Morningstar shot Hannah a withering look, and Hannah paused in her explanation. Munroe moved to salvage the moment. “At least you have your mom,” she said.
Hannah nodded. “She’s my mother in the Lord—kind of like an adoptive parent.”
“Is your real mom together with your dad?”
Hannah shook her head. “She’s in the Void, she’s an Enemy of God. We’re not yoked with unbelievers.”
Munroe knew the scripture and what that meant, and this was an opening to run in a million directions. She chose the path least natural and most sympathetic to The Chosen. “So it’s for the best,” she said. And then, after a pregnant pause, “Do all of you have unbelieving family outside The Chosen?”
“Not all of us,” Hannah said, “but Morningstar does.”
Munroe expected another look of reproach from the nineteen-year-old, but instead the girl sighed and set to work mincing onions. The sting was powerful enough to set eyes watering around the table. “I have a couple of sisters in the Void,” she said.
“Older sisters?”
Morningstar nodded. “But I don’t talk to them, not just because they’re unbelievers but because they’re liars.”
“What do they lie about?”
“Things that didn’t happen in our church that they say did happen,” she said, “things that we believe and things that we don’t believe—stuff like that.”
“Like what, for example?”
Direct probing was a tactic Munroe generally tried to avoid, but here, Hez and the boy paid no attention, and it passed unnoticed by the girls.
“They say that children in The Chosen are abused and that we have no education and that adults have sex with kids,” she said. “Obviously, looking at me, you can see I’m not abused. Personally, this life is the best education any teenager could hope for, and no adult has ever had sex with me.”
Across the island, Hannah shifted her eyes. Her glance was barely noticeable, the type of look a guilty man gets when his subconscious overrides a lie and awareness quickly overcomes it. It was a split second of recognition, but it was all that Munroe needed to draw the connection. Her stomach dropped and her pulse rate rose. Instant. Calm to rage in a split second.
She put the knife down and slid it point first under the cutting board. Not because it was what she’d been instructed to do when it wasn’t in use, but because getting the knife out of her hands was the fastest way to keep from shedding blood.
Chapter 27
Munroe’s heart pounded. Her mind reeled, working at double speed not only to maintain control but also to process what she’d just heard. She only half-listened as Morningstar’s explanation continued, and then, in the resultant silence, without truly thinking of the potential repercussions, Munroe said, “It’s possible for things to have happened to your sisters, even if they never happened to you.”
Morningstar, caught up in the moment, and oblivious of both Munroe’s reaction and her undercurrent of challenge, plunged on. “I have hundreds of friends,” she said, looking like a younger, harsher version of Heidi. “And these things never happened to any of them. I can guarantee you that none of us are abused. It’s impossible to live this close to each other and not know what’s going on—surely out of all those hundreds, someone would have said something to me.” She paused, deliberated. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t accept those stories as true.”
Munroe nodded. She knew the drill, had read it all before. This response was standard Chosen mind-set—one person’s reality used to reject anything other than the official truth, and the term “abuse” so easily denied because it held a different meaning for the children than it did for those out in the Void. Same word, different language. Munroe grew dizzy.
Yes, it was possible for this to happen in such close quarters and to never know. The proof was there, right in front of them all, young and blond and innocent, with eyes on the zucchini, chopping away with not a word spoken to correct her elder in the Lord. Hannah’s truth was so obvious to anyone who truly cared to look—who truly cared at all.
The pounding in Munroe’s head was extreme; the knife in front of her a rapturous way to salvation. Munroe fought back the urges. Fought back the rage. Fought to maintain focus. “I have to use the restroom,” she said.
“It’s the first left down the hall,” Morningstar replied, and Munroe was already on her way to the door before the sentence was finished.
In the bathroom, Munroe pounded the back of her head against the wall. Eyes to the ceiling, she took in air but could not calm the burning. The lust for blood was there, pure and unadulterated; the desire for revenge; to bring redemption and right wrongs that should have never been committed. She’d planned to avoid violence, to wait for the night and take Hannah away quietly, but she could not. Her head beat against the wall, a quiet thud, thud. Could not. Could not.
And then the fire, raging out of control, collapsed in on itself into a heat of pure focus. Munroe moved from the bathroom toward the kitchen and the hall that would lead to the foyer. She would grab a weapon, pull Hannah out, and be done with it all. Five minutes. The rest of them could pick up the pieces, and to Heidi, Gideon, and Logan—well, screw it all, she’d tried—they had her condolences for the fallout to come.
She strode past the kitchen and around toward the main hallway, moved steadily toward the foyer, and as she came to the stairwell, stopped short.
At the foot of the stairs and still descending was a group of five men and three Chosen women. It wasn’t the numbers or the odds that gave Munroe pause. She could get out, could get Hannah out no matter what the numbers, provided fatalities were an acceptable by-product. She slowed because of the men. These were the visitors, the owners of the black cars outside.
They wore tailored suits and expensive shoes, and three of the jackets bulged inconspicuously where there should have been no bulge. The three women, better dressed and groomed than any of the other Chosen Munroe had yet encountered, doted on the center two, who were at most early forties and easily brothers. The smiles were flirtatious, the conversation light, the entire crowd oblivious to Munroe’s presence until they’d all reached the lower stairs.
