Cold Betrayal

by J. A. Jance

  Enid waited until no one else was within earshot. “My name is Enid,” she said quietly. “Did you ever know my mother?” She asked the question with little hope of an answer. Much to her surprise, the woman nodded.

  “Her name was Anne—Anne Lowell. She was a year younger than me. She was married to Bishop Lowell, although he wasn’t the bishop back then. He was still Brother Lowell at the time.”

  Enid was astonished. If her mother had been married to Bishop Lowell, did that make Enid one of his daughters? If so, why had he never acknowledged her in any way? She realized now that the bishop had never in her memory spoken so much as a single word to her. All through her childhood, in fact long before Enid married Gordon, she had been known as Enid Tower. In other words, The Family had first driven her mother away and then they had stripped Enid of her sole connection to Anne Lowell—her name.

  “Aunt Edith told me once that my mother died. Is that true?”

  The Brought Back girl shook her head. “Your mother and I were friends,” she said. “Anne had two miscarriages after you were born. When she got pregnant again, she ran away. Anne was one of the lucky ones. Unlike Agnes and me, she didn’t get caught.”

  “Agnes?” Enid asked. “That’s your friend’s name?”

  The other woman nodded, then she looked worriedly in the direction of the house, clearly concerned that someone might see them talking together. Enid knew what would happen to her if she was caught—she’d be punished, most likely with Aunt Edith’s willow switch. She realized then that the Brought Back girls would be punished, too, probably with something worse than a switch.

  “What’s your name?” Enid asked.

  “They used to call me Patricia,” the grimy woman said wistfully. “That was a long time ago.”

  “You’re still Patricia to me,” Enid declared. “Thank you for telling me about my mother, and I’m glad to know your names.”

  She had left the pigpen then, but that conversation marked the beginning of Enid’s rebellion. She was struck by the injustice of the way The Family’s boys were treated and the way the girls were treated. She was especially bothered by the unrelenting internal exile of the Brought Back girls. Once boys grew up, most of them chose to leave. Few came back, but the ones who did were always welcomed with open arms and a sermon at church about the return of the Prodigal Son. Some of the returnees were even allowed to marry the girls who had been betrothed to them years earlier. None of the boys who came back were sent off to live in Quonset huts and look after pigs.

  If boys could leave The Encampment and then come back whenever they wanted, Enid wondered, why couldn’t girls?

  Now that Enid knew her mother’s name, she thought about Anne Lowell all the time, wondering what had happened to her and to her baby. It was common knowledge in The Family that Bishop Lowell was beyond strict with members of his own family and with the boys in the dormitories, too. Helena, his First Wife, was known to be an absolute terror—a woman who made Aunt Edith look like sweetness and light.

  Lying in bed next to her snoring husband that night, Enid thought about her mother—and about what her life must have been like, living under the thumb of Bishop Lowell and Helena. Enid could understand that things might have happened that would have provoked her mother into running away, but how could she do such a thing and leave Enid behind? For weeks, Enid tossed and turned, turning that painful question over and over in her head. Then came the day when Dr. Johnson did Enid’s first ultrasound.

  Since most of the girls in The Family married on their fifteenth birthday, they usually had their first baby before they turned sixteen. For whatever reason, that hadn’t happened to Enid. The marriage part, yes, but she didn’t become pregnant for almost a year after that. It was so long, in fact, that Aunt Edith had called Enid aside one day and asked her if she was doing something wicked to keep from having a baby. Enid wasn’t, of course. She had no idea what any of those wicked things might be. For whatever reason, she had been a month past her sixteenth birthday when she made that first prenatal doctor’s visit.

  As soon as Dr. Johnson told her she was expecting a girl, it was as though someone had flipped a switch somewhere deep in Enid’s soul. Suddenly she understood not only what her mother had done but also why. Anne had learned that she was expecting a girl. She must have realized even then that Enid was lost to her, but she refused to consign another girl child to live among people for whom girls were valuable only so long as they could go forth and multiply. Leaving had been the only way for Anne Lowell to escape the kind of tyranny that routinely dished out the kinds of punishments Patricia and Agnes were forced to endure while boys were free to come and go as they liked with no apparent punishment at all.

