’t seem to have told Father yet, or he would have had her shunned or kicked out of the community completely,” Beth pointed out. “Like Priella.”
The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (A Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mystery Book 4) Page 19
