Ritual Sins (12 page)

“Luke’s eating in the refectory with his people. He said I was to keep you company. If you were willing.”

She gestured toward the other plate. “Help
yourself,” she said. “And while we’re eating you can answer some questions for me.”

“He said you would ask.” Calvin sat down across from her, the firelight casting strange shadows on his odd, ugly face.

“And what did he tell you to say?” She managed to choke down a few bits of the lentil mash. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten, and she made herself swallow another bite. Food had always been low on her list of priorities, but it had been too long since she’d eaten, and her body was beginning to assert its need.

“He said to tell the truth, of course,” Calvin replied. “Anything you want to know.”

She didn’t believe him, of course. But that didn’t keep her from trying. “You’re his helper, aren’t you? His partner in crime?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Just a guess.”

“I know Luke better than anyone else does,” Calvin said. “I look after his best interests.”

“Even when he doesn’t recognize them?”

“Particularly then.” Calvin’s voice was affable. “Take, for instance, the problem of you. I think he underestimates just what kind of trouble you could start.”

“And that’s why you tried to kill me?” She took another spoonful of lentils, trying to savor it. It was a lost cause, and she set the spoon down
again. “But how could I make trouble if you’re all as saintly and innocent as Luke pretends to be? If this little cult really exists for the betterment of mankind and not the lining of Luke Bardell’s pockets, then why should he have to worry?”

He didn’t answer her question. “I didn’t like Stella either. She was greedy. She wanted to monopolize Luke. She wanted everything, and she didn’t want to share.”

“That sounds like my mother,” Rachel said wryly.

“She was too needy. Like you.”

It took her by surprise. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to take the nearly full bowl and shove it in his smug little face. Instead she set it down, very carefully. “I’m not like my mother,” she said in a deceptively calm voice. “And I’m certainly not needy.”

“That’s not what Luke says.” He continued to spoon away at his own dinner, not meeting her eyes. He didn’t need to, Rachel thought bitterly. He knew exactly how his airy words were affecting her. “He says you’re the neediest human being he’s ever met. He’s a sucker for the needy. Always has been. That’s why he started the Foundation of Being.”

“Is that why he keeps you with him?”

He looked up and grinned at that. “We all have
our needs,” he said. “Luke needs me as much as I need him. Whether he admits it or not.”

“You mean the great messiah wouldn’t admit something?” Rachel said in mock amazement. “I thought he was perfect.”

“Far from it. He’s human, just like the rest of us, searching for some kind of peace and helping other people to find it as well.” He rattled it off as if by rote.

“You don’t believe that.”

“You don’t care what I believe. You’re like the rest of them. Like your mother. You’re only interested in Luke.” It didn’t seem to distress him.

“Yes,” she said, for once completely honest. “I’m only interested in Luke.”
And how I can destroy him.

“It won’t do you any good,” Calvin whispered. “You can’t hurt him, no matter how much you want to. I look out for him, and there are others as well. No one would let you hurt him.”

“Who says I don’t want to learn from him?”

“The only thing you want to learn is how to bring him down. But it won’t work. He’s got a gift, Luke has. For drawing people to him. He’ll get you as well, see if he doesn’t. No matter how much you think you hate him, he’ll have you eating out of his hand before long. You’ll be just as helpless as everyone else is, desperate for a
word, a smile, even a glance. I can see it now.” His glee was appalling.

“I’d kill myself first,” Rachel said flatly.

“There are those who have done that. And there are those who have tried to kill Luke. No one ever wins. Only Luke triumphs in the end.”

“Over the bodies of the vanquished?” Her voice was sharp.

“And over the fortunes of the deluded,” Calvin added smugly. “You finished with your dinner?”

Somewhere along the way she’d lost her appetite. She shoved the tray away from her. “Why aren’t you busy trying to convince me of his saintliness? I would think you’d want me to doubt my paranoia. Instead you’re feeding it.”

Calvin rose, hoisting the tray up. “I don’t think I could say anything that would make you trust Luke. And I have my own reasons.”

“And what are they?”

