Her Christmas Protector

by Geri Krotow

  Now she was about to knock on the door of a woman who’d all but sold her young daughter into sex slavery, even if Zora had escaped before it happened.

  “We’re right here, Zora. And the backup team is on standby at the station.” Bryce went over what they’d already discussed. Because of the sedate neighborhood Edith lived in and the potential for unwanted witnesses, they’d have to play it easy going in. Nothing too overt or overpowering. Just Zora, wired, and the van a block away. If she found more than they bargained for in her mother’s apartment, she only had to say the code word they’d all agreed on.

  She felt a familiar sense of reassurance when Bryce wrapped his hand around her upper arm and leaned in close.

  “I’ve got your back, Zora. You’re not the little girl who was under her control anymore. You’re safe.”

  She turned to look him in the eye. “I know. Thanks.”

  He squeezed her upper arms before he released her.

  She turned to Claudia. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  The van followed her as she drove her sedan to Edith’s street. They continued on the parkway while Zora turned left and parked in front of the correct townhome.

  She assessed the property as she walked up the sidewalk.

  It was a nicer place than she and Edith had ever lived in back in New York. Images of the cheap carpets, torn linoleum, mice, cockroaches and cold beds threatened her composure.

  “Don’t think about it.” She was a trained counselor, damn it. These images were no longer real. She wasn’t there.

  As soon as she rang the doorbell she felt “on.” Time to go to work.

  “Can I help you?”

  If the green eyes looking at her from the wide crack in the door didn’t tell her, the voice confirmed her suspicions. This was indeed Edith.

  “Do you know who I am, Edith?”

  Edith stared at her as if she could see straight through her. Zora imagined the judgment of her long, fashionably styled hair, sexy yet classy clothing and makeup, including fuchsia lipstick. She’d hurried home to change out of her Colleen Hammermill outfit.

  Stop.

  “Shouldn’t you be calling me Mother?” Edith opened the door wider. “How did you find me?”

  “It wasn’t hard. You’re listed, and after I saw you in Walmart last week I looked you up. The real question is how did you find me?” She wasn’t going to reveal that Claudia had tracked Edith down.

  “I wasn’t looking for you. It was divine guidance. Can you come in?” Edith had always said everything was “divine guidance.” But Zora knew Edith had sought her out.

  Edith held the door open and Zora stepped inside, even though she wanted to turn and run. Not from the mission but from the memories of who she had been, where she’d been headed, before she’d broken from Edith.

  “Thank you. You have a nice place here.” It was a lie, she realized once she walked farther inside. The building was nice enough but Edith had no furniture in the front room.

  “Let’s go back to the kitchen. I’ve got tea.”

  Ah, yes, tea. Or some weak idea of tea. Edith had been making herbal concoctions for Wise from the minute they moved into the compound.

  “That sounds nice.” It didn’t, but she held Claudia’s guidance close to her heart.

  Keep Edith talking.

  “So how long have you been in Silver Valley?”

  Edith ignored her as she put a pan of water on the electric stove and pulled two plain white mugs from the cabinet.

  “Do you still like chamomile? It was always your favorite.”

  “It was never my favorite. You forced it on me to make me sleep.”

  “Oh, Daisy, don’t be so ugly. You were the sweetest child. I can’t believe you’ve allowed yourself to take on so much of the ways of the world.”

  “What have you done these past twenty years, Edith?”

  “Can you find it in your heart to call me Mother?”

  She couldn’t, but she could find it in the Trail Hikers’ best interest.

  “Mother. Have you been living here, or in New York?”

  Edith clapped her hands together as if in prayer and smiled.

  “That’s better. Let’s see, I moved here a bit ago. I’ve lived a little here, a little there. Got some training so that I could get a better job. Until...” Edith turned away and busied herself with the hot water at the stove.

  “Until what, Mother?”

  Edith turned toward her, and her face was animated. Zora tried to stop the bile from rising in her throat as Edith’s expression threw her right back into the little girl she’d been, the child who’d had no recourse from Edith’s sickness.

  Think like a therapist.

  Studying Edith with the detachment of a professional, she no longer looked so powerful or scary. She looked like the patients Zora had to observe in the hospital psychiatric unit as part of her degree program. Except Edith wasn’t medicated—unless you counted chamomile tea and a sick sense of religion.

  “Are you working?” She already knew the answer but needed to keep Edith talking.

  “I have a job at the medical center. I got certified as a medical assistant.”

  “That’s wonderful. It must feel good to not have to work as a waitress anymore.”

  “I’m not going to have to work at the hospital for too long, either.”

  “Why not?”

  Edith brought the cups of tea to the card table that sat in the middle of the otherwise empty kitchen. She motioned for Zora to sit on one of the folding chairs while she sank into the other.

  Edith was thinner, frailer than Zora remembered. Her mother had always at least looked strong and healthy, even though her mental and emotional state contradicted that.

  “How’s your health?”

  Edith raised her tired gaze to her and shrugged. “As good as ever. I give my aches up to the angels and I trust I’ll be healed. You know we all will, Daisy, don’t you?”

  Zora gritted her teeth against the scream that threatened to erupt from the deep well of regret that was her childhood.

