“You sure he won’t get mad? Because I need this job, man.”

“I’m sure,” Al said. “Go get the van. If it’s not busy tonight, we’ll be done by eleven. Otherwise, we’ll work till the van is perfect. Safe and dependable. How does that sound?”

Justin’s lips got a little pink around the edges. His eyes might’ve gotten a little glassy. But all he said was, “That’d be real good, Al. You ever need a favor, all you have to do is ask.”

“Hey, friends take care of each other. Friends can count on each other.”

Twelve

Laine asked Eric if he could take an afternoon off to go somewhere with her and of course he arranged it. He’d do anything she asked and she knew it. She drove him a little over an hour away to a river in Douglas County, down a lonely, tree-lined road. He kept asking where they were going and she told him to be patient.

She finally pulled up to a closed gate. A county sheriff’s car was parked outside the gate and Laine jumped out, flashed her badge, chatted with him for a moment. They laughed together over something, then she got back in the car while the deputy opened the gate.

Eric was catching on—there was yellow crime-scene tape on the fencing. And an armed officer. “Is this place being guarded?” he asked her.

“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s under routine surveillance. We still have two suspects at large, although I’m sure they’re nowhere near here. Police do regular inventory of the contents of the buildings on the property to be sure nothing is missing or disturbed. Everything that amounts to evidence has been taken out of here and we don’t expect our suspects to return, but one never knows.”

“So, this is the place,” he said. “This is where it all happened.”

She took a deep breath. She nodded. “The commune. The place. This is the second time I’ve been back. The first was not long after my injury and surgery. Agents brought me back to walk through the property, go over the events and give them a tour. It wasn’t easy—I couldn’t document things while I was here. I did pass information through the fence behind the chicken coop, but that was infrequent. It really smelled back there—Jacob’s ‘soldiers’ didn’t like to go back there to check the security of the place and the brush and trees grew up against the fence so it was a very unlikely place for anyone to break in...or out. When I came back with agents I was still taking some pain medication so I did my best, but I didn’t really register what I was seeing or remembering. Want to see the place?”

“Want to show me?” he asked.

“I wanted to see it again. I wanted to look at it with some objectivity. The women and children lived over there, in the big house. There were only six women when I got here but the place was built for twenty, plus children. When the women began to thin out, there was more space.”

“At first glance, it looks like such a safe place,” he said.

“I know. The entire estate is beautiful. On this side of the river there were livestock, massive organic gardens, chicken coops, the house and barn, corral, playground. The animals have been removed for their welfare. There’s a bridge across the river—on the other side were the men’s bunkhouse, Jacob’s house and two warehouses that Jacob said held supplies, equipment and some of his experimental organic plants. They were warehouses dedicated to marijuana plants.”

“A big federal crime,” he said.

“We thought it was a big federal case before I saw the pot,” she said. “He was bringing these poor, destitute women here, from out of state in some cases. We were afraid he was going to wage war on the establishment. It’s possible that was his endgame, but at the time he was getting rich illegally and holding captive women and children.” She looked around. “If people had had the freedom to come and go as they pleased and if he didn’t have an impressive drug farm on the property, this could have been an amazing little commune. Of course, it would’ve been very poor. And there was the little matter of being led by an ego-driven lunatic, but merely being crazy is not against the law.”

“What will happen to this place?” Eric asked.

“Auction, I suppose. Come and see,” she said, leading him to the house.

It was a beautiful structure undamaged by the fire, a large Victorian style with huge rooms and a wraparound porch. Inside it was not only abandoned and deserted, but also dirty and cluttered. Detectives had plowed through every drawer and cupboard, but of course, nothing was put back. It was plundered in search of evidence.

The kitchen was enormous with a long, family-style table that could seat at least twenty. “The family ate here. The women, children, Jacob and often the men who watched over the place.”

“Did you cook for the family?”

She shook her head. “I had chores and sometimes I had chores in the kitchen, but they didn’t know I could cook. Or that I liked to cook.”

“Why not? That’s important to you.”

“Oh, lots of reasons. My backstory—I was poor, down on my luck. I wouldn’t have had the means. And...I wouldn’t bring my mother into this. It was subtle, but it was perverse.” She walked through the kitchen and out the back door. She started down the porch steps, then stopped and sat down. “The women who lived here were all afraid of the same thing—that they had no options, no choices. They let Jacob have his way because that made him happy and while he was happy, they had safety and plenty to eat. They had children and nowhere to go. They were afraid if they left, if they ran away, they wouldn’t survive. Since they’d been in shelters or living on the streets before he found them, it wasn’t too hard for him to convince them that’s all they were worth.”

Eric sat down beside her and took her hand.

