Pressing the green icon, hearing the call connecting, she sucked in a long breath and placed the phone to her ear.
When he answered, his voice was graveled, like that waking croak he had. “’ello? Stacy?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Charlie. I’m in New Mexico and…I need a little help.”
“New Mexico? What the hell are you doing there?”
Keeping it short, she simply answered, “Client.”
“Jesus Christ, Stacy, I don’t hear from you all this time and you call at four in the morning asking for help from New Mexico? Give me one reason I shouldn’t hang up right now.”
She swallowed as her eyes closed, knowing she deserved the rebuke, but she came up with the only thing she knew would work. “Someone, not me, needs help. We need a safehouse.”
Her words were met with a long silence, one that was powerful to her. Not hearing the click of the call disconnecting was big enough, but when she heard, “Where are you and when do you need it?”
Relieved, she gave him all the information she could. “We’re up north. We can get anywhere north of Taos or Santa Fe in good time,” she said, then added as she looked out over the dark clouds overhead, “Weather permitting.”
“Shit. If you were in Albuquerque, it would be easier. Let me get back to you in twenty.”
“Okay, yeah. Thanks, Charlie, really. I know…I know I’m asking a lot.”
“Yeah, you are,” he said, then ended the call.
She let the phone drop in her lap and realized she hadn’t heard a thing from her traveling companions. When she looked at Mac, then back to the others, she saw that they were trying to pretend they hadn’t been listening.
“He’s an old friend that started out his career in the Marshal service here in New Mexico. He knows the place well.”
“We didn’t ask, Stacy,” Leo pointed out, but didn’t stop there. “That’s the ex, isn’t it?”
Leo knew her too well, and she’d do well not to forget that. “Yes, and that’s really all I want to say about it.”
Mac chuckled dryly and asked her, “You’ve met Leo, right? He don’t let much drop jus’ ‘cause you ask him ta.”
For not knowing Leo’s new man, she felt complete kinship with him right then. “Wow, yeah, that’s the truth.”
“Okay, you two, no bonding over my idiosyncrasies.”
Stacy laughed, and it felt good after the tension from the call, glancing back at Leo, who gave her a wink.
“I knew I called the right woman for the job.”
They drove through the streets in the early hours of the morning, the sun rising over the mountains to the west as they waited for Charlie DeSoto to call back.
When he did, they were in a drive-thru to get breakfast. Stacy answered, shaking some. “Yeah, I’m here, Charlie.”
“I may have someone, but I need to know a little about your client. Nothing big, I don’t need a name, per se, but some background. This guy I may send you to, he needs to keep a low profile.”
Stacy turned as much as she could and asked Matt, “Can I tell him about you? Some, anyway?”
“You don’t know much, so yeah, if you think you can trust him.”
“I can, I swear, Matt. I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t.”
Matt lowered his head and grunted, “Go ahead.”
“Charlie, this guy was almost killed. He doesn’t trust local cops, which you know is wise. He’s running from a sect of the fundamentalist Mormons. I can’t tell you much more than that, except his life is in danger.”
“Shit, Stacy, some religious freak? I can’t send him to this guy if he’s going to be preachy or a bigot. My friend, he’s gay.”
Hoping she wasn’t misunderstood, but unable to stop her guffaw, she hurried to say, “That’s not a problem, Charlie. I swear, it’s not a problem.”
“Are you sure? If I send you there and my friend feels even a little uncomfortable, I’m going to be pissed.”
Her voice was soft, and there were blank spots in her memory, because she couldn’t quite remember why she’d broken up with the man. “Charlie, my word, it’s not a problem.”
“Fine,” he sighed. “Have you ever heard of Eagle’s Nest?”
“I’ve heard of nests that eagles live in. Does that count?”
The drive wasn’t as long as they’d feared. Not one of them besides Matt had slept much in the previous forty-eight hours. Stacy wasn’t feeling it yet, but she knew she would.