  That day in Dr. Johnson’s office, before Enid had even finished dressing to leave the examining room, she had made up her mind and reached the same conclusion Anne Lowell had reached—Enid would run away.

  For months afterward, she lay awake in bed next to Gordon, all the while plotting her escape. One night, when everyone was asleep, she managed to creep out of the house undetected and make her way back down the path to the dark Quonset hut that was home to Patricia and Agnes. When she tapped on the door, Patricia, carrying a lit candle, came to the door.

  “I’m going to leave,” Enid said. “I wanted you to know, and I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye.”

  Patricia nodded. “Just a minute.” She disappeared into the hut. When she returned, she thrust a tiny piece of paper into Enid’s hand. Holding it close to the light from the flickering candle, Enid saw a string of numbers and a single name—Irene.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “It’s a name and a phone number,” Patricia answered. “Memorize both and then throw the paper away. Better yet, burn it so no one can find it. When you get Outside, go to a phone and call that number. Ask for Irene. She’ll help you. She tried to help me, but they caught me before I could get to her.”

  Enid memorized the string of numbers. Not quite trusting her memory, however, she also kept the slip of paper, hiding it away in a crack between the baseboard and the Sheetrock in the bedroom she shared with Gordon. It had been there for months. Today, just before she and Aunt Edith left for town, Enid had taken the tiny piece of paper out of its hiding place and slipped it into the pocket of her jacket along with the sandwich.

  Enid had never used a telephone. She realized that was the first thing she would have to do once she was Outside—find a phone and figure out how to use it.

  After all, it wasn’t as though she had never seen one. There was a phone in the house—a heavy black thing with buttons on it—that sat on the desk in the room that was Gordon’s office. Aunt Edith was the only woman in the household who was allowed to touch it. Enid had noticed that the men in The Family, the Elders and also Bishop Lowell, had little things that they carried around in their pockets that were evidently telephones, too. Enid knew they talked to one another on them, even when they were outside, but she couldn’t imagine how the phones worked since they didn’t seem to require wires of any kind.

  She also knew that there was a phone at the gas station. She had seen it hanging on the wall just outside the restroom door. The problem was, that one had slots for money—coins—so you evidently had to pay to use that phone. Money was something Enid didn’t have.

  • • •

  During the months of planning, worrying, and waiting, there were times Enid had doubted this day would ever come. Now it was here—a cold, overcast day with occasional flurries of snow. For good or ill, she and her baby—a girl she would name Ann after her own mother—were riding into the darkening night in a pickup truck belonging to a pair of complete strangers. Children in The Family were constantly warned to avoid contact with everything from Outside and most ­especially Indians. Strangers were evil heathens and were to be avoided at all costs. The problem was, this old couple didn’t s
eem the least bit evil.

  It was well past dinnertime by now. Nervous beyond bearing, Enid had been unable to eat any breakfast or lunch before the doctor’s appointment. When Aunt Edith questioned her about that, Enid had said she wasn’t feeling well. If you were pregnant, that was always an acceptable excuse for not eating.

  Now, though, with her stomach growling, she fingered the pilfered cheese sandwich. After being crushed against the door and the armrest, it was probably much the worse for wear. She was tempted to pull it out and eat it but decided that would be rude. There wasn’t enough to share, and she couldn’t very well eat in front of these people who were kind enough to give her a ride.

  The man took his hand off the wheel, reached over, and put his hand on the woman’s ample thigh. Enid cringed. When Gordon touched her leg like that, she knew that he wanted her to hurry up to the bedroom as soon as dinner was over and her kitchen chores were done. In this case, the woman patted the man’s hand in return and left hers resting on top of his. There didn’t seem to be any underlying message in the man’s gesture. They continued to ride along in what struck Enid as a perfectly comfortable silence.

