“You okay?” I ask my daughter softly as I drive, tailing Jesse’s muddy bumper. “Lanny?”
She sniffs and wipes her eyes and says, “Sure. I’m fine, Mom.”
“No, you ain’t,” Vee says. “And it’s okay, Lanta. You don’t have to be okay. You know that, right? You’ve got people.”
Lanny takes a deep, uneven breath and drops her head onto Vee’s shoulder. I blink as I start to put the relationship into a new light. I’m pretty sure I don’t approve. “Do you think Connor and Sam are okay?” Lanny asks me. The vulnerability in her voice makes me forget my objections. For now.
“I think Sam will do everything in his power to be sure they are.” That’s not an answer, but I don’t want to lie to her. Not about this. “Baby, I think I should take you to Javier and see if he can let you stay with him while I do this—”
“You’re thinkin’ the Belldenes might hurt her,” Vee says. “They won’t.” She sounds utterly sure, and I give her a long look. “They do what they need to do, but there’s a code. They’re not about to break their word and hurt Lanta. Besides, I’ll look after her.”
It’s strange, but . . . I believe her. “Why did you come, Vee?” I ask it gently. Without accusation. “Really. What happened to you?”
Vee looks away, and for someone like Vee, who’s always on guard and armored, that’s as good as a wince. Her expression is still and quiet, and when she answers, her voice is neutral. “There was a girl in that foster home. Younger than me. Real young. She . . . she ran away and got herself hurt.” She swallows. “Was my fault. She kept followin’ me around, treatin’ me like her sister. I wasn’t, we just had rooms in the same house is all. I told her we wasn’t never goin’ to be sisters.” Her rural Tennessee accent is so thick it’s hard to understand her on the last of that. She pauses, and I realize that she’s crying—fat, silent tears sliding down her cheeks. “I just—I couldn’t stay there after. I wanted to be—” She doesn’t continue. Lanny puts her arm around her. Vee takes a deep breath and wipes her face with an impatient swipe. “I had to be on my own is all.” I hear the armor going back on, almost an audible clank of metal plates.
“Vee,” I say. “You aren’t on your own. You don’t have to be.” Vee—fierce, independent, wildly unstable Vee—needs someone to care, and I do. I have since I met her, even though she unsettles me, even though I worry about her influence on my daughter. “You came to us for a reason, and it wasn’t to get reward money like you told Sam. Right?”
She shakes her head, and I see the effort it takes for her to force the grin. “Good idea, though, ain’t it?”
“I have to ask this, honey, and I need you to be completely honest with me. Do you know where Vernon Carr really is? Exactly where?” Because if she does, it’s possible that’s also where they’re taking Sam and Connor. We could get there first.
But I can see it in her face before she says it. “No, ma’am. I know he’s got to be at that Assembly compound. But as to where it is . . .” She shakes her head. “We never were part of those people. Momma always stayed away. She was real glad when Father Tom pulled out of Wolfhunter.”
“Okay,” I tell her. I’m disappointed, but I let it go. “I mean what I said, Vee. You’re safe. You’re not on your own.”
She gives me a hard look this time, and it reminds me that she takes no bullshit. “For now. But what happens after? You sendin’ me back to that foster family? They don’t give a shit about me. Probably don’t even know I’m gone except it’s one less mouth to feed.”
I don’t know if she’s right. Maybe they do care. Maybe they’re worried out of their minds about her. But I just say, “Until I say different, you’re staying with us.”
The hard look fades, and I see the vulnerable child underneath. The one who crossed a hundred miles of hard country to get to us. To safety. To some hope of acceptance.
“You’re with us,” I tell her. “I promise.”
Jesse’s Jeep takes a cutoff—unmarked, and almost certainly not on any map—that leads through wild, hilly country and up into the woods; I can only vaguely guess the location, but it can’t be very far from Stillhouse Lake, or from Norton either. It just looks like a rough trail, littered with rocks that challenge the suspension of my SUV. We go through three locked gates—the last warns me that trespassers will be shot—until suddenly the trail opens into a wide clearing.
Jasper Belldene might like to call it a lodge, but it sure meets my definition of a compound. There’s a ramshackle collection of houses clustered around a small pond fed by a stream coming down the hill. The biggest house is fairly handsome, built of heavy timbers; the others are far less fancy. I count three homes and two very large outbuildings, but there might be more up behind the big house. There’s a formidable fence all the way around—heavy-gauge chain link, with razor wire on top, and a corrugated steel fence a few feet behind it that blocks sight lines. The gate’s been rolled open for us, and that makes me think they’ve got surveillance cameras up in the trees along the road. They’ll see people coming a long way off.
Jesse parks, and I pull up next to him. The gate’s already rolling closed behind us. I get out and say, “Just in case your daddy is thinking of pulling any bullshit, I sent texts to Kezia Claremont, my boss in Knoxville, and the FBI telling them where I’ll be.” That isn’t a bluff. I really did it before we ever left the motel room. As contingency plans go, it’s the best I can manage at the moment.
Jesse just grins. He’s got the slick charm of a good-looking young man who skids out of every tight spot . . . until he doesn’t. “No problem, ma’am,” he says. “Jasper Belldene keeps his word once he gives it. Until you break yours. You planning on that?”
“No.”
“Then we ain’t got a worry.” He turns and heads up the wooden steps to the big house, and as he does, the front door opens and Lilah Belldene steps out. She clasps her hands in front of her and gives us a warm, welcoming smile. “Come on in,” she says. “I’ve fixed up a couple of rooms for you two girls. Gwen, I don’t expect you’ll be staying that long. Jasper’ll be out directly, you just wait right inside.”
The house is surprisingly . . . normal. Comfortable couches, a worn old recliner that’s no doubt Jasper’s exclusive domain. A rocking chair with a basket of colorful yarn beside it, and knitting needles stuck in. The place smells clean and feels warm. Welcoming. There’s a big high-definition TV set to a news channel that plays without sound.
It’s not exactly what I expected from the Hillbilly Mafia.
“Girls, you follow me,” Lilah says. “I’ll get you settled, and then we’ll have some hot cocoa. All right?”
Lanny’s still holding Vee’s hand, but she drops it and turns to me to give me a hug that takes my breath. I hold her like I never intend to let her go, but I know I have to, and finally I open my arms and watch her step away. “Lilah. A moment,” I say, and Mrs. Belldene stops.