Thicker Than Water (34 page)

“And then he's going to call you back? Are you sure? Isn't his phone time limited?”

“He said he'd bribe a guard. It's not all that tough to arrange. If he can't get out, he'll pay someone else to use his own phone time to get a message to us.”

“How long do you think it'll take?”

Before Sean finished the question, the telephone rang.

“Not long,” Rodney said. “Not long at all.”

* * *

The map lay unfolded on the seat beside her, held open by an English Eleven textbook and an attendance folder, illuminated only by the dashboard lights. Ms. Marcum ran a finger along the narrow twisting line as she maneuvered the car over the road it represented, her eyes darting between the two. She'd heard all about this place from Mordecai, over and over
and over again. But she'd never been there, outside of the lush, vivid descriptions he had painted in her mind's eye with his words. And she knew the address. Number One Pine Tree Lane, Heaven, Virginia. He'd told her the mansion was the only house on the road that wound around an unnamed peak in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Pine Tree Lane turned out to be little more than a worn dirt track cut into the mountainside by years of use. No pavement, not even any gravel, and not a streetlight for miles and miles. Her headlights didn't seem to penetrate very far ahead of her, and she had to drive slowly, even though everything in her was urging her to hurry. It had been a long time. Too long.

Finally the house came into view. “Oh, my God,” she whispered as she guided the car into the driveway, and its headlights illuminated the front of the place. “It's incredible.”

Her hands trembled on the wheel as she braked to a stop. Then, reluctantly, she put the car in Park and turned it off. She had to draw on every ounce of courage she possessed to make herself turn off the headlights, get out and walk along the flagstone path through the moonlit night. She stood outside the car for a moment after closing the door as soundlessly as she could manage and just listened. Insects whirred and chirped and buzzed, and somewhere a bullfrog croaked. She heard the soft breeze in the pines, whispering a thousand secrets to the night. She heard a splash and recalled Mordecai mentioning a crystal mountain lake. So many memories. Shards like shattered pieces of a fallen mirror, some so sharp they drew blood when she touched them.

She forced herself to move forward, walking slowly, hearing the echo of her own steps on the flagstones, wondering
if he could hear them. Mordecai was a careful man. She imagined him inside, watching her approach, and so she walked slowly, keeping her hands out to her sides, so he could see she was carrying no weapons.

She reached the front steps, which marched upward between giant columns to the massive front door, and hesitated before mounting them. She strained her eyes toward the windows but could see nothing beyond them. Nothing moved. She heard no sounds coming from within.

Swallowing hard, lifting her chin, she mounted the steps and walked slowly up them. At the top, she kept going across the porch to the beautiful door with its stained-glass oval and its lion-headed knocker. Trembling like a dry leaf in an autumn wind, she reached toward the knocker.

A light came on, glaring down on her from above, blinding her, and the door flew open. She tried to shield her eyes from the glare and to see who stood there in the open doorway, but she could only make out a dark silhouette.

“Who are you?” a man's voice asked. “What do you want here? Are you lost?”

Blinking still, she held one hand over her brow, like a salute, and that shadowed her face enough so she could stop blinking. “Mordecai?” she asked.

He said nothing. “How do you know that name?”

“Don't you recognize me?” She swallowed her fear and took a single step closer to him. It was as far as she could go without crossing the threshold.

“I thought you were dead, Mordecai,” she whispered. “For the longest time, I thought you were dead.”

A hand shot out, gripping her upper arm. He drew her inside, closing the door after her. She blinked in the dimness,
willing her eyes to adjust, and as they did, she saw him standing there, staring at her in dawning wonder. He stared for a long time, and, finally, he cupped her face between his palms and leaned even closer. “My Lizzie? My God, is it really you?”

She nodded. “I came as soon as I knew you were alive, Mordecai. God, you don't know how long I've dreamed of this. Prayed for it. I thought I'd die without you.” Closing her eyes, she moved mere millimeters closer and pressed her mouth to his. He was stiff, but he didn't pull away. It was only as her tears ran over her cheek, onto her lips and his, that he shivered and closed his arms around her and returned the kiss. When he finally lifted his head, he was smiling, his eyes were damp.

“I have Sunny here.”

“I know.”

“You know?” Suspicion clouded his eyes immediately.

