Chapter 12 Calder
Calder
Whistling the tune of that pina colada song, Ben led us roughly a quarter of a mile along the foot-worn path away from Maxwell’s sanctuary.
Fresh branches and fallen leaves crowed under our footsteps, the grass a tired yellow from the consistent battering.
Through the trees, slivers of large light-brown tents tucked into the enveloping foliage.
I created a mental map as we walked, the details of our surroundings marred only by the distraction of who walked ahead of me.
Lara was on edge. Her shoulders were pinched. Her head snapped from side to side, and her hands continued to comb through the red-drenched waves of her hair, as though searching for a place to moor her thoughts. I had a feeling they oscillated on the same tipping point as my own.
“After how things ended between them.”
Her answer haunted me like a midday shadow.
The way she’d looked . . . the way she’d talked .
. . the things she hadn’t mentioned. Lara didn’t know a fraction of what had happened between Rachel and me.
Something that didn’t matter now, I forced myself to remember.
What we discussed with Maxwell. . . it might be the truth, but it wasn’t something to fix. We weren’t something to fix.
“Here are the bathrooms. Toilets. Showers.” Ben pointed to the portable structure that gave some semblance of the comforts of indoor plumbing.
We followed another path to the left, passing two more tents that sat several yards off the worn ground.
“Tent seven,” came our introduction at the end of the narrowed walkway, a cabin-size sandy-colored tent that terminated that portion of the trail.
Ben unzipped the flap and held it back for us to enter.
No lock on the tent door. Common, but not comforting.
I followed Lara closely inside, my balled-up fist resisting the urge to make a statement to the guard who still openly tried to get a look at her ass.
For all the luxury promised with the high price tag, the residence we were given for the next two weeks was surprisingly sparse. A small table and two chairs on one side of the tent and a bed on the other. A single queen-size bed.
I looked at Lara at the exact moment her eyes swung to me.
One bed for the two of us.
Heat thumped down to my groin. Dammit. Had I really thought they’d give us each a sleeping bag? It was a couples’ retreat. Was I really that naive?
“A gong will sound when it’s time to return from reflection to your tents.
Dinner will be brought to you at five thirty.
At six thirty, Dr. Julia will do an evening reflection, which will come through your speaker.
” Ben jerked his chin to indicate the Bluetooth speaker hanging from the top of the tent.
“When Dr. Julia is finished, you’ll have an hour to journal and use the bathroom or shower before curfew,” he continued to drone from the tent-flap doorway, his eyes lingering on Lara.
“Curfew is eight p.m. unless there’s an evening activity taking place.
The schedule and your journals are there on the bed. ”
Lara turned and bent to examine the papers, oblivious to the crude gaze of the guard as it roamed over her ass. Like his authority vacated our right to privacy and Lara’s right to decency, Ben stepped inside our tent for a better view. And it took only two steps to put me right in front of him.
“Anything else?” I asked with only a thin veneer of calm coating my voice.
His frustrated glare clashed with my furious one.
I’d dealt with plenty of men like Ben in the retrieval business.
Cops, federal agents, or any kind of head of security usually bristled at my assistance on a case.
Give a man any kind of badge and weapon, and far too many times an inflated sense of ego followed.
But never had that egregious ego tempted me to violence the way it did now.
I stepped closer, and instantly he removed his foot from inside our tent. Nostrils flaring, Ben frowned like a spoiled child and looked me up and down.
“Curfew is strict. Don’t let me find you roaming outside the tent after hours,” he grunted, puffing out his chest and casually strumming his fingers on his gun. “It can be dangerous out there.”
Subtle. I doubted it would amount to any real threat.
I stayed in the entrance as he walked away, whistling that same tune, and waited until he was completely out of sight before I faced Lara again.
“What was that about?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged it off and then quickly swept the tent for any kind of bug or recording device. After confirming there were none, I took my turn examining what was left for us.
Two journals. Two pens. And the next day’s itinerary.
8am—breakfast
9am—morning reflection hour
10am—Group Intimacy Trust Session #1
I stopped reading. What the hell had I agreed to?
“I’m sorry.”
I replaced the paper and turned.
Lara sat cross-legged on one of the chairs, her bottom lip pinched between her teeth.
She looked younger like this. Uncertain.
Wholly unlike the woman who’d shown up at the ranch with her almost reckless determination to find her sister, and very much like the woman who’d fallen asleep on my couch only to be woken by her nightmares.