Matt was awake, watching out of the window as they passed the trees that lined the highway. It was beautiful, Stacy agreed, and unexpected. When she thought of New Mexico, rarely did she think of mountains and trees.
The address wasn’t as easy to find as turning on Google maps. The roads close to the man’s home where they were heading were marked with numbers instead of names. Turnoffs came up fast, and the narrowness of the roads themselves made it hard to navigate around some of the snowdrifts.
Leo leaned over the seat that separated them and pointed, “There’s a house over there. Is that it?”
“It’s gotta be,” she answered, hoping she was right. There was a common thread in rural places like the one they were traveling around, and that was everyone had a gun. Bears and strangers were the biggest threats, and not in that order.
They pulled into the long drive, overhanging trees and huge boulders lining their way. The area was beautiful, snow covered, hilly, the house itself like a cabin, only nicer. Long, it had a covered porch in front with several Adirondack chairs wrapping around to connect a separate room off on the side of the house.
Surrounding the place was a meadow leading to trees closer in, and it was breathtaking.
“Purty place,” Mac commented as he pulled up to the house, parking behind a black Ford Escape.
“Beautiful,” Leo agreed. A man came out of the front door, and sure enough, he was holding a rifle, though he wasn’t pointing it at them. It was slung over his shoulder on a strap.
“Let me handle this,” Stacy warned, opening the door of the truck and sliding from the seat.
“Name?” the man called out.
“Stacy Woo. Charlie DeSoto sent me.”
He was slight of build, maybe 5’10, dark olive skin to match his dark, wavy hair and black eyes. Handsome, sure, but Stacy knew that look in his eyes. Cautious, alert, and dangerous. “Get the others out of the truck and come in. I’m not inviting you to stay until I ask some questions.”
Gruff, and rightly so, he was glaring at the truck, and it didn’t escape Stacy’s attention that his hands were twitching, as if one wrong move would have the gun in them and firing.
They filed up the stairs in a single line, each getting a nod from the owner as they passed him. Inside, the room was warm and welcoming, but not one of them, Stacy thought, felt any more at ease than she did.
There was a sectional sofa in the center of the room, pointing to the huge rock fireplace that had the television hanging above the mantle. The thick squared coffee table in the middle of that was filled with books and candles, and the rug under all of it was thick and dark brown.
There were plants near the windows, bookshelves on the opposite wall, and an old console stereo with a turntable. She blinked over at it, feeling herself smile inside as she thought of the one her grandparents had had, the one they’d play old Christmas music on and she’d watch the record spin round and round.
When he entered the house, closing the door behind him, he waved a hand toward the couch, inviting, “Sit and tell me why I should open my home to you.”
Mac asked, “I’m McCully Blaylock. You are?”
They all waited, and finally, he introduced himself. “Steve Ricci. Former United States Marshal.”
Stacy held out her hand, telling him, “I’m sure Charlie told you, but I’m former FBI.”
“He told me,” Steve said, shaking her hand, then Mac’s and Leo’s proffered hands.
Matt didn’t offer to shake, didn’t offer his name l
ike the others had, taking a seat on the sofa, on the edge of one end of it.
Stacy watched Steve as Steve watched Matt, but some of the wariness left him as he visibly examined Matt’s wounds. “You’re the one running, I’m guessing.”
Matt looked up at him and said flatly, “Yeah.”
They all sat, Stacy closer to Matt without being right next to him. She started, “Mac is Matt’s cousin, and Leo is Mac’s partner. I know Leo from when we were kids. I lived next to his grandparents, so I trust him. Leo asked me to find Matt, and I did. I found him in a hospital, like you see him now. As we were leaving the hospital against medical advice, men were coming for him. I am pretty sure they were coming to finish the job.
“No sooner did we get to my motel, and there they were again, the same men. We barely got out of there. That’s when I called Charlie. He’s the only one I know that knows New Mexico at all. The only one I trust.”
Steve had listened through this, no expression to give away his thoughts. His dark eyes only moved to Matt when she’d finished her part of the story. “This is accurate?”
