He grabbed the nearest police officer. “I’m Ben Andrews with the Indigo Bay PD. We believe the car came from there.”
The officer noted the badge pinned to Ben’s chest, then jerked his head toward a knot of people gathered near the body. “Agent Barnes is in charge.”
Agent Barnes was a slender, middle-aged woman who wore the unmistakable air of authority. She glanced at him and held up one hand, instructing him to wait while she finished a conversation with one of her officers. The anxiety twisted in Ben’s chest, tighter and tighter.
“What can I do for you?” Agent Barnes finally said, turning to him.
He repeated his credentials, citing Indigo Bay as the possible source of the car, and then he could stand it no more. “The victim…” Ben darted a glance at the shrouded body.
“Male. Early twenties. Looks like a drifter,” Agent Barnes said. “Shot once in the chest at point-blank range, bled out within two minutes. We’re looking at the tapes provided by the truck stop, but this area was not well lit, so it’s hard to see anything.”
“No other victims? A young woman was known to be traveling with him,” Ben said, working to keep the desperation from his tone.
“An eyewitness claims he saw at least three escape the scene,” Agent Barnes said. “I’ll have to review his testimony further, but he did say one was a woman.”
“Did she go willingly? Have you called in a kidnapping? Could there—”
“I’m sorry, I don’t have time right now for more questions,” Agent Barnes interrupted. “There will be a briefing at oh-five-hundred hours. You’re welcome to stick around until then.”
Ben nodded and turned away from the scene just as the crime photographer took another picture. Something glinted in the flash, something lying on the asphalt outside the main circle of emergency personnel. Ben moved toward it, bent down to examine it more closely. It was a small piece of green sea glass.
Ben’s heart clenched, and anger boiled through his veins. He scooped up the piece of glass and clenched it in his fist as he hurried back to his squad car. He knew where they were taking her.
“I want to see my mother,” Eva said again, louder this time. She jerked her arm from Jessie’s grip, barely feeling the pain as his fingernails dug deeply into her skin.
The kneeling figures shuffled restlessly as a disturbance of whispering rippled through the room.
“Child, we are all one family,” Father Neezrahiah said from his throne. “There are no mothers here, and no fathers except for me.”
“That’s not true,” Eva shot back, finding a kernel of anger in her fear. “My mother’s name is Karen Malone and I want to see her.”
There was more whispering around the room. One of the prophet’s sons leaned in and spoke softly in his ear. “Do you mean Ninkarrah?” Father Neezrahiah asked.
“Karen Malone,” Eva ground out. “You took her from me when I was barely more than a baby. I want to see her.”
“We give up our worldly names when we join the higher order,” Father Neezrahiah said. He spoke calmly, but Eva could see how his fingers clenched on the arms of his throne. “There is no one here by the name of Karen.”
“Yes, there is.”
Eva whirled toward the soft voice from the back of the room as her mother stood up. She looked older than her forty-seven years. Her face was lined and her long hair was silvery gray, caught in a loose braid at the back of her neck. She wore a long dress of light blue fabric, made of finer material than what the ordinary members of the Family were given. A gold chain glinted at her throat.
The murmuring grew louder as Karen threaded her way through the crowd, her eyes never leaving Eva’s. They had the same eyes, large and brilliant blue, only Karen’s were clouded, whether by drugs, pain, or age, Eva didn’t know. At last she reached the front of the room and came to a stop, facing Eva.
“Hi, Mom,” Eva said, choking around the sudden swell of emotion.
The man who had taken her mother away gave a small cough, and her mother turned quickly toward him. They locked eyes for a moment before her mother turned back to Eva.
“Hello, Seranyevah,” her mother said softly, and in hearing that name, Eva’s hope died. “It’s good you’ve come home; we’ve missed you.”
Had her mother even known she was gone? Had she cared until now? Unasked questions stuck in Eva’s throat. “They killed Sam,” she said, her voice quavering. “Your son, Mom! They killed him.”
