Shadows on the Sand (27 page)

“Oh no. This is your baby.”

With his strength helping control the rod and his knowledge helping me play the line, I eventually hauled in my own striped bass. It was a beauty, all silver and black, and I watched anxiously as he measured it to see if it was big enough to keep.

“It’s a keeper.”

I felt like I’d landed a hundred-dollar tip.

“I’ll teach you how to clean it and filet it,” he said.

Ack! The guy just grabbed his money back right out of my hand.

I decided to quit while I was ahead and my arms still functioned. I
shook my head when he offered to rebait my pole. I walked a bit away and climbed onto the jetty.

“I’ll watch you from here,” I called.

I sat on a huge flat rock and watched the windblown tide advance. Greg tossed out his line, stuck the rod on the holder, and came over to join me.

I loved climbing on the jetties even though there were lots of signs that said Keep Off Jetty. Everyone ignored them, thinking they were Seaside’s attempt to protect itself from lawsuits brought by those unlucky enough to fall and break a leg while climbing. Every so often a true tragedy happened on a jetty, like the seven-year-old boy who fell off one in Ocean City a couple of years ago. His body washed up a few blocks south.

But the jetties called to people in spite of their danger—or maybe because of it. I always felt like an intrepid mountain goat as I moved from boulder to boulder. I also loved the sensation of being out in the water without actually being
in
the water. And it was invigorating, being so close to the spray as it kicked up when the waves dashed themselves against the rocks—which they were doing with extra vehemence this evening.

Sharing jetty magic with Greg was like sharing one of Lindsay’s grilled sticky buns with him, intimate and sweet.

“Andi’s family is in The Pathway,” I told him after a few moments of comfortable silence. “Clooney just told me. She ran away from their compound.”

“Ah. Poor kid. I wonder if she knew Jase from there.”

“Clooney didn’t say.”

A big wave washed right up to the edge of the boulder we were sitting on, the foam swirling inches from my feet.

“Why do people fall for the cults?” I asked. “Especially the extreme ones? In your police work, did they ever teach you that?”

“I went to a seminar on the topic as part of my continuing ed, and there was always constant information available about the cults considered dangerous or somehow skirting the law. The Pathway and Michael the Archangel were frequently in the bulletins. And there were always the Web sites that debunked the cults and kept track of their activities.”

“The Pathway is illegal somehow?”

“It’s hard to prove anything, but there’s lots of speculation and questions because they keep to themselves like most cults do. That us-against-the-world mentality is a cornerstone of cult teachings.” He looked at me. “Believe it or not, The Pathway has a very clever group of lawyers representing them. So far they’ve gotten them off any charge.”

“Isn’t the head of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints polygamist group in West Texas in jail?”

“Yes, but for forcing the marriage of a fourteen-year-old to her nineteen-year-old cousin and for marrying girls twelve and fourteen himself. The Pathway has been smart enough not to go that young a route.”

“But they practice polygamy.”

“They do, but not with girls little more than children. Sixteen is their usual age, but they get around it by having parental approval. They live on their compound in the southern Arizona desert, keep to themselves, and do whatever Michael the Archangel says.”

Another wave licked at our boulder. “I just do not understand how people can turn their backs on our culture and standardized religion for something so off the wall. I mean, Michael the Archangel?”

“I have a theory about why the women join, but I
know
why the men are attracted. It’s about power, money, and sex.”

Pretty much what Clooney had said. “That’s pretty nasty. No fine points of belief or heart?”

“I don’t think so. In these cults the men have all the power, both positional
and sexual. The women are pawns, taught to be submissive, not in the healthy submit-to-one-another way of the New Testament but regardless.”

“They take verses out of context and push them.”

“They do, another cornerstone of the cults. ‘Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands’ without the balance of ‘husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’ ”

“Is there money in The Pathway?”

“That’s the big question. When someone joins, he or she has to turn over all their finances to the leadership, which means Michael. The group claims this money is used for the care of everyone, but knowing the estimated worth of several converts and the primitive facilities at their settlement, there’s a contradiction. There’s hidden money somewhere, but to my knowledge no one’s been able to find it.”

“They want to get Michael on tax evasion like they did Al Capone.” I sounded like I knew what I was talking about.

“They’re trying.”

We stood and moved back a boulder, and the incoming tide splashed over the place I’d just been sitting. “But the women? Why do they join? I can’t imagine sharing a husband with other women. I don’t think I’m particularly selfish, but if I marry, that man will be mine and mine alone for life. I’m not letting another woman near him.”

He grinned at me. “Possessive, huh?”

“You know it.” Our eyes held, and I thought of my new watch. A time to every purpose under heaven. My heart raced. Was what I’d longed for, prayed for, coming to pass? Was now my time?

Greg’s fishing rod jerked, drawing his attention. He climbed off the jetty and hurried to it. He gave it a tug, then shook his head. “Whatever that was didn’t take the hook.” He climbed back beside me.

“What about the women in cults?” I asked.

“My theory is that many of the women who join come from backgrounds similar to yours. They’ve been abused, hurt, maybe raped. They’ve been made to feel worthless. They find life overwhelming. The cult offers safety and security. You’ll be taken care of all your life. You have to marry, but your sister-wives take much of the sexual pressure from you. You’re told what to do, so you know exactly what’s expected of you. You have rules and assignments that regulate your life. Choices and the uncertainty they bring disappear. And you’re part of a forever family. There is no divorce in groups like The Pathway.”

I was startled by the idea that many of the women were from backgrounds like mine, though it did make sense. If your life was hard, fragmented, or frightening, security forever would look very attractive. Did women join groups like The Pathway, then leave when they felt they had control of themselves again? Or was the world forever scary? Were they even allowed to leave?

