White Heat (13 page)

They sped up as the road improved. “Yeah, well, you don't want to know how I feel about your father and
his
feelings of self-importance.”

No doubt he thought Fredrick was off balance. Just like the majority of their neighbors had. Most of the time she did, too. But there were moments she felt she owed him some respect for remaining true to his faith and supporting her until she was almost of age. Maybe her mother hadn't been harsh, the way Fredrick had been, but neither had she possessed the strength to be the mom Rachel and her brother needed.

“Missing birthdays wasn't the hardest part.” Sure, she'd been envious of kids who were free to enjoy the usual holidays. But going without presents at Christmas was nothing compared to being so different from everyone else. She'd had to be careful never to mention the name of a friend to her father or he'd march her over to that girl's house with religious literature. Maybe she wouldn't have minded “witnessing,” as her father called
it, if it'd been her idea, her choice, her conviction. But it never was. Her father had pounded his religion into her, sometimes literally.

Nate glanced at her. “What was?”

Lost in her own thoughts, she stared at him. “Pardon?”

“What was the most difficult part of growing up the way you did?”

She didn't want to talk about it. She wasn't willing to be pitied, especially by Nate. “Probably the divorce. But lots of children go through that.”

“Not while living in such a warped world. But your experience with religion should help us,” he said. “It gives you a unique understanding.”

It also gave her a strong bias and too much rage. She knew what it was like to be held captive by hope and the desire to please, to be controlled by the fear that disobedience or disbelief might lead to expulsion from the family, as well as the church. Would that translate into an advantage or a handicap?

“Maybe,” she responded. “If we can get in. Bartholomew's order not to come back could make it awkward to attend the meeting. We might not get any farther.”

“I think it'll be okay. It's smarter for them to make friends with the people around here who might otherwise become enemies. I'm guessing Ethan's capable of figuring that out. That's got to be the reason for the Introduction Meetings.” He turned on the radio, picked up nothing but static and turned it off again. “At least they'll have a frame of reference for our interest. They'll know how we came into contact with them, why we're curious.”

“Since we've been in the area such a short time, it might actually be better than showing up at a meeting out of nowhere,” she agreed.

“Exactly.”

She wanted to free the Covenanters from whatever hold Ethan had over them, free them far more quickly than she'd been freed through education. But most of them probably didn't want their freedom or they wouldn't have joined Ethan to begin with. How could she or anyone else help willing captives? “I should've discussed it with you before I told Martha the truth. I'm sorry.”

“You went on instinct. Sometimes we've got to do that in our line of work.”

But she wasn't risking only
her
life. She was risking Nate's. She wasn't used to working in tandem; she'd have to be more careful. “Sometimes,” she repeated.

“Stop worrying. It'll be okay. We're fine.”

Now that the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, she removed her sunglasses. “I wish there was some way to know if Martha ratted us out.”

The truck bounced and jerked as Nate maneuvered around the rocks, potholes and creosote bushes trying to overtake the road. “She didn't.”

He couldn't know that. There was still a chance…and they certainly didn't need that working against them. Rachel already felt unsure of her ability to cope with this assignment. No matter how often she told herself the Covenanters were completely different from her father, that the religion he espoused wasn't what most people would call a cult, she heard echoes. And it was those echoes that made her uneasy. It'd been so difficult to escape the chokehold of her father and his reli
gion, so painful to lose the relationships she'd had to sacrifice at the same time. Planning to become one of the Covenanters—even temporarily, even undercover—felt a bit like returning home.

T
he monsoon hit while they were at the creek. One minute, Nate was enjoying the perfectly calm weather and a nice view of Rachel's legs. The next, a gigantic black cloud rolled toward them, seemingly out of nowhere. It caught up with them before they could wade to shore.

“This is crazy. I've never seen anything like it!” Rachel yelled, laughing as the wind whipped her hair around her face and plastered her clothes to her body.

Nate was only an arm's distance away, yet he could hardly hear her. “We'd better run! It's about to rain!”

She increased her speed as she picked her way over the rocks, but she wasn't moving fast enough for his liking. Grabbing her by the waist, he hauled her out of the water and dumped her near their shoes so they could scoop up their belongings before dashing to the truck.

The rain didn't come down as soon as he'd expected. This monsoon seemed more like a tornado than any storm he'd ever seen. Not until they were in the driveway of the trailer did large fat drops begin to fall from the sky and spatter on the windshield—but those drops quickly turned into a deluge. As the rain pounded on the truck roof and instantly created puddles on the ground, they looked at each other in stunned surprise.

“Wow,” Rachel breathed. “Hard to believe I could be cold after how hot I've been since we arrived, but I am.”

That was apparent. Goose bumps stood out on her arms and legs—and her chest, which caused awareness to travel through Nate like a jolt of lightning.

At the creek, they'd been doing fine in their usual roles—work associates and friends. Other than a few glances at her various assets, reserved for when she wasn't watching, Nate had felt more comfortable than he ever had around her. And she'd seemed equally relaxed. Gone was the sarcasm she'd used to battle the attraction between them. They'd simply talked and laughed and enjoyed cooling off.

