Hoping to repair the damage, Anna quickly said, “It’s nice. Do you have children?”
“Not yet. Ben says we will soon.”
Biting back another sarcastic comment, Anna asked, “How long have you been married to Ben?”
“A little over two years.”
Lucy couldn’t be older than nineteen. “How did you two meet?”
“A mutual friend introduced us.”
Mutual friend, my ass. Lucy had most likely been taken just like she had. Were all the women in the community kidnap victims? If so, how was it possible that these people had been getting away with abducting women all these years? And just what the hell did this perfection training involve? Had Lucy been a normal teenaged girl before these freaks got hold of her?
“Where did you live before you came here?”
“My life didn’t begin until I moved to Tranquillity.”
Anna didn’t know if she should weep for this beautiful, obviously brainwashed girl or snap at her to stop being so damned stupid. “How long has this community been here?”
“I don’t know. Since as long ago as Brother Alden created it, I guess.”
Another non-answer. Anna gazed around as they continued to walk. Since they’d begun their tour this morning, she’d seen a dozen or more people performing various tasks. Repairs on one building, painting another building. Three women watched over a handful of children in a small play area. Everyone seemed so focused, like worker bees, intent only on their own tasks. The few times she’d tried to meet someone’s gaze, the men had looked straight through her as if she didn’t exist and the women’s eyes had skittered away.
“This is where I spend much of my time.”
They stopped in front of a medium-sized structure. “What is it?”
“Our school.”
“Are you a teacher?”
“Not yet. I don’t have the knowledge and experience to teach, but I help as much as I can. Perhaps Brother Alden will allow you to assist, too.”
The cliché “over my dead body” fit so well here, but Anna had a feeling that this wasn’t a foreign concept to these people. If they were bold enough to kidnap and brainwash people, murder wouldn’t be that much of a stretch. Her best bet was to keep as low a profile as possible until she could figure out a way out of here.
“How many children live here?”
“I don’t know. Fifteen or so, maybe.”
So not only had women been abducted, they’d been forced to bear children. Anna hadn’t thought she could get more furious or terrified.
They continued on a path that led to some steep steps. Lucy stopped at the bottom of the steps and pointed upward. “Just on the other side of the hill is where Brother Alden lives.”
Anna tensed. Was she ready to meet this mysterious leader everyone seemed to worship? Was he the man she’d seen when she’d first been taken? That evil, slimy grin would live in her memory for years. What would she do if she saw him? Since she had returned, she’d been drugged frequently. Her limbs were weak and her feet were just now recovering from her barefoot escape. Could she find the strength to destroy this monster if she had to confront him?
“Are we going up there?”
Lucy looked both horrified and astounded by the question. “Oh no, we’re not allowed to venture anywhere close. Ben goes occasionally, but the women of the community must stay away unless sent for.”
That was just fine with her. Being summoned to the palace of the king—or whatever the hell “Brother Alden” thought he was—wasn’t something she wanted. Getting the hell out of here was her one and only focus. If she could escape without ever having met him, she could definitely live with that.
They turned away from the steps and Anna swallowed a startled yelp. Ben stood behind them, along with another man.
Giving her that oddly gentle smile that made her want to punch him out, Ben asked, “What do you think?”
“Think about what?”
“Tranquillity. You’ll enjoy living here. I’m sure of it.”
Was there a right response to that arrogant comment? If she said yes, would he even believe her? After babbling when she’d first met him about the crazies who had abducted her, she knew better than that. However, telling him there was no way in hell she ever planned to live here would most likely get her punishment of some sort.
Using Lucy’s tactics of a non-answer, she said, “It’s certainly thriving.”
She watched warily as Ben gave the man beside him a look. The man, a little smaller than Ben, fortyish, with fiery red hair and an equally fiery handlebar mustache, grinned at Anna. “I think you’re right, Ben. I believe she will do me just fine.”
“This is Brother Harbin Meeks. He’s going to bid for you.”
Comprehension came instantly. Like hell! Anna whirled around, took a leaping step, and rammed into a broad chest. Looking up, she stared with wild-eyed terror at a giant. The man who’d abducted her.
Brown eyes glittered down at her with the most terrifying expression she’d ever seen. “Going somewhere?”
With her heart pounding so hard she could barely hear over the noise, she heard Ben say from a distance, “Brother Alden, what an honor to have you join us.”
His gaze never leaving her face, he said, “Has she been behaving?”
“She’ll never leave us again,” Ben said. “We’ll make sure of that.”
A wide grin spread across his face, but his cold eyes narrowed in speculation. “That’s good to hear. But I’d like to hear those words from her.”
Anna remained stubbornly silent. Maybe that was a stupid thing to do, but pretending that she wanted to stay in this psycho community went well beyond her limited acting skills.
The man nodded, looking oddly satisfied at her defiance. “Now I know why Tabitha was so insistent on this one. My daughter enjoys training the stubborn girls the most.”
“Brother Harbin is going to bid for her.”
“Excellent. I believe she’ll have several men vying for her.” Finally lifting his gaze from Anna’s, he looked at the men standing behind her. “Brother Meeks, prepare your petition, along with your preferred names.”