“Wouldn’t Jesus be a more sensible way to deal with the pain and rejection?” He had been for me. “With Him you have security and family, but you also have freedom and room to grow as a person.”

“So says a woman who is strong and independent.”

We stood, preparing to move back from the relentlessly encroaching water again. I took a step as I smiled at Greg over my shoulder. I liked being thought of as strong and independent.

My athletic shoe struck a slick spot where moss grew, and before I knew what hit me, I was on my back with my leg bent at an extreme angle.

C
arrie!” Greg was beside me in an instant. “Are you all right?”

I blinked at him. “I think so.” Except for the pointy rock sticking into my back. I put out a hand to push myself upright.

And found I wasn’t quite as all right as I’d thought. A shaft of pain shot up my right arm from my wrist. I yelped and pulled my arm to my chest, cradling it in my other hand. The pain dulled from a ten to a four and throbbed in time with my heart. I’d become one of the many that the Keep Off Jetty signs were written for.

“Your wrist?” Greg reached to take hold of it.

“Don’t touch!” I sounded like a two-year-old yelling, “Mine!”

He blinked and pulled his hands back. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I’ve had lots of emergency training.”

I nodded, feeling foolish at my overreaction. “I must have put my hand out to catch myself when I fell.” With care I extended my injured arm and studied it. Already the wrist was swelling.

“Can you move your legs?”

My legs. I tried to move, and while one leg cooperated, the other didn’t.

“I can’t move my left leg!”

We both looked and saw the problem at the same time. When I’d fallen, my foot had kicked forward and gotten wedged between two of the jetty’s boulders, toe down, heel up. Somehow when I’d landed, my leg, already caught, had been wrenched and twisted at an awkward angle. My knee was bent, and the inside of my leg lay flat on the jetty. All I could see of my foot was the thick heel of my athletic shoe.

“I can wiggle my toes without any pain, so I don’t think it’s broken. Just stuck.”

“Well, let’s get you unstuck and to the hospital to have that wrist looked at.” Greg slid his hands down to my ankle and began the process of releasing me from my rock trap.

“I can’t have a broken wrist!” The implications of losing the use of one hand, my right one no less, loomed large. “I’ve got to work! How can I wait tables with only one arm? O-o-ow! Stop! My foot doesn’t bend that way.” I felt it all the way up in my hip.

“Sorry.” He tried again.

“Pain! Stop! Let me try.” I shifted my weight, but my foot, sneaker sole caught beneath an uneven protrusion on the boulder, remained immobile. A wave washed over the rock I sat on, sliding inexorably toward me, wetting my legs and bottom. It was uncomfortably chilly, and my jeans sopped up the wet like a denim sponge. As the water receded, I realized my trapped foot was now submerged in its crevice, water gurgling around it. Time and tide were not going to wait for me to get free.

I started to get nervous. “How high will the water get where we are?”

“Uh.” Greg looked around in the fast-falling dusk. We were quite a ways out on the long jetty. “Three feet maybe?”

How far was it from my bottom to my nose? How deep was three feet? I looked to my right and left to see where the tide line normally was. I tried to picture how high the water would be where I sat when the waves washed higher than usual on the beach. I began to fear I was going to become one of those wild animals who chewed off their foot to get free from a trap.

“Before you panic, let’s just untie your shoe, and you can slide your foot out.” Greg, the ever practical.

“Right. Good. Wonderful idea.” Such a brilliant and easy solution.

But my foot was wedged upside down, and the laces were not only under water but unreachable.

A man I’d never seen ran out onto the jetty. “I saw you fall. I called 911 for you. I told them we needed an ambulance and a rescue squad.”

As I tried to smile my thanks, a piece of silver plastic riding on the water bumped against my leg. Greg picked it up.

“Looks like the cover on a slide phone,” the 911 guy said.

My cell phone was that color. With my good hand I reached for my belt clip. Empty. That wasn’t a rock in my back when I fell but my phone, and the fall shattered it. I should have gotten that extended warranty.

As I mourned the loss of my phone, I became aware of wet dripping down my neck. I reached back with my good arm, and my hand came away sticky. “My head’s bleeding!”

Greg whipped off his sweatshirt, then his T-shirt. He folded it up and slapped it gently against the back of my head. “Hold this.”

I held it as he pulled his sweatshirt back on. Then he moved my hand, lifted the compress, and examined my head. His hands moved through my hair, and I thought how I’d dreamed he’d do this but under slightly different circumstances and for slightly different reasons.

I could feel 911 Man peering over Greg’s shoulder as another wave washed over me. By now I was sitting in sea water, very chilly sea water. Stripers might like it cold, but I didn’t.

“How soon do you get hypothermia?” I asked.

Greg put the compress back in place and held it there. “I think you’re safe for a while,” he said with a smile in his voice.

I heard a rumbling noise, and a strobe light began playing across the water, turning the foam red and blue by turns.

“Oh, good,” 911 Man said. “The cops.”

I looked over my shoulder. The cop car had driven right up on the boardwalk. Close on its heels came an ambulance, lights flashing.

I didn’t rate a siren from either.

People poured out of both vehicles, and the jetty became crowded. Now 911 Man had his smartphone in hand and was texting away. He was very unhappy when he was sent back to the boardwalk to watch the action from afar.

“But I called it in,” he protested, as if that gave him the right to take up precious space on the jetty.

“And we appreciate it,” Maureen Trevelyan said. “You can help us, sir, by keeping everyone away from the area.”

Slightly mollified, he left, doubtless to regale the small crowd gathering with what was going on when he wasn’t texting the Twitter world.