“A liar is not a friend of the church!” Cain roared.
“A liar is not a friend of the church,” the crowd repeated mechanically.
Jude bit the inside of his lip. Cain used psychological warfare to its fullest. Pretty soon, his tactics would work. Someone would bolt from the pressure. A woman might cry. Or faint.
Jude weighed his options. Step forward or wait. Confess or procrastinate. Hope against hope.
“No one shall be allowed to live who seeks to destroy this church,” Cain shouted, the veins on his neck visible in his self-righteous rage.
“No one shall be allowed to live who seeks to destroy this church,” the flock echoed.
Jude peered through his brows at the monster posed in front of these weak-kneed souls. Cain stood enraged before them, his finger pointed heavenward as if commanding the universe. God, how pathetic.
“Jerusha!”
Like a trained dog, she elbowed her way through the crowd, her chin stuck forward with the same self-righteous tilt as his.
He prowled in front of his masses. “From this day forward, one willing soul will be confined to the pig trough each day the liar does not come forth.”
Willing soul? Pig trough? Jude groaned. No, no, no.
Jerusha took her place at Cain’s side, scanning the cowering crowd through hooded eyes, her lips pinched tight and thin, as if determined to detect the liar for her prophet. Her gaze skated over Jude. Probably out of habit.
“But I will yet be lenient.” Cain’s finger again pointed heavenward. “After all, I am the father of this wayward church. I understand the difficult thing I have set before you. Because my heart has been sorely tried with this outrageous lie, there shall be no blood sacrifice. The trough will be moved to the middle of the yard.”
The pretense at leniency galled Jude. Moving the trough might keep that poor soul from being mauled to death by hungry pigs with razor-sharp teeth, but they’d still bake in the sun while everyone else was forced to stand and watch.
Cain turned to Jerusha. He snapped his fingers and pointed to a spot on the ground next to him. “Kneel.”
She dropped to his feet, her hands clasped as if in prayer and her face turned upward, still waiting on her lord and master.
“A name!” he demanded.
“Sister Priscilla!” she exclaimed with fervor.
“No!” a woman cried from the back of the congregation. “God! No! Not my Priscilla.”
“Yes, God, yes,” Cain hissed. With another snap of his fingers, he pointed to the ground at his other side. “Sister Priscilla. Come to me. Now.”
Hank and Greg barged through the congregation and dragged an ashen-faced teenager with streaming black hair forward. She might as well have been Judith. Poor Priscilla stood trembling as she faced Cain, her body shaking hard enough that the entire congregation could see.
“Kneel!”
Priscilla dropped to her knees, her face as white as a ghost. “Y-y-yes, P-prophet Cain.”
“You shall be the first,” he declared, his eyes skimming back and forth across the crowd. “Do you understand how great an honor this is?”
“N-n-no,” she cried, her eyes squeezed tight, and tears coursing down her cheeks.
No, Jude’s heart cried. Don’t do this.
“But it is,” Cain rattled on. “You do believe in your holy prophet, don’t you?”
“Y-y-yes, Prophet Cain,” she sobbed, her hands gripping her skirt at her side.
Leave her alone!
“Do you know the reward of a liar?” Cain bellowed.
She sank face first into the dirt, her bonnet pushed back and her poor body quaking.
“No!” her poor mother screamed again. Greg and Hank had hold of her, barring her from reaching her daughter.
Cain’s evil eye coursed the congregation again, cowing some, weakening others, but enraging Jude. He’d never owned a gun. Never needed one. But he wished for one now. Somebody needed to do something.
“Now that we have our willing sacrifice, maybe we’ll get to the truth. I offer the liar amongst us one last chance. Who made it possible for the spy to escape? Whoever you are, I command you. Sinner. Come forth. Do what the Lord wants you to do and confess.”
Jude’s heart pounded in his chest with what he was about to do. He couldn’t take it. Too many innocents had suffered. He looked at Judith. She stood looking at him from the edge of the crowd, tears streaming down her face, shaking her head, her lips forming, No. It was as if she’d read his mind.