  “I’m more interested in the here and now, Mother.”

  She prayed the microphones were picking everything up.

  “This isn’t all there is, Daisy. We have so much more waiting for us. One day all of our suffering will cease and if we’ve been righteous we’ll get our rewards.”

  “That’s nice.” She risked a sip of the tea. Good grief, it still stank like cat poop and made her gag.

  “What’s in this tea?”

  “The chamomile you used to love, and some extra herbs and treatments that will help your digestion and clarity.”

  “Do you still grow your own herbs?” At the compound her mother had huge gardens that she’d harvest. Then she’d dry the herbs and try to sell them to the local town from a sorry wooden shack she’d built herself. Leonard Wise believed in free enterprise, as he called it. As long as it didn’t interfere with his plans for the young girls.

  “I don’t have time to do as much as I used to but I’ve started a few pots of mint and echinacea out back. The winters are milder here so it’s a longer growing season.”

  “What are you waiting for, Mother? You said you’re waiting.”

  “Just for things to be right again.” Edith’s hands shook as she put her mug on the table with a thump. She started to fidget with the edge of the awful apron she wore over her plain clothes.

  “What do you mean by ‘right,’ Mother?” Zora wished she could wash her mouth out on the spot. Calling this woman “Mother” tasted like poison on her tongue.

  “You know, Daisy. You left behind the way God wants us to live and because of your lies, perfectly good men went to jail.”

  “Do you still believe that? That they were good men?”

  “Maybe not completely. But they didn’t mean harm. And you were never touched, Daisy.”

  “I wasn’t touched because I was still only twelve. It was a matter of time.”

&nb
sp; “I wouldn’t have let them touch you. I won’t ever let them touch you.” She spoke with the conviction of a comrade in arms. Zora questioned Edith’s measure of sanity. With a degree in counseling she didn’t have the expertise to diagnose her biological mother, but she’d long suspected Edith suffered from a multitude of mental illnesses.

  Gratitude for her own health empowered her and she sat straighter in the chair. Bryce and Claudia were waiting for some answers.

  “I’ve heard that some of the people we knew are being released from prison.”

  “Many already have been, Daisy. They’ve served their time. Their sins are wiped away. That’s what justice is, my daughter.”

  She cringed at “my daughter” but kept going.

  “Where do you think they’ll end up, Mother?”

  Edith stirred her tea with the cheap spoon that had nicks and was slightly bent in the middle. Apparently she still shopped at thrift shops and in garbage bins.

  “We were all a family. Family belongs together.”

  “How so?” She made a point of looking around Edith’s barren kitchen and townhome. “You live alone.”

  “I’m never alone. God provides what I need. I won’t be here much longer. We’ll all be together again.”

  Zora agreed with her about God, but would bet her life savings that her God was a lot more loving and forgiving than the one Edith envisioned.

  “Do you keep in touch with any of them, from before, in New York?”

  “You know I do or you wouldn’t have come here. I know you’re somehow involved with the authorities, Daisy. I didn’t raise a stupid girl. Ever since you betrayed me and told that store guard what you thought was happening, you’ve put your belief in the police.”

  Thank God she had.

  “I didn’t betray you. I was trying to save both of us.”

  “You betrayed me when you didn’t trust me to keep you safe from the ultimate sacrifice. I would have, you know. I’d still do whatever it takes to protect you, my daughter, from harm.”

  Zora had no doubt her mother believed her own words but all Zora felt was...flat. She faced a strange woman she’d known once, who’d loved her like a real mother. Once. Long ago.

  Anna was her real mother and had been ever since Zora came to Silver Valley.

  Even as a young girl approaching adolescence she’d sensed her mother was getting sicker. She hadn’t had the words for it back then. Only after being in the navy for several years and then going to school for her counseling degree did she realize her mother had sunk into a mental illness of some kind.

  You can’t save them all.

  The words of her first professor echoed as she looked at Edith. Edith’s gaze was on the window, but Zora suspected her mind had wandered to wherever it went when reality tried to creep in.

  “Are they coming here, Mother? To Silver Valley? Why?”

  Edith turned to her, although her eyes seemed to be looking at something else, something past Zora.

  “We’ll all be together again. It is right.”

  Chapter 16

  “She’s not going to get any more out of her. We should pull her out. She can leave now.” Bryce’s muscles hadn’t relaxed since Zora walked up to her mother’s front door. He fought the urge to run up to the house, kick in the door and grab Zora away from that crazy lady and run. Far away where Zora would never be hurt again.

  “Wait, Bryce. I know this is difficult to listen to, but it’s probably harder on you than Zora.” Claudia’s hushed tones reminded him that their job was to listen, to keep Zora safe while she gathered the intel they needed.

  Harder on him? He cast Claudia a sidelong glance. Her profile revealed nothing. But somehow she knew he cared for Zora, probably before he did.

  Hell, did Claudia miss nothing?

  They continued to listen as Edith babbled on in her monotone. It was so damned annoying to have to sit in the van while Zora faced down the woman who’d essentially sold her.

  Again, he marveled at Zora’s strength. As a young girl she’d been bright and avid. As a woman, she was unstoppable.

