by Kay Hooper
Arrogant bastard.
“I think,” Tessa said a bit hesitantly, “I should probably be going.”
“Oh, no,” Ruth protested. “I haven’t even had time to show you around inside the church.”
Under normal circumstances, Sawyer would have apologized for keeping them and got out of the way. But not this time. This time he merely waited silently. Because he wasn’t about to do anything to help them get their claws deeper into Tessa Gray.
Yeah, you’re purely unselfish, you are.
“I can always see the rest of the church another day,” Tessa was saying with a polite but clearly strained smile.
Ruth shot Sawyer a look that didn’t hold a lot of Christian forgiveness, then said to Tessa, “Of course you can, child. I’ll walk you back to your car. Chief. Officer Keever.”
“Ladies.” Sawyer watched the two women until they passed through the main doors and out of the church, then shifted his gaze to find DeMarco watching him with a little smile.
Irritated, Sawyer said, “I could stick around for Wednesday evening services, just in case Reverend Samuel has a few minutes afterward to talk to me.”
“Yes. You could. Though Reverend Samuel is always very tired after services and retires to his apartment for the night. Still, you’re more than welcome to stay. Is that what you’d like to do, Chief?”
You don’t need to chase after Tessa now; she’ll think you’re a stalker. Or something worse. Take advantage of this offer and do your damn job.
Sawyer told the sarcastic inner voice to shut the hell up and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I would like to stay.”
Reese DeMarco smiled that smile that never softened his stone face or warmed his icy eyes and said, “Our doors are always open, Chief.”
Bambi Devenny had been christened Barbara, but her delicate, doe-eyed beauty as an infant had led to the nickname, and she had really never answered to anything else. It had gotten her teased in school, her situation not helped by the fact that she had matured much faster than the girls around her, skipping the training bra entirely and going straight to a C-cup.
After that, only the other girls teased her.
The boys liked her. A lot.
Or, at least, so Bambi had believed. It hadn’t been until the school guidance counselor had talked to her about her skimpy tops and too-tight jeans and baldly asked if she was using birth control and protection against STDs that it had slowly dawned on Bambi that all the muttered I-love-yous in the backseats of cars and under the bleachers at football games meant a lot less than she had believed.
She didn’t think she would ever forget the mixture of compassion and distaste on the counselor’s face as she explained that Bambi’s mother should have warned her about boys and how they would take advantage of girls who slept around.
Had taken advantage.
Bambi had gone home that day nearly in tears to find yet another “uncle” laughing and drinking with her mother, and when the man had turned his hot-eyed gaze on the daughter as soon as the mother passed out, the lesson had been reinforced.
Bambi fended him off with an empty whiskey bottle, then packed her few things and left. She hadn’t seen her mother since.
How she had wound up, finally, at the Church of the Ever lasting Sin was a tale of a rough and sinful life on the streets, doing what she had to do in order to survive.
“We understand, child,” Father told her, his voice deep and warm and inexpressibly comforting. “You had no choice.”
“Yes, Father. I hated myself, but it was the only way I knew to make enough money to eat.” She kept her gaze on his kind face, oblivious, as she always was when giving Testimony, to the other church members watching and listening from the pews.
As long as Father heard, as long as he understood, she didn’t care about anyone else.
“Go on, child.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and Bambi could feel the warmth of that touch spreading all through her body.
“It was harder to earn money sometimes,” she said obediently. “No matter what I—I was willing to do. So sometimes I got a meal and a cot at some mission or soup kitchen or church. I’m sure plenty of the people there tried to help me. To talk to me. But I wasn’t ready to listen.”
“Until?” Father prompted gently.
“Until I met someone at a soup kitchen in Asheville back around Thanksgiving. Someone who told me about the Church of the Everlasting Sin. She said I’d be welcome here. She said I’d find peace here. She said I’d find God here.”
“And have you, child?”
“Oh, yes, Father. I’ve found everything here.” Bambi sank to her knees before him, her head bowed. “Bless me, Father.”
“God blesses you, child.” He lay both his hands, one over the other, on her bowed head and began to pray out loud.
The church was dim, the lights down low, except for the very bright spotlight focused on the two who were on the—Sawyer could only think of it as a stage. The whole thing struck him as a kind of performance, as it had the other dozen or so times he had “visited” here during services.
As he watched intently, paying little attention to the prayers Reverend Samuel was intoning, he saw the man change, saw his rather ordinary face grow pale for a few seconds—and then regain its former color and more, becoming flushed in the cheeks. He lifted his face toward the heaven to which he was praying, and there was an expression of exaltation on his regular features.
That look transformed him from any man—every man—to a man touched by a divine presence.
Or so it seemed.
As for Bambi, when the prayer concluded, to an echoed “Amen” from the congregation, and she was helped to her feet by Reverend Samuel, her legs appeared wobbly and her face, like his, was transformed. It glowed. Her cheeks were flushed, her mouth half open, lips glistening, and her breasts rose and fell visibly as she breathed in jerky little pants.
For all the world as though she had just had an orgasm—or at the very least soared right to the brink.