A big hand came toward Anna’s face, and she couldn’t help but flinch and jerk away. The hand grabbed her hair and held her in place. “Someday soon, you’ll be kneeling at my feet.”
Too scared to even pretend bravery, Anna could feel her eyes glazing over in tears. When one rolled down her cheek, the man reached out his other hand and lifted the teardrop with his finger. He looked down at the glistening drop and then brought it to his mouth. “Delicious.” Lowering his head, he whispered softly, “I’ll make sure it’s your first of many.”
LCR branch office
Tampa
Honor stared at her neat scribbles on the dry-erase board, a careful optimism making her heart thud harder. She and Seth had gotten in an hour ago and come to the office immediately. Aidan, Jared, and Noah had arrived a few moments later and now sat, along with Seth, at the conference table.
Everyone had significant information to share, and though they’d briefed each other on the phone, Honor wanted to get it all written down in front of them so they could begin a discussion.
“Okay, with everything we have now, let’s start over again. Aidan, you go first.”
“Mallory Roland was the young woman abducted and found dead in Pennsylvania. She was twenty years old and was last seen in an Internet café a couple of miles from the Penn State campus.”
“And the similarity to the other girls?” Seth asked.
“Age and she was a transfer. She started at Penn State this year to be with her boyfriend, who’s a junior there.”
“Anything else?” Honor asked.
Aidan nodded. “I talked to a couple of people who saw her at the café. She had a long conversation with a young blond woman. They walked out together. That was the last time anyone saw her.”
Seth grabbed one of the files for the missing girls
and opened it. “Kelli was seen talking to a young woman prior to her disappearance. She didn’t leave with her, but the woman left and then Kelli left about ten minutes later. That was the last time Kelli was seen. No one knew who the woman was … just that she was a young, attractive brunette.”
“So you’re saying a woman could be responsible for these abductions?” Jared asked.
“Not solely responsible, but she could be the lure.” Seth surged to his feet and began to pace. “So let’s go back to our theory. These young, vulnerable girls are lonely and looking for friendship. A beautiful young woman befriends them. They have no reason to think she’s anything other than another college student. They’re eager to make friends, they’re not looking for a predator. She lures them somewhere, and that’s when they’re taken.”
He went back to the table and flipped through the other files. “All the other girls were seen talking to a young woman before they disappeared. It didn’t register with us because the women had different descriptions.”
“It’s easy enough to disguise yourself with a wig and a different demeanor,” Honor said.
“Okay, but how does this help us?” Jared said. “We don’t know what she looks like really, except that she’s young and pretty. There’re a hell of a lot of young, pretty women on college campuses.”
Honor nodded, not minding a bit having a naysayer in the bunch. Poking holes in their theories would keep them focused. “You’re right. But it’s not something we’d considered before. And it makes me wonder about the motivation for the abductions. Before I was thinking human trafficking. Now I’m not so sure.”
“But why did he rape and kill Mallory?” Aidan asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe something went wrong. Could be she fought back … harder than the others. Maybe the guy lost his temper. Lots of things could have happened. I’m just not willing to say this isn’t our guy, just because he wasn’t successful with this abduction.” She glanced at Aidan again. “Any evidence left on her body?”
“No, the coroner said the water washed everything away.”
Tapping her pen against the table, Honor said, “Okay, so we know that the five girls, plus Mallory, were seen talking with a young woman no one knew, prior to their disappearance. Which to me is the most telling piece of all.”
“What?” Noah asked.
“If she’s that attractive, why didn’t anyone know her? Of all the people we’ve talked to, why was it that not one of them had any idea who she was?”
The room went silent as everyone absorbed and considered her statement. Finally, Seth said, “Okay, so we’ve got that. What else?”
Noah and Jared looked at each other. Noah gave a nod, indicating that the other man should proceed.
Pulling a thick stack of papers from a small box on the floor, Jared slid a smaller stack of stapled pages across the table to each of them. Honor took hers and ran her eyes swiftly down the first page. She turned the page and again read quickly. Each turn of the page was successively faster as an ache developed in her stomach. Reaching the last page, she raised her head and saw her feelings reflected on everyone’s faces.
“How far did you go back?” she asked.
“Ten years,” Jared answered grimly.
“Okay … now wait, help me out here,” Aidan said. “I see some similarities, age and such, but the MOs are all over the place.” He picked up his stack and flipped to a page. “This girl was only seventeen, a popular high school cheerleader, and the last time she was seen was at a mall in Seattle.”
“Take a look at the other two girls who went missing that same year,” Jared said. “Look at their last known location.”
Aidan turned another page. “Shit. A mall,” he murmured.
Noah stood and went to a two-sided whiteboard. “Jared and I worked on this last night.” He flipped the board over to reveal a map of the United States. “We’ve tagged the states where the girls have gone missing, using a colored pin to show the year and the last known location.” He shook his head. “I’m the biggest doubting Thomas there is, but it’s hard for me to say there’s not something there.”