“I've been watching over her, you know, from a distance. I teach at her high school.”

“And yet you never let on?”

She shook her head. “No. There—there was so much going on. It's…it's a long and complicated story.” She let her eyes roam his face. “You must have one of your own. God, Mordecai, you look so different.”

“I was badly burned.” He lowered his head. “You…I thought you were dead, but you and those others, you left me there. Left me to die.”

“No, Mordecai. Not me. I never left you. I never would.”

“But—”

She pressed a forefinger to his lips. “I was shot, bleeding. I was dying. I knew I was. I wanted to get Sunny out of there, but I knew I wouldn't be going with her. My destiny was to die there, with you. When that ceiling collapsed on you, I
knew I wouldn't leave, even if I could. As it turned out, Fate agreed with me. I passed out just a few yards away from you. I thought the next time I saw you we'd both be in heaven.”

He smiled slowly, no longer suspicious of her, and stroked her hair. “And so we are.”

“And we have our Sunny back again?” she asked, her voice a breathy whisper.

“We do.” He leaned down to kiss her again. “She's fine. Upstairs in her rooms.”

“Have you told her—who she really is?”

“She knows I'm her father. And that Julie Jones is not her birth mother. I told her about you. But like me, she thinks you died.” He sighed, smiling. “God, it's a miracle. She's going to be so happy.”

Lowering her head to his strong shoulder, she let him stroke her hair. “I want to see her. Can I see her, Mordecai?”

“In a little while,” he said. His hand felt good in her hair. Good and tender and loving. She'd loved him so much once.

She still did. Despite everything.

“I love you, Mordecai,” she whispered.

“Come, then. Come with me. Let me be with you again, the way we used to be. God, I've missed you so much, Lizzie.”

He scooped her into his arms and started up a broad, curving staircase. She kissed him enthusiastically, let him run his hands over her as he took her along a hallway and through a set of double doors into a darkened room. She felt the bed beneath her back as he lowered her onto it, felt the cool air on her skin as he began to undress her.

* * *

Sean kept his hands on Julie's shoulders. She'd surged to her feet when the old man picked up the phone and was
probably battling the urge to shout at him to hurry up while he listened. Finally he nodded and repeated an address. “Number One, Pine Tree Lane, Heaven, Virginia,” he said.

Sean scrambled for a pen, found one on a nearby table and scribbled the address. But then he realized Rodney was talking again. “I've told her everything, Larry,” he was saying to the man on the phone. “Yes, in fact, she's here right now.” He paused, looking intently at Julie, and then he said, “I don't know. I'll try.” Then he slowly moved the telephone toward Julie, holding it out to her. “Will you talk to him?”

Sean dropped the pen, seeing the stark-white color of Julie's face as she stared at the telephone. She backed away, knocking over a chair in the process, and shook her head rapidly from side to side.

Rodney drew the phone back to his own ear. “Sorry, Larry. It's too sudden. All right. Yes, I'll let you know as soon as Dawn is safe.” Nodding, he said, “Yes, I'll tell her.” He looked at Julie again. “He loves you, and he's sorry for what he did. He's praying for Dawnie.”

“I don't want his love,
or
his apologies,” she said, lunging forward again, shaking off Sean's grip on her shoulders. “And I don't need his prayers.” She yanked the telephone out of Rodney's hand and shouted into it. “Do you hear me? I don't need anything from you! Not ever!” Then she tugged the phone away from her ear, staring at it, and Sean moved closer, took it from her and heard the dial tone that told him her father had already hung up. He replaced it in its cradle, wishing to God he could do something to ease the pain in Julie's eyes.

“At least we have a lead now. We know where she might be.”

“Larry was pretty sure,” Rodney said. “He said that accord
ing to Young's former lawyer, that's the place where he always planned to go one day, and he transferred ownership to one of his aliases before the raid.”

Sean nodded. “We should phone Jax, let her know where they—”

“No!” Julie slapped him with the word.

“But, Jones, they're going through a list of more than a hundred possible locations. This would speed things up.”

“Just exactly what do you think it would speed up, Sean? The moment when a couple of hundred soldiers with machine guns and explosives surround my innocent child and her insane father? Jesus, if the cops get to them before we do, history will repeat itself. He won't let them take her alive. I have to get to her first. I have to.”