  Then, to Enid’s surprise, a telephone rang. It sounded just like the one on Gordon’s desk. She was astonished when the woman bent down and pulled a tiny device out of her purse. It looked just like the phones Gordon and the other Elders used, and the bright light from the screen lit up the cab of the speeding truck.

  The woman did something to the screen and then held the phone to her ear. “Hi, Ramona,” she said. “We’re on our way. We’ll be there in an hour or so. No, we haven’t had dinner. Okay. See you then.”

  Enid remained focused on the phone in the woman’s hand, amazed that on the Outside even women were allowed to use them. Perhaps the woman was some kind of Elder—but was it even possible for a woman to be an Elder?

  The woman stuffed the device back in her purse. “Ramona’s cooking dinner,” she said to the man. “It’ll be ready about the time we get there.”

  The man nodded and smiled, while the woman turned back to Enid. “Our daughter,” she explained. “She and her husband run an RV park north of Flagstaff.”

  “Could I use that, please?” Enid asked, pointing toward the spot where the phone had disappeared into the woman’s purse. “I don’t have any money, but there’s someone I need to call.”

  Shrugging, the woman retrieved the phone and handed it over. “You’re welcome to use it,” she said. “We have plenty of minutes. You don’t need to pay.”

  Enid managed to locate the slip of paper and pull it out of her pocket, but once she had the phone in her hand, she looked at it in complete befuddlement.

  “Don’t you know how to use it?” the woman asked.

  Enid shook her head.

  The woman took the phone back. She did something to it, and it lit up. “Who do you want to call?”

  Wordlessly, Enid handed over the slip of paper. One at a time, the woman punched the numbers into the phone. When she finished, she handed the device back to Enid. “It’s ringing,” she said.

  With her hand trembling, Enid held the phone to her ear. “May I help you?” a woman’s voice inquired.

  “Irene,” Enid managed. “I need to speak to Irene.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman answered. “Did you say Irene? I’m afraid there’s no one here by that name, but if you’re looking . . .

  Enid didn’t wait to hear more. With those few words her only source of hope had been snatched away. Irene was the only person Patricia had said might help her. Without Irene, Enid and her baby were Outside and completely alone.

  Not knowing what else to do, Enid handed the phone back, and the woman returned it to the purse. As they continued south, Enid held her hand to her mouth and stifled a sob, but she couldn’t hold back the curtain of despair. With Irene gone, Enid had no idea where she was going to go or what she was going to do.

  Without anyone to help her, no doubt Enid would be caught and returned to The Family. Most likely she’d be sent down to join Agnes and Patricia in tending the pigs. If that’s what happened to her, fine, but what would become of poor Baby Ann?

  6

  Once Athena left, Ali made a quick call to B.

  He listened to what she had to say. “So much for not getting sucked into the middle of it,” he said resignedly, “but it does sound as though she could use our help. Go ahead and give Stuart a call.”

  Stuart Ramey was B. Simpson’s right-hand man at High Noon Enterprises. In person, Stuart’s social skills were somewhat lacking, but his personal foibles didn’t necessarily make themselves apparent in telephone or computer transactions. He had, with some difficulty, overcome his fear of flying, enough to make a few flights in the course of the last few months, but elevators were still an absolute no-no. He lived to work and mostly lived at work, which allowed him to schedule his life around whatever time zone B. was currently occupying.

  In the past Stuart had lived in his office on an unofficial basis, making do on an air mattress on the floor of an office that was usually cluttered with leftover pizza boxes and other fast-food takeout debris. A few weeks earlier, while Stuart had been out of town on an enforced holiday, B. had taken advantage of his absence and had remodeled that corner of High Noon’s warehouse space into a combination office/studio apartment, complete with a bathroom, shower, and tiny kitchenette.