He offered her one short nod. Yes. I must. The fear that she might beat him to it propelled his feet. With a sideways glance at his namesake, his baby, and his reason for living, Jude sucked up a deep breath, stiffened his spine, and lifted his hand. “I—”
“I did it!” Tucker yelled as he elbowed Jude out of his way. “I rescued the woman you guys hid in the barn. I saved her so you wouldn’t hurt her, and I can prove it.”
Jude gasped, his eyes riveted to the back of Tucker’s head. What? No. I did it.
“I cut her off the board you guys strapped her to,” Tucker declared. “I set her free, and I hid her in the root cellar, right under your noses. I started the fire, too, you dumbasses.”
No, Jude groaned. Don’t do this.
Tucker stopped at the front of the crowd, the brim of his ball cap squeezed tight in his hand, and his face blanched white. “And I’d do it again rather than let you guys burn her, bleed her, or brand her. The Lord doesn’t want his children hurting each other like that. Y’all oughta be ashamed of yourselves, damn you.”
Hank and Greg freed Priscilla’s mother and jumped on Tucker. With his arms twisted behind his back, they dragged him forward. Hank landed a kidney punch, forcing Tucker to his hands and knees. The wily prophet’s lip curled as he leaned over, his hand on Tucker’s heaving shoulder, almost a paternal thump of approval. Almost.
But Jude caught the nearly imperceptible nod from Tucker to Priscilla and her tearful blink of thanks. Miracles did happen. While the noble Elite did nothing, one of the lowly Censured had just offered the noblest act any person could do for another. Tucker had laid down his life.
“Brother Tucker Chase,” wily Cain purred. “One of my very best converts. I’m not surprised that it was you.”
Jude’s ears perked up. Cain sounded sincere, except for the ice in his gaze. Darkness shadowed his countenance. Jude shuddered, sure he’d witness Tucker’s assassination on the spot.
Priscilla ran into her mother’s open arms, disobeying the cult-mandated separation between parent and child. “Mama,” she choked, and Jude had to look away. She was just a baby girl. Like Judith.
Cain faced the congregation again, his face relaxed, and a smile spread cheerfully across his face as if he’d never been upset. “Thank you, brothers and sisters. That will be all.”
“No!” Jude heard his hoarse voice shout.
Cain stared at him, his brows lifted, shock replacing the smirk of his shallow victory. “Brother Clark?”
“I did it.” Jude trembled at his own words. He might not be able to save his child, but he sure wasn’t going to slink into history as a coward while another man died for his sin. Even with Tucker glaring at him like he was, Jude knew better. He would die a man. He owed Judith that much.
Cain offered a sickening, twisted smile. “Two is just as good as—”
“No! I am the one.”
Jude’s heart stopped. He recognized that third voice. He turned in panic. This wasn’t what he’d intended. God, no!
But there she was. That defiant tilt to her head that he knew too well. The baby girl he’d chased through the green plastic alligator sprinkler in his backyard when she was afraid to get water in her eyes. The darling daughter he’d rocked for hours on end the time she caught the flu and cried all night with an earache. The child he loved with every last beat of his worthless soul. There she was, walking daintily and slowly into the lion’s den.
Judith.
“I
did it,” she proudly announced. She didn’t need to be dragged forward. Instead, she held her head high, the edge of her skirt lifted as if she were a queen instead of a fourteen-year-old in a peasant’s frock. Never once did she take her eyes off the prophet.
Cain gasped. “You?”
A wave rippled through the crowd. One minute they were sheep; the next they were mothers and fathers, grandparents exclaiming, “She didn’t do it! It was me! I did it!” An older man followed in Judith’s path. “And I can prove it, too! Git outta my way, young one!”
“No! I did!” A middle-aged woman with long braids joined the parade, hurrying forward as if late. “I helped that poor woman escape. I saw what you guys did to her, and I’m glad I did it, and I’d do it again.”
“It was us!” A man and woman stepped forward together, their hands linked. “If you need someone to blame, Prophet Cain, blame us. We’ll take the punishment.”
Others followed. More and more voices rang out until Cain paled. At last it was the wolf that stepped back from the flock. “No!” he roared, but by then, more than a dozen men and women stood in front of him, all claiming to have aided and abetted Cassidy’s escape.