He nodded slowly, then shot a look at Rodney.

The old man held up his hands. “I won't say a word to anyone if you don't want me to.”

Sean pursed his lips, looking again at Julie. “If we leave, they're going to be after us. You know Jax is keeping an eye on you.”

She nodded. “How far is it?”

“By car, nine to twelve hours, depending on where it is in the state. I can give you a better idea with a map.”

“Then let's go get one.”

“We could fly down there. Save time.”

She nodded. “Jax will check the airlines the second I'm missing. And as soon as she knows where we went, she'll be that much closer to setting loose the hounds of hell on my kid.”

“She's going to figure it out anyway, just by the process of elimination, Jones.”

Julie sighed, and he knew she was wrestling with the weight of the decision.

“Come on. Let's get this show on the road.” Sean handed her the crutches. She'd been putting weight on the bad ankle and barely aware of it, he thought. “We'll have you call Jax to check on things just before we leave. That way she shouldn't think to check on your whereabouts for a while.” He glanced at Rodney. “Can we use your car? That way ours will still be in the driveway and they may not realize we've skipped out quite as soon.”

“I'll do better than that,” he said, getting to his feet as if it were an effort. “I'll drive you to the airport. That way they won't know you're gone or notice my car missing, either.”

“Then it sounds like we have a plan.” Sean looked at Julie. “Okay?”

“We should have weapons. We should have a gun.”

“We'd never get it on the plane, Julie,” Sean said.

She lowered her head. “Then I'm going to have to find a way to kill him without one. Because one way or the other, I swear to Christ, Mordecai Young is not going to live to torment me or my daughter again.”

The scary part was, Sean didn't doubt for one second that she meant it.

D
awn didn't sleep. She lay awake in the bedroom with the lights blazing brightly. She'd never been afraid of the dark before, but here, in this strange place, with this insane man—her birth father—she was terrified. God, she still couldn't believe it was true. That Mordecai Young, one of the most famous cult leaders she'd ever heard of, was her father. It might be. She supposed it made some kind of sense. But she didn't want to believe she was genetically related to a lunatic. Didn't that make her part lunatic, as well? She'd never
felt
crazy.

Maybe he didn't feel crazy, either. Maybe crazy people never felt as if there was anything wrong with them.

She wanted her mom. She wanted her nice house and her own room and some of Rodney's chocolate chip cookies. She wanted Kayla.

There was no telephone here, no computer and Internet.
She'd kept her eyes peeled for any way to get a message out, but she'd found none. There must be at least a telephone somewhere in this house, though. She'd planned to slip out of her room and search the mansion for it, but her so-called father had locked her in.

She closed her eyes against a new rush of tears as she wondered if she would ever see her mom again. Then she dashed those tears away with an angry swipe of her hand. Julie Jones was her mom, no matter what biology or insane kidnappers might say. And she was the most aggressively protective mom on the planet. She was probably doing a house-to-house search right now. She would kick this man's ass all the way back to Cazenovia when she caught up to him. She would never stop searching until she found her. Never.

Poor Mom, she thought, aching for the pain and terror her mother must be suffering right now. Thank God she had Sean around to help her through this.

There were footsteps outside the bedroom door, and Dawn sat up straight in the bed. It was 3:00 a.m. God, what could he want at this hour? She fixed her eyes on the door, her mind racing, her heart pounding, as the knob moved. Slowly the door opened.

But the woman who stood there was the last person she expected to see. “Ms. Marcum?” Dawn leaped from the bed and ran across the room, flinging her arms around her favorite teacher. “Oh, God, how did you find me? I'm so glad to see you! Did you bring the police?”

“Easy, easy, Dawn.” Her teacher hugged her hard. Behind her, Dawn saw Mordecai Young, looking at the two of them, his eyes damp, his smile unsteady.

“You two have a lot to talk about,” he said. “I'll leave you alone.” He pulled the door closed.

Dawn pulled out of her teacher's embrace all at once and stared up at her as she backed away. “What
is
this? Do you
know
him?”

The woman nodded slowly; then she looked around the room, spotted the French doors. “Let's sit outside, shall we? It's a beautiful night.”

“I don't want to go outside, I want to know what the hell is going on! That man kidnapped me! I want to go home.”

