Last Writes (23 page)

Under other circumstances, Rita’s aghast expression would have been almost comical. “That would
never
happen. Can you imagine? The Lord God chooses your child for a special honor and you say ‘No, I don’t think I’m interested’? Kylie’s acceptance into Jephthah’s Daughters is vital for the salvation of all of us who are members of the Temple of Brighter Light. Not just here at the Ark, all the satellites, too.”

“What does that mean?”

“I really can’t say anything more.” She gave Claudia an apologetic smile. “It’s not something we’re supposed to discuss with outsiders.”

 

After refilling her glass, Claudia decided to return to Rodney’s office and get things wrapped up. She rounded the corner from the reception area and collided head-on with James Miller. They both gasped as sun tea splashed the front of his white dress shirt. Claudia jumped back. “Oh crap, I’m so sorry!”

“You again!”

“You’ll need to soak your shirt in cold water right away so the stain doesn’t set.”

“Leave it.” Miller held the sopping shirt away from his skin. He started to move on, but thinking of how he’d puked his breakfast that morning, and now he was soaked through with tea, Claudia stopped him. “I guess it’s not your day, thanks to me.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”

She was already trying to think of a way to get him to talk to her; decided to go for broke. “James, when we spoke this morning, I didn’t tell you this, but someone put a note in my briefcase last night while I wasn’t looking. There was a young woman at my lecture in Riverside, and I think she had something to do with it. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

“Why would I?”

“I’ve heard that you and Rodney Powers are like brothers. You’re the only one who—”

James began motioning frantically with his hands for her to stop. He put a finger to his lips, warning her not to speak. When he beckoned her to come with him, Claudia followed without question. He led her outside, moving with enough speed that she had to make an effort to keep up.

As he had that morning, James Miller took her away from the path, into the trees, which grew thick and provided plenty of cover. He pushed aside branches, clearing the way for Claudia. The dry brush scratched at her bare legs as she plowed along behind him.

When they came to a clearing, she could see that this was another area of the perimeter fence where they’d met after breakfast, closer to the Victorian where the main offices and her guest room were located.

“We can’t be gone long.” James turned to face her. His hands were moving nervously, clenching and unclenching, and he spoke quickly. “I don’t want anyone to miss me. They’ll be back soon.”

“Where is everyone? I haven’t seen a soul except Rita since I left the infirmary.”

“The infirmary?” He looked puzzled.

“Kelly’s there. I believe she’s been hypnotized and drugged.”

He looked a bit green when she said that. “There’s a service going on, so a lot of the members are in church right now. We need to hurry.”

“Okay, but why are we out here? Because of surveillance?”

He nodded. “I helped set it up in the house. It may be in other places, too, that I don’t know about. Brother Stedman just wants to make sure there’s no murmuring going on among the brothers.” He said it apologetically, as if he knew how ridiculous and paranoid it sounded. He didn’t know that Stedman had also retained Claudia to check up on some members.

She saw from the warring emotions on his face that he was still struggling with the demons of his conscience. She reached her hands out. “James, I don’t care about any of that right now. Please tell me you’ve brought me here because you’ve decided to help me find Rodney.”

He covered his face with his hands, then dropped them and gave her a look of appeal that she had to believe was sincere. “You don’t understand how hard this is. I truly and deeply
believe
that what the elders teach us is the truth from above. I
believe
in the coming cataclysm, and that there are certain steps we have to undertake to be saved. I honestly don’t want to disobey the directions of Brother Stedman or the rest of the governing board. Rod feels the same way, but . . .” He sucked in a deep breath; let it out on a regretful sigh. “He’s become weak in his faith. He can’t bring himself to hand over his child for sacrifice, even though it’s an enormous privilege and an honor. And it’s the right thing to do, too. But God help me, he
is
more than a real brother to me. I’ve talked and talked to him, but I couldn’t talk him out of what he planned, so finally, I had to do what I could to help him.”