“For what?”
“For bringing up Rachel,” she answered, tucking her arms to her chest. “I felt like Dr. Julia was searching . . . like I had to give her something, and it just came out.”
The urge to walk over and take her face in my hands, promise her I was going to fix this, and then kiss her overwhelmed all rationality. I wondered whether giving in to the ache was exactly what Maxwell had meant when she talked about freeing your wild core.
I cleared my throat—and my thoughts.
“Don’t apologize. The best lies are the ones closest to the truth.” I repeated her own words back to her and handed her a notebook. “It would be a real barrier if . . .” If we were really dating.
“Yeah.” Lara pursed her lips, flipping through the blank pages of the journal. “So, we’re supposed to reflect . . . for an hour . . . What are we really going to do?”
Her eyes lifted to mine, and instantly I imagined her bent over that bed. Naked. Legs spread wide. Obeying my every command.
Fuck.
“I’m going back to the Sanctuary.” I grunted and grabbed my journal, needing to get my dick under control. “There was another path leading away from the clearing. Since Maxwell didn’t follow us when we left, I’m assuming her tent is separate from everyone else’s.”
“Okay, then I’ll explore the campground—”
“Lara—”
“Don’t tell me to stay. She told us to walk around, so I’m going to wander around . . . and look for my sister.”
“I thought you appreciate when I take control.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sometimes.”
Determination. My exhale pushed through my nostrils. I was the one who’d said I admired it; I’d made my bed, and now I had to sleep in it. My gaze homed in on the singular, ominous structure. Another problem to be dealt with later.
“Fine,” I caved. “Walk the trails. See who you see, but don’t talk to anyone. I don’t want us to get kicked out before we have a chance to find answers.”
Lara stared at me for an extended second and then agreed. “Fine.”
“We’ll meet back here at the gong.” It wasn’t a question, but I waited for her nod of acknowledgment anyway. “And stay away from Ben,” I ordered, my voice devolving into a base growl, and left before I could gauge her reaction. Or before I could think too long about mine.
Leaving our tent, I cut a path behind it and parallel to the trail we’d taken from the Sanctuary.
Normally, I’d follow existing paths and overlay my footprints on already damaged underbrush, but with a dozen couples, plus Ben, Matthew, Maxwell, and possibly other guards roaming the woods, I opted for my own course. For today, privacy trumped obscurity.
About twenty yards east, the tree line opened to windswept prairie bordered by a highway and the slopes of the Tetons in the distance. Setting my back to a large tree trunk, I scanned the perimeter and listened. Alone. I braced my back against the tree and lifted my left foot onto my knee.
While my and Lara’s IDs were hidden in my right boot, the left held a satellite phone with a two-week-long battery. The number pad slid out from beneath the screen. Thankfully, the only number I needed was on speed dial.
“I was about to send out the search drones,” Callum answered gruffly.
“No, you weren’t.” It hadn’t been nearly long enough for that. “Are you tracing my location? We’re near Route 1-91. I see Tetons to my north and Glover Peak due east. I’d say we’re about fifteen or so miles south of Bondurant.”
“12.2.”
Close enough.
“You meet Maxwell?”
“I can see the connection you two have. It’s very primal. Very promising.”
“Yeah.” I sounded hoarse. Hell, I felt hoarse. Raw. “So far, it’s just been Maxwell and two of the security for the retreat, Matthew and Ben. Any word from the reporter?”
“Yeah. Lots of them.”
“Well, that sounds ominous.” I rubbed my hand along my jaw.
“Hannah is Hannah Layman, and the rumor on campus was that even though Hannah had a serious boyfriend at the time, she was involved in something with her therapist and her therapist’s boyfriend.”
“What kind of something? Like a relationship?”
“A sexual kind of something. Her roommates thought she was being groomed, but had no proof.”
“Shit.” I blew out a tight breath. “Did he confirm it was Maxwell?”
“No, but Hannah’s parents did.” Callum paused as one of his weather alerts went off in the background.
After silencing it, he continued, “Once I had her name, I looked them up. They moved after her death, so it took me a minute to track them down, but they confirmed Maxwell was Hannah’s therapist. Apparently, she taught a one-day seminar on managing college stress to the incoming freshman, and Hannah was in that lecture. ”
“Did they know what was going on?”
“Not until after her death. Apparently, Hannah left her boyfriend a letter alluding to what had happened and he brought it to them. They hired a private investigator to look into Hannah’s death and Maxwell’s involvement.”