Karen clasped her hands together in front of her chest. “We will pray that Sambium’s soul may be spared the eternal fires.”
“They’re going to kill me too.”
A trancelike look of devotion washed over her mother’s face. “Then we will pray for your soul as well,” she said.
“You remember the location; about ten miles northwest of Blue Ridge,” Ben grated. The road hummed beneath him as he sped north, lights and sirens still blazing.
“Ben, we need proof,” Chief O’Brien said, his voice coming over the car speakers, streaming from Ben’s phone via Bluetooth. It was past four in the morning and Chief O’Brien, head of the Atlanta PD, was probably regretting that he’d ever given the officers his cell phone number. Ben had never had to use it, until now.
“Unless we know one hundred percent certain it was them, we can’t go in there without a warrant, and you know it,” the chief said.
“We can if we have probable cause,” Ben insisted. “Look, I know it’s a kidnapping. She left all her things behind and her brother was murdered.”
“Then she’s a suspect as well as a potential victim,” the chief replied, an edge to his voice. “And I’m going to get into a helluva lot of trouble if I start something with those crazies without guaranteed proof. You remember what happened last night.”
Memories of the standoff hung thickly in the air, but Ben brushed them away. “She’s there, I promise. Please, Chief. I’m going in alone if I have to, but I’d rather have some backup.”
There was a long pause as Ben’s car continued to eat up the miles. Except for a stop for gas and an extra-large coffee, he’d been on the road since the truck stop, almost two hundred miles. He was getting close, another fifty or so miles to go. If the Chief sent out the boys from Atlanta, they could meet him in under an hour.
“All right,” Chief O’Brien sighed. “I’ll send two units. You’d better hope you’re right.”
Ben sighed in relief as the line went dead. Dwayne and Tara were coming from Indigo Bay and were not far behind him, but the guys in Atlanta were better equipped. He’d worry a little less knowing they’d be there.
Chapter 13
Eva didn’t struggle against Jessie’s grip on her arm this time. What was the use? There was no escape anyway, and it didn’t matter anymore.
She kept her eyes down and walked quietly beside Jessie as his two bodyguards led them through the house and out the door, then through the gates and away from the inner sanctum. The plywood buildings where the rest of the Family lived were weathered gray, steely cold in the early morning light. Eva cast a quick look at the barracks, and then toward the larger building where the adults had slightly more room. Even if they were watching from behind the closed blinds, Jessie and his men both held pistols. No one would try to go up against that.
Kurum turned onto a trail behind the kitchen, and with a dull ache Eva realized where they were going. The Tank. A much harder way to die than if they’d simply shot her. No surprise there—Jessie would want it to be painful.
She felt numb, like this was happening to someone else, as she stumbled along the trail winding through the forest. The trees were mostly oaks, their massive limbs draped in Spanish moss that whispered around her face. When she was younger, she’d thought the Spanish moss beautiful, in spite of its spidery appearance. She and some of the other girls used to harvest it, using it as nests for the wooden dolls they’d whittle from tree branches.
It felt like a long walk, but was only a few minutes before the trees
thinned to a clearing. The Tank wasn’t ominous. In fact, unless you knew where to look, it would be easy to miss. Just a rusted iron plate, sitting in the thick underbrush and mostly overtaken by Confederate jasmine.
Hadanish bent and tugged at the steel plate, grunting with the weight of it. The metal screeched in protest, as if reluctant to reveal its secrets, but finally came free to expose a hole, round but with the edges slightly worn away by rust. Inside was pitch black, a gaping maw. Jessie aimed the flashlight on his phone at the hole, and roaches rimming the edge scuttled away. Inky water gleamed several feet below the opening.
Icy cold, black and fetid. Of unknown depth and filled with unknown horrors. Eva knew the hole in the ground was misleading; the Tank was many times larger than it appeared, buried decades ago and probably used as some sort of water source. But it had been stagnant for as long as she could remember. No fresh water came from here. Here, there was only death.
