by Toby Neal
It wasn’t so much what Jackson said that was so hypnotic, as the low, resonant pitch of his deep timbered voice that held the surprising edge of a Scottish burr. Jackson had immigrated to the United States with his parents at fourteen from Scotland, but she’d thought his accent would be gone by now.
Perhaps that accent had its uses—because Sophie felt like she could listen to him talk all day.
And so, apparently, did the rest. Jackson said nothing really new, but it was rich. And as Sophie sat in the lotus position, fingers resting on her knees, she had to remind herself that this man was, quite possibly, a triple murderer.
Chapter Sixteen
The compound’s bathroom was a central complex that featured a catchment shower, a small gas water heater, and several composting toilets. It was rustic, but the appointments were top quality. Sinks were made of hand thrown clay, and beautifully woven tapestry adorned the walls. Sophie got ready for bed with the other women and waited for the right time to do her nighttime recon.
She waited as the lights went out, and the breathing of her new compatriots grew soft and long. Dressed in the black yoga pants and tank top she had chosen to minimize detection, Sophie tiptoed barefoot out of the yurt and along the winding path toward the large, half-acre vegetable garden. She had a story in place should she be stopped: she couldn’t sleep. She needed to meditate, outside in nature.
Sophie walked slowly, with no illumination but the great black vault of sky, scattered with the pollen of stars brightened by the thin paring of a new moon. Coqui frogs, an invasive species from South America, chimed their shrill song from the surrounding jungle of the valley.
Her ears were tuned for any sounds of other humans, but there were none. Sophie reached the garden, defined by rows of lettuces, broccoli, staked teepees of beans and patches of chard and other leafy greens. It smelled rich and lush with new life, as she padded along a well-mulched row.
It was hard to imagine that there might be bodies under these lettuces.
She made her way down a well-maintained aisle of vegetables to a center area that was not immediately visible from the rest of the compound. Even in the dim light of the moon, she could make out the undulating curves of a labyrinth.
Ah, the labyrinth. A spiritual walking practice she hadn’t been able to experience more than once or twice.
Her feet seemed to find the cool stones embedded in the dirt that marked the path almost by instinct, and she followed it. Every now and then she pulled a small, cigarette-sized stake out of the ankle sock of her tennis shoe, pushing it into the soil.
The plan for this trip was for her to attend the five-day retreat and check out the compound from within. Detect its security, its weaknesses, its patterns and procedures—and if able, gather any evidence she could find.
She was “off the grid” on this assignment, though Dunn was nearby, monitoring from the outpost they’d used before. Cell phones weren’t allowed on the retreat, but she was scheduled to contact him twice daily with the extra-small satellite phone currently hiding in her bra.
Round and around, and back and forth the path led. Surely she should have reached the middle by now? And yet, she had not.
So far, she’d seen nothing alarming or out of place at the compound.
Her mind wandered back to the photos the Ghost had sent. Such unforgettable images. She wondered if he ever watched the video he had of her in her apartment.
What was he playing at?
Did Sheldon Hamilton really want some sort of relationship with her? Was this his idea of courtship? And why was it so intriguing? She should really know better than to be so fascinated with this shady vigilante with his cat-and-mouse game.
Pain from the end of the relationship with Alika Wolcott, her former MMA coach, nagged her like the fading bruise on her mouth. Six months now, and no word from him, not even a text message—hers to him had gone unanswered, though she could see that he’d read them.
Clearly, whatever they’d had was over. It remained hard to accept. She’d let herself have hopes. But the fact that he’d chosen to return to Kaua`i permanently and cut her off still hurt.
“It wasn’t love,” Sophie muttered. But it could have been.
The center of the labyrinth was a smooth circle filled with pea gravel. She planted a few more of the stakes randomly around. She’d pick them up tomorrow, when the ninhydrin-infused paper pulp would have had time to react to any organic compounds thrown off by human decomposition. She sat down in the lotus position placing her hands on her knees. She closed her eyes, letting her senses take in the surroundings.