“Yes. It is.”
Mac prodded Matt, “Tell him, tell us, what the Sam Hill is goin’ on, Matt. You don’t gotta tell it all, if it ain’t important or whatever, but I’m purty curious m’self.”
He didn’t start right away, in fact, he didn’t seem to be breathing while he sat, his eyes locked with Steve’s. Stacy grew anxious while she waited, and the others were doing their fair share of fidgeting. All except those two, Matt staring, and eventually, staring down Steve, who lowered his eyes to the table after a couple minutes.
That’s when Matt started speaking, like he was waiting for that, for Steve to back down and as he wove his tale, they all lowered their eyes, unable to watch the pain as it crossed Matt’s face, and if they were like Stacy, trying to sort through it all.
“It all started with my grandfather…”
Chapter Three
Trust didn’t come easy for him. Trust for the outside world was just not done, not for them, for the hidden sects of the Mormon church.
He’d found over the last few years, however, that he had to place trust in the outside, because he couldn’t trust many that were still inside. The metaphorical walls of the compound were higher, thicker, and harder to break through than the actual walls. Living with one foot on each side of them had been a balancing act, but right then, he was out for good. If he valued his life. These people were all he had to trust, so he began.
“It all started with my grandfather. Sure, he wasn’t the first to be in the LDS, or even living the principle, but he was the first to take the compound so far from even those twisted ways.”
“Twisted? So…you don’t agree with fundamentalism at all then?” Leo was across from him, and the question was valid. Still, he stiffened at it.
“No. I was raised in it, yeah, and I believed in it a long time, but I saw and heard things that made me see it wasn’t for me. It shouldn’t be for anyone.”
“Sorry to interrupt, Matt,” Stacy whispered. “This is new to me, and I’m sure to Leo.”
“The basic premises of the LDS, Latter Day Saints, they changed over the years, mostly when they turned away from plural marriage. That’s when some people broke off from the main church and made their own sects. My great-grandfather was LDS, raised his kids like that, but late in life, he said he got a notion he should practice the principle, so he left the Mormon church and found a group that believed like he did. He only had three wives, my grandmother was the first wife, the one that followed him into polygamy.”
Mac pointed out, “That was my great-granddaddy too, on Mama’s side, Earl. She used to talk about her granddaddy. Said he was real nice and all, but her daddy wouldn’t let her around them too much. I think he was scared he’d try ta git her married off ta one o’ ‘em.”
“He was smart,” Matt said. “Earl probably would have. Once he was in, he was in, and my grandpa, Edmond, he was the one who took it further. He left the sect grandpa Earl was in and joined another one, one he took over, eventually.”
Stacy asked, “Took over, how?”
Matt held out his hands and confessed, “First you have to understand the church. See, they think that they live this life only to get ready for the next. Once we get to Heaven, we’re Gods, under God himself, of course, and under Jesus. It’s a lot more complicated than that, and it would take me a month to explain it all, but Mormon men here on earth are priests for God, that’s even in the LDS church. In the FLDS, they have leaders who are called prophets, and the prophets talk to God all the time. God tells them everything, who should marry who, who gets the better jobs in the compounds, all kinds of stuff. Nobody does anything on the compound without the okay from the prophet.”
He wasn’t trying to gauge Steve’s reaction. There were two kinds of people when it came to hearing about Matt’s life and those of others from the FLDS sects. Those filled with disgust and those filled with pity. He didn’t care to see either from the man, but he couldn’t help but see him, notice him, and he didn’t see either of those emotions from Steve. In fact, he didn’t see anything. His face was blank, eyes slowly blinking at him while he listened.
“Go on, please, Matt,” Leo pled, adding, “We don’t mean to keep interrupting. I guess we’re fascinated.”
“It’s okay. I know how it all sounds.”
It was then that Steve finally spoke, and he said, “Don’t worry about that. All families are crazy. I learned that early on.”
