Rescued By the Operative (The Heroes of Darling Creek #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Nelly

I clock in for the day shift at the women’s detention facility just in time to see Floydene Blatch leaving.

“Anything eventful overnight?” I ask the first wife of the highest elder, second only to the Prophet.

Floydene looks irritated that I’m standing so close and showing an iota of concern for the prisoner. “You might want to check on her and see if she’s dead.”

Georgeanne Turner was brought here a few days ago as punishment for running away. She wasn’t caught; she came back out of fear and guilt. It happens more than you think.

My coworker’s tone suggests we’re talking about a goldfish, not a human woman.

“Why would Georgeanne Turner be dead?”

Floydene’s frown lines deepen at my use of the prisoner’s full name.

She doesn’t care. She doesn’t even want to be here, let alone be talking to me.

The most favored wife in the church would much rather be spending her time terrorizing elementary school children.

But since The Prophet was arrested and elders are dropping like flies — either from old age, assassinations from within, or as a result of their own poor choices — the women are getting reassigned.

Floydene used to run the primary school.

Now, education has been put at the bottom of the priority list, and the school’s leadership has been assigned to a few of the parentified teenage girls.

The women of status in this cult are quickly realizing that they have no say after all.

Floydene informs me that Georgeanne hasn’t eaten anything in 12 hours. Nothing since my last shift. She refused to eat when I was watching her, too. So she’s been starving herself for at least 24 hours.

I can’t imagine. The FBI has hardened me to survive on very little if need be, but I could easily house a giant ice coffee and a box of donuts right about now. The shitty food around here is starting to get to me.

“She’s still not eating? That’s not what I wanted to hear,” I say.

Floydene shrugs. “She is unrepentant. Maybe the guilt and fear of heavenly retribution hang heavy on her.”

These people. Every day is whack-a-doodle time.

“Have a good night, Floydene.”

I have to be careful not to contradict their ideas too much. Floydene leaves, and I go to my office and heat up two cups of noodles.

I’m supposed to wait until the compound’s cafeteria delivers breakfast at 8 a.m., but I don’t think that overcooked oatmeal is going to tempt the prisoner.

The hallway is eerily quiet as I make my way to the holding cell. I open the door and let the light from the hallway flood inside.

Inside, Georgeanne stirs. She’s breathing. Thank goodness.

Seeing her wispy form curled up on her side on the concrete floor makes me hurt.

“Georgeanne? You need to eat,” I say.

No answer.

Carefully, I set the steaming cup down on the floor close to her.

The real me, Nelly Carter, would love nothing more than to get her out of here. Just pick her up and get her to safety.

But inside the compound, I’m Wynella Smith, a transplant from Wyoming.

I have to pick my battles with these people. One false move and my cover will be blown.

As far as these cult types believe, my mother was of the Barker family, which split from the Celestial Order of Covenant Kinship before I was born.

My father was Beryl Smith, who was murdered for founding a second splinter group and pulling membership away from the Kinship group.

He had fifteen wives, and I’m the tenth child of his fourth wife.

After being raised in the splinter group, I decided that Kinship was doing a better job of following our ancestors’ teachings.

What do you know? The elders believed every word of it on the day I came knocking on their door. They simply cannot resist having their ego stroked, especially if they think it’s coming from someone disillusioned with a rival clan.

And let’s face it: these polygamist groups have more intersecting branches on their family trees than any of them can account for.

Just for an extra layer of safety, I even brought with me a phony letter from the Prophet of that rival clan, praising my aptitude for redirecting wayward women.

As such, I was given a job at the women’s detention center here. That letter had the added effect of lowering tensions between rival groups. If one is freely letting members migrate to another, there’s no point in putting hits out on each other.

This is precisely the kind of subterfuge that gets me excited about working for the FBI, even on days when I’m ready to pull my hair out because sometimes our work is slow.

And this assignment? Agonizingly slow. They put me in charge of investigating whether the Prophet and his eldest can be charged with federal crimes. Specifically, forced domestic servitude. So far, the sister-wives I’ve spoken to aren’t giving me much.

“Sit up and eat, Georgeanne,” I say sternly. “I need to talk to you.”