They had all grown up hearing whispers of those who had gone to the Tank to be punished. Some survived, some did not. If the elders were feeling generous, they only left you in there for a few minutes, desperately treading water in the frigid blackness while you prayed for mercy, for the welcoming sound of the screeching metal as they pulled back the steel plate and lowered a ladder to fish you out.
But sometimes, there was no ladder. Sometimes there was only the cold and the dark and a slow, terrible death as exhaustion gave way to drowning. It had only happened once in Eva’s lifetime. One of the men had been caught trying to hide the money he’d earned as a day laborer instead of giving it to the elders. He’d gone into the Tank a kicking, screaming, living person and had come out a body, limp and gray, to be buried in some unknown place farther in the woods.
Eva stared into the inky water, knowing there would be no ladder to save her.
“In you go,” Jessie said, his eyes alight with a terrible eagerness.
In a heartbeat, before her scream had even left her lips, Hadanish picked her up and threw her in.
His headlights fell on a woman standing by the side of the road and Ben screeched to a stop, sending gravel flying. He was still a mile or so from the main gate to the Compound and had turned off his lights and sirens several minutes ago. Had the woman known he was coming? Unlikely, but she was obviously wanting help, because she motioned to him frantically.
Making sure the holster for his pistol was unlocked, Ben climbed from the car and approached warily, his hand on the gun at his hip. “Who are you?”
The woman had long gray hair, caught back in a braid, and her face was prematurely lined. But the eyes … he’d seen those eyes before.
“You’re Eva’s mother,” he declared.
She nodded. “Karen,” she gasped. The name sounded strange on her tongue, not the familiar way someone usually said their own name.
“Where’s Eva?” Ben urged. “Is she alive?”
Karen’s blue eyes—Eva’s eyes—filled with tears. “They took her. I was going to town to get help but you … you have to hurry.”
“Where?” His head whipped around, surveying the scene. It was early morning and the forest was silent. The morning birds had not yet begun to sing.
“There’s a gap in the fence.” Karen pointed at the thick trees lining the road. Through them Ben could see the dim outline of a tall chain-link fence. “Go through it,” Karen said, “and north, about ten minutes. There’s a clearing. She’s there. They put her in the water.”
Ben’s heart dropped; Eva hated the water. He drew the pistol. “Who else is there? How many?” he demanded.
The woman raised shaking hands to cover her eyes as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Three. There’s three.” She sank to the side of the road and sobbed.
“Wait here, more police are coming,” Ben snapped. He plowed through the weeds and tall brush until he reached the trees and the fence. He found the hole, ducked through.
Dark. So dark and so cold. Unbearably cold.
Eva gasped for air, her lungs constricting in the freezing water until it was impossible to get a deep breath. It was hard to say what had been worse: the force of her body hitting the water, or the shock as the cold hit her back. She’d plunged into the blackness, flailing, but even with the force of Hadanish’s throw, her feet hadn’t hit the bottom of the Tank. With nothing to push off from, she’d hovered there, lost in the murky world of terror and despair.
Then she’d remembered what Ben had told her. The human body floats; all she had to do was relax. As if she could relax. But she’d tried, and miraculously felt herself rise until her head broke the surface. Gasping, she let out a strangled sob and paddled frantically, treading water until she realized she would only deplete her energy faster. Was there any hope of rescue? Would Jessie really let her drown in here? She was certain he would. Was he up there now, waiting to hear her cry and scream and beg him to let the ladder down?
She felt her way to the edge of the Tank and slowly worked her way around it, searching for something she could grasp to give her a rest from treading water. She may have circled the tank many times or not at all; it was impossible to tell in the darkness, and the walls all felt the same. Her hands brushed against slimy things, the metal covered with whatever putrid organisms can grow in such cold darkness, and sometimes something—or a lot of somethings—moved under her fingertips. Probably roaches, skittering away at her touch. She shook off those that ran onto her hands. She hated roaches, but there was had no time for squeamishness now.
