He and Aaron arrived at the ranch house before she did. They were moving faster, which Tara took to mean he’d managed to come out relatively unscathed. Even his limp seemed to be gone, though it might just have been masked by the Aaron’s support.
• • •
“WHAT DO YOU think?” Owen Stephenson stood behind the one-way glass looking into the infirmary. At his side was Samuel, his most trusted lieutenant. Samuel always knew the correct punishment when the Chosen strayed. It was his Gift.
“She seems suitably chastened,” Samuel said.
“Indeed. She was pathetically grateful to be released. She was on her knees. Very gratifying.” Owen slanted a grin at Samuel, feeling almost as he’d done years before in med school, before he’d understood the meaning of the power that flowed through him, when all he and Samuel and Aaron had cared about was getting drugs and girls. “I almost asked her to take care of something for me while she was down there. But she was filthy.”
“I still don’t trust her. She came with Andrea. And look how much trouble that one caused.” “Andrea was John’s mistake; he believed she knew what he was, that she was ready to participate fully. Tara, on the other hand, is no better than the rest of them. And now that I’ve met him, I understand why she was so ready to join the flock. Look at her. She’s not exactly beautiful. She probably thought she’d won the lottery with Jason Norman. He goes and cheats on her, and she runs off with her tail between her legs. No wonder she hooked up with Andrea. They had something in common. And then Andrea took off on her, too. We’re all she has. She’s not going anywhere. Especially now that her boyfriend’s here.”
Samuel frowned. “You really think he can replace John?”
“Absolutely. You’re the one who told me that his background check turned up a couple scrapes with the law, but nothing serious enough to make anyone sit up and take notice. He’s an excellent hacker with a little bit of a speed problem. He’ll be easy to control.”
“He asked Aaron if he could be the one to take care of her.”
“Good. I’ll set it up. It’ll keep them loyal. A little responsibility will serve as a good test for him.”
Owen let himself out of the viewing chamber and stepped into the infirmary. The girl was lying on her bed, curled into a ball beneath the blankets. He’d watched her shake the covers out before she got in, and had a pretty good idea what she’d seen in the shed. Datura always brought out the most interesting aspects of prisoners’ minds. He only regretted that he couldn’t watch the hallucinations in person. He’d considered putting night vision cameras in the sheds but hadn’t gotten around to it. He didn’t want word getting out. If people knew help was only a camera away, the isolation might not work as well.
Jacob lay on top of his covers, arms folded beneath his head. He stared at the ceiling, barely looking at Serena. That would be guilt working on him. Owen repressed a smile. He couldn’t have created a more perfect situation if he’d designed it himself. He closed the door loud enough to draw their attention. Both sat up.
“Jacob. Serena. You have been purified and reborn. You can now undertake the work of the Chosen once again. Welcome back.
“You are weak. Deborah is in charge of the sickroom, and she will be by shortly with medications and some food for you. But you still have spiritual work to do. Jacob, you have atoned to the Chosen for your lies, but you have yet to make it up to Serena for your betrayal. Serena, you have also made reparation for your dishonesty, but the cause of it was your inability to forgive, and you must learn charity.
“So, Jacob, I am putting you in charge of Serena’s recovery. You will take care of her and prove yourself worthy of her trust. Serena, you will accept Jacob’s assistance without complaint and you will search your soul and drive out any anger you still harbor toward him.”
Both of his renewed converts agreed to his will, and Owen left them alone.
• • •
“I’M SORRY.” Jake’s voice from the other bed jerked Tara’s attention away from the itch on her toe she was trying to ignore. There were no bugs in this bed. She’d looked. “I shouldn’t have . . . cheated on you, Serena.”
The words confused her for a moment, until she realized what he was trying to tell her. He believed someone might be listening. That the room might be wired. She’d had the same concerns. She even thought the large mirror on the far wall might function as a window for anyone who wanted to watch them.
“Why wasn’t I enough for you?” She played along, and though her voice was more plaintive than Tara would have liked, it suited Serena.
“You were always enough.” The sincerity in his tone almost had her believing he was talking about more than their fictional breakup. A lump formed in her throat, and she had to swallow it away. “If you hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have followed you here.”
The door opened, admitting a woman Tara had never seen. Thick, dark blonde hair captured by a barrette, hung straight and smooth to her waist. Her skin was well tanned but unlined, and her green eyes were gentle. She carried a tray with two bowls of soup, bread, and an unlabeled bottle filled with pills.
“My name is Deborah,” she said, setting the tray down on the table between the two beds. “I know you two must be hungry, but I want you to eat very slowly. After three days, your stomachs need to readjust.” She took out one of the pills and put it next to one of the soup bowls. “This is for you, Serena. An antibiotic to stave off infection from your wounds.”
She settled on the edge of Tara’s bed. “Now, before we eat, we must give thanks to the Powers for their food, and love, and guidance.” She reached out a hand to Tara, then leaned across and took one of Jake’s hands as well. She bowed her head, so Tara followed suit. In the distance, the dinner horn sounded. The prayer was blessedly short, and then Deborah left them to eat in peace while she, presumably, went to get her own dinner.
