She looks at me for a second, then turns to the girls and says, “Down the hall and to the right. Your rooms are across from each other. You’re going to have to share that bathroom, now, and I want it kept clean. Go on. I’ll be right along.”
She turns toward me and waits. I walk closer. Close enough that we could hug, if we’re so inclined. We are not. “People know where they are,” I tell her. “You understand me?”
She raises her thin, graying eyebrows. She looks so devastatingly grandmotherly in her red gingham shirt. She’s even wearing a necklace I recognize: one that dangles a cluster of birthstones of her children and grandchildren. It’s an impressive collection. A deliberate reminder that she has a family she loves. Everything this woman does, I think, is calculated to disarm.
“Trust but verify,” she says, and winks. “I’d do the same. We may be friendly right now, but we sure ain’t friends. Even so: if your daughter sticks to her story and my Olly comes home, we’re square for now. Then you leave this county, and we’re square for good.” She loses the smile like it was a paper mask she’d put up. “I would not hurt your child. You can be sure of that.”
I nod stiffly. It isn’t that I don’t believe her. It’s that I don’t want to have to believe her.
I have to wait only a couple of minutes before Jasper Belldene comes out of the kitchen. He’s holding two coffee mugs, and I admit, the smell of good beans makes me lose some of my edge. I gratefully accept and drink, even without milk or sugar. I need it. “How’s that head?” he asks me.
“Hurting,” I reply. “But it won’t hold me back.”
“They’re still driving,” he tells me. “On the interstate. Florida’s watching the GPS.” He clears his throat. “You can’t go at this alone, you know that.”
He’s right, of course. My instinct is to rush out there, but I don’t know what I’ll be running into even if I get a final location. I couldn’t win against the men from the RV. And if this leads back to Father Tom, to the cult that Carol was so terrified would find her again . . . then it’ll be infinitely darker than that. One gun won’t do it.
I feel very alone.
“You’re not offering, are you?” I ask.
“No. I got no dog in this fight.”
“Even if I pay you.”
“Ma’am, you can’t pay me enough to put the lives of my own children at risk to go get yours. That’s a fact. I’d advise you to look elsewhere, you want to drum up a posse. We ain’t in that business. I’ll point you where to go, and that’s the end of our dealings.”
My coffee tastes bitter for a moment. I drink it anyway. I don’t know when I’ll have another chance.
He drains his cup and says, “You may not have my help, but you’ve got my sympathy. I hope you get that boy back. No child deserves that.”
I nod and I hand him my cup when I finish it. He juggles both when his phone dings for attention, and looks at the message. He stares at it for a long second, then says, “I’m real sorry.”
He turns the phone toward me, and I read the text. It says Lost the signal. Batteries probably died on the drone. Last ping was up in Cumberland County, up near Catoosa.
I want to scream, and it takes every ounce of self-control I have to hold back that wild despair. Because like Remy Landry, Connor and Sam have just vanished into the dark.
Gone.
I sit with my head in my hands for a while and just let the magnitude of this roll through me. There’s absolutely no guarantee that this RV is stopping anywhere in Tennessee. It could be heading farther north, into another state. It could already have disappeared completely.
I call Mike Lustig, and I sound calm when I tell him what I’ve learned. He promises that he’ll feed the info back through the Tennessee law enforcement channels, and then he pauses. “How you doing, Gwen?”
“Not great,” I tell him. “At all. I don’t know what—what to do. I can’t just—”
“Yes, you can. Until we know where to find them, there’s not a hell of a lot that can happen. You know this.”
“Yeah,” I say. I don’t believe it. “Do you have anything at all on this Assembly of Saints? Or All Saints International?”
Lustig asks the logical question about why I’d ask, and I tell him my suspicions. He considers that in silence a moment. “Got to ask the question: Why would they hire you to find a guy they kidnapped themselves?”
“Because they knew my poking around would flush Carol out of hiding, if she was still around. I made it possible for them to get a shot at her.” I swallow hard. “But it won’t work again. She’ll cut off contact with the pastor and drop completely out of sight, if she’s smart. She’ll get the hell out of this state—”
“Why didn’t she?” Lustig asks. It stops me cold. “You found her in Knoxville. Doesn’t that strike you as odd, if she really wanted to get free? She could have been in Hawaii by now. Or Estonia.”
He’s right. I just assumed she didn’t have the resources, but now that I’ve met her, that seems even less likely. Carol—or whatever her real name is—could manipulate her way in life, cash or not. There has to be a reason why she stayed.
It comes to me in a wave of anger that I’ve been stupid. I’ve got no excuse except that I’m tired and distracted and terrified for those I love. I should have nailed this the second the man who kidnapped my son told me he was looking for Carol and the child.
Two possibilities: either Carol escaped with a young child from the cult, or Carol ran from the cult because she was pregnant. Either way, she stays in Knoxville because she wants to see that child, even if she can’t keep it with her. It makes sense now why the pastor was so committed to protecting her; he was also protecting someone more vulnerable.
I need to apologize to that man someday. “I have to go,” I tell Lustig. “Any possibility you can use some kind of surveillance system to locate that RV? Satellites? Anything?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “Gwen? You stay put. Don’t do anything stupid. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I say. I’m lying, of course. But Agent Lustig and I have a guarded relationship, at best; we’re friends because of Sam, and it ends there. If Lustig could find evidence against me, even the thinnest, to tie me to Melvin’s crimes, he’d show up with a warrant as fast as if he’d teleported. He doesn’t think I’m good for Sam.
Fair enough.
I end the call and think about leaving. Lilah, who’s sitting in her rocker across the room, looks up. She has been knitting steadily, and doesn’t stop now. The rhythmic clicking of her needles sounds like claws on a window. I suppose it should be comforting.
“Wait until morning,” she says. “You’re bone tired, and those girls are too. One more night won’t hurt. You’re safe here. Can’t guarantee what will be outside our fence.”
I immediately wonder what ulterior motive she has, and maybe that’s unfair; the Belldenes have been straightforward enough about their motives so far. Maybe in this, Lilah’s being a mother and a grandmother.