Moon Dance

by Mariah Stewart

  "Why are you doing this?" Georgia fought her anxiety, forcing air into her lungs and words to come from her mouth.

  "Happy is the man who fears the Lord, who is only too willing to follow his orders," was the reply.

  Georgia stared at the large man, whose eyes had taken on a dark fire. Her mind began to spin.

  "Listen, this is not a good idea," she protested as a third man—identically dressed except for the addition of a black cap—began to pull her toward the back of the house. "For either of us. First of all, you should be smart enough to figure out that I'm not alone. There are… eight FBI officers outside. They all have guns and they're all crack shots. If you let Laura go… and me, too, of course… things will go much easier for you. You know, I'll bet…"

  Bald Head-Tattoo slapped a piece of tape over her mouth.

  "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection."

  Two strong hands lifted her, kicking and swinging, and carried her into the kitchen, where she was dumped unceremoniously onto a wooden chair with a hard seat.

  "Mmurphh!" came from her throat as she hit the seat. When Black Cap pulled her arms back behind the chair and stepped to one side to bind them with thick cord, she looked across the table, into Laura's eyes, which, already filled with terror, now began to fill with tears at the realization that she was no longer the only prisoner in this nightmare.

  "Mmurphh!"

  Black Cap laughed, then became somber as Bald Head-Tattoo came into the room, a small black portable tape recorder in his hand.

  "Silence," he told Georgia as he placed the black plastic box on the counter three feet from Laura's face.

  All three men gathered in the kitchen, standing at attention, their hands folded in front of them, their eyes closed, as if in a trance. Several long moments passed, and Georgia took the opportunity to try to give Laura courage. She winked, several times, hoping that Laura would understand that she meant Everything will be okay, help is here, but Georgia wasn't sure that she got the message.

  Suddenly the one they had called Ronnie stepped forward and turned on the tape.

  Soft music played, then came the voice.

  "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined."

  "Amen." The three captors nodded in unison.

  Laura's eyes went wide at the sound of the voice, and Georgia knew that she was listening to the smooth, oh-so-hypnotic voice of the Reverend Gary Harmon.

  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… To bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God…"

  "Thank you, Master," Black Cap muttered, and Georgia shifted her eyes to watch his face, which had, she concluded, wacko written all over it in great big letters.

  The voice droned on.

  "All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman…"

  Oh, brother, Georgia rolled her eyes and tried to stretch her neck enough to peer around Ronnie to see if she could see out the window. It wasn't until he lowered his head as if in prayer that she realized the bottom half of the window had a curtain on it.

  "I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore…"

  Laura's eyes squeezed shut as if blocking out sight would block out sound.

  Okay, guys. Tucker. Jeremy. It's time. Big rescue now. Please. We're ready. Right now, before someone gets hurt—

  "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth…"

  No secret where old Gary's coming from.

  "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all…"

  "They're here," Bald Head-Tattoo said softly from behind her.

  "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder…"

  "It's time," Black Cap said.

  Two of the three men left the room, but because the third was behind her, Georgia could not see who it was or what he was doing. Laura could, however. She began to rock in the chair, shaking her head, strangling sounds coming from her throat, her face reflecting sheer terror. Georgia struggled to turn in her chair, but could not.

  What? What? she tried to yell. What… what was that smell?

  Her nostrils picked up the scent long before her brain acknowledged and identified it.

  Gasoline.

  "Behold, I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends…"

  Georgia heard the crackle of fire and smelled the smoke at the same time she heard a door slam, a bolt slide into a lock. Laura began to sob, shaking her head, her eyes filled with apology and regret and fear. Smoke rapidly filled the small room, and the only real item on Georgia's agenda became oxygen, her neck craning as her air passages sought to flee the thick white cloud that surrounded her.

  It was then that Georgia decided she wasn't going without a fight.

  She looked around frantically, seeking a way out. Maybe if she and Laura could get their chairs back to back, they could untie each other's hands.

  Georgia sought to scootch her chair back from the table, but she was too close to the wall. She tried to move sideways, motioning to Laura to do the same, all the while feeling the intense heat move closer to her from behind. From someplace, somewhere, she heard loud crackling sounds, voices shouting, a door slamming. At that moment, nothing mattered but that she and Laura could get close enough to each other that one could attempt to untie the other.

  "We have made a covenant with death, and with hell we are at agreement…" the voice continued. "The wages of sin is death…"

  They had worked their chairs almost to a point where they were back to back, when hands lifted her, chair and all, from the floor. Suddenly the door had somehow opened, and sweet, fresh air poured into the room. Georgia gulped at it greedily. She was aware of being carried, of seeing daylight, of a whoosh of flame behind her. Fingers worked at the sides of her mouth to remove the tape, and when it was pulled from her face, the resultant sting was as welcome to her as the fresh air had been. To feel was to be alive.

  "Laura…"

  "Tucker has her." Matt told her as he began to loosen the ropes that bound her hands.

  "What the hell took you so long?" she gasped.