In slow-motion clarity the picture snapped into place. Posture. Positioning. Mannerisms. Airs. These were businessmen, yes, but more than that. Munroe had spent enough time greasing the palms of society’s underbelly to know corruption when she saw it, and this was it—two of them with their bodyguards, with courtesans provided courtesy of The Chosen—and the explanation for the Ranch’s better furniture and newer vans.
The group was on the ground floor now, between Munroe and the door, in no hurry and perhaps not even going anywhere in particular. They remained in the hallway, and when there was a pause in their conversation, Munroe continued forward, pushing toward the right wall as a way to get past.
Her slow progress came to a complete stop when one of the two bosses reached for her. He moved in a playful yet proprietary way, as if somehow he had a right to touch her. “Hello, beautiful thing,” he said, and Munroe smacked his hand away in a move so sudden that none but he and a bodyguard were aware of it.
She had acted without thinking, rationale and logic clouded by emotion, and the shock of it pulled her back. As the others turned to see whom he addressed, she softened into the meekness of damage control and instantly shifted roles. She stared at him now, under lowered eyelids, her body speaking submission to everyone else, but her eyes glaring at him, daring him to try it again.
Munroe waited a beat and, receiving no reaction from the others, attempted to move forward. The bodyguard who’d seen her act blocked the way.
Under other circumstances this scenario would have propelled her to a different sort of action, but today she wanted none of it. Her focus was on getting Hannah out, and getting her out now; but her immediate plan to carry it through was rapidly deteriorating, not because of the manpower that stood in her way, but because as long as these armed men were ne
ar, there was no longer a quick and clean way out. Someone would be shooting back, and Hannah could get killed in the process.
The boss man whispered to one of his men, who in turn whispered to one of The Chosen women. Munroe remained where she was, her way still blocked, the boss man eyeing her like party food.
The woman’s face clouded when she realized what the men wanted, and once the response filtered down the line, the bodyguard stepped back and allowed Munroe to pass.
At the car, she walked to the trunk and stood there, motionless, staring at everything and nothing for a long while. The pause in the hallway had forced her back to reason, and with that reason returned the chessboard, the strategy, the plan that had already been laid out if she could maintain composure and hold it together long enough for the night to come.
She left the trunk and opened the driver’s door, slipped inside, and shut herself in. She took from her pocket the emergency cell phone and dialed.
Bradford picked up on the first ring.
“I’ve only a minute,” she said. “Did you get the information; did you run it?”
“Yeah, I just got my query back,” he said. “The vehicles belong to the Cárcan family, they’re business owners in Buenos Aires, highly connected, powerful, their names linked to organized crime. Most of it is high-level money laundering, although they’re suspected of far more. They work below the radar, definitely not friendly, definitely not to be trifled with.”
In Bradford’s subtle pause were many questions—like where she’d gotten the plate numbers and what the hell was going on, but he didn’t ask. “You’ve run into a vipers’ nest,” he said. “Please be careful.”
Munroe paused, thanked him, and shut the phone.
Beautiful.
She stared toward the front door.
The scions of the Cárcan family had not yet exited the Ranch, and Munroe had no desire to still be sitting here when they did. Until they were off the property, extracting Hannah was out of the question, and if she wanted to keep the option of a late-night job on the table, Munroe had no choice but to return to the kitchen.
The hallway was empty when she walked back through it, and with each determined step to the kitchen, she worked herself backward, reverting to the same frame of mind she’d had before Hannah’s private revelation had set her off.
The kitchen was as she’d left it, busy and warm, and now down to the final fifteen minutes before the food was expected in the serving area. When Munroe entered, there were no questions other than to assure that she was okay, and on her affirmative response, all was as it had been when she’d first walked out the door.
Munroe moved on autopilot, her face a placid veneer to the simmering inner turmoil, grateful for the quickening pace in the kitchen, which left little time for any nonwork-related talk. And then, the pots and trays were out the door, servers from the dining room came to collect them, and the kitchen, which just a moment before had been nearly frenetic with activity, went suddenly silent.
With a theatrical sigh, Morningstar turned to Munroe. “My dad said you’re staying the night,” she said.
Munroe nodded, ersatz smile still painted on her face.
“We’ve got ten minutes till dinner,” Morningstar said, stepping toward the door. “Let’s get your things, I can show you around, show you where you’ll stay.” She opened the door for Munroe to follow.
This should have been a moment of exultation, the perfect opportunity to plot the house, the whole of it presented without ever having asked and without the need for subterfuge. But Munroe was emotionally tethered to Hannah, and to leave the room, even for much needed recon, put her further on edge. With tense reluctance, Munroe picked up her purse from the floor and left the three teenagers to their cleanup.
Munroe and Morningstar walked to the car, and there, outside, under the dimming sky, and next to the ever present sedans, Munroe pulled her overnight bag from the backseat. Morningstar watched with veiled curiosity, and her look gave Munroe pause. Morningstar’s glance at the car and then at the bag wasn’t the observation of a Keeper but that of a questioner, as if she were truly seeing the car for the first time, connecting its ownership to Munroe, and from there to the previous conversation about sacrifice.