The heat was oppressive, but Claudia felt herself go cold all over. “James, what are you saying? You’re talking as if they were going to
literally
sacrifice Kylie. That’s not what you’re telling me, is it?”

When he didn’t say anything, she took a step toward him. She grabbed his arms and shook him. “Answer me! Tell me that’s not what you’re saying! What the hell is this
Jephthah’s Daughters,
anyway?”

James struggled out of her grasp. “Jephthah’s Daughters is a school where special young women are raised in service of the Lord. They sacrifice themselves to a life of prayer and service in solitude.”

“Where is it? Here, at the Ark?”

“No. It’s in a temple in the Colorado Rockies. It’s a very small community where they pray for the earth and for those of us who have left the world.”

“What do you mean, ‘left the world’?”

“Left the evil world
out there.”
James waved his arm, indicating some nebulous location beyond the walls of the Temple of Brighter Light and their Ark. He checked his watch. “I’ve got to get back to my office.”

“Wait
—was that Rod last night at my lecture?”

“I don’t know. It might have been. I sent word that you were looking for him and that you would be there.”

“But how did you know—?”

“I overheard you telling Sister Ryder that you were going to lecture at the university. I wasn’t eavesdropping; I was at my desk, working. The sound carries through the wall.”

Impatiently, Claudia shrugged that off. “James, if I tell you what the note says, can you help me understand what it means?”

He started shaking his head. “I really need to go. I don’t know anything about a note.”

She had it memorized. As he turned away, she began reciting the contents to him:

“It says:
Don’t believe all you’re told. It’s not the way it seems.”

James stopped, half turned.

Claudia heard his indrawn breath, but she continued relentlessly: “
You have to find it—for my child’s sake, and the others.
”

She moved around him, directly into his path. His eyes were squeezed shut, his respirations shallow.

“He’s gone,” he said, almost to himself. “There’s no turning back for him now.”

“What do you mean, he’s gone?”

“He’s lost to us. Proof of
evildoing?
How could he—”

“What
proof
is he talking about? What evildoing do you think he means?”

“He’s lost his mind.” James inhaled a deep breath, gave a long, sad sigh. “It’s more than my life is worth to go on trying to shield him. I can’t help him anymore.”

 

 

 

Claudia held her breath, hardly daring to hope that he might be ready to give her the information that she and Kelly had come to the Ark to find: Rodney Powers’s whereabouts.

James started talking.“The girl you mentioned from last night—what did she look like? I just need to be sure. . . .”

“Black hair, purple streak; a little on the chunky side. . . .”

“She’s my niece, Tabitha. Rod and his daughter are staying at her place. When Rod called me for help, Tabby was the only one I could think of to turn to.” He met Claudia’s eyes, then quickly looked away as if ashamed. “We don’t associate with anyone else outside of TBL. Tabby was excommunicated a couple of years ago when she turned nineteen; she’d started causing disruptions among the other young people, creating dissension. She always was a rebellious, disobedient girl; refused to do what her parents told her. My sister and her husband tried and tried to counsel her; brought her before the governing board time and again. Finally, the judicial commission stepped in and had no choice but to expel her from the Ark. It was obvious she’d become a danger to the congregation.” James scrubbed his hands over his face and sighed again. “Neither Rod nor I should be having anything to do with her at all. We could be expelled ourselves, but I—”

Something he had said earlier suddenly boomeranged and struck Claudia with enough force to take her breath away. “Wait a minute, James, hold on. A few minutes ago, I thought you said that Rodney doesn’t want to hand over his child to Jephthah’s Daughters. Did I hear that correctly?”

He nodded miserably.

“But . . . aren’t you helping him hide her until the ceremony on her third birthday?”

James gave her a strange look. “Well, I helped him with Tabby, but . . .”

“James, where can I get some of Erin’s handwriting?” The words had come out of her mouth before she had consciously formed the question, but her instincts told her she was on the right track.