But they weren't talking and laughing anymore. They weren't relaxed, either. They sat staring at each other with such desire he knew he'd only look foolish if he tried to pretend he didn't appreciate her on a sexual level.

Fortunately, she tore her gaze away and wrenched open the door before he could do or say anything that might lead them down the wrong path. “Race you to the house,” she cried. Then she was outside.

He didn't accept her challenge. He remained behind the wheel, telling himself exactly how he was going to behave once he reached the trailer. It didn't matter that they'd be alone, that he remembered how she felt beneath his hands and was dying to touch her again. He'd let her heat water for a bath and take his own after she was finished. No way would they bathe together the way he wanted to.

“That's it,” he said, encouraged when his heartbeat finally slowed. “You can do this.”

Rachel already had two large pans on the stove by
the time he stomped inside. As he stood in the entryway drying himself with the towel she'd put there for him, she didn't glance up. And he didn't speak to her as he removed his shoes, left them on the mat and trudged to his room. After peeling off his wet clothes, however, he stood completely still, remembering her bra hanging on his lamp, her panties on his doorknob….

Her tread made the floor in the hall creak. She was so close. Would she stop at his room? Why not? They'd been together before. What would it hurt to make love again? If they could get past that night in January, they could relegate this to the same “experiences to be ignored or forgotten” file in their brains. Spending this night more comfortably than the last wouldn't ruin anything. Would it?

He never learned the answer to that question. In the next second, he heard her bedroom door shut. Then the lock clicked.

He'd burned her once. She wasn't about to let him do it again.

 

Ethan reclined on a velvet pad in the pit with the men he'd chosen as Spiritual Guides sitting on their own pads in a circle around him. They'd been arguing for two hours. But once Ethan had brought out the meth, tensions began to ease. Even Bartholomew was docile. He became ultramellow when he smoked, but he didn't do it very often. Meth was really his only vice. He was impotent, so he didn't much care about sex. He hated being unable to think clearly, so he refused drugs more often than he accepted. And he had little use for money. He lived a simple, devoted life. All he cared about was Ethan, and Ethan knew it.

Grady Booth took a hit on the pipe and passed it to Harry Titherington. “So what have we decided?”

“To put an end to the trouble she's causing.” Bartholomew's eyelids were heavy. When he was high, he looked even more like an Old Testament figure.

Harry rubbed his bald head, managing to muss what little hair he had growing on the sides. “The way you put an end to Courtney?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Ethan said. “I let Courtney go.”

“Sure you did,” he muttered, but Ethan was so high he didn't react to the subtle challenge in that statement. With his sandals off and his knees pulled in to his chest, he was enjoying the relative cool of the dirt floor and walls that surrounded them. Several wall sconces held torches, which added a touch of the medieval and created a smoky haze that filtered through the cavernlike room, enhancing the effects of the drugs. Digging the pit had been one of his best ideas. Hidden down here beneath the Enlightenment Hall they had
real
privacy.

“She's gone. That's all that matters.”

Wearing a scowl, Harry marshaled the energy to roll over and sit up. “To you, maybe.”

“To all of us,” Ethan said pointedly. “She found out about this place.”

“The pit?”

“Umm-hmm.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you questioning my word?” Ethan countered.

Harry quickly retreated. “No. 'Course not.”

It was Stan Whitehead's turn with the pipe. He sat cross-legged while he smoked. “I don't care if you killed Courtney. God wouldn't have wanted her to stop
the progress of this great church. Far as I'm concerned, as long as you have the Lord's sanction, you can deal with Martha the same way.”

“I agree,” Grady said. “I've never liked her, anyway, ever since she gave me that venereal disease.”

It was more likely that Grady had given chlamydia to Martha. When they were passing through South Dakota, searching for the perfect place to build their commune, half the church had been forced to get antibiotics, and that was just a few weeks after Grady had joined. But Ethan didn't point that out. Although Grady used to frequent lowlife hookers, he was one of the Guides now, above reproach. What he'd done in his previous life was irrelevant.

“
There
was a woman who knew her place. She felt it was a blessing to pleasure any of us Guides. She never refused,” Harry said. “Remember the first time we brought her down here?”

Stan nodded. “She loved it.”

“I bet that kid of hers is mine,” Ezra Mooney added.

Peter Marshall nudged him. “Looks more like me.”

“Doesn't matter.” Harry covered a yawn. “God's plan has provided for all the children born to this people. Every Covenant member is married, so every child has a mother and a father.”

“How'd you dispose of the body?” This question was directed at Ethan and came from Joshua Cooley, who'd been unusually quiet all evening.

“What body?” Ethan refused to offer details.

Bart cut in before Joshua could answer. “We're not talking about Courtney. We're talking about Martha.”

“But you took care of the problem?” Joshua said. “The…evidence won't resurface and ruin us, will it?”

“Courtney is no longer a concern,” Bartholomew said.

Stan stretched out on his back. “You're a spiritual giant, Bart, you know that? Maybe God's deprived you of life's greatest pleasures, but He's given you the biggest balls of any man I know.”