“I know. Everything's going to be all right, Dawn. You just have to trust me.” She crossed the room, opened the doors and stepped out onto the balcony, then turned, waiting for Dawn to join her there.

Dawn couldn't remember ever being more confused in her life, but she went outside. Ms. Marcum closed the doors after her.

“Why don't we sit?” she asked, nodding toward the patio chairs. “It's so much warmer here than at home, isn't it?”

“I guess.” Dawn sat down, tried not to shiver. It wasn't cold, and she was still fully dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater she'd found among the clothes in the closets and drawers. There were tons of them, in a wide range of sizes. He must have been stocking up for years.

“Dawn, I know that you're already aware of that fact that your mom didn't give birth to you. I, um—I was there, with her. At the Young Believers' compound all those years ago.”

Dawn shook her head. “Mom never said she knew you.”

“She doesn't know who I am.” Ms. Marcum shrugged. “I always manage to be absent when she's coming in for a school event or open house. Haven't you noticed that?”

She waited for a response, but Dawn didn't give one. She was busy recalling all the times Ms. Marcum had vanished just as her mom arrived at the school and the way her mom had just said the other day how badly she felt for never having met Dawn's favorite teacher.

And then she remembered something else. “Mom said everyone who was with her there was dead.”

“She thought I was. I was shot, and I collapsed. She dragged my body into the escape tunnel and left me there. I guess she just couldn't bring herself to leave me behind in the burning building. I was found there, still alive, though barely. I spent months in a coma, and when I woke, I had no memory of who I was.”

“That's awful!”

She nodded. “Yes, it was awful. But gradually, things started coming back to me. Bits and pieces of my life before. It took years, and my memory is still very sketchy in some areas, but I do remember my time at the Young Believers' compound. I remember your mom. And I remember you, Dawn.” She smiled a little, and Dawn went stiff in anticipation of what was coming next. “My name is Elizabeth, Dawn. Lizzie, back then. I was your mother's best friend. I'm the one who gave birth to you, and who begged Jewel to take care of you because I thought I was dying.”

Dawn shot to her feet. “No!”

“I know it sounds crazy, Dawn, but it's true. I'm your mother.”

“No!” Dawn shouted the word. “Stop it, stop all of this. I don't want to hear any more!” She pressed her hands to her ears, turning away from the woman who was suddenly just another threat to her.

“Please, Dawn. Don't be childish. You have to be strong, be brave. You have to face the truth.”

“Truth?” Dawn whirled to face her again. “What do you know about truth? I've known you since seventh grade! Why wouldn't you have said anything before now?”

Ms. Marcum lowered her head. “Years went by before I remembered enough to even begin searching for you. By then I'd gone back to school, earned a degree in English. Then I found you—quite by accident. Your mother was covering a freak storm, a tornado in central New York, and it was picked up by the wire services. I saw it, saw her byline. Julie Jones, WSNY in Syracuse N. Y. It was like…it was like kismet. Like fate wanted me to know where you were.”

“Now you sound like
him.
”

She shrugged. “He's not entirely wrong, you know.”

“Not everything is a sign from above, Ms. Marcum. It's like Mr. Bonwell in psychology says. ‘Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.'”

She smiled. “This time, it was a sign. So I moved to Syracuse, looked you up. You were so happy. I decided the best thing to do would be to just stay out of your life. But I couldn't bring myself to do that, not entirely. So I got a job as a substitute teacher in your district while I worked on my teaching certification. I never planned to tell you the truth, Dawnie. Just to watch over you from a distance. As long you were happy, I saw no need to disrupt your life.” She lowered her eyes. “But now…things are different now.”

Dawn felt her eyes widen, but Ms. Marcum went on. “Now that I know Mordecai is alive, we can be together, as a family. Just like we always planned.”

Her hand came out to stroke Dawn's hair, and Dawn closed her eyes and wondered if the entire world had gone insane.

* * *

Lieutenant Jackson waited while Julie Jones's telephone rang and rang, and then she heard the unmistakable clicking sound on the line, and a new ring, sounding slightly different, began. She pursed her lips. Jones had her call forwarding activated. That meant she wasn't at her house.

The new ring sounded several times before voice mail picked up and asked her to leave a message. It sounded like the cellular voice mail message she used herself. Jax hung up the phone, got to her feet and pulled her coat from the back of her chair.

