Chapter Eleven
If Chris was upset about what had happened to Rand and Danny, she kept her feelings hidden. She was clearly relieved Rand was all right, but when he thanked her for alerting the sheriff’s deputies to what must have happened to them, she dismissed his thanks. “It was a lucky guess,” she said. “I’m glad it worked out.”
“Why were they so set against calling in medical help for that woman?” he asked. “Is it because they don’t believe in medicine? Or they think it’s some kind of spiritual weakness to rely on doctors?”
“It’s mostly because they don’t want outsiders coming into the camp,” she said. “We were always told we didn’t need anyone but each other and the Exalted.”
“Because outsiders might see something illegal they shouldn’t see?” Rand asked.
She blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I was taught—all the kids were—that outsiders were dangerous. That they would take us away from our families and sell us to people who would do bad things to us. For the first few months after Mom and I left the Vine, I was terrified to let her out of my sight or to talk to anyone.”
“The woman I tried to help, Lana, looked younger than you—maybe not even out of her teens. I wonder if you knew her.”
“I’ve been away for a long time,” she said. “I doubt I know any of the current members. I don’t remember anyone called Lana.”
“Jedediah is still there,” Rand said. “There are probably others you knew who are still with the group.”
“Maybe I would know their names,” she said. “But I don’t know them. I never did.”
Her tone was defiant, her expression fierce. When she turned away, he didn’t press her. He knew plenty of soldiers who refused to discuss things that had happened during their military service. Maybe it was the same for survivors of cults.
Three days after Rand returned home, Sheriff Travis Walker and Deputy Ryker Vernon came to Rand’s house at four thirty, shortly after he arrived home after a shift at the hospital. “We wanted to bring you up to date on a few things,” Travis said after Rand had welcomed the lawmen inside.
Chris came in from the kitchen and stopped short. “Oh, hello.” She glanced at Rand. “Is something wrong?”
“We just have some updates,” Travis said. “For both of you. Sit down, please.”
They sat—Rand on the sofa and Chris in a chair facing him. “First of all, I’m sorry to tell you that Lana and her baby died,” Travis said.
“Yes, I know,” Rand said. “I had a colleague track her down for me.”
Chris turned to him. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want to upset you,” he said.
Chris studied her hands, knotted in her lap. “It’s just such a sad story.”
“We searched the camp for her brother and the other man you described,” Ryker said. “We were told they had been banished.”
“Did you look for any fresh graves in the woods?” Chris asked.
Rand felt the shock of her words. “You think they were murdered?” he asked.
She looked as if she regretted saying anything.
“Why graves?” Travis prompted.
She shifted in her chair. “I don’t have any proof, but other people who did things the Exalted didn’t like had a way of disappearing or meeting with accidents or sudden illness.”
“Your father,” Travis said.
“Yes. And there were others. Anyone who complained too much or spread what the Exalted deemed to be ‘radical ideas,’ and certainly anyone who opposed the Exalted, was soon gone, and everyone else was forbidden to even say their names.”
“We’ll continue searching for the two men,” Travis said.
“What about this guy who calls himself the Exalted, Edmund Harrison?” Rand asked. “His refusal to allow anyone to summon outside help is the reason Lana died.”
Travis’s expression tightened. “Harrison denies having that policy, and no one would admit otherwise when we spoke with them,” he said. “We researched his history, and he has no criminal record.”
“The official story is that Lana herself refused help and that her brother went to fetch help against her wishes,” Ryker said.
“The Exalted has brainwashed everyone to see outsiders as the enemy,” Chris said. “If you bring anyone from outside into the group, you risk having families torn apart, horrible diseases inflicted on the group by way of things like vaccinations and medications, children forced to attend public schools, et cetera. If there’s a bogeyman the Exalted and his enforcers can conjure to keep people obedient, he’s happy to preach about it until fear is as much a part of them as breathing.”
“He says they have no record of you ever being a member of his group, and he doesn’t understand why you would be so fixated on them,” Travis said.
Color flooded her face. “I’m not lying. My parents were members of the Vine, and we lived with them for seven years. And you were there the day Jedediah came up to me and said it was time for me to marry the Exalted.”