As Honor drew closer, she could feel everyone else come up behind her. All eyes were glued to the map and the horrifyingly numerous and different-colored pins dotting it.
Seth’s deep voice broke the stunned silence. “So what we’re looking at is at least ten years’ worth of abductions. Each year, he changed the MO and the number of victims he took.”
“Exactly,” Jared said from behind them. “And, as you can see, they’re all over the map, which is probably the reason no one’s ever connected them before. The year a girl went missing in Nevada, he took another one in Tennessee and the next in New York. None of them close enough in location or time frame that the authorities would suspect that the disappearances could be related.”
“A video arcade, fast-food restaurants, coffee shops, malls, movie theaters,” Noah said. “Anywhere young adults hang out a lot.”
“Okay, I’m willing to concede that the disappearances have some similarities,” Aidan said. “But how are they related to this case? The girls we’re looking for have gone missing from a lot of different places.”
Honor nodded. “True; the similarity is each girl is a college student and a young woman is the lure.”
Seeing that a smattering of doubts still lingered, she said, “Okay, let’s see where this takes us.” She repeated all they’d learned: “He never hits the same state twice. One year, he hit four states; another year, two states. In a ten-year time frame, that’s forty-three states. Let’s rule out Hawaii and Alaska simply for remoteness and difficulty of travel. This year he’s hit Iowa, Oregon, and Indiana. And most likely Pennsylvania. If he continues this pattern, there’s only one state he hasn’t hit.”
She pointed to the state without a pin. “Wyoming.” She turned back to the table and sat down. “That’s where we need to concentrate our efforts.”
“That’s a damn big state,” Jared said.
“True. But it’s a much smaller area than we had before. And we know to look at college campuses.”
“So we’re going to go to colleges in Wyoming and search for good-looking women who talk to other women?” Aidan asked.
“When you put it like that, it does sound hopeless and far-fetched. But that’s exactly what we’ll be doing. Except we’re going to have LCR females do that. This creep isn’t looking for guys.” She glanced over at Noah. They’d discussed this on the phone this morning after he’d given her the bare basics of what he and Jared had learned. “Noah is bringing in eleven female operatives to help.”
Sitting across from Seth, she saw his jaw clench, and the rigid set of his shoulders became even tenser. They hadn’t talked about this yet; he was learning about the plan along with Aidan and Jared. By the look on his face, he disapproved.
Apparently picking up on Seth’s feelings, Noah asked, “You got a problem with the plan, Cavanaugh?”
Instead of answering immediately, Seth gave Honor a hard, searching look. He wasn’t an easy person to read, but she knew something had disturbed him. However, his answer to Noah was “No, this might be our only chance of catching the guy this year.”
Noah stood and addressed them all. “Exactly. That’s the biggest concern. Look at the dates of each abduction. He’s never taken anyone after mid-November or before mid-March. We’re two weeks away from the window closing until next year. If the Pennsylvania case is related, and I think we all agree that there’s a strong possibility, he failed at his last attempt. And—”
Seth finished his statement: “And if we don’t get him in the next two weeks, our chances of finding Kelli and the other girls this year are almost nonexistent.”
Silence permeated the room as everyone absorbed that grim statement.
Doubt suddenly washed over Honor. Either way, their choices sucked. If they were wrong and none of the previous disappearances had anything to do with this case, then they were wasting
valuable time. Time they couldn’t afford. And if they were right, their odds were even suckier. A two-week time frame to cover an entire state filled with several large and small campuses looking for one pretty woman who was being used as a lure to attract lonely young girls.
The optimism she’d felt at the beginning of the meeting dwindled considerably. No way in hell was this going to work.
twenty-one
Tranquillity
Alden sat in his favorite chair, oversized for his large frame and with enough room for an additional, more slender body for those times when he wanted company. He’d had it placed at the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over his community. Here he often sat for hours and, with the help of powerful binoculars, watched his people work. Like tireless minions, they toiled and slaved, all to make their lives better and more fulfilling.
Soon winter would arrive and they would truly become a community once again. During the warmer months, there was a separation, a disconnect. The men would hunt wild game, the women would tend the garden and fill their time with canning and freezing. The warm weather gave them the opportunity to prepare for the winter. But it also meant there were absences, and when that happened, the community suffered. All of its members were needed.
His own absence was the worst, he knew. For the last ten years, he’d had no choice. Young women were necessary to increase their numbers and keep the men’s baser needs satisfied. In turn, the women were given the opportunity for their own fulfilling destiny. What greater gift could a woman have than serving her man?
He was glad that his travels for the year were almost over. If not for his wayward son, his work would have been completed last week. And since they were running behind schedule, he was going to do something he had promised himself he’d never do: he was going to hunt close to home. Not that the authorities would have any idea of where to look, but just the idea of bringing any attention to the state where Tranquillity resided bothered him immensely. He’d learned long ago that you don’t piss in your own backyard. There was nothing he could do about it, though. Traveling to another state would take too much time. After the first solid freeze, winter would set in, and the heavy snows would make traveling difficult. Besides, he had too much to do here to be gone for very long.
Sweet Justice Page 20