Like lightning struck, Matt looked into his eyes and he saw something there. He could have stopped the story right there, and he knew Steve would take them in, keeping them safe. That was why he went on, though. He didn’t want Steve to keep him safe. He didn’t want anyone to keep him safe. That would mean someone besides himself had control over him, and he swore he’d never let that happen again.
Instead, he went on because he knew he could lose his life at any time. The story needed to be told, not for him, but for all his brothers, mothers, and most of all, his sisters and the other girls in the compound. Someone needed to help them, and he knew these people could do that.
“Anyway, when my grandpa took over the compound, everyone followed him, and he was given the best house, the best wives. He had my daddy, but he had mostly girls after, and I never knew why until a few years ago.
“See it’s run like a business, the compounds, and United Faithful Brotherhood, our compound, it was too, and like the others, the business isn’t up and up. There’s a lot of money pouring into the coffers, and it’s tax exempt because it’s a religious organization, but still, they have to keep two sets of books.”
“My daddy did that with the ranch,” Mac sneered. “Guess that runs in our family too.”
“Thieves and crooks are bad, yeah, and they are good at it, but that’s the least of their sins.”
He watched Stacy stiffen and eye him hard. “Honey, were you…”
“Not me, no. I wasn’t touched, but a lot of others were. See, I didn’t know anything about anything until pretty recently. I was a good kid, obedient, like all the kids and wives are supposed to be. I didn’t think anything was wrong with our lives. I had a bunch of moms and grandmothers, a whole bunch of sisters, a few brothers, even, more than most there. Aunts, cousins, it was a family, and I didn’t see anything wrong with it.
“We weren’t allowed to watch TV or listen to the radio. No outside influences at all. We had our own school, and to keep the state off the backs of the leaders and parents, we were given the bare minimum of what we needed to pass the homeschool tests. We played, but we had a lot of work for little kids too, and always prayed. Daddy insisted on us having family prayer several times a day. The whole bunch of us, him leading the prayers and most of the time, they were all about us being obedient, promising us boys that one day, when we were much older, if we kept chaste and worked hard, we’d get our first wife eventually.”
“Eventually? I
thought they said you had to have a zillion wives to even get into heaven,” Leo pointed out.
“Yeah, but only the older men got wives. We weren’t even considered for wives until we were in our late twenties, and that’s if we were perfect little soldiers first. We had a lot of hoops to jump through before we earned our rights to the girls. Not that I wanted a wife, but I didn’t figure out I was gay for a long time. Then I did, and I was sick about it, until I got out and, well, that’s another story.”
“Go on, Matt,” Stacy urged.
He nodded, but Steve stopped him. “I guess, if this is a long story, I should get you all some drinks. I have water, soda, coffee, whatever.”
Everyone asked for water, and Stacy and Leo went to help him. Mac moved over beside him, patting his leg gently. “I know this is hard for ya. I just dealt with some family shit, and it about tore out my heart. Leo there, he was the only thing got me through it.”
“You’re lucky. I’m glad you found someone. My daddy used to talk about your parents. Said they were sinners. He didn’t like them much.”
“Yeah, my daddy thought yours was crazy,” he laughed. “But me and you, we’re family, Matt. That does mean somethin’ ta me. I ain’t gonna let no one hurt ya, at least, not anymore.”
He felt the tears spring to his eyes, and he was surprised. He thought he’d cried them all out, leaving him numb. “I appreciate it, Mac, but it’s not me I’m worried about. What I’ve been doing the last few years…if that stops, a lot of people I care about are going to be hurt. Our family, Mac.”
He saw the fire in Mac’s eyes, his face reddening. “What the fuck is happenin’ there, Matt?”
Not allowing the shaking he felt coming to his hands, he confessed, “A lot. Mac, it’s bad. It’s so bad.”
His hand was taken then, Mac’s callused, strong hand in his, and he felt the familial connection and the simple fact that Mac had nothing to do with the family back on the compound gave him hope. “I don’t want to ask for help, but it’s not for me.”
The Principle (Legacy Book 2) Page 2