“Edmund Harrison says you misunderstood,” Travis said.
The lines around her mouth tightened. “There was no misunderstanding.”
“Has he made any more threats against you?” Travis asked.
“He doesn’t know where I am right now,” she said. “But once he does, he’ll send someone after me.”
“Why is he so focused on you?” Ryker asked.
“No one defies him,” she said. “My mother and I did. He’s like a spoiled child that way. Deny him something and he’s going to do everything he can to get it.” She smoothed her hand down the tattoos on her left arm. “But he doesn’t want me, really. He just wants to punish me. Maybe make an example of me.”
“We interviewed him,” Travis said. “By Zoom. He is supposedly in Texas right now—on business, he said. He denies knowing you. Denies having more than one wife. Denies keeping anyone in the group against their will.”
“I’m sure he told you the group is all about peace, love and free will,” she said.
“That’s about it,” Ryker agreed.
“Harrison told us the group planned to leave Colorado and move on to Oklahoma,” Travis said. “When we returned to the camp yesterday, everyone was gone. They didn’t leave one piece of trash or so much as a food scrap behind.”
“Where did they go?” Rand asked.
“We don’t know,” Travis said. “They may have decided they were getting too much attention from law enforcement.”
“They’re probably putting as much distance between us and them as possible,” Ryker added.
Chris said nothing, though Rand felt the tension radiating off her. “Is there anything else you think we need to know?” Travis asked.
“Don’t believe it when they tell you they’re just a close-knit community of nature lovers,” Chris said. “And I don’t think they’ve left the area.”
“We’ll keep our eyes and ears open,” Travis said. “Let us know if you hear anything.”
Ryker and Travis left. Chris stared out the front window after them, then began to pace. “The sheriff doesn’t believe me,” she said. “He thinks I’m making up a story to get attention or something.”
“He didn’t say that,” Rand said. “I think he’s trying to look at the case from every angle.” He moved in beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “I believe you.”
She wouldn’t look at him. She held herself rigid, jaw tight, as if fighting for control. “I feel like I’m waiting for something to happen,” she said after a long silence. “Something bad.”
“You believe they’re still here,” Rand said.
“They’ve been pursuing me for fifteen years,” she said. “Why leave when they’ve gotten this close?”
He nodded. While some might dismiss Chris’s protests, his experience with the ruthlessness of his sister’s cult made him inclined to believe her. He wanted to put his arm around her and try to comfort her, but he wasn’t sure she would be receptive. “What can I do?” he asked instead.
She pressed her lips together, arms crossed, shoulders hunched. Then she raised her eyes to his. “Tell me about your sister,” she said.
C HRIS SAT ON the sofa and patted the cushion next to her. She needed a distraction to pull her out of the worry cycle she was in. “I want to hear about her, if you don’t mind talking about it,” she said.
Rand sat, the cushion compressing under his weight, shifting her toward him. He leaned forward, hands clasped, elbows on knees. “I haven’t talked about Teri in a long time,” he said. “But I’d like to tell you.”
Chris let out a breath, some of the tension easing. She had been afraid he would shut her down—as she herself might have done in his shoes. “She was younger than you?”
“Yes. Nineteen. I was completing my first tour in Afghanistan when she met this group of people. At a local coffee shop, she said. They approached her table and asked if they could sit down. The place was crowded, so she said yes. They fell into conversation and apparently talked for hours. They introduced themselves as volunteers, working on a project to help the poor in the area. Teri always had a soft heart and wanted to help people. They picked up on that right away and used her sympathy to reel her in.”
“The Vine taught the same technique,” Chris said. “Identify what you have in common with the person, what they are concerned about or appear to need, and play up that connection.”
“There was a guy in the group—Mark or Mike or Mitch, I never did learn his real name. In the group, he was known as Starfire. They all had names like that—Rainbow and Cloud, Surfer and Starfire. The next thing I heard, Teri was calling herself Aurora. She quit school and moved out of the dorm and into a camper van with Starfire, and then the group left town. My parents were frantic when they contacted me, hoping I had heard from her. But I hadn’t heard a thing.”
“What did you do?”