Tara struggled not to gulp the hot soup, reminding herself of Deborah’s warning. But nothing she’d eaten in any five-star restaurant in her youth had tasted as good as the simple vegetable soup and crusty, whole-grain bread. Even the water from the pitcher on the bedside table tasted cleaner, clearer, sharper than the water she’d been drinking in the shed.
Which was when it hit her. She nearly forgot about the listening devices and spoke aloud. They’d drugged her. The insects hadn’t been real. No wonder they’d disappeared when the light came on. She’d imagined the whole thing. The slow burn of anger in her breast almost made her lose her appetite. Almost.
But she needed to get her strength back to take down Owen Stephenson. Before, all she’d wanted to do was find Andrea and be sure she was happy, get her out if she wasn’t. When she’d arrived at the compound, she’d held no resentment toward the Leader. The beliefs of the Chosen didn’t coincide with her own, but Tara considered herself a “live and let live” sort. If Andrea had wanted to stay, so be it.
That had changed with the transparently false story about Andrea leaving the community. Then Tara made it her mission to find out what had happened to her friend. Where she was being held. If she were even still alive. Her attention had still been on the single event of Andrea’s disappearance. No one seemed to think it odd, and she hadn’t heard about other members of the Chosen suddenly disappearing, so she didn’t consider that anything more systematic might be going on.
With the realization of what had been done to them in the shed, however, Tara’s focus changed yet again. She was going to bring down the high and mighty Leader and make sure he spent the rest of his life in a cell the size of one of his isolation sheds. Because, sure as God made little green apples, if he “purified” members of his congregation on a regular basis, he had a great deal more to hide than a bizarre view of the world and religion.
Stiff with anger, consumed by her own thoughts, Tara brushed her teeth and crawled back onto the bed. What she wouldn’t give for her iPad, or eve
n a pen and paper to map out her questions and plans. So many thoughts buzzed through her head that she could barely make sense of them. She had to find Andrea. John had been part of Stephenson’s inner circle. If he’d revealed any clue to Andrea about the Chosen’s activities, Tara needed it.
Jake tried to make conversation, playing his Jason Norman role, but Tara shut him out.
After about an hour, Deborah returned. “Time for lights out,” she said, picking up the tray. “You sleep well, and I’ll be by in the morning with breakfast.” She flipped the light switch and closed the door behind her.
Slowly, Tara’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. It was not as complete here in the sickroom as it had been in the shed, for illumination from the ever-present security lights leaked around the edges of the heavy curtains covering the single window. She could see the outlines of furniture and even make out the shadowy hollows of Jake’s features when he turned his head toward her.
A curl slipped across her face, the sensation like an insect gliding by, and she jumped.
Not real, she reminded herself. But goose bumps covered her skin, and she couldn’t lie still. After a moment, she heard Jake moving about, and then he came and sat on the edge of her bed.
“Move over,” he said softly.
“What?”
He pushed her to the edge of the narrow bed and slid in beside her. Then he tugged her close, tucking her head into the hollow of his shoulder and curling one long, muscular arm down her back so that his hand rested on her ribcage just beneath her breast.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“My job. I’m supposed to be taking care of you, remember? And you’re supposed to let me.” A thread of humorous challenge lay beneath the words. How could he shrug off the experience of the shed so easily? Whatever visions the drugs had brought him, they had obviously not worked their way so deeply under his skin.
“What did you . . . think about . . . in isolation?” Would he understand what she was asking? That she needed to know what hallucinations he had experienced?
“You.”
“Me?” Whatever she had expected, it wasn’t that.
“I remembered the way you looked when we first met. You in those baggy sweatpants. All I wanted to do was strip them off you.” Tara felt her heart speed up and her mouth go dry. She swallowed hard. “Of course, I couldn’t do any such thing. You were”—a cop, his friend’s protector—“my new maid.”
Right. Silly Tara. He was playing his role. She’d almost forgotten the hidden eyes and ears. But he hadn’t stopped speaking.
“And I remembered your eyes when I hurt you. They haunted me. That day. In the shed. Now. I live with them, with the knowledge I treated you unfairly.” His arm tightened around her and under her palm she felt the muscles of his stomach clench. “I’ll make it up to you. Just give me a chance to prove I’m a better man than the one you’ve seen so far. That’s all I am asking.”
Why did he have to sound so sincere? Tara could almost believe he was apologizing for his actual behavior rather than for the acts of his cover identity. And she, still weak from the shed, still perilously close to falling apart, was all too sensitive to kindness, whether real or feigned. “Let’s just go to sleep, okay? We can worry about proving and forgiving tomorrow.”
“Yeah, okay.” He rubbed the top of her head with his cheek, then took a deep breath and let his muscles relax. Miraculously, she felt her own follow.
• • •
JAKE HOPED SHE could hear his honest regret. If she moved her hand an inch or two, she’d certainly feel the truth of his attraction beneath the loose scrubs they’d both been given to wear as pajamas. Not that he’d mind that, either, though this was neither the time nor the place to act on it. The sexual pull he felt the moment they’d met had come out of nowhere at a time he’d considered himself emotionally dead. His shock and self-disgust had contributed to his harsh treatment of her.