“But Prophet Cain.” Judith’s voice rang out like a breath from heaven. The crowd settled, and Jude was never more proud of her or more afraid for her. “I know your love for all members of your congregation is great,” she said clearly and loudly, “but especially for those of us who have transgressed.”
Don’t do this, baby girl. You haven’t transgressed. You’re pure. Don’t do this!
Cain stared at her as she twisted his words back on him, and Jude’s heart sank.
“I stand ready, dear prophet.” She glanced toward Tucker, and Jude saw the tremble of her fingers. She was scared to death, but she kept walking. “If you require a sacrifice, let it be me.”
Cain mouthed a definitive no, but he didn’t take his eyes off her.
“What say you, Prophet Cain?” Judith didn’t falter. She challenged him and she did it with such poise and grace. Such finesse. Where had this courageous young woman come from? Jude was no longer sure. Was this noble creature truly his child?
The stare-down lasted a full minute. No one in the congregation breathed.
“Then come.” Cain held out his hand for Judith. At the same time, he turned with an icy glare to Jerusha. “Leave my side and never return, woman,” he snarled. He shot a look to Greg, and Jude caught the slight nod from Greg, the sneer from Hank. The wolf had set his jackals loose.
Frazzled, Jerusha grabbed up her skirt and made a hasty exit, glancing back at Greg while she elbowed her way into the anonymity of the crowd. Greg released Tucker to follow Jerusha.
Cain took the tips of Judith’s fingers in his palm and drew her to his side as if she were his queen and he her humble servant. The prophet brought her hand to his lips. Jude shuddered when the despicable man’s filthy lips kissed his daughter’s clean, pure knuckles.
After the display of affection, Cain turned Judith to face the congregation, his dirty hands on her delicate shoulders. “I am pleased. This sacrifice is enough. I will make this woman my wife tonight.”
You will not! Not my daughter!
Fury engulfed Jude, but Judith caught his eye. She shook her head ever so slightly, and he saw it then. She’d done this to save Priscilla, Tucker, and him. To do anything would diminish her heroic act and further endanger her life. Once again, he was the princess.
He turned from the scene, his fists clenched and his heart heavy. He couldn’t bear it. Cassidy had to come back. Right damned now.
Chapter Eleven
Cassidy took one extra minute in the shower. A simple contraption, it utilized gravity along with a solar generator, a barrel of water Rourke had mounted on a wooden stand, a hose with a showerhead, and an off/on toggle switch. Canvas walls allowed for privacy, but not much more.
The cleansing process was just as simple. Turn the spigot on. Get wet. Turn the spigot off. Suds up. On. Off. On. Off.
The life of a covert operator didn’t get any better. She bounced between boring time in her Seattle office to boring time in the field, interspersed with a few heart-pounding adventures.
Not one to fuss over her looks, she paid a little more attention to her reflection in the shower’s mirror than she usually did. Jude’s hands had been in her hair. The memory of his warm touch on her scalp still tingled. Cocking her head from one side to the other, she wondered what he’d seen that she didn’t. The same plain Cassidy gazed back at her beneath spiraled, wet bangs, the kind that didn’t require curling irons, blow driers or a dozen foo-foo products. Only fingers.
Her teeth were fairy straight. Her brown eyes bright at the moment, but that was because of Jude. She might not be a glam-doll, but neither was she drab like all those women in the cult with their long, lifeless ponytails hanging down their backs.
And yeah, she wasn’t one of those long-legged, sleek runway-model types, either. If anything, she was the exact opposite, muscular, sturdy, maybe a little boxy. Her squared-off shoulders might not help her look feminine, but she was proud of them. Rourke had designed a decent routine for her at The TEAM’s in-house gym. She liked the free-weights and she liked a good workout. Most of all, she liked kicking Rourke’s butt when they wrestled and boxed together.
The canopy of pine overhead and the sounds of two men a few yards away making breakfast imbued her with a sense of peace, if only because she made a difference in this tough man’s world. She’d saved people in the course of her duty, oftentimes standing between real evil and true innocence. That was why she loved her job.
