Chapter 16
"Fore!"
Noah parked beside Callie's cruiser in the lot and they walked in together through the main entrance.
The clubhouse was modest by country club standards, all dark wood and brass fixtures and framed photographs of tournaments nobody outside the county remembered.
A young man behind the front desk told them Sue Braxton was working the bar and pointed them toward the back.
The bar was a long room with windows overlooking the course.
Polished oak counter, leather stools, shelves of single malt arranged by region.
Behind it, a woman in her mid-forties stood wiping down a row of tumblers with a linen cloth.
She had large eyes under a fringe of dark hair and an apron streaked with faint whiskey stains from a hundred pours.
Her gaze snapped up the moment they walked in.
"Sue Braxton?" Noah asked.
"That's me."
"Noah Sutherland. State Investigator. This is Deputy Thorne, Adirondack County Sheriff."
The cloth stopped moving. Sue's eyes went from Noah's face to his badge to Callie and then to the exit behind her. Noah saw the calculation happen in real time, the fraction of a second where a person decides between staying and running, and he knew which way it was going to go before she moved.
She dropped the cloth and bolted.
She was fast. She cleared the bar in two strides, shoved through the service door and disappeared into the kitchen.
Noah went after her. His senses took in the stainless steel counters, a startled line cook stepping sideways with a pan in his hand, the smell of bacon grease and toast. The back door was already swinging open, daylight flooding through it.
"Callie, front!" Noah shouted over his shoulder.
Callie was already gone, turning on her heel and sprinting back through the bar toward the main entrance.
Noah burst through the back door into a service area. Dumpsters, stacked crates, a concrete apron leading to a strip of grass that sloped down toward the first fairway. Sue was thirty yards ahead, running hard toward the tree line, her apron flying behind her.
He chased her across the grass. She was quick but she was running in work shoes on wet ground and the slope was against her. She made it to the edge of the fairway before Callie appeared from around the corner of the building at a full sprint, cutting the angle, closing the gap from the side.
Callie hit her at the waist. Both of them went down hard on the freshly mowed grass, rolling, Sue trying to twist free. Callie wrapped both arms around her midsection and held on.
"Stop struggling."
"Get off me!"
Noah reached them and dropped to one knee, helping Callie pin her arms. Sue fought for another few seconds, bucking and pulling, before the energy left her and she went still, breathing hard, her face pressed against the turf.
They sat her up on a nearby picnic table at the edge of the patio. A few curious golfers had stopped their carts on the fairway to watch, visors tilted, irons still in hand. One of them had his phone out.
"Did they send you?" Sue asked. Her voice was shaking. Not from the run.
"Who?" Noah asked.
The woman studied them, confused. Her eyes moved between their faces, searching for something she didn't find.
"Evelyn Cross directed me to you," Noah said. "She thought you might help us understand more about the Three Pillar Community."
The confusion held for a moment longer, then something in Sue's face collapsed. Not relief exactly. More like the slow deflation of a fear that had been wound so tight for so long that releasing it felt almost as bad as holding it. She let out a long breath.
"Why did you run?" Callie asked.
Sue brushed dirt and grass clippings from her shirt. She glanced back toward the clubhouse. "I'm probably going to get fired for this."
"Talk to us. Why did you run?"
"I've been harassed by the Three Pillar Community ever since I escaped. I've had to move three times because of them." She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her apron pocket and lit one. Her hands were still trembling. "People think Scientology is bad. They don't know this group."
She took a drag and let the smoke drift over the fairway. "Is this about those bodies they found?"
"Maybe. What can you tell us?"
"What do you want to know? I shared most of what happened with Evelyn."
"How did you get involved with them?" Noah asked.
"Lured in by a job offer. They would show up at our college campus.
That's how they usually do it. They prey on the vulnerable, the lost, the ones looking for community, or those who don't want to work the nine-to-five.
My boyfriend and I left good-paying jobs.
Gave up everything. We figured this was what life was about.
People helping people." She tapped ash onto the grass.
"We soon realized it's anything but that. "
Noah sat on the bench beside her. "Like?"
"Child abuse. Child labor. Racism. Misogyny.
Take your pick. Of course they're careful.
It's all love and caring for each other on the surface, but underneath it's rotten.
And that takes a while to see, which is why most people inside stay.
They spin stories to justify everything.
Use fear as a tool. If you don't abide by what they say, you'll be tortured in the afterlife for your sins.
The whole thing is like an abusive relationship.
Completely toxic. They control your money, your logic, your comings and goings.
Having a mind of your own is considered evil.
" She studied them both as they sat there absorbing it.
"Don't take my word for it. They've attracted enough attention to be on the FBI's radar and the Southern Poverty Law Center has them listed as a religious cult group.
They have properties all over the world.
Most states have at least three of their establishments. "
"When did you leave?"
"About two years ago."
Noah took out a photograph. "In your time with them, did you ever see this girl?" He showed her Kara Ellison.
Sue held it for a moment, then handed it back. "No. But I heard about her disappearance."
"What about this person?" He showed her Seraphine's picture on his phone.
"Seraphine Maddox." Something warmer crossed Sue's face. "I know her. She was one of the women who helped me get out."
"What's her connection to the community?"
"Her mother was the sister of Tabitha Smith. Jessie Maddox. She was meant to get married to an elder, called David Hughes."
Noah glanced at Callie. She was writing in her notebook.
"Is Jessie still there?"
Sue's expression changed. The warmth left. "She went missing. Seraphine believes they murdered her, but best of luck proving that. They told the rest of us she went off into the world."
"What do you believe?"
Sue took a hard pull on her cigarette. "They killed her. They're a law unto themselves."
"But why?"
"You name it. Insubordination. Disagreeing with David over sleeping with other women. Younger girls." She paused. "Seraphine told me her mother was going to get her out of there. That was the last anyone heard."