She’d left before he could apologize properly. At first, he’d been content to let her go, to retreat into the emotional vacuum he’d inhabited prior to her appearance in his life. But even before Lucy had called to tell him Tara had stopped writing to her, that existence had begun to pale.
It hadn’t been hard to track her. She wasn’t some fugitive carefully covering her tracks, merely a woman who’d left behind a life she no longer wanted. He’d discovered the diner she was working at less than a month after she’d left to join the cult.
From there, things had become a little more complicated.
Jake had burned a lot of bridges taking leave without notice from the FBI, but one or two people still owed him favors. He’d created Jason Norman, had his pals supply him with a minor record, and hacked his way into various social networking sites to give Jason a work history going back years rather than days. He’d also put Jason and Tara’s breakup online—Jason would have used the Net to find his runaway girlfriend—and created some dummy accounts with “leads,” one of whom sent him to Twin Oaks.
Regardless of the cutting comments he’d once made about her police work, Jake had known Tara would be able to pick up his cues, to take on the role he’d created for her. She was smart and savvy, even if she was in over her head. He just had to make her see that letting him help was best for all concerned. Not that he had high hopes for her friend Andrea. His FBI contacts wouldn’t confirm that the Chosen were on any of the watch lists, but they wouldn’t deny it, either. And after his experiences in the shed, Jake figured something fairly serious was going on around the compound.
He felt Tara’s breathing slow into the regular, even pattern of sleep and let himself drift. For the moment, at least, they were safe.
Chapter Three
THE FIRST THING Tara noticed the next morning was the warmth of the bed. She’d never been warm in the shed. During the day the air had weighed heavily in her lungs and the heat had beaten at her skin; at night she’d had to pull the thin blanket around her body. If she’d been herself, she’d have realized she could count the days that way, but of course, she hadn’t been herself.
The second thing she noticed was that the warmth didn’t come from quilts or heaters. It emanated from the very masculine, very muscular body sharing the bed with her. Jake Nolan. Sometime during the night, her leg had found its way between his, and now she felt the press of his morning erection against her thigh. Heat rose in her face, and she tried to shift away without waking him.
Instead, he pulled her closer. “Where you going?” Even the man’s voice was sexy. Deep and sleep-rough, like chocolate-covered sin.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “You, however, are going back to your own bed. I don’t know what you’re doing here.”
“Spoilsport.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, then her jaw, then whispered in her ear. “Stay weak today. I want to keep us in the house as long as possible.”
“Stop that. I want to get some more sleep before we have to get up.” She pushed again, and he levered himself out of her bed and staggered over to his own. Tara couldn’t help watching him go. What did he mean by kissing her like that? Was it for any hidden cameras that might exist, to give him an excuse for whispering with her? And why did her traitorous body warm so insistently to his?
Despite her words, however, she couldn’t fall back to sleep once he was gone. Without his warmth, the bed was no longer so inviting, and thoughts of Andrea’s fate once again took over her mind. Jake was right. They’d been given an opportunity to be in the house by being in the sickroom, and they needed to take advantage of it.
Deborah came by with their breakfast and checked on Tara’s wounds. She brought orange juice, as well, a rare luxury for the Chosen, who were usually limited to herbal tea for the women and coffee for the men. As before, she brought Tara an antibiotic, and clothes for both of them.
“Will we have assignments today, Deborah?” Tara asked.
“No. You should concentrate on regaining your strength. Maybe walk in the flower house. You know how to get to it? I can send a guide.”
“No, no. No need to trouble anyone and take them from their duties,” Tara said. “I am sure we can find it.” And perhaps get strategically “lost” along the way.
The flower house was a large greenhouse next door to the main house. The flowers grown were sold in town at a small kiosk on Main Street. When Andrea had first joined the Chosen, Tara had seen her selling flowers a couple of times. The flowers brought in some of the money the Chosen needed to buy that which they could not produce for themselves. Anything else was bought with the funds they had turned over to the Leader upon entering the community, along with the sale of soaps, potpourri, herbs, and other natural products they sold in town and on the Internet. Andrea’s cousin had run the web business.
Tara had handed over the hundred-dollar savings account she’d built up in Twin Oaks. She’d had no choice—she had the nasty feeling that the Leader checked to be sure you weren’t holding anything back. That idea was confirmed the longer she’d stayed in the compound. The antibiotics showed he had doctors on his payroll. Bankers were a likely addition as well.
And cops? Anything was possible. If she did uncover what had happened to Andrea, who would she turn to? At the moment, she trusted precisely two people: herself and Jake. But that was a worry for another day. First, she had to find Andrea. Dead or alive.
After breakfast, Tara picked up the bundle of clothes Deborah had brought from her bunk and slipped into the bathroom to brush her teeth and change. The jeans rubbed uncomfortably against the scabs on her legs, but at least she’d lost a good deal of weight since joining the Chosen, so they weren’t tight. She peered into the mirror and frowned. She’d scrubbed her hair clean the night before, but it was still dull and lifeless. She’d pulled out a couple of chunks in the shed, freaking out over the idea that something was nesting in it.
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