How long is this going to go on? I’ve planted enough sneaky bugs and tiny cameras all over the compound, they should have enough evidence.How long until the Bureau wakes up and sends an evacuation team to get this girl out and a hundred more like her?

How long before someone demolishes this whole place? That’s what really needs to be done.

Hell, how long until I can get the hell out of Montana and go back to sitting on my porch in North Carolina?

The end of this assignment can’t come soon enough.

What I would give for Georgeanne to get the hell out of this cell and feel the sun on her face. Have a picnic in “big sky country,” as my surprisingly sentimental handler, Special Agent Carl Williams, describes it.

Sometimes I wish Georgeanne would just get the gumption to bust her way out of here.

Slowly, the girl sits up and blocks the light from her eyes, wincing at the brightness.

“What day is it?” she asks.

“That’s not your concern,” I remind her. Every morning when I check on her, she asks. And I tell her the same thing. “You need to eat.”

“What’s the point?”

Here is where I always cross the line. It is an actual performance, and if I believed in God, surely I’d be struck down.

“As you know, our Heavenly Father wants us ladies to be fit and strong. We are to be healthy so we can support our brethren, give them comfort, and bear them children. When was the last time you had a period, Georgeanne?”

I want to vomit just saying those words out loud.

She sniffs. “I wasn’t aware I was supposed to keep track.”

“Those reports are supposed to come from one of your mothers. But Gloria says she doesn’t know that,” I say, referring to Georgeanne’s biological mother.

Georgeann gets agitated.

“You can tell my father I won’t be promised in marriage. You can tell him he can lock me up until eternity and I’m not ever going to marry an old lech or have his babies! You tell that to my father!”

At least she has the energy to be coherent and feisty. I hope Carl, my handler, heard every word of that.

“Tell me more about the man your father wants you to marry.”

“He’s old and gross. What else do you need to know?”

“Do you have a name?”

“No.”

I try, “Aren’t most girls your age already married for years and have several children by now? Or caring for several sister-wives’ children while you run the house?”

“What?” She looks at me like she can’t believe I don’t already know the answer to that. As if she knows I’m somehow on the outside, looking in, and she’s just realized it. She cocks her head. “Why are you asking me that?”

I lean in, getting her close to the wire that’s taped to my chest under this ridiculous frumpy uniform. “How often are you allowed to leave the house once you’re married? What’s the youngest you’ve seen someone having to parent other wives’ children?”

I need facts. I need witness testimony to get these jerks.

“I don’t know. Why would you ask that…”

She’s tired, and she’s fading. “Okay, Georgeanne. Eat your cup of noodles before it gets cold. If you don’t, you know it’s overcooked oatmeal sludge from the kitchen for the rest of the day.”

“I don’t suppose you could sneak in some butter and brown sugar for me.”

“You tell me more about your church and maybe we can cut a deal.”

“My church? But you joined us. Why do you need information from me?”

“Because I’m having a hard time making friends here, Georgie. And I want to understand how things work.”

She eyes me for a long time, giving me nothing. It’s unsettling, with her eyes peeking at me through a mop of tangled hair, like the girl from The Ring movie.

But to my surprise, she finally takes the cup of noodles and eats them.

She says nothing else. Just stares at me as we eat our breakfast together.

In the end, I lock her back up and return to my office, trying to clear my head of all the self-hate building inside me. I hate this assignment. Everything is cold and lonely. The men hate women and the women hate each other. The children babysitting children are the worst part of it.

“Tread carefully. We don’t want another Waco on our hands,” Carl has reminded me repeatedly.

But damn, I’ll be happy when we shut this place down and I never have to see these people again.

I’m so deep in my own thoughts when I step into my office that at first, I don’t notice anything strange.

I chuck the spent noodle cups into the trash and then turn to the cabinet, intent on learning more from Georgeanne’s file.

And that’s when I finally see it.

A mess of white drywall chunks and dust litter the rug. My eyes take in the mess, first thinking a pipe has burst or the foundation has cracked a wall in this half-assed building. And that’s when I see the huge, gaping hole in the wall.

And that’s not the scariest or most inexplicable part of my day.

No, that honor goes to the dirt-and-drywall-covered man, standing next to the hole, carrying a pickaxe, and staring right at me.