"Seraphine drew a sketch back when Kara Ellison went missing. Do you know about it?" Noah pulled it from his jacket and showed her.
Sue held it at arm's length and studied it.
"She believed that's where the Ellison girl was.
The community called it a vision. Some believed Seraphine was psychic.
Either way, once it came out that she'd gone to the police with it, all hell broke loose.
It wasn't long after that Seraphine's mother vanished.
" She handed the sketch back. "The day Seraphine turned eighteen, she walked out and never went back. "
"You said they've harassed you," Callie added.
“I’ve been followed by cars. Watched outside my apartment. They've gotten me fired from other jobs by lodging complaints. Had my social media accounts shut down when I spoke out against them. They've harassed my family. My friends. Anyone connected to me."
"That explains why Seraphine was hesitant to speak with us," Noah said.
Sue nodded. "All we want is to live in peace. Free from that."
"Do you believe Seraphine has a gift?" Callie asked.
Sue crushed her cigarette against the edge of the table. "I don't know. Honestly, I don't believe in any of that anymore."
“Are you still with your boyfriend?”
"No. The strain of it broke us. He stayed behind with the group."
Noah looked out over the golf course. The morning light was warm on the fairways and the bay glinted silver through the trees beyond the ninth hole. A cart rolled silently along a path, two older men inside it laughing about something. From here the world looked like a postcard.
He turned back to Sue. "Do you know anything about the barn with the rooms below it?"
"The beds? Some. Like I said, they keep everyone on a need-to-know basis. Everything is compartmentalized. That way things don't spread and people talk less. All I was told was the beds were for people escaping abusive situations. A temporary hiding place."
"That's all it was used for?"
"Who knows? That's what they told me. But I wouldn't put it past them to have used it for something else entirely. These people are sick. I'm just glad to be away from it."
Callie leaned forward. "Anyone contacted you here from the community?"
"No, but that's why I thought..."
"We were from the farm?" Noah finished.
She nodded and groaned. "I'm going to lose my job over this."
"No, you won't. I'll have a talk with them," Noah said. "We appreciate your time."
He stood and started walking back toward the clubhouse, then stopped and turned. "I nearly forgot the reason we're here." He pulled out the photograph of Fiona Spence with the tattooed arm in the frame. "You wouldn't happen to know who this person is?"
Sue took one look at it and nodded. "Yeah. I'd recognize that anywhere. That's Tabitha Smith's boyfriend. Derek Hollis."
"Derek Hollis." The name registered before Noah's brain had finished processing it.
He thought of the raid on the deli. Hollis had been the one they'd picked up and brought to the farm.
He'd been the one on the porch beside Tabitha, hands raised, playing cooperative.
He'd been arrested with the other members.
They'd had him and let him walk.
"We pulled him in during the raid," Noah said.
Callie was already stepping away, her phone pressed to her ear, calling High Peaks Police Department to pull whatever they had on his file.
Noah watched the golfers on the course and felt something tighten in his chest. The boyfriend.
Tabitha's boyfriend. Working at the same deli. Tied to the same community.
Callie came back a minute later, her face set. "He was released with the other members. His address is listed as Fiona Spence's home."
"The RV on the property," Noah said. The image came back to him, the first time he'd visited Mark Spence. The RV parked along the side of the house, its tires soft, a power cord running through a cracked garage window. He'd walked right past it. "Let's go."
Three cruisers and an unmarked sedan pulled into the driveway of Mark Spence's ranch house twenty minutes later. The garage was closed this time. The detailing sign still stood at the end of the driveway. The RV sat where it had been, silent and dark.
Mark opened the front door before Noah reached it. He was in his overalls again, a half-eaten sandwich in one hand, annoyance already settling across his face like weather.
"It appears you left out the part about your renter being Derek Hollis," Noah said. "Where is he?"
"What? He's not here. Why?"
Noah moved past him, holding up the search warrant. "We have a warrant to search this place."
"You can't do this. The guy doesn't even live in the house. He stays in the RV." Mark followed him inside, his voice rising. "What is this all about?"
Officers fanned out through the house and the yard. McKenzie headed straight for the RV with a deputy. Noah turned to Mark in the living room.
"That photo I showed you. The man with the tattooed arm. That is Derek Hollis. He was with your daughter the night she went missing. Taking erotic photos of her."
Mark's face went still. "No. That's impossible."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"A few nights ago."
"You ever seen him interact with Fiona?"
"Beyond a quick conversation, no. He pays me rent to live on my property. That's it."
"We have him listed as a Lyft driver among his occasional work at the deli in Elizabethtown."
"Okay. And?"
"Was he the one who got Fiona the job at the deli? The one who pointed her toward Strutz?"
"I don't have time for this. I have a business to run."
"You don't have time for your missing daughter?"
"Like I said..."
"She's not missing," Noah finished for him. "Right. You keep telling yourself that. You said her mother bailed on her. Sounds like you bailed on her too."
Mark's face flushed. He opened his mouth but nothing came out. The sandwich was still in his hand, forgotten, mayonnaise dripping onto the carpet.
Callie stepped back through the front entrance, pulling Noah by the arm. "There's no sign of Hollis here or in the RV. We've put out an all-points bulletin."
Noah turned from Mark and walked outside. The afternoon was bright and the RV sat in the yard like a dead thing, its door open. McKenzie emerged with gloved hands and a grim expression that said he'd found nothing useful inside.
Callie's phone rang. She answered, listened, and said two words. "Okay. Thanks."
She hung up and turned to Noah. The expression on her face was something he hadn't seen from her before. Not excitement. Not relief. Something more fragile than either.
"We may have got a break. A girl was brought into the Adirondack Medical Center in bad shape." She paused. "She's alive."