Her teeth chattered and she was breathing heavily, the cold and the fear sapping her strength as quickly as the effort of swimming. How long could she last? The top of the tank was beyond her reach; even if she knew where the hole was, she couldn’t get to it, couldn’t move the heavy lid by herself. And even if she did somehow manage that, Jessie and his goons were waiting to push her back in. Or shoot her.
Eva closed her eyes and tipped her head back, letting the putrid water fill her ears and skim over her face. Maybe it wasn’t so different from when Ben had taught her to float, that day at the swimming hole. But that water hadn’t been so cold. That day had been fresh and bright and she’d been warmed by the sun, but even more so by Ben’s presence. The quick flash of his dimple, the hardness of his hands under her back as he held her afloat…and later, the press of his lips against hers.
She willed herself to relax, let her body descend farther into the cold water. It lapped over her face, enclosing her in its cocoon and she fought against the panic. It would only hurt for a minute. Then it’d be over.
She was dropping …
A bang overhead startled her upright. Faint sounds like gunshots and shouting. She thrashed in the water, swimming toward the wall, and banged against it with her fist, but the ground muffled the noise and she felt so weak. Her hope flickered as she realized no one could possibly hear her.
Then with a wrenching sound, the steel cover was lifted, heaved to one side. The stabbing brightness hurt Eva’s eyes, but she couldn’t look away. She kicked, swimming frantically toward the small square of light.
A shadow blocked the hole. Someone’s head. “Eva!”
“Ben!” she gasped. She tried to reach for him, but her strength was gone and she was sinking, her spent limbs dragging her downward while her hair floated in a halo around her face.
She heard a splash, and then Ben’s arms, so strong and warm, circled her waist. He surged them toward the small opening where the fresh air poured in. “Eva! Come on, sweetheart, stay awake,” he ordered. Above, she saw other people peering in the hole, reaching down to grab her, lift her up.
The world tilted and there was air again, blowing away the cloying stink of the Tank. Someone pressed something cold and soft over her nose and mouth, and for a moment she struggled before realizing it was an oxygen mask.
“Stay awake, ma’am.” A woman crouched overhead, her eyebrows drawn together in worry. “Can you stay awake for me?”
“Eva, stay awake, love.” Ben pl
eaded from nearby. She twisted to see him, water streaming from his hair, his face drawn with concern. She wanted to stay awake, but she was so tired, so cold. Staying awake hurt. It was much easier to let go and sleep.
She forced her eyes open, holding Ben’s gaze. “I love you,” she whispered.
Chapter 14
The boat drifted to a stop, and a gust of wind sent Eva’s hair whirling across her cheek. She dragged it back, tucking it behind her ear. Across the bay, the buildings that made up town merged into a hazy blur, and the only noise was the lapping of the water along the hull of the boat and the occasional cry of a seagull, soaring far overhead.
Ben slid from the captain’s chair and stepped forward, his arms encircling her, pulling her close. She leaned into him, letting him steady her in the bobbing boat. Under her cheek, his heartbeat thumped strong and steady.
“Cold?” he murmured.
“I’m okay.” Eva raised her face to give him a small smile.
His eyes softened as he ducked his head, pressing a soft, quick kiss to her lips. “Are you ready to do this?”
Eva sighed. “I guess so.” She eased her arms from around Ben’s waist and stooped to pull the small brass urn from where she’d placed it under the seat, nestled among the life jackets where it wouldn’t tip over.
They stood silently, shifting their weight to stay steady in the rocking boat, as Eva worked the stopper out of the urn. It came free with a small pop, and after a few moments of silence, she leaned over the edge of the boat and tipped the container, letting Sam’s ashes spill onto the water. Sam had never seen the ocean until he’d come to Indigo Bay, but giving his ashes to the Atlantic felt right, like she was giving him a chance to be part of something bigger, a part of the world he’d been denied his whole life.
Sweet Illusions (Indigo Bay Sweet Romance Series Book 4) Page 12
