"What for?"
"It's not safe for you here by yourself. Star Mother's sentries might come back."
"But what if Jake comes here looking for me? He needs me. I can finally talk him into coming home."
Aggravation sharpened Sam's features, making his jawline rigid and his eyes hard. The scowl he gave her sent warm shivers down her spine. "It's too dangerous. You don't know these people like I do."
She swallowed, a sense of apprehension forcing her to rethink her decision. But no, her mind was made up. She couldn't risk missing Jake if he came. "I'm staying."
He gritted his teeth. "You're damn stubborn." He glanced quickly at the coyote in his arms. "Look, I don't have time to argue with you, and I won't force you to come along. If anything happens while I'm gone, my cell number is programmed into my phone. Just dial star five, and I'll be here in no time. The vet's in town so I won't be far." He hesitated, his brow furrowed. "Have you ever used a gun?"
She shook her head.
Frustration roughened his voice when he said, "My .38 revolver is loaded and in the nightstand drawer in my bedroom. Use it only as a last resort."
Holding the coyote firmly against his chest with one arm, he reached out and touched her cheek. His fingers lingered there, causing her blood to rush more swiftly through her veins. He slowly withdrew his hand. "Don't open the door to anyone, understand? Not even the Avon lady."
She nodded and followed him to the front of the cabin, where he gingerly laid Cody on the backseat of his Jeep.
"Is there anything I can do while you're gone?" she asked. "Make phone calls, check the Internet...?"
He looked thoughtful before saying, "That could save us some time. Do an Internet search for UFO chatrooms and message boards to check for recent discussions associated with Star Mother. If you find anything, I have a hacker friend who can track down the IP address of the user and give us the sender's location."
"What about Consuela?"
They both turned to peer at the deck, where Consuela stood watching them. When their gazes met, she disappeared back inside.
"I think she's okay for now. This behavior isn't new for her. She's always aloof and withdrawn. But I'll have a talk with her when I get back." Sam took hold of Kelly's hand and said, "Remember what I said about not opening the door for anyone."
She grinned, appreciating his concern. That wasn't something she was used to, and it felt good. Damn good. She squeezed his hand, and his calloused fingers scratched her palm, their roughness making her skin tingle. "You just go take care of Cody. Consuela and I will be fine."
****
After an hour of searching UFO websites on the Internet, Kelly came up dry. She sat at a small desk in the corner of the cabin's main room, Sam's laptop open in front of her. She sipped from the cup of coffee Consuela had made for her and blew out a frustrated sigh. There were thousands of Internet sites associated with UFOs, but of the two dozen she'd visited so far, there were no recent discussions about Star Mother.
She stood and stretched to release the ache of tension in her shoulders. The chill in the small room didn't help. What she really needed was a good run. She was used to running three miles every morning, and her legs felt antsy with pent-up energy. But Sam had said to stay inside, not to open the door to anyone. She would obey only because he had agreed to let her join him on Jake's intervention and rescue. Besides, there was something about Sam that made her want to listen to him. This was new for her. She had never been good at following anyone's rules, much less the rules of some guy acting as a superhero for ex-cultists.
The walls of Sam's cabin were mostly bare but for a large painting of the desert that hung above the flagstone fireplace. She drew closer for a better look, standing on tiptoe to study the beautiful detail of this lone piece of art.
The canvas was as wide as the fireplace mantel and reached almost to the ceiling. A desert scene at sunset portrayed the landscape's heat in hues of crimson, gold, and flaming orange. Sand rippled as if disturbed by wind, the occasional rock and cactus jutting from the amber surface. Rounded hills rose in the distance, striated with colorful layers of sandstone, and behind them was a setting sun like a golden orb sliced in half. Kelly narrowed her eyes to focus on an object in the upper right-hand corner. It looked like a star with trailing sparks for a tail, and it glowed white against the blue-black sky. Peeking through the sparks was an oval spaceship.