  "Later." He pulled the rope from her feet and lifted her with one hand. "Let's get out of here before that place blows…"

  They had almost made it to the opposite side of the road when the first explosion hit, throwing them both face first into a ravine. A second, larger, explosion, blasted the front door off. From somewhere in the distance, a siren began to wail.

  "Laura…" She sat bolt upright, then sought to stand on legs wobbly with fright.

  "She's fine. Look. There, down the road…"

  Georgia squinted through the billowing smoke with eyes already sorely irritated by smoke. "Where's Jeremy?"

  "He's here someplace. I'm sure he got out." Matt gathered her into his arms and held her. It was then that she began to cry, softly at first.

  "Matt… Matt…" She was shaking all over.

  "Shush. It's done, sweetheart. It's over."

  "Those men were so crazy—" Shock taking over, Georgia began to babble. "They had this tape of Gary Harmon. I know it was him, I could see it in Laura's face… calmly reading verses from the Bible… And gasoline. Matt, I could smell gasoline…"

  Matt began to rock her, rubbing his cheek on hers, his arms beginning to shake even as she had, as the reality of what had happened began to sink in. Her life had come down to a matter of seconds. He'd almost lost her. And Laura. The enormity of it rattled him to his soul.

  "You two all right?" Jeremy called to him from the road, where the fire trucks and an ambulance had come to a screeching halt.

  "Scared. Shaken. I think Geo
rgia's in shock." Matt said, his mouth still dry from fear.

  "Stay right here." Jeremy told him.

  He was back in less than a minute with a paramedic who carried blankets in one arm and pulled a folded gurney on wheels with the other.

  Matt took the blankets and wrapped them around Georgia, snuggling her into his body and holding on to her for dear life.

  "Help me lift her," Georgia heard the paramedic say, "and we'll get her onto the gurney…"

  "No, no," she pushed herself closer into Matt. "I just want to go home…"

  "We should check your burns," the young man told her.

  "I don't have any burns. I just want to go home. Or back to the inn. Matt, we need to call the inn. We need to let Mom know…"

  "I think we need to talk to these gentlemen first," Matt told her, raising himself slightly and calling to the policeman who was at that moment getting out of a black and white patrol car not ten feet away, "Officer, please, over here…"

  It was hours before they were able to return to Bishop's Cove and the welcome warmth of the inn.

  Delia had been white-knuckled and rigidly composed when they had arrived in the wee hours of the morning, and had all but fainted with relief when she saw that both her daughters, though frightened from the horror of their ordeal, had survived. Jody had made tea and served it in the sun room, where Laura had requested a fire be built in the fireplace so that she could, hopefully, get warm. Ally had awakened with the commotion and had climbed into her mother's lap. And there by her side, every minute, was Tucker.

  As the sun began to rise, Delia shooed all to their rooms for well-needed rest.

  "I forgot all about Spam," Georgia said wearily. "Spam's still in the little garden. She probably needs water. I should…"

  "I'll call a neighbor," Matt said as he helped her to her feet. "Your piggy will be fine. Go get some sleep."

  "You…" she began, and he cut her off.

  "…will be right here."

  "Jody," Georgia called to her from the doorway.

  Jody turned to her, a tray tucked under one arm.

  "Save the cups," Georgia said as she yawned into her hand.

  twenty-six

  Matt sat in the wing chair, his legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes burning with fatigue, every muscle in his body aching in the aftermath of the conflagration, but still, he could not sleep. All he could do, it seemed, was stare at the woman sleeping fitfully on the bed. Occasionally he would look out the window to the sky and whisper, "Thank you," to the heavens, but other than that—and his efforts to wet his lips with a mouth still dry from terror, neither actions requiring more than a small movement of his head—he was motionless.

  They had spent hours at the police station, trying to explain how a man who was incarcerated hundreds of miles away had tried, unsuccessfully, to kill two women. The fact that the accomplices had seemingly vanished into thin air had not helped their case. It had taken calls to Delia's lawyers and several old friends of Jeremy's—federal law enforcement agents—to convince the local police that Laura and Georgia were not crazy, and that neither Tucker, Matt nor Jeremy had torched the house, and that, inasmuch as kidnapping had been one of the crimes, the FBI should become involved. They were finally released after a telephone call from the warden at the prison where Gary was housed confirmed that, in his expert opinion, the former minister was, indeed, quite capable of such action, and did in fact have a widespread following of devotees who could be called upon to do his bidding. Whether or not those suspicions could be proven, whether or not those accomplices would ever be identified or located, whether or not there would, in time, be evidence sufficient to press charges, all remained to be seen.