“There was nothing I could do. I was in a field hospital in a war zone. I couldn’t leave. My parents contacted the police but were told if Teri left of her own free will, there wasn’t anything they could do. Mom and Dad had a couple of phone calls from her saying she was fine and they didn’t need to worry, and that was it.”
“We had people join the Vine who left families behind,” Chris said. “I never thought much about the anguish those parents must have felt. And their brothers and sisters.”
“One day Teri was with us, then she was gone, with a group of people we didn’t know anything about. On one hand, I understood what the police were telling us. An adult has the right to make her own decisions. But putting together what I learned when I researched online and what I heard from my parents, the group felt wrong to me.”
“What did you find out online?” she asked.
“Mostly there were postings on various websites from relatives who were desperate to get in touch with their missing children or siblings. A few complaints from businesses in areas where the group had stayed, alleging that members had stolen items or harassed customers.”
“What was the name of the group?”
“They called themselves Atlantis or the Seekers.”
Chris shook her head. “I haven’t heard of them, but most people have never heard of the Vine either. These groups try to keep a low profile.”
“I was able to piece together some of their story after I was discharged from the army. By then, she had been with the group for almost two years. They made a living by recruiting members, who were obligated to turn over all their money to the group. They also begged and, I think, stole, though they always left town before anyone reported them to the local law enforcement.”
Chris nodded. “The Vine did that, too—made new members turn over all their assets. They were told they were contributing to the group, but I think most of the money went to the Exalted. While we lived in tents and trailers, he had a fancy motorhome and, supposedly, owned houses in several states. He traveled a lot, managing his various properties, and often delivered his messages to us via videotaped lectures. The rare times he did come to our camp were big occasions. Everyone turned out for a glimpse of him.”
“From the research I did, a lot of these groups operate the same way,” Rand said.
“What happened to your sister?” Chris asked. He had said she’d committed suicide, but how? When?
“It took me a long time to find her,” he said. “By the time I located her, she had been with the group over two years and was fully brainwashed, and refused my pleas to leave the group.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes. I tracked the group down to a little town in Eastern Oregon. Teri was there. She looked terrible. She had lost weight and wore this shapeless sack of a dress, her hair uncombed in these kind of dreadlocks. She had lost a front tooth—she wouldn’t say how. And when I tried to talk to her, she said she wasn’t allowed to talk to outsiders and ran away.”
“Oh, Rand.” Chris laid a hand on his arm.
“I went after her. I told her I was her brother and she owed me more than she owed her so-called friends. I was furious. I told her all those people had done was take her away from her home and family, take her money, and give her nothing in return. She told me I didn’t understand, that the inner peace the Seekers had given her was worth all the money in the world. She said they were her family now and she didn’t need anyone else. Then she left.”
Chris felt sick. “All of that sounds familiar,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing we were all drilled on saying. I never saw it, but my mother said a couple of times families had tracked down their loved ones to one of our camps. The Exalted had people who were trained in how to deal with them to get them to leave.”
“What did they say?”
“What your sister said—that we were that person’s family now and they didn’t need anyone else.”
“I wanted to grab Teri and drag her out of there, but I figured that would only get me arrested for kidnapping. One of the Seekers said if I laid a hand on Aurora that he would call the police. So I let her be. But I kept track of the group as best I could.”
“Not easy to do,” Chris said. “The Vine was expert at packing up in the middle of the night and showing up across the country a week later. Mom was able to find a few people who have family who are members. They sometimes let her know where the group is living at the moment, but even they can’t always keep up.”
“I had a buddy from the military who was a private detective, and he took an interest in the group and did what he could to track them,” Rand said. “He kept me up to date. About six months later I had a meeting in California, not far from the latest Seeker gathering. They weren’t camping this time but were renting, or maybe squatting, in an old hotel. The place was a dump, with a leaking roof, water damage to the walls and no electricity. I couldn’t see that they had done any work on it, except to erect a large brightly painted sign announcing that it was the Atlantis Center for Enlightenment.”
He fell silent. Chris waited, and found herself matching her breathing to his own. When the silence stretched to minutes, she asked, “Your sister was there?”