She experienced an odd sensation of being watched and spun around to find Consuela staring. Actually, she was staring at the painting with a proud smile that made Kelly ask, "Did you paint this?"
Her smile brightened, and she bobbed her head, apparently pleased at being recognized for her work.
"It's beautiful," Kelly told her, facing the painting again. She pointed at the ship. "Is that a spaceship?"
When she glanced at Consuela, the woman nodded, but her smile had changed to an embarrassed grin.
Kelly wanted to ask her about Star Mother, what it was like there, how she had been treated. But a conversation like that would be difficult with a mute, and she didn't know sign language. Perhaps Consuela could write down her answers.
After extracting a pad of paper and pencil from Sam's desk drawer, she offered them to Consuela. The woman shook her head and backed away. So much for that idea.
Then Kelly thought of something else. "Hey, Consuela, I bet you knew my brother Jake."
Consuela looked confused and shook her head.
"Are you sure? Jake Bancroft, a couple of years younger than you, five-eleven, brown hair, and blue eyes, a little on the chunky side? He loved comic books, especially the sci-fi ones, and would talk your ear off about the stories he'd read. Sound familiar?"
Another adamant shake of the head.
Maybe showing Consuela a picture would help jog her memory. As she dug into her backpack for her wallet, the phone rang. It was Sam.
"Is Cody okay?" she asked him.
"He'll be fine, but the vet wants him to spend the night. He took a blood test and found a high level of tranquilizers in Cody's system."
Poor thing. She wasn't especially fond of animals, but she didn't understand how anyone could intentionally be cruel to one. "So you're on your way home?"
"Not exactly." He paused before adding, "After the vet, I planned to make a quick trip to the body shop for a new windshield, but someone took the Jeep's distributor cap. I'm at the auto parts store now buying a new one."
A shiver of dread crawled down her neck. "Is someone stalking you?"
"Maybe. Or someone is making sure I'm out of the way so he can get to you."
A cold fist closed around her heart. "You're scaring me."
"Forewarned is forearmed, but don't worry. You're safe in the cabin as long as you don't open the door to anyone."
She didn't feel very safe, and the temperature of the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Was anyone, or anything, lurking outside? If she went out there, would she find another snake-filled picnic basket at the back door? Or something worse? The sound of a car's engine turning over made her jump. "I think someone's here."
"Can you see out the window?"
"Hold on." She leaned close to the window and peered outside. Consuela's car turned around in the driveway then headed away from the cabin. "It's Consuela. She's leaving."
He let fly a few mumbled curses before saying, "The woman isn't well. She's reliving her experience with Star Mother, and that isn't healthy. Did she zone out at all? Go into a kind of trance?"
Kelly paused while she thought about it. "No. But I did ask her if she knew Jake."
He groaned. "You didn't."
"Is that a problem? I was about to show her a picture of him when—"
"But you didn't, did you?"
"No. The phone rang just as I was getting out my wallet."
He huffed into the phone. "Consuela remembers almost nothing about her last days with Star Mother, and I'd like to keep it that way. At least until she's more secure with the outs
ide world. She lived a sheltered and unnatural life with those people. Part of her therapy has been to reenter society, interact with people, go shopping, go to the movies, visit with family, and most important, not focus on her experience with the cult."
"I'm sorry," Kelly said. "I didn't realize."
"I doubt you did any damage," he said, sounding apologetic. "Consuela obviously knew better than to stick around and be questioned by you. Her behavior indicates a positive step in her recovery."
Kelly patted her chest to slow her heart's pounding. She would never forgive herself if Consuela suffered a relapse because of her. "You don't know how glad I am to hear that."
"Any luck with your search on the Internet?"
"Not yet, but I'm working on it."
"We also need to talk about our plan for Jake's intervention. From everything you've told me, he's happy with his new family. We'll need his cooperation to make this work."
"He'll cooperate," she said, a niggle of doubt making her stomach ache. "He listens to me, Sam. He'll do what I tell him."