“Where you going?” Chief Strong asked. “We're still waiting to rule out eighteen sites!”

“Gotta check on Jones,” she said. “She's not at Channel Four, and there's no answer at MacKenzie's place, or at Jones's, either. She's got the call forwarding on.”

“To where?”

“Her cell, I'm guessing. But she's either out of range or turned off.”

The chief pursed his lips. “Your case, your call. How do you want to handle it? I can have a warrant issued. Just say the word.”

Jax hesitated. She would hate like hell to put out a warrant for Julie Jones's arrest while the woman's daughter was still missing. It seemed heartless, and despite popular opinion, Jax was far from heartless. She did have feelings; she just didn't indulge them the way some did. She wasn't a sap. She was fairly certain Jones had murdered Harry Blackwood.
She was equally certain the bastard had it coming. But it wasn't her job to justify crimes, just to solve them. She was going to have to lock Julie Jones up, sooner or later. She wasn't going to like it, but she damn well was going to do it. It was her job.

She pursed her lips. “You know, I doubt she'd skip town without a good reason,” she said. “She knew I'd come after her the second she did, and she seemed to want to avoid a jail cell as long as possible.”

The chief lifted his heavy brows. “You think she may be going after the girl?”

“Maybe. Why don't you have someone check the airlines for me while I drive out to her place?”

“Done. Call in when you get there.”

She nodded once and headed out the door. Within twenty minutes, she was at Julie Jones's place, because she'd done eighty most of the way, even though she hadn't bothered with lights and noise. No one bothered her. When she pulled in, MacKenzie's car was parked in the driveway. A palm to the hood told her the engine was cold. She peered into the garage, saw the Jeep parked there. No damp tire marks behind it, so she didn't think it had been moved lately. The roads were wet this morning. Jones's Mercedes was either still over a ravine up in the mountains or sitting at some roadside garage waiting for her to come and claim it. She hadn't driven that. She hadn't driven anything, by the looks of the place. But it was locked up tight and looked empty, despite the lights Jones had left on to make it look occupied.

Jax pulled her cell phone from her pocket and called in, asked for the chief and waited while she was put through. He picked up. “Well?”

“Nothing. They're not here, either of them. All vehicles are accounted for.”

“Someone drove them, then.”

“Drove them where? Did you get a hit for me, Chief?”

“Yeah. They're in Virginia. Hopped an American Airlines flight from Hancock to Norfolk that left around 4:00 a.m.”

“Hell.”

“We're already on the horn to Norfolk. Wait a sec.” His voice became muffled as he yelled to someone else in the room; then he came back a moment later. “Yeah, they rented a car when they arrived at Norfolk. We have the make, model and plate number, but where they're going is anyone's guess.”

Jax narrowed her eyes. “Check the list.”

“What's that?”

“Check the list of properties associated with Mordecai Young, the one we've been going over. See if any of the ones we haven't checked out yet are in the state of Virginia. Or anywhere close to it. Maryland, D. C., maybe West Virginia.” She heard papers rustling. “I mean, maybe they got a lead we didn't know about, though why the hell they would take off like a couple of vigilantes instead of letting us handle it is beyond—”

“Bingo.”

She stopped speaking. “You found it?”

“Number One, Pine Tree Lane. Someplace called Heaven, Virginia. It changed hands just before the raid. Ten to one the new owner is just another alias.”

“I'm hopping a flight to Norfolk.”

“I'll let the locals know you're coming. He's crossed state lines, now, Jax. The feds will be there in droves.”

She swallowed hard. “We don't know that he's crossed state
lines. We're guessing. Why not let me confirm it before we notify them, huh?”

“Jax—”

“I'm thinking about the raid, Chief. I'm thinking about what happened the last time the feds got involved with this maniac. We want the kid back, don't we?”

He was silent for a long moment. Then, finally, he sighed. “Get down there, find the place, and stay in freaking touch. You're bound and determined to cost me my job, aren't you?”

“Only if I get to replace you, Chief.”

He told her to do something that would require a marital aid and hung up.

Jax clicked the cutoff button and drove north, past the city and toward the airport.

* * *

Julie was tense and stiff, her ankle aching as much as her head did. Sean, she thought, looked like hell as he drove the rented car, and he kept rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as if his muscles ached.