“She was. I played it cool this time. I gave a fake name at the door and said I was interested in learning about Atlantis. I was taken to a room, and three disciples entered. They were dressed in jeans and T-shirts and looked very normal. They asked me a lot of questions about how I had found out about them, what I was seeking, et cetera. I gave vague answers, and they seemed pretty suspicious at first, but after I said I had inherited a lot of money from my grandfather and was looking for a worthy group that would benefit from the cash, their demeanor changed. They invited me to have dinner with them that evening.
“Teri was there. She was one of the women who were serving the food. I guess they probably cooked it too. She didn’t look any better than the last time I had seen her, and when she saw me, she dropped a platter of vegetables and ran from the room. I almost turned over a chair going after her. I cornered her in an upstairs bedroom and begged her to leave with me. She just cried and shook her head and said she couldn’t.
“I told her I wasn’t leaving without her. One of the men threatened to call the police, and I told him to do it—that I had plenty of proof there were people there being held against their will. That was a bluff, but it worked. They backed off.”
Chris could see it all in her mind, from his frightened sister to the threatening Seekers—and Rand caught in the middle but determined to win. “What happened?” she asked.
“I took Teri by the hand and led her out of there. She came with me, still crying. I drove four hours away, checked us into a hotel under a fake name, paid cash for the room and ordered pizza. She started crying again when she saw the pizza. She said she hadn’t had any since she had left with the group. I asked her what she had been eating, and she said they had a special diet of only natural foods and they had to fast three days a week. She said that was healthier, and it took everything in me not to point out that she didn’t look healthy.
“After we ate, she fell asleep. She looked exhausted, and I know I was.”
Ominous silence followed. Silence with weight. Chris had trouble breathing. For a long time Rand didn’t say anything, his jaw tight, hands clenched.
“When I woke the next morning, she was gone,” he said finally. “She had run away in the middle of the night. I went back to the abandoned hotel looking for her, but everyone there said they hadn’t seen her. The police couldn’t help me. I lost it at them, and they ended up threatening to arrest me. I stayed in town for a while, watching the group, but I never saw Teri again.”
“But you believe she had returned to the group?” Chris asked.
“I know she did. Three months later, my parents received a phone call from someone with the group, telling them Teri’s body was at the morgue in Bend, Oregon, and they could claim her body if they wanted. They said Teri had killed herself. The coroner said she had slit her wrists. She left a note—a lot of incoherent nonsense about destiny and enlightenment and final bliss.”
Tears stung her eyes—tears for him and for his poor, hurting sister. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.
“I could have handled it better. I could have forced her to come with me and taken her to a deprogrammer or something.”
“That could have failed too.” She rubbed his arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He let out a shaky breath. “The police in Bend investigated, but they couldn’t find anything suspicious. The group left town and dropped off the radar. The last I heard, they were in South America.”
“I’m so sorry about your sister,” she said. The words seemed so paltry compared to what he had suffered, but she had nothing else to give.
“I haven’t talked about this with anyone for a long time.” He looked at her, his eyes damp but his expression calm. “You’re a good listener.”
She leaned closer, drawn to him, pulled in by the sadness in his eyes and a sense of shared grief. She hadn’t lost a sister but a father, and the chance to grow up without the fear that had dogged her all her life. Her gaze shifted to his lips. She recalled the connection they had shared before, and she wanted that again.
She meant to kiss him gently, but the strength of her longing drove her harder than she had intended. He gripped her shoulders and responded with a gentling pressure of his own. He wanted this, too, his body seemed to say, but he wanted to savor the moment, to linger over the sensation of the two of them together.
She leaned into him, letting him take her weight, his arm wrapped around her. She could definitely get used to this...
She opened her eyes to find him looking at her as if he could see everything. The idea was unnerving, and she pulled away. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“No. Of course not.” She sat up straighter, putting a little distance between them. “I really like you. A lot. But I’m not ready to take things any further.”
“I respect that,” he said. “No pressure. I want you to feel safe here.”
“I can’t feel safe anywhere as long as I know the Vine is so close by.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “But being here is better than being alone.”
“It is.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Better for me too.”