There was a long pause before he said, "How can you be so sure? Kelly, the boy was abandoned as a teenager. I know how much you love him, and I don't mean to make you feel worse than you already do, but let's be logical. He's in what he believes to be a safe place, with people who accept him for who he is, people he believes care about him. Can you compete with that?"
Kelly squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears. She hated herself at that moment, even more than she hated her father, which was saying a lot. If only she could turn back time and change everything to how it’d been before she left home. Their home life hadn't been perfect by any means, but it was better than Jake living with a cult determined to kill him. In a voice so soft she barely heard herself speak, she said, "All I can offer him is my love."
"That's fair," Sam said. "And we're going to make it be enough. I promise. I'll come up with a plan, okay? Hang in there. Dial star five if you need me, and you know where my .38 is if you absolutely need it. I'm heading home. I'll be there in ten minutes, fifteen tops." Then he hung up.
"Wait—" But she spoke to a dial tone. She'd been about to say, "Please hurry."
The quiet of the cabin permeated her skin like the room's icy air. She shivered and glanced at the black fireplace, its embers as cold as the hearth itself. And not a stick of firewood in sight.
"Terrific," she mumbled, traipsing through the kitchen toward the utility room, where she hoped to find a stack of firewood beside the back door. No such luck. Then she remembered the neat rows of logs not far from where they'd found Cody that morning.
Surely Sam didn't mean for her to freeze to death. Going out in the backyard for a little firewood shouldn't be risky. He'd told her not to open the door for anyone, and since no one was at the door... It would take her less than five minutes to get what she needed.
She glanced out back to make sure no one was there then yanked a plaid flannel shirt from a peg on the wall and shrugged it on. There were patches on the elbows, and the soft, worn fabric smelled like Sam. She tugged the collar up to her nose and inhaled the hearty scent of soap and wood smoke. She shouldn't like it as much as she did, but her first thought was to bundle the shirt up in her backpack and keep it.
After glancing around for any suspicious-looking baskets that might hold a snake or two, she trotted to the cache of carefully stacked wood. She quickly loaded her arms with logs, making sure to include some dry bark and sticks for kindling. Halfway back to the cabin, she heard a noise in the woods to her right. She stopped to listen. A twig snapped then a squirrel scampered out from around that side of the cabin. She let out a breath and continued along the narrow dirt path to the cabin's back door.
Her arms were so full that she had trouble closing the door behind her. The chill she'd felt earlier was even stronger now. She crouched down to grab a few pages from a stack of newspapers to help give the fire a blazing start.
The phone rang.
"What now, Sam?" she said to the air and trotted to the living room, her arms still loaded with firewood. Whatever Sam had to say could surely have waited until he got home. She dumped the wood on the hearth and snatched up the cordless phone. "Hello?"
There were a few seconds of silence before she heard a gentle, "Hello, Kelly."
A woman's voice. Familiar, but she couldn't place it. "Who's this?"
A throaty chuckle answered, smooth and thick as honey. "My feelings are hurt that you don't remember me, dear. You should, you know. Especially after the relaxation techniques I taught you at the camp. They did wonders to relieve your stress, didn't they?"
"What relaxation—?"
"Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Think about your inner place of solitude, where you feel warm and safe. Can you see it in your mind's eye?"
The seductive purr of the woman's voice made Kelly dizzy. "Valya? No. Wait..." She closed her eyes and tiny white lights pulsed behind her lids. She wanted to throw the phone down, but it stuck to her hand as if glued there.
"Concentrate, Kelly. The peace you feel is intoxicating. Give in to it. Warmth. Safety. A sense of well-being pours through your body like water through a mountain stream."
Though lulled into a state of near bliss, Kelly struggled to break through the fog. Had she been hypnotized while at the camp? She didn't recall any blocks of time unaccounted for but couldn't remember what she'd been doing while waiting for her brother. The harder she tried to remember, the more evasive the memory. Star Mother had messed with her mind, just as Sam had suspected.