Ethan wondered if references to his impotence bothered Bart. They brought it up occasionally, but he never let on whether it upset him.

“We've already tried to find Martha and had no luck.” It was Grady who steered them back to the situation at hand. “What makes you think we'll be able to find her now?”

“Have faith, Brother. As soon as she starts to feel safe, her guard will go down,” Bart said.

“And once we recapture her?” Manuel Fry wanted to know. “What then? She disappears, like Courtney?”

“If that is God's will,” Bart said. “We'll leave that up to His anointed.”

“We could always use her for a celebration,” Grady suggested.

Ethan wondered if that would appease them, make them forget about his blunder with Courtney. “What kind of celebration?”

“One that honors the procreative powers God has bestowed on us. Only this one could last for days.”

Ezra Mooney squinted through the smoke. “So…what, Grady, you're saying we rape her until she's dead?”

The drugs were making their tongues too loose, but Ethan didn't chastise anyone. Grady's gaffe took the spotlight off him.

“Last I heard, raping a woman didn't kill her,” Grady said. “I say we keep her in a cage and use her indefi
nitely. She's been cast out of the kingdom, so she doesn't count anymore. She's like garbage…to do with what we will.”

Peter inhaled too deeply from the pipe and had to cough. “Might as well save Bart the trouble of disposing of another corpse,” he said when he could speak.

“So we'd have a woman available whenever we felt the urge?” Harry smiled. “I could go for that. But what if she gets pregnant?”

“Bart will make sure she doesn't,” Ethan said.

Dominic Studebaker, their resident medic, sat across from Ethan. They'd gone to the same college for a year but hadn't met until Joshua Cooley had brought Dominic to one of Ethan's meetings. He'd been listening and smoking but hadn't contributed. Apparently, the fact that Ethan hadn't relied on his expertise offended him and he finally broke into the conversation. “With a little surgery, I can make pregnancy impossible.”

Ethan rose to his feet. “So we'll keep our options open and decide exactly what her punishment will be once she's back. Have we come to an agreement on that much?”

Everyone shifted as they prepared to vote.

“Will all those in favor of making sure Martha cannot harm the church say aye?” he called out.

Ayes resounded, without a single nay. But Joshua Cooley didn't seem enthusiastic, and that concerned Ethan. “Do you have something else to say, Joshua?”

All eyes turned on the twenty-eight-year-old father of three.

“Yeah. I say we get rid of her for good, like Courtney. We've got wives. And if that isn't enough to satisfy
every itch, we've got the Covenant women who participate in the rituals. We get all the sex we need.”

Ethan arched an eyebrow at him. “You think our celebrations are about sex?”

“I think they're about honoring the procreative power, just like you do.”

“And yet you think it would be kinder to kill her?”

“I don't want to face her every time I come down here. It's different with the other women. They participate willingly or we protect their innocence by making it so they don't know what's going on and don't remember when it's over. As long as they aren't aware, I don't see how it hurts anyone. But…a sex slave? You have to look at this through the eyes of the outside world. They won't consider that God's punishment. They'll call it torture. And what if someone were to find her? We'd all go to prison. It's easier to hide a body than a live human being.”

“Who'd find her?” Ethan asked.

Joshua stood. “Courtney stumbled onto this place, didn't she?”

Ethan kept his gaze averted. Courtney hadn't stumbled onto it, exactly. He'd hinted, left her clues. He'd
wanted
her to come here because he'd been excited about having her participate. He'd thought Courtney would offer herself to the group, become a partner in their worship. She'd begged him from the beginning to let her attend the most secret rituals.

But she hadn't understood the religious underpinnings of what they did in the pit. She'd used what she knew and tried to blackmail him. And he'd had to stop her. But suspicious though they might be, Ethan could
never admit to the Guides that he was directly to blame for her death. Allowing her into the pit without the usual precautions had been poor judgment on his part.

“I mean, if she'd gone to the police, we'd be awaiting trial right now,” Joshua was saying.

Harry knew the truth, of course. He'd seen Courtney with Ethan before their big argument. But he had plenty of motivation to accept the lie. He didn't want to lose his place among the Guides.

“Forget Courtney.” Ethan adjusted his robes so he wouldn't have to meet anyone's eyes.

Joshua pivoted to face the others. “So you want to do this? You really want to add torture to the list of things we do down here and call it sacred?”

No one responded.

“You're making a mistake,” he said. “You're feeling untouchable, but you're not. None of us are.”

“No one can hurt us,” Ethan said. “Even if someone found Martha here, they wouldn't be able to get out of the compound before we stopped them. And God is the only power we answer to. If He provides her for our use, we will use her as we see fit.”

Joshua wouldn't back off. “There's always a chance someone will find out,” he said stubbornly.

“No, there isn't. You know how good Bart is at security. Trust him, as I do.”

“It's not about trust. Courtney might be dead but—” he raised a hand when Ethan opened his mouth to interrupt “—but that doesn't mean we can forget how she got that way. I'm sure her parents and the police are searching for answers.”