Even from where they were standing at the rear of the church, Sawyer could see all that, and it creeped him out as it had every time he had seen it happen. Which was every time he had watched and listened to one of the female members of the church give their “Testimony.”
“Is it just me,” Robin whispered from the corner of her mouth, “or do you feel like we’ve been looking into somebody’s bedroom?”
Sawyer indicated the door with a jerk of his head, and they both slipped out of the church. He didn’t speak until they were at the top of the steps with the doors closed behind them. From inside they could hear the congregation singing a hymn with a fervor and volume that made it sound as if they numbered several hundred voices rather than barely one hundred.
“Was it just me?” Robin demanded.
Sawyer zipped his jacket against the cold of the evening and jammed his hands in the pockets. His sigh misted in the air. “No, it wasn’t just you. That’s the way it always looks.”
“Always?”
“Always when the women give Testimony.”
“But not the men?”
“No.”
“So there is something . . . sexual about it?”
“You saw what I saw,” Sawyer reminded her. “He touched her shoulder and her head, nothing more until he helped her to her feet after it was all over with. He prayed over her for about a minute. He called on God to bless her. Whatever happened to her then . . . Hell, I don’t know. I’ve never been able to figure it out.”
Though it does keep his female followers completely devoted to him, doesn’t it? Blindly devoted.
“Doesn’t look like any church I’ve ever been to,” Robin said. “And in addition to the more traditional versions, my parents tried out every Bible-thumping, singing-for-salvation, speaking-in-tongues, snake-handling, out-of-the-mainstream church you could name.”
Sawyer frowned. “Aren’t they Baptists?”
“Yeah. But they wanted me to exper
ience religion in every possible form so I could make up my own mind. We even drove to Asheville to try out Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues. I’m sure if they could have found a Buddhist temple or an Islamic mosque, we would have gone there too.”
He shook off various peculiar mental images with an effort and said, “Well, then you know that offering testimony isn’t that uncommon, though it’s not a regular thing with most of the churches I know of. Here, it is. At every service, at least one member goes forward to tell their story.”
“Is it always that depressing? I mean, I had no idea what all Bambi had been through.”
“Well, that’s the thing about this church. Everybody has a sad story. Everybody was lost, alone, and at the end of their respective ropes when they found the church—or the church found them. Very convenient, isn’t it?”
“So it’s true. They do target vulnerable people.”
“I believe so.”
“What’s in it for the church?” Robin asked, always practical. “I mean, collecting lost souls should be enough for any religion, but a church usually needs stuff in return. Like money.”
“Members are expected to tithe.”
“That’s it?”
“Well, the church doesn’t officially accept land or the titles to businesses or other properties directly from their members. But they do have a habit of offering up help to members’ businesses, they do gain goods and services from members, and they do buy up, with their surplus funds, parcels of land all over the place.”
“Why?”
“I have no idea. Useless land, mostly, often with abandoned buildings falling to ruin.”
“They hoping for a real estate boom?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
Robin turned her head to look out on the peaceful, well-lit square, the neat little houses all around, each with lighted windows even though virtually every soul in the Compound was inside the church. She shivered visibly and zipped her own jacket closed.
“Spooked?” Sawyer asked.
“I have to say I am. I’d heard stuff—plenty of stuff. But actually being inside there and watching . . . I dunno. Nothing obviously weird happened in there, and yet . . .”
“And yet it felt wrong.”
“Totally wrong. Can we leave now, please?”
“Might as well.” Because you know damn well DeMarco will make sure you don’t see Samuel tonight. Not after services. Not when he’s drained and possibly less guarded. Dammit. “If tonight is like every other night they hold services, they’ll be in there singing and praying another hour or more.”
“How often do they hold services?” Robin asked as they headed down the steps and across the Square to the parked Jeep. “Officially, Sunday and Sunday night, and again on Wed nesday night.”
“And unofficially?”
“I have no idea. Every time I’ve been here, there’ve been people inside the church. Some sitting in the pews, I guess praying or meditating. A lot more down in the recreation area.”
“Playing instead of praying?”
“Playing sedately. Reading, sewing, playing Ping-Pong or cards or air hockey, putting together jigsaw puzzles, watching TV or movies.”
They both climbed into the Jeep, and Sawyer hastily got it started so the cold interior could begin to warm up.
“Maybe I’m being paranoid,” Robin said, “but I half-expected DeMarco to be sticking to us like glue. Especially once we left the building. I mean, we could go anywhere. Unsupervised.”
“If we’d done anything but walk straight to the Jeep and get in, we would have had company immediately. I gather you didn’t notice all the cameras?”
Robin looked out the window toward the now very brightly lit church. “Honestly, no. There was so much else to look at.” She sounded apologetic and a little annoyed at herself.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it. The cameras aren’t obvious. If you didn’t know what to look for, you’d never see them. And even if you did, I doubt you’d be able to tell that they’re infrared and motion-activated.”
“Monitored?”
“Oh, yeah. From somewhere inside the main building, I imagine, though I’ve never seen the actual control room of this place. I doubt many people have.”