  Matt's tired brain ticked off the highlights of the past twenty-four hours as the clock ticked quietly on the bedside table in one of the guest rooms at the inn. The uneasy feeling that had settled over him as he watched Georgia walk toward the gray stucco house. The growing fear when he realized she had disappeared inside the house and the door had closed behind her. The agonizing wait as he counted the seconds, waiting for the cell phone to ring. The cold gnawing at his gut when it did not. His efforts to leave the van undetected, to find Tucker and Jeremy without being spotted by those inside the house. The sheer terror when the smoke began to pour from the downstairs windows. The slamming of his body against the front door, with no thought to fire or weapons in his single-minded need to reach her. The crackle of gun shots—he still wasn't sure whose. The crash of the door as he and Tucker brought it down.

  The suffocating gray inside the house. The search through the cloud for the two women, following Tucker, who had seen them through a side window and managed to navigate Matt through the smoke to the kitchen. His heart stopping in his chest at his first glimpse of her in the chair, her back to him, her long golden hair dancing inches above the flames that encroached from behind. Jeremy's heroic efforts to get the back door open and lead them to safety…

  That was the long version.

  The short version was that his sister had been kidnapped by fanatical followers of an obsessed psychopath, and that she—along with his future wife—had been tied to chairs in a house that had been set on fire.

  …his future wife.

  He wondered how best to ask her. When to tell her.

  Georgia stirred and shivered visibly. "Matt?" She called to him softly.

  "I'm here, baby. Go back to sleep."

  "It wasn't a dream…"

  "No, love, it wasn't a dream. But it's over." He got up and smoothed the soft blanket over her shoulders.

  "Will you stay with me?" she asked, drifting back into welcome oblivion.

  "Always, sweetheart." He repeated the promise he had once made to her mother. "Always."

  It had seemed that the questioning would go on forever. When Georgia awoke, she found not only the FBI, but local police and a dozen television reporters and their accompanying cameramen waiting for her and Laura so that the questioning could begin all over again. Delia had refused entry to the reporters, and had, effectively, closed the inn to all except Gordon and his crew.

  Gary, too, had been questioned extensively from the dayroom of the prison. He staunchly proclaimed his innocence in a calm, benign manner clearly intended to make both Laura and Georgia appear to be crazy to even suggest such a thing. To the horror of everyone under the roof of the Bishop's Inn, one of the interviews ran on network television late on the following afternoon.

  "Your wife claims that you have a legion of devoted followers—ex-convicts, all—in every state in the union, at your beck and call," the pretty young reporter said. "That three of these men kidnapped her and attempted to kill her and her sister."

  "That's absurd. Where are these men now? Who are these men? Where did they disappear to? You've told me that only my wife and her sister were in the house when they were rescued. Did these men simply vanish into thin air?"

  "They've found a tunnel leading from the basement into the woods. It's suspected that they escaped through the tunnel."

  He waved a hand dismissively.

  "I know nothing of any such tunnel. I won't deny that I minister to a forgotten flock, and on occasion, I have made my home available to followers of my ministry. But to suggest that I would use my position to harm someone…" he shook his head, knitting his eyebrows together in consternation, "particularly my beloved wife… I cannot imagine why she would say such a thing."

  "Your wife claims that on several occasions she attempted to file for divorce."

  "Yes. Yes, she has filed such actions in the past, but she has always had a change of heart. However, if she now wishes a divorce, she's certainly welcome to one."

  "Just like that." It was clear the reporter wasn't convinced.

  "Certainly."

  "You would agree to it," the skeptical reporter persisted.

  "Well, I am of the belief that marriage is a holy state. That once joined by God, a man and a woman are one for all eternity."r />
  "But you're saying you would be willing to let her have a divorce anyway."

  "If she wishes it, I cannot stop her."

  "She claims that you threatened her, and her mother, and her daughter…"

  "My daughter," he reminded her.

  "…every time she attempted to initiate such proceedings."

  "I'm afraid my wife is a bit paranoid," he said calmly. "Putting aside for a moment the fact that I love her, in spite of her desire to terminate our marriage, I will always be devoted to her. She is, after all, the mother of my child, the woman to whom I have pledged myself. I do believe that those joined by God—made one in God, by God's law—cannot then be made separate by laws of men. All those things aside, even assuming that I wished her harm, what on earth could I do to her from behind bars, several states away?"

  "I believe that's exactly the issue at the heart of the current investigation." The reporter turned back to the camera. "From inside the federal prison, I'm Carole Fox…"

  Breakfast the following morning was a very late and somber affair, after which a physician brought in by Delia examined and chatted with first Laura, then Georgia.

  "Just to check things out, sweetheart," Delia had assured Georgia, "since you both refused treatment last night. I just want to make certain that neither of you are harboring injuries that need tending to."

  "I'm fine," Georgia assured her. "At least, I think I will be when the questioning is finished once and for all. I see the local police chief out there on the patio with Jeremy. How could there possibly be any other questions to be asked?"

  "It does seem silly, doesn't it? I don't understand why all of these different agencies can't just get together and each of them concentrate on one aspect of the investigation, then sit down and share information. As it stands, with everyone doing their own, we are subjected to the same questions over and over. Which is fine, I suppose, when you're interrogating suspects, but you and Laura were the victims, and Matt, Jeremy and Tucker were the heroes."