He was already at the door when he turned to look at her out of his small, dark eyes. “Maybe I’m trying to scare you away,” he said. “You’re nothing but trouble here. Go someplace and forget about Luke. Forget about this place. Forget about your mother. Trust me, you could lose a lot more than twelve million dollars.”

And then he was gone.

She didn’t waste any time. She searched the barren room with a determined thoroughness, trying
to blot out Calvin’s words. It took her exactly five minutes. There was nothing in the cavernous chamber but the thin pallet that was purportedly Luke’s bed, a few cushions, and the fireplace. No place to hide papers, or contraband.

She stared in frustration at the blank walls. Surely he couldn’t spend all his private moments in such ascetic surroundings? For all his vaunted abstinence, he didn’t strike her as a man who ignored the call of his senses. There must be some hidden life, or room, like Bluebeard’s chamber. Maybe filled with the corpses of the women who’d tried to destroy him.

Now she was getting crazy, and it was all Calvin’s fault. He was setting her up once more, but she couldn’t figure out why. Her distrust of Luke Bardell was already overpowering—she didn’t need anyone feeding it. Bobby Ray had already done enough.

She was tired of waiting for him in this empty room, waiting for him to grace her with his presence, to string her along with another pack of lies. She was tired of being passive. Bobby Ray Shatney had to be somewhere nearby—none of the followers seemed to leave this place, and he said he’d been with Luke since he was a teenager. Odd, when there were no other children around. Not that Bobby Ray was a child, but he had been when he first came here.

For some reason his name, his eyes, seemed familiar, though she couldn’t imagine where she might have seen him before. Particularly if he’d been cloistered with Luke’s People for so long.

What kind of life was that for a young boy? What kind of life was it for anyone?

Maybe she could force him to remember something specific. Something that would help her decide whether he’d just been one of Stella’s pawns, or if there really was more to her mother’s death than she suspected.

She had her hand on the door when it opened, and she let out a tiny shriek, startled, as Luke stepped into the room.

It would help, she thought nervously, if he weren’t so damned tall, even with bare feet. He towered over her, and it took her a moment to realize his ridiculously long hair was wet.

Water glistened on his skin, and his tunic was untied, hanging loosely about his body. Rachel held still, panicked, waiting for him to touch her. Instead he moved past her, into the room, heading for the small fire that had been built to offset the late-summer chill of the New Mexico Mountains. Expecting her to follow.

He’d closed the door, but it would be easy enough to open it, to escape. And God, she wanted to escape. As much as she hated the thought, she was feeling unaccountably vulnerable, and she was
wise enough to want to avoid the enemy when her defenses were compromised.

“Running away?” he murmured, staring into the fire, his long hair a wet swathe down his back.

Fear was one thing. Pride was another.

“No,” she said. Moving after him, still keeping her distance.

“Just as well,” he murmured, squatting in front of the fire. “I locked the door.”

She’d just managed to calm some of her nerves when they began screaming again. “Why?”

“So no one would interrupt us.”

She swallowed, grateful that the shadowy room would hide her sudden blush. “I thought you said there were no locked doors at Santa Dolores?”

His grin was far from saintlike. “Except for mine. So, did Calvin tell you all my dark secrets?”

“No.”

He sank down in front of the fire, cross-legged. “Why not? Didn’t you ask him? He could have told you how we met in prison. He could have told you about my childhood.”

“I don’t give a damn about your childhood.”

“No? You don’t want to hear about the poor, abused, motherless child who grew up with his old man beating on him every time he had too much to drink? Except that he wasn’t really my
old man, which was part of the problem.” He looked at her expectantly.

“You don’t sound particularly traumatized,” she said.

“Some of us move past our deprived childhood,” he murmured, and there was no missing his meaning.

“You think I had a deprived childhood?” He was luring her closer, she knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. The glow of the firelight against his skin was pagan, mysterious, but it drew her, despite the danger.

“I think so, yes,” he said. “Or at least you’re convinced of it, no matter how much money you had at your fingertips, no matter that your life was never in danger. You’re feeling put upon and resentful that life has handed you a few hard knocks, and you want to make me pay for it.” His enigmatic smile was far from reassuring. “Are you going to come here and sit down or are you going to try to break down the door?”