If she were Sandoval Jackson, this is where she’d bury the bodies: a central place, covered by gravel, where people with a mind to do so could pay their respects. Her nostrils flared. Could she smell them? Decomp had a powerful stench, and even once that phase had passed, unique organic compounds were emitted for months, even years, and could still be picked up by the spikes she’d planted, cadaver dogs, and the new LABRADOR body detection device Dunn had shown her from Security Solutions’ tech lab.
“It uses scent assessment technology to find a buried body.” Dunn had been enthused, showing her the handheld contraption, a series of gimbaled attachments that, while relatively small, would have been difficult to conceal in her backpack. He’d tried to get her to bring it, but it would have been impossible to explain if she were caught with it.
The shift and rustle of footsteps in the labyrinth warned her of someone approaching. She closed her eyes and settled into stillness.
“Is this seat taken?”
Sophie restrained herself from leaping to her feet at the sound of a deep male voice with a Scottish accent—but it wasn’t Jackson. “Of course not. You are welcome.” She lifted her head to see the man. He seemed large, backlit by the moon. He coiled himself and sat beside her. The moon cast a silvery illumination over craggy features and a bald head. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“I assumed as much.”
“I’m Mary Watson. What’s your name? I didn’t meet you at the orientation, or at dinner.” They’d been introduced to the main staff of the retreat and community then.
He shrugged. “My name is Dougal Sloane. I’m Sandoval’s head of security.”
“Oh. Have I done something wrong?”
Sloane’s teeth showed in a brief flash. “We discourage our guests from nighttime wandering. It might not be safe.”
“How could it not be safe?” Sophie gestured to the moonlit scene, to the high, corrugated walls of the sheltering valley. “It’s so beautiful here.”
“If you want to meditate, go to the chapel.” Sloane took hold of her arm. His spread fingers gripped her. She could feel, by the way he wrapped his thumb across her bicep, that he was taking a measure of her strength. “It’s time to go back to bed.” He gave her arm a little tug.
She rose to her feet meekly and followed him back along the winding route of the labyrinth, surprised that he led her that way and not across it—but they walked the whole thing. “I’m not sure I’m ready for bed.”
“I’ll escort you to the chapel, then.” A motion-activated security light bloomed into a soft amber glow outside of a small square building set apart from the rest of the commune. “This is the chapel. You’re free to spend as much time here as you like, but follow the footpath straight back to your sleeping quarters when you’re done.”
“All right. I’m sorry for any trouble.”
The amber light gleamed on Sloane’s head, and just momentarily, illuminated a tattoo of a pair of snakes forming a Celtic knot on his forearm as he slid a big hand up her arm as if he wanted to feel it again. He squeezed her muscle. “You’re fit.”
This was no peaceful yogi. This was a man of violence and action. She could feel it emanating off of him like a force field.
Sophie tilted her head, trying for flirtatious. “Thank you for showing me where I should be,” she said, her voice soft.
“It was my pleasure.” Sl
oane stroked his hand down her arm and gave it a final squeeze.
Sophie’s skin crawled and she suppressed a shudder. She turned with a nod and a smile, and walked up the wooden steps into the chapel.
A candle guttered on a little altar at the far corner of the perfectly square room. A stack of seating pillows filled one wall, and Sophie helped herself to one, bringing it to sit in front of the plain wooden altar. She settled upon it, holding herself upright. Her back was beginning to ache from all of the sitting unsupported.
The phone tucked in her bra seemed to burn her skin. She checked again that there was no video surveillance in this room and that she was alone, and retrieved it.
She texted Dunn.
“Security is tight and looks experienced.” She’d seen a couple of unobtrusive dark bubbles of cameras on the corners of the buildings. “Not sure how much I’ll be able to find.”