“So the whole time we’ve been here—”
“We’ve been watched. Less likely that there are microphones, outside at least, but I’ve never been sure.”
“Jesus. Can we go? Please?”
Since he’d had his fill of the place himself, at least for today, Sawyer merely nodded and put the Jeep in gear.
“She couldn’t tell where the pain was coming from?” Bishop asked.
“Not really.” Hollis propped the phone between her ear and shoulder as she rinsed her coffee cup. “Seemed to come from all around her, or was just . . . unfocused. Maybe impossible for her to get a fix on at the best of times, far less her first visit to the Compound. She did say it was overwhelming, and she certainly looked like she’d been through the wringer. It’s barely ten, and she’s already gone up to bed.”
Bishop was silent for a moment, then said, “She sensed at least two extremely strong personalities.”
“Yeah. A lot of fragmented stuff, but those two ‘voices’ were perfectly clear. One said, ‘I see you,’ and the other said, ‘I’m hungry.’ And if Tessa wasn’t sure about the former, she’s damn positive that the latter voice was dark as hell. She was absolutely adamant about that.”
“But no real sense of identity.”
“No. She met a lot of people up there, but Ruth Hardin was the only one she really spent time with. Probably too much to expect her to connect a voice in her head with anybody she might have met fleetingly.”
“When she returned, was she just tired? Or spooked?”
“Tired and spooked. Didn’t want it to show, I think, but it did. I didn’t ask too many questions, but I gather she’s never felt a physical sensation during a vision. This time, she did. Whether someone was out to physically hurt her or it was simply the intensity of the experience, this is the first time her abilities have been painful.”
“Evolving? Or affected by whatever energies Samuel is using up there?”
“I don’t know. Either. Both. I felt something odd about this place the minute I hit town.”
“Odd how?”
“It’s nothing I can really pinpoint. Small town, a bit isolated, quiet. Almost too quiet, though. Almost too . . . placid. It’s sort of eerie, really. Have we tested the water here?” She was joking. Mostly.
“We’ve tested just about everything,” Bishop told her. “So far, nothing suspicious has turned up.”
“Maybe I’m wrong. But it strikes me as more than a little strange that not even the local newspaper has given much space to inexplicably dead bodies found in the river.”
“The owner is a church member. So is the senior news editor and at least one of the reporters.”
“Okay, then probably not so strange. But no less creepy. It means Samuel’s influence extends outside the Compound.”
“Yes.”
“And we don’t know whether that influence is only emotional and psychological—or psychic as well.”
“No, we don’t know. Yet. But the Compound is the center, and that’s where the answers have to be. Samuel hasn’t left the property in weeks.”
“So whatever the weirdness is, it’s in all probability caused by Samuel and would be most intense up there. Maybe he’s getting stronger, just naturally evolving. Or maybe he’s about to blow. Either way, it could affect our abilities, especially when any of us are in or near the Compound. Cause them to change, to fluctuate. To evolve. Sarah had been having problems, right?”
“Yeah.” Bishop’s voice flattened slightly. “Difficulty in concentration, in focusing. And she felt her shield had become weaker over time.”
“Felt correctly, I’d say.” Hollis kept her own voice even. “For whatever reason, her shield couldn’t protect her. The question
is, can Tessa’s shield protect her?”
“I have to believe it will.”
The choice of words struck Hollis, in particular his slight emphasis on the second word, but before she could probe, Bishop asked another calm question.
“She’s sure about Chief Cavenaugh?”
“Seemed to be.”
“And the others?”
“She couldn’t get a fix on either Officer Keever or DeMarco but said Ruth Hardin is an open book.”
“What was the reading?”
“What Sarah reported weeks ago. That Ruth, like virtually all the women in the Compound, believes in the church and Samuel utterly and completely. They’d step between him and a bullet without a second thought.”
“Devotion indeed,” Bishop said slowly.
“Uh-huh.”
“You aren’t convinced.”
“That they’re devoted to him, absolutely. That they’d take a bullet for him. But I’d sure like at least one of us to be able to get inside their heads and find out exactly why that’s true.”
“Any other visits from Ellen Hodges?”
“Not so far. It might have taken all the energy she could muster, so soon after dying, to reach me in California. It’s a long way from where she died, and that seems to make a difference.”
“They do always seem to find you, don’t they?”
Hollis returned to the island bar stool where she’d been attempting to work and looked down at maps of the area spread out on the granite surface. “Yeah, I’m definitely supposed to be part of this. But you already knew that.”
“Hollis—”
“Bishop, I swear to God, if you don’t come clean with me this time—totally clean—then I’m walking.” Her voice was very, very calm.
“All right,” her boss said finally. “But you aren’t going to like it.”
Six
SAWYER TOLD ROBIN to go home once they reached the station, but he had a mountain of paperwork and a lot to think about. Added to the fact that he didn’t have anyone to go home to, working well into the night and possibly even sleeping on the couch in his office was preferable to returning to a dark apartment with only the TV for company.