  Stuart had returned to an office/studio combination that was now truly his private domain, and he loved it. What Ali appreciated about the new arrangement was that Stuart’s office now looked more like an office and less like a slovenly college dorm room. How Stuart’s private apartment looked, now safely shut away behind a closed door, was none of Ali’s business or anybody else’s.

  Ali’s call to Stuart was answered by his new assistant, Cami—short for Camille. Cami Lee was a recent graduate of UCLA. She was a bright young Asian woman who had arrived at High Noon with a ready smile, boundless energy, and a cum laude bachelor of science degree with dual majors in both computer science and electrical engineering. To everyone’s relief, she seemed able to take Stuart’s lack of interpersonal skills in stride. Ali was thrilled that B. had managed to snap Cami up before anyone else could.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Reynolds,” Cami said when she answered the phone. “Mr. Ramey is on the other line. Would you like to hold or do you want him to call you back?”

  Marveling at how young Cami sounded on the phone, Ali opted for holding and looked out the window while she waited. Over the course of the afternoon, the sky had darkened. The winter storm the weather forecasters had predicted seemed to be blowing in from the west. With the phone to her ear, Ali stepped over to the gas-log fireplace and turned the flame up another notch.

  By the time she returned to her chair, Stuart was on the phone. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

  Ali spent the next ten minutes summarizing the situation with Betsy Peterson in Bemidji. “What’s our interest in all this?” Stuart asked when she finished.

  “Since local law enforcement agencies are discounting what Athena and I regard as a real threat, I want High Noon to build a security safety net around Betsy,” Ali answered. “I want fully monitored electronic surveillance of her home. How do we go about making that happen?”

  “Well,” Stuart said, “you’ve got a choice here. It can be done cheap, quick, or good. Pick any two.”

  “I’m choosing quick and good,” Ali replied.

  “As in spare no expense?”

  “Yes,” Ali answered. “Athena will be the official client, but the billing is to be sent to me. I’m assuming you’ll have to locate some outside assistance.”

  “Absolutely,” Stuart said. “I’ve been to Minnesota in the winter. I’ve no intention of going myself, but I’ve got a contact in Minneapolis, a guy named Joe. He’s good. He’s also someone we’ve worked wit
h before, and he might be willing to handle the job.”

  “Okay,” Ali said, “if he agrees to take this on, let me know before you make it official so I can clear it with Betsy.”

  “Right,” Stuart agreed. “The only way to make this work is to have her full cooperation. Do you know if she has a computer?”

  “According to Athena, probably not one that’s up to date. I understand Betsy has Wi-Fi in the house that may not be functioning at this point. She most likely discontinued the account once Athena moved here.”

  “We need to find out for sure,” Stuart said.

  “Talk to Athena,” Ali advised. “She’ll be able to tell you what you need to know.”

  “The thing is,” Stuart cautioned, “most ordinary computers won’t have the kinds of advanced electronic capabilities we’ll need.”

  “You have carte blanche,” Ali assured him. “Plan on getting whatever we need to do the job right.”

  “Okay,” Stuart said. “Will do.”

  Ali’s call waiting buzzed. “Get back to me, please, Stuart. I’ve got another call.”

  Ali switched over. “Any room in the inn?” Sister Anselm Becker asked.

  Sister Anselm, a Sister of Providence, was also Ali’s best friend and had served as Ali’s matron of honor at B. and Ali’s Christmas Eve wedding at the Four Seasons in Las Vegas. It had taken a special dispensation from the mother superior at St. Bernadette’s, Sister Anselm’s convent in Jerome, for Sister Anselm to be absent from the convent on Christmas Eve.

  When she wasn’t at home in Jerome, Sister Anselm often operated as a special emissary for Bishop Francis Gillespie, head of the Catholic diocese in Phoenix, who for the past dozen or so years had routinely dispatched Sister Anselm to hospitals all over Arizona where she served as patient advocate to mostly impoverished people who had no one else to intercede on their behalf.