“Recon only. Stay safe. I’ve got your back,” Dunn answered promptly. Sophie let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning dawned clear and glorious. Huge rafts of cumulus cloud, scudding over the ocean, seemed to be lit from within by the sunrise as it broke over the mouth of the bay. Sophie rose with her fellow retreat participants, arriving at the chapel for a period of meditation. Everyone sat in lotus position, facing the altar upon which a pillar candle burned.
Sophie tried to calm her racing thoughts but she’d begun to chafe internally, missing her technology. The oblivion of being “wired in” to her computers, absorbed and lost in streams of information, had become a huge part of her life. A free-floating anxiety rippled along her nerves, a sort of nagging itch like she imagined an addict must feel, longing for the needle. She’d wondered how she would do without her beloved computers—and now she knew. Not well.
This was also the subject of the meditation that Sandoval Jackson led them in. “For true peace, you must learn how to really live within your own skin, occupying your body, mind, and soul without external influences and stimulation except those found in nature. Accepting the here and now, without the outside influence of the world, will bring you a deeper experience of life.”
Dunn could, at least, watch videos on his phone or something while he did push-ups or whatever it was he occupied himself with on a stakeout—while Sophie had to sit, cross-legged, eyes shut, with nothing to do but endure her thoughts. These inevitably spiraled into flashbacks of Assan’s abuse, memories of her mother’s indifference, and the familiar negative thoughts of the depression that stalked her like a jaguar.
Sophie made it through the meditation with difficulty and then she made it through the hour-long, strenuous yoga class that followed. Being able to move her body and focus on that was a relief. She made it through the simple morning meal, seated with the whole commune in the central cafeteria area, eating in silence. And she even made it through going out to work in the garden.
Simple chores out in the garden, picking slugs off the lettuces and pulling weeds, did have a meditative quality that seemed to still the restlessness—but she didn’t want to retrieve the spikes she’d embedded in the dirt, because part of the feeling that crawled along her nerves was the sensation of being watched.
Sophie darted her eyes around, keeping Mary’s hat brim low as she tried to observe who might be monitoring her. She’d already made a mental note of every location of a surveillance node that she could identify on the corners of the buildings.
Dougal Sloane was watching her.
Sophie spotted him leaning against one of the yurts, tattooed arms folded and one leg up with a bent knee as he observed the women working in the garden.
What was he looking for?
She felt his gaze on her like a touch. Could he be involved with choosing women for Sandoval Jackson’s bed? Or was he simply considering her for his own? Either option did not appeal.
The noon meal was served under the fruit trees at one end of the compound, seated on lauhala mats. The children waited on them, respectful in their orange garb. Banana leaves, held on hands, were used as plates. The simple fare of rice, taro, and cooked garden vegetables was delicious and filling. She touched the hand of the eldest, the boy who’d met them the first night, as he handed her a bowl of poi—it couldn’t hurt to fish for a little information. “Zeus. Your name is so unusual.”
“I know it’s unusual. Our father named us all for different gods and goddesses.”
Sophie smiled. “So what are your brothers’ and sisters’ names?”
“Depends on which ones.” he pushed a hank of curly hair out of his eyes. “There are ten of us. Well, eight now that Lono and Pele are gone.”
“Where did they go?”
A shutter seemed to come down over the boy’s clear brown eyes. “I can’t talk about it.” He withdrew, pulling away abruptly and heading back toward the kitchen.
“Zeus is still upset by what happened,” Sophie’s seat mate said. She was a pretty woman with lightly tanned skin and long, curly brown hair. The bulge of pregnancy pushed out her orange tunic. “Those children went to visit their mother, that’s all. They’ll be back soon.” She turned placid brown eyes on Sophie. The certainty of her voice was chilling. “What’s your name?”
“Mary. Mary Watson. You?”
“Jessie Sparks.”
The back of Sophie’s neck prickled with awareness—this was one of Jackson’s two remaining consorts. “Are you enjoying the retreat so far?”