  He really hated how Edith kept saying she’d “protect” Zora. Like she had twenty years ago?

  He must have been fidgeting because Claudia shot him a “chill out” glance and tapped her headset.

  “When are they coming here, Mother?”

  “They already are here, Daisy. I’ll be moving to the home myself, once Leonard is back. I promised him I’d always wait for him.”

  “Don’t you see that he’s only ever used you? That you’ll never be his wife or even girlfriend?”

  “It’s not for me to judge that, Daisy. It’s for me to follow and serve where needed.”

  Edith’s education and new job didn’t appear to have done her any good. She was still caught in the vile web of the cult leader. Even while serving time, he’d held her spellbound from his prison cell.

  A cell he’d been sprung from.

  “If you decide you want help, you can find me at my counseling office. I can get you the best treatment options available. You don’t have to suffer like this, Mother.”

  “I’m not suffering, Daisy. I get the shakes sometimes, but nothing my teas and prayers won’t cure. You should drink yours, Daisy. You’ll feel better.”

  “I feel fine without it, trust me.”

  Bryce wondered if Edith had made Zora drink some kind of drug-laced tea when she was young.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mother. I wish you the best.” Zora’s tone indicated she didn’t expect Edith to ever realize her wish.

  “We’re not done, Daisy. I promise I won’t let any harm come to you.”

  “So you’ve said. Take care.”

  “She’s out!” Their plainclothes officer who sat in an unmarked car across from the town house reported on the wireless system.

  Bryce took off his headset. “I’m going to get her.”

  “No, you’re not.” Claudia’s hand was on his forearm. “Wait. Let Zora drive to the station. She needs the time by herself to decompress.” Her reasonable tone did nothing to calm the tension in his gut. Zora was hurting. How could she not be, after facing down what had to be her worst nightmare?

  * * *

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t get more out of her.” Zora’s red hair flamed around her pale face as she sat with a hot cup of coffee, untouched, in front of her on the conference table.

  “You did great, trust me. We have what we need to keep an official eye on the trailer park. We’ll make sure it doesn’t turn into another True Believers compound.” Bryce wished they were alone so he could pull her close and comfort her. He suspected Superintendent Todd and Claudia knew it, too, judging by their stern glances.

  “Bryce is right. SVPD can start to keep an eye out for any wrongdoing, and we can do our best to make sure Jess and the other children in that neighborhood are safe.”

  “I did it for her. I can’t let them hurt one more girl.” A shudder passed over her shoulders and Bryce slammed his hand on the table.

  “They won’t, not if we can help it.”

  Superintendent Todd sat in a relaxed pose but he didn’t fool Bryce. His boss was as angry as he was that a cult thought they’d stand a chance in Silver Valley. Taking advantage of the citizens.

  “What can we do to get Jess and her mother out of there?”

  “Right now, nothing. If you can keep an eye on them at the Christmas pageant practice and then on Christmas Eve when you do the full event, that would be helpful. Her mother hasn’t fully committed to the True Believers who’ve moved into the park, not yet. But she’s incredibly vulnerable and has been seen having coffee with one of the men several times over the past week.”

  “That’s how they got Edith. Leonard Wise did the country equivalent of wining and dining her. Buying us both the most expensive meals on the diner menu, taking my mother out for coffee at all hours.”

  Bryce stilled. It was the first time he’d heard Zora refer to Edith as “my
mother.”

  He wanted to help her stop running from her past. He knew it was her favorite way out of the pain. Running from anything as painful as Zora’s memories only acted as a temporary bandage on a deep wound. It bled through too often to work permanently.

  “They’ll stick to their modus operandi, if it worked for them before.” Claudia tilted her head. “Colt, how many SVPD officers can you spare to monitor the trailer park, undercover?”

  “Not many. But I’ll make it part of the training schedule and rotate all our officers through it. We can’t have eyes on the place 24/7 without probable cause, but we can have someone drive or walk through there every day and night. I’ll have them split it up.”

  “We don’t want to advertise that a cult is moving in.” Bryce preferred to err on the side of caution when it came to squirrely criminal types. They could run at the slightest provocation and he wanted to nail this group once and for all. Send them all back to prison where they couldn’t hurt the public.

  “I’ll handle who we inform, Detective.” Superintendent Todd smiled but his meaning was no less decisive. He wanted Bryce focused on the op.

  “Keep me in the loop, too, Colt, would you?” Claudia’s question was posed exactly as the superintendent’s had been. As an order.

  “Will do, ma’am.” Bryce noticed the flare of anger in Claudia’s eyes at the way Superintendent Todd addressed her and had a revelation. Did they know each other outside of work? They were both single, to the best of his knowledge, married to their jobs.

  He shook his head. None of his business. Since Zora had shown up in his life he was seeing relationships and romance where he hadn’t before.

  “You okay, Bryce?” Zora hadn’t missed a thing.

  “I’m fine. Why don’t we have a late lunch before you get dressed for church?”

  She smiled. Her discomfort in the undercover getup was an inside joke for them.

  “Do you dress up to go to the office?” Claudia’s incredulous tone made Zora’s smile deepen and her dimples emerge.