"I've brought you a present," Valya said. "Open your eyes."
She didn't want to obey, but she couldn't stop herself. Blinking against the sudden brightness of daylight, she spotted someone silhouetted against the window in Sam's living room. As he stepped toward her, she made out the thin frame of a young man with lanky brown hair that drifted over his bony shoulders. He wore a white T-shirt emblazoned with the Cosmic Crisis logo. The shirt was tucked into baggy jeans cut into ragged shorts, one leg a couple of inches longer than the other and nearly reaching his knobby knees. Deep-set eyes stared out from a narrow face, their color as blue as Jake's but vacant and bloodshot, nothing like her brother's vibrant gaze that usually hinted of a joke eager to be told or a funny story he wanted to share. This man couldn't possibly be her chubby little brother.
"Hi, Kelly," he said, using Jake's familiar voice, yet the tone was more masculine than she remembered. "I heard you wanted to see me."
"Jake?" The word came out on a breath, choked and hardly coherent, so she tried again. "Are you okay?" Her voice felt thick in her throat. Could it be possible? Was he really free?
Jake's lips tilted in the tiniest of smiles. She got a sense that smiling didn't come as natural to him any more. "You look surprised to see me." He held out his thin arms to her, just like he had when he was little and wanted a hug.
She dropped the phone and rushed into her brother's arms, her chest heaving with sobs of relief at finally having him back. He smelled horrible, like his dirty gym socks when she used to do his laundry, but she didn't mind. The smell made him real.
While hugging him, she touched the pronounced vertebrae in his back, and his thin ribs jutted into her chest. What had they done to him? Tears streaming down her face, she stared up into his strangely empty eyes, their pupils contracted into pinpoints. "Let's get you home."
He shook his head and stepped back, peeling away her hands that had clutched him so fiercely. "I have a new family now. A wonderful, caring family that loves me."
She shook her head. It was important she convince him how dangerous these people were. "They want to kill you, Jake."
Stepping even farther away from her, he said, "You're wrong, Kelly. It's rebirth they're offering, not death. The Arrow lies to you. He deceives you because he wants to turn you against me."
"That's not true. Sam is trying to help you." There had to be something she could say that would make Jake chang
e his mind. Then she had it. "Dad says he's sorry for everything he did to us, everything he did to you."
Jake's expression changed as a spark of life flickered in his eyes, though he scowled as if confused. "Dad told you he's sorry?"
Kelly nodded, her heart leaping with a jolt of a hope. "He told me to tell you he wants you to come home, to live in your old room and finish high school. He said everything would be different now." Not that she believed it herself, but she'd say anything to help Jake change his mind about the cult. Her tongue seemed to swell inside her mouth as she forced herself to say what probably wasn't even true. "Dad says he loves you."
Jake cocked his head, still confused, still processing information that must be foreign to him after all this time. But he had come this far, had made the effort to seek her out. He obviously still cared about her or he wouldn't have gone to the trouble of finding her. Which made her wonder how he'd made it here by himself in the first place.
Slow footsteps thudded up from behind her.
"Sam, is that you?" She gritted her teeth against the quaver in her voice. From the corner of her eye, she saw the white sheet just before it enveloped her head. Not Sam. A pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders and hoisted her off her feet.
She screamed, her mouth next to what she hoped was an ear. Whoever it was teetered and howled, loosening his hold just enough for her to squirm free. She fell hard to the floor, landing on her side, the wind knocked out of her. Dazed, she wrestled with the sheet until her hands came free, only to be tackled from behind.
"Jake?" she called. "Jake, where are you? Help me!"
Her brother didn't answer.
Years of running had Kelly's leg muscles as taught as coiled springs, and she used every ounce of strength to kick at the man holding her down.
He struggled to keep her still, but he was obviously out of shape. She could tell by the flabby feel of his biceps and forearms, as if he did nothing but sit behind a desk all day. He was still bigger than her, and though he had her pinned to the floor, she swore it wouldn't be an easy fight.
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