“I am.” Sophie used the wooden spoon she’d been given with her banana leaf to mix a little poi with rice. She’d never had occasion to eat poi before, and it was filling, if a little bland. “It’s great to get unplugged from technology—though it takes a little getting used to.”
“You’ll love it once you get used to it.” Jessie’s hand smoothed over her belly, stroking the curve of it. “I’m so glad to be raising my child here.”
Sophie widened her eyes as if impressed. “Oh, then you must be with Jackson. One of his women?”
“I’m his wife.” Jessie smiled. She really was lovely, and so young. “The children here are all his. It will be so wonderful for my baby to have so many brothers and sisters.”
“It seems like a lot of children for one man? Did he have a wife before you?” Sophie probed.
“Oh, yes.” Sparks laughed. “He has a different approach to marriage than most. We’re only together in that way while having children, then the union is dissolved. The kids are the future—and the past, too. As you know, we believe in enhanced reincarnation. Sandoval thinks Zeus is the return of his brother, who died young. Sandoval says they are so much alike.”
Sophie could think of a lot of reasons for that, beginning with wishful thinking and ending with shared genetics. “Fascinating. This is my first retreat, so while I’ve read Jackson’s teachings, I am not familiar with how they play out in practice.”
Sparks gave her an assessing glance. “Are you with someone?”
Sophie smiled. “No. I’m single.”
“Well, maybe you want to apply to be with Sandoval at some point.” Sparks dabbed her mouth delicately on a cotton napkin. “It’s a great honor. Enhances your reincarnation return time.”
Sophie couldn’t find a response. She addressed her food, taking another bite. She’d never been quick on her feet verbally, unlike her friend Marcella, or even Lei. She could see either of her friends playing her current role so much more adeptly. She needed to pretend interest to find out more, though her stomach clenched with tension.
“I’m here because I’m such a fan of Jackson’s,” Sophie said softly. “His teachings—they hit me right here.” She tapped her heart. “It would be an honor to be intimate with him.”
Sparks nodded. “That’s how it began for me. I came on a retreat. I caught Dougal’s eye—you know, Sandoval’s right hand man?” She pointed to Sloane’s shiny pate across the room.
“He looks kind of intimidating.” Sophie lifted her bro
ws in Sloane’s direction.
Sparks laughed. “Oh he is! He’s Sandoval’s pit bull. But he has his uses, and one of them is to make sure that everyone is getting along, and growing in their roles within the Society.”
“How does he do that?” Sophie asked.
“He has the background to be able to read people and he always knows what Sandoval needs.”
“I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side.”
Sparks flapped a hand. “Oh, his bark is worse than his bite. He’s really a softie at heart.”
Sophie eyed Sloane from across the room. He didn’t look like a softie. “Well, you seem very happy here. With Jackson.”
Sparks smiled. “I am. Very.” And she patted her tummy, the picture of contentment. It gave Sophie a pang somewhere deep inside, in spite of the situation. She was far from even finding someone to date, let alone ever becoming a mother.
The afternoon was spent in a choice of various workshops: candle making, weaving, working with lauhala basketry, and even a hula class. A heavy rain kept them indoors, and Sophie did the lauhala and hula, figuring she might as well learn a few Hawaiian culture activities—and soon it was time for the evening routine again.
That evening the rain let up enough that Sophie was able to retrieve the ninhydrin stakes and stowed them in a paper bag, hiding them in the lining of her backpack. The frequent rain had degraded the paper pulp, though, and she worried that the results would be inconclusive—not to mention that the stakes would get moldy before they could be tested.
Two more days went by.
Each night, Sophie found her way to the chapel and texted Dunn her check-in for the day. He was getting restless. His brief answers had devolved into short diatribes about the mosquitoes, the heat, and the boredom. “Haven’t you ever been on a stakeout before?” Sophie texted him.