“But he didn’t find anything,” I assumed with a growl.
“No, he did. Just not enough.” No matter how guilty a party looked, without proof, an accusation was nothing more than defamation.
“Maxwell’s boyfriend at the time was a lawyer.
James Braun. According to Mrs. Layman, he threatened them with a pretty hefty defamation lawsuit if they publicly insinuated anything criminal about him or Maxwell without proof. ”
Damn.
“Proof they didn’t have.”
“They weren’t going to stop looking, but then Maxwell up and disappeared.”
“Here,” I murmured, shaking my head.
“No one named James there?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll try to find a more recent photo for you.”
“Maybe she left the boyfriend behind, too.” Especially if he’d almost cost her her license. “I’ll do a sweep over your coordinates tomorrow morning and keep you updated with anything new.”
“Things start up here at eight,” I informed him.
Callum preferred to gather footage either at dusk, when his drone could be mistaken for some kind of bat, or at dawn, when few would be up and looking at the sky.
“I’ll be gone before then. Also, there’s another storm cell coming through tonight. Hope your shelter is sufficient.”
The closest Callum came to a warning.
“Thank—”
The line went dead.
I replaced the phone in my heel and headed toward the Sanctuary.
When the outhouse peeked through the trees, I started counting the tents I’d marked between the Sanctuary and bathrooms. When I saw the third, I dipped back into the forest and walked south, paralleling the slope of the highway.
Thirty yards brought me back to the empty clearing.
In the opposite corner, I crouched and examined the recently trod packed dirt and crushed leaves.
Rising, I carefully followed their trail into denser woods, a mix of lodgepole pine and spruce.
Ahead, something white and unmistakably unnatural caught my attention.
A camper, the name Tiffen scripted onto the side. A luxury RV, and this one was at least as big as my 33FB, though not towable.
There was no way that thing took the same path to get here that we did.
Veering to the right, I circled the motor home from the safety of the trees, taking note of the license plate still attached to the back; I memorized the number to send to Callum later.
As I backtracked to the other side of the camper, I saw the clear, flat path the RV had taken to this plateau—a direct shot from the road. Maybe a ten- to fifteen-minute drive.
The door to the RV swung open, and I stopped instantly as Maxwell stepped out, a cell phone pinned to her ear. I wedged against the nearest tree and stilled to listen.
“Another one? I thought we decided only one per session.” Her exasperation carried like a cloud of dust.
One what? And what agreement?
A branch snapped near me and Maxwell spun around. Shit. Was that—I looked over my shoulder and saw Matthew coming from the Sanctuary. Neither of them saw me.
Maxwell went back to her call, and the security guard’s pace increased when he heard her worry.
“Will it be better, my darling?”
Darling. I went on alert. Was she talking to James?
Matthew continued closer until she held up a finger to stop him.
“I know. You’re right.” Her head lowered in defeat. “There are a few prospects. I will need a little more time to find the very best for the Garden.”
Garden? I didn’t get the feeling that Maxwell had a green thumb. Not from her luxury camper, nor her soft, tanned hands.
She ended the call and lashed out at her right-hand man. “Yes, Matthew?”
“Do you want to stay here tonight, Julia?”
Where else—
“No. I want to go back to the Garden tonight and see Adam.” Adam. Not James. And again, this garden.
Shit. I added the key words to my mental list of more questions for Callum.
Maxwell rubbed her hand across her brow. “I’m going to have to sleep out here tomorrow and probably the following few nights. I need to have more private therapy sessions with the couples to screen them for admission to the Garden. The one from yesterday—the two who argued. I’ll start with them.”
There was definitely something more going on here. Maxwell was using Wilderness Within as a sieve, filtering couples through some kind of assessment, then inviting ones with certain characteristics to this “garden.”
Was that where Rachel had gone? The Garden?
“Is that what you want?” Matthew questioned her, and I saw her flinch, her real answer a blip over her face before she masked it and went to him, lifting her hand to his cheek.
“Of course, dear Matthew.”
I pressed into the tree, hearing her instruct him to head back to the office and pick up dinner for the participants. I watched her disappear inside and waited for Matthew to leave before moving from my post.
My eyes lingered on the camper. Maxwell had to have notes on her clients in there, which meant I had to take a look inside. And it sounded like tonight might be my only shot. Storm or not.