Her nose twitched at the scent of bacon and eggs, but what she really wanted was coffee. By the time she was clean, dressed, and her damp hair fluffed into submission, she felt human again, a definite plus in the hardscrabble world she called the best job ever. Rounding the van, appreciation swelled for her senior agent. A tall cup of light roast rested at the end of Rourke’s extended arm.
“Truce?” he asked, with an apologetic glint in his eye.
“Truce,” she quickly agreed, taking a hit off the hot, black drink. “Thanks.”
“Knew you’d need it, Butch. Take a load off.” He nodded at the nearest campstool.
Rourke made her smile. He seemed to care about her, but looking at him now, she wondered if that moment was past. Had he missed his chance? Had she missed hers? Recalling the taste of Jude’s lips in the moonlight, the answer to that rhetorical question was one huge YES.
Poor Rourke, she thought, taking her seat. You’ll never know what you missed.
“Bacon and eggs are done.” Alex slid the breakfast fare out of the cast-iron frying pan and onto a platter in the middle of the collapsible table. Rourke followed with toast he’d lightly burned over the camp stove. An open can of peaches completed the fare.
Both fit and trim, definite hunks in their own right, the sight of her boss and her senior agent waiting on her made Cassidy smile. All they needed now was a puppy or a baby in their arms, and they’d be irresistible. Almost. A certain owlish face still beckoned at the back of her mind. She needed to get moving.
“Hey.” Alex intruded on her daydream. “Are you with us, Cassidy?”
“Ah, yeah.” She placed her empty coffee on the edge of the table, caught red-handed.
“As I was saying…” He offered her a full plate and leveled a stern eye in her direction. “We’ve lost the element of surprise, but that does not equate with failure.”
“I still think nighttime is preferable,” Rourke said evenly. “Given the new surveillance photos—”
“Wait a minute,” Cassidy cut him off as she skewered another slice of bacon. “What photos?”
Alex lifted a leather-bound folder to his knee. “Why the hell do you think you’re here, Cassidy?”
She caught the sharp tone to his question. Alex might have been easy on her before, but he was not a boss to be taken lightly. And she still had a butt-chewing coming.
She answered evenly. “I’m a woman, and it only makes sense that—”
“Wrong. You’re here because you are the best damned ghost I’ve got on both seaboards. At least, I thought you were.”
That sounded like praise. Almost.
“But you’re too full of yourself, Dancer. You blew it because you’re over-confident. You think you’re always right and everyone else is always wrong.” He let her have it. Over-confidence was her strong and weak point rolled into one. “You should’ve secured the package and retreated without detection. You’re that good, and you know it. What went wrong?”
Cassidy agreed. Whether it was her size, her light touch, or some unseen quality that few others had, infiltration was her strong point. “I jumped the gun. I didn’t follow orders. I...” Damn. Eating crows sucks. “I should’ve coordinated with Rourke and—”
“And it won’t happen again. Understood?” The way Alex growled out that last word told her plenty. She’d better suck it up and find a way to be a team member instead of a lone wolf. Too bad obedience wasn’t her strong point, either.
Cassidy girded her loins and faced her boss. “My contacts don’t have the luxury of waiting.”
Annoyance flickered deep in Alex’s eye. Rourke huffed. Cassidy persisted. “They put their lives at risk for me, and I won’t let them down. Neither would you if you were in my shoes.”
Alex turned away. Great. He must’ve decided to ignore her. It had certainly been tried enough with her DEA supervisor. Something wordless passed between the two men before Cassidy’s boss tossed the folder into her lap. “Then tell me where the hell Melissa McCormack is right damned now.”
What he meant was if you’re so smart. She met the challenge head-on and opened the folder, her nerves rattled. None of the several satellite images within showed much of anything she didn’t already know. One private home on the far end of the row of singles cabins next to the orchard had been highlighted with a yellow circle and a question mark in the center of the circle.
Cassidy knew from her own surveillance that no sign of activity had been spotted at that house. It appeared vacant, even though she and Rourke had agreed that made no sense. Cain didn’t have room in his compound to leave any of his private homes vacant. Everything else in the folder looked similar to the recon photos she’d already seen.
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