“Her handwriting?”

Of course, he had no idea why Harold Stedman had brought Claudia to the Ark, or why that would have anything to do with her question. “I don’t care what it is,” she said urgently. “It can be anything she’s written. Can you put your hands on anything?”

“She gave me a letter she wrote before they left for the mountains,” James said. “She asked me to read it to all the members after they’d left. I still have it.”

“I need to see it.”

“Why?”

“That’s something I can’t explain right now. Please just take my word for it. It’s really important.”

He was watching her with a mixture of curiosity, anxiety, and more than a little suspicion. Claudia met his eyes and put all the sincerity into her voice that she could muster. “You’ve got to trust me, James.”

She could see him wavering, but in the end he agreed. “All right, I’ll get it to you.”

“I need Tabby’s address, too.”

“I can’t do that, but I’ll contact her and ask her to have Rod call you.”

 

They left the clearing separately. Claudia waited ten minutes before she followed James’ trail out of the woods. She checked in at the infirmary and was told that Kelly was still sleeping. “How much longer do you think it’ll be before she’s able to leave here?” she asked Martha Elkins.

Elkins shrugged, gave her the offhand almost-sneer. “Couldn’t tell you.”

“What’s with your attitude, Martha? What is it you have against me?”

Elkins didn’t pretend not to understand, and her answer spewed venom. “You outsiders are all alike. You come here looking for something to use against us. You’ll leave the Ark and do whatever damage you can when you get away from here. Meanwhile, we just want to live our lives in peace and prepare for the end-of-time days, but instead, we’re forced to waste our energy fighting people like you.”

Claudia felt as if she’d been bitch-slapped. She was tempted to strike back at the other woman, but she bit her tongue. “I don’t know why you would think that, Mrs. Elkins. We’re here because Harold Stedman asked us to come. Neither Kelly nor I have any desire to hurt you or anyone else at the Ark.”

Martha made a little puffing noise with her lips that said she didn’t believe a word of it. She turned away with a jerk of her shoulder and picked up a file from the basket on her desk. Giving up, Claudia said she would return in another hour.

Her next stop was Ararat. She would pick up Kelly’s luggage and take it to the car. The closer they were to being ready to go when Kelly awoke, the better. And if it happened that Kelly was not ready the next time Claudia showed up at the infirmary, she would take stronger measures—though she hadn’t figured out yet what those might be.

Magdalena had finished her work, and the room Kelly had stayed in was as clean and empty as a hotel room waiting for a new guest. Claudia managed to get the laptop bag and bulky suitcase down to the lobby and outside, bumping it awkwardly along the long dirt path to the parking lot. After heaving them into the trunk of the Jag next to her own bag, she returned to Rodney Powers’s office and booted up the laptop and portable printer.

Preparing her final report for Harold Stedman, she peppered it with disclaimers and strongly urged the use of additional tools to make a determination about integrity. She carefully avoided negative comments about the veracity of any of the writers. If one of these writers was the FBI operative, and if the FBI operation was as close to completion as Jovanic had suggested, it probably wouldn’t make any difference what she said, but she wasn’t about to make any statements that might come back to haunt her.

Forty minutes later she was printing out the report on her portable printer. She slipped it into the envelope with the handwriting samples and packed up her equipment once again. She had everything ready to load into the Jag and was preparing to go to the parking lot when Rita popped her head around the office door.

“Sister Rose, could I see you for a moment?”

The tension in her face made Claudia immediately rise from the desk and follow her into the hallway. Rita pressed something into her hand, a small envelope. “I’ve brought you this from James,” she said in a whisper. “It’s Erin’s letter, like you asked for.” Without saying anything further, she turned and hurried away.

Claudia went directly upstairs and shut herself in the second-floor bathroom, hoping there was no surveillance on her in there. She leaned against the sink and removed the card from its envelope, suddenly reluctant to look at the handwriting, not wanting confirmation of what she had come to suspect.