She had no real choice. She knelt down beside the fire, well out of his reach. “What would happen if I screamed for help?”

“A dozen people would come running. Though I don’t know why you should. I’m not keeping you here. You came to Santa Dolores of your own free will. You’re here with me because you wanted
to be. If you want to leave, ask me, and I’ll open the door for you.”

“I’ll stay,” she said, wary. “If you promise not to touch me.”

“Why are you afraid of being touched?”

“I’m not,” she said. A bald-faced lie.

“Not afraid of being touched? Then that means you’re afraid of me.”

“No.”

“No?” His voice was soft, musical, a weapon of desperate power. “Then come here.”

He was closer than she realized, so close she could see the droplets of water on his eyelashes. He had long eyelashes, dark, almost hiding his eyes. “No,” she said.

“Answer my question.” His voice was low and insistent. “Why are you afraid of being touched?”

“I’m not afraid. I just don’t like it.”

“Anyone’s touch? Or just mine?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she said with a bitter laugh. “I don’t like anyone touching me. Putting their hands on me, trying to make me do things, pretending to care about me …” She let her voice trail off, knowing she’d already revealed too much. She went on the attack. “And why don’t you like being touched?”

He didn’t flinch. “What makes you think I don’t?”

“Catherine told me no one was allowed to
touch you. Your celibacy extends beyond sexual matters, you keep yourself aloof from any human intimacy. No hugs, no touching, no handshakes even.”

“No caresses, no kisses,” he added, his voice soft and wickedly seductive. “It’s my choice.”

“Why?”

The smile that twisted his mouth was a far cry from Luke’s usual saintly beauty. “Because I like power. The more I withhold from the people here, the more they crave. The more they’re willing to follow me, sacrifice everything for me. Because I’m untouchable, everyone wants to touch me. It obsesses them.”

She stared at him in shock. “You admit that?”

“Of course,” he said. “What harm will it do? Everyone knows you’re here to try to hurt me. No one would believe you if you told them the truth.”

“And what is the truth? Are you some new age messiah or are you just a phenomenally accomplished con man?”

“The very fact that you still have doubts is reassuring. You think it’s possible I’m really a spiritual leader?”

“No,” she said flatly. “You’ve already admitted you aren’t.”

“I haven’t admitted a thing. That’s the problem, Rachel. You don’t understand the basic tenets
beneath the Foundation of Being. No one is supposed to be a saint. We all have our failings, our weaknesses, our character defects.”

“Your sins,” she said flatly.

“There’s that word again,” he murmured. “You don’t have any sins? It must be nice to be perfect in an imperfect world.”

“Your followers think you’re perfect. They think you’re some sort of god.”

“And what do you think, Rachel?”

She hadn’t realized how close they were. She scrambled to her feet, desperate to put some distance between them. “I think you’re a menace.”

“Only to those who are vulnerable. Are you vulnerable?” He rose, a fluid motion, and there was no escape. “Do you think I can hurt you?”

“No,” she said, her voice stubborn. It would be useless to run for the door. It was locked, he’d told her.

“Yes,” he said.

And he moved closer.

H
e wasn’t that close to her, she told herself. Not close enough to touch, not close enough to feel his breath stirring her hair. And yet he was there, all around her, a seductive menace, intruding, snatching away her safety.

“Poor little rich girl,” he murmured, his voice lightly mocking. “You’re so damned angry you want to hit something. You want to hit me, don’t you?”

Rachel’s back was pressed up against the wall. She could feel her heart thudding wildly in her chest, she couldn’t breathe, all she could do was stare up into his watchful, enigmatic eyes.

“What are you afraid of? What do you think I can do to you? Do you think I’ve got supernatural powers, the ability to cloud people’s minds and make them my slaves?”

“You seem to have a certain amount of success doing just that,” she said in a shaky voice.

“Do I?”

“You know you do.” She was trying desperately to muster her defiance. “You can have anyone you want eating out of your hand.”