Munroe set the small suitcase on the ground, expanded the telescope handle. Morningstar eyed the luggage—a little piece that probably cost more than Morningstar brought into the Haven through begging in an entire month.
“Do you like it?” Munroe asked.
Morningstar’s face darkened with the embarrassment of one caught peeping. “It’s very nice,” she said.
“You can have it.”
Morningstar paused and said, “Really?”
Munroe held the handle outward. “You can have it now, if you like,” she said. “I’ll get my stuff out of it later.”
Morningstar hesitated, and then with a beaming smile that screamed of Heidi, she reached for it.
Offering the suitcase was the easiest bribe Munroe had yet made.
The upstairs portion of the main house was divided into quadrants, one for rooming the teenage boys and younger single men, a second for the teenage girls and single women. The third housed a younger group, which was not segregated by gender, and the fourth, according to Morningstar, was divided into smaller rooms for several couples.
The entire upstairs had only two bathrooms, and much like the toilets that Munroe had seen in the annex, these also had been modified to accommodate an extra number of people.
The girls’ room, as it was called, was similar to the bedrooms in the annex and was lined and filled with homemade narrow bunk beds, three high, forming tight corridors for passage. Suitcases were stored underneath the bottom beds, and a row of built-in cupboards along one wall functioned as additional storage. All of the beds were tightly made with no personal items strewn about, the top covers home-sewn and matching. The only additional piece of furniture in the room was a tall, lean shelving unit covered with a curtain that fit between two of the bunk beds.
Here in this place, where space was at a premium, Munroe grasped the value held in the small suitcase she’d given to Morningstar. All told, if the number of beds were any indication, this unheated room of twenty by twenty feet housed fifteen girls.
Morningstar pointed up to the top of one of the bunks. “That’s the only one we have empty right now,” she said. “Because Crystal is on a trip. If you think you’ll have trouble getting up and down, I can trade with you for the night.”
Munroe glanced at the bed and shook it some. Considering the center of gravity on this monstrosity, the bed was sturdy enough. “I’ll give it a try,” she said. Not because she wanted to sleep there, or even would be, but because next to the bunk was the shelf unit, which was prime real estate for mounting a hidden camera.
Munroe utilized the bunk’s end boards as a ladder, and with far less agility than she was capable of, made her way slowly upward. She sat, her head slightly bent to the ceiling, grinning, and said, “Where do you sleep?”
Morningstar pointed to a middle bed against the far wall.
“And Sarai?”
The bottom beneath Munroe.
“Faith?”
Morningstar nodded to a middle bunk, one over.
All of this for that little piece of knowledge—to know where to find Hannah at night. But this was how it went in the world of information. And this was good. In one turn she had received confirmation of her target’s location, a layout of the upper floor, and full access to it all. For the price of a carry-on suitcase.
The most difficult event of the evening would be getting out of this bed without waking the ones below. Munroe wiggled to shake the bed and in turn elicited a smile from Morningstar.
“I might get used to this,” she said.
Morningstar’s smile lingered. “I’ve got to take care of something real quick,” she said. She pointed to the curtained shelves. “You can use Crystal’s shelf for anything personal you need t
o set out. Why don’t you get situated? I’ll be back in five minutes and then we can head to the dining room.”
Munroe nodded, baffled at how The Chosen so easily incorporated her, a criminal for all they knew, into their personal spaces; they trusted her to stay with their children, but not to read their disciples’ Instructives. Their twisted priorities made sense in a Chosen kind of way, if you understood The Chosen.
Morningstar left, and with the room empty, Munroe mounted a camera atop the shelving unit, finishing as the teenager returned.
The dinner scene was as it had been the night before. The noise of a hundred fifty voices in multiple conversations. Singing. Prayer. Then cacophony again. And again, Munroe sat with Elijah’s family, only tonight Hannah was there too, even though across the room her adopted mother, Magdalene, was sitting at a table with the three younger children.
Hannah’s presence gave Munroe pause, a mental double take, a rerun through scenarios and precautions, private assurances this wasn’t some form of setup, that they truly had no idea why she was here, that their act wasn’t better than hers; that it could only be coincidence.
Elijah was late in joining the table, and as he slid onto the bench opposite, he squeezed next to Hannah and put his arm around her and to Munroe said, “I see you’ve met my adopted daughter.”
“I’m still trying to understand all the family connections,” Munroe said.
“Her father is serving the Lord in another Haven,” he said, “and so Faith is with our family a few nights a week.”
His arm stayed around Hannah’s shoulder far longer than what seemed normal, and Munroe would have written it off as simply part of The Chosen were it not for the pained discomfort on Hannah’s face.
It was the second time Munroe had seen that look today. This was a child who had grown up among such close contact, who had shown no aversion to the physical touch of any other person, yet she was clearly distressed and wanted nothing to do with him. Munroe glanced from Elijah, to Hannah, to Morningstar, who sat opposite Hannah. This girl so proudly proclaiming that none of her friends were abused was oblivious to the dynamics in her own family and the deeds of her own father.
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