“You can’t imagine how much I wanted to start working to convince them they’d been manipulated, tricked. Brainwashed. But I couldn’t. I had to be one of them so we could get to the bottom of what was going on here. And of course, get them out before Jacob and his little militia used them as shields. I had to take my time, sneak them out slowly so it would seem they ran away, so they wouldn’t give me or anyone inside away. It was hard to go slowly.”

“I’m surprised you wanted to see it again,” he said. “Why did you bring me?”

“You asked me about it. I wanted you to see it.” She pointed to the structure across the river, half burned down, half just charred. One of the warehouses was just a lump of black ash, the other was still standing. “That’s Jacob’s house, half-standing. The bunkhouse is gone—it was next to the burned warehouse. The house is where I was shot. Then I got Mercy, Devon’s little girl, and we hid in the river while Jacob drove away. He went straight down the river then took some hidden back road I didn’t know about. And not long after he escaped, Rawley found us. It was Rawley, Cooper, Spencer and Devon. Spencer carried me down the road to the police blockade, where I got medical attention. But none of those men knew me or were in it to rescue me. Devon was coming after her child and they wouldn’t let her come out here without them.”

“You must have been terrified,” he said.

“Before I passed out, yeah. Before we were rescued I heard a shot in the house—the woman I had to leave behind. She was the only one I couldn’t get out and I don’t think I’ll ever get over that. Right after that shot was fired and Jacob was gone, I passed out. I woke up in the ambulance for a minute, just long enough for them to knock me out again. Then long enough in the E.R. to hear the doctor explain I was going to surgery. The news that I would have died had I not been rescued is still kind of hazy to me. Surreal. Or, out of reality, maybe. I never had any of those near-death visions or anything. What I had was pain in my shoulder and neck. White-hot, blinding pain. And before that was resolved, I was on a plane back to Virginia, where the self-proclaimed best orthopedic surgeon in Boston was waiting for me so he could look at my medical records and treatment options.”

“Your father,” Eric said. “Was he awful?”

She shook her head. “He restrained himself. I think he could tell by one look at my expression, which was not tolerant, I wasn’t putting up with anything from him.”

“But he was there,” Eric said.

“He was. And he stayed for days...days without giving me any shit about my job—a record for Senior. My shoulder fixed up pretty quick but my elbow was killing me until a few weeks ago. I mean, what’s that about? I didn’t get shot in the elbow!”

He laughed at her. She was the strongest, bravest woman he’d ever met.

“I must have fallen on it, that’s what the surgeon said.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t stay on the East coast.”

“Well, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you. I thought I was running away from Senior and at the same time, getting a think break from the office. But I was really coming back for this. I just didn’t realize it.”

“This?”

“I needed closure. I had to see this place disarmed. I wanted to know it was really over. Behind me.”

He took a deep breath. “Do you have some closure now?” he asked hesitantly.

“There are things you should know. If you’re not beside me, I like a dim light on at night or I can’t fall asleep. I have dreams—sometimes I hear a gunshot. I refuse to tell anyone from work that this is hard for me because they want to be accepting, but they would judge me as ‘affected.’ I’m not. I’m just a person recovering from a violent crime. I’m not the strongest person alive. I’m strong, but not infallible. And I needed to do this with you, Eric. I want you to know the truth about me—that I get scared like anyone would, that I’m vulnerable sometimes, and that you’re the only person I trust enough to be completely honest with. I always told Pax I was fine—I wouldn’t let the agents I worked with know how messed up I felt, sometimes still feel. I could never tell Senior. To survive something like this,” she said, waving a hand at their surroundings, “only to be called an idiot—it was the last straw. But I want you to know the truth.”

“What happens when you have closure?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I was kind of hoping for a mysterious calm. I do get the sense that one small edge that gnawed at me is defused. It’s like when the doctor is coming at you with a syringe with a big fat needle in it—and the needle is gone and it’s just a syringe. Harmless. And right this minute, I don’t feel scared, but that’s not just about this compound being disarmed. It’s about seeing it with you.”

“You never let on that anything about it bothered you. You’re the most controlled person I know.”

She laughed softly. “I’ve just about got that perfected, huh? I can look that way when I have to. It’s just a look.”

“You thinking about going back to work or something?” he wanted to know.

She shook her head. “I like this consulting work. I’m happy doing that. Poor bastards—if there’s anything sketchy to be found, I’m going to find it. Force of habit, I guess. And a really good nose.”

“You’re not heading home? To Virginia?”

She shook her head again. “You ready to be rid of me?”

He gave a short laugh. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. You keep me wondering, keep me surprised. You asked me for a date, you asked me for that first kiss, you wanted me to spend the first night, you wanted me to share closet space. One of these days you’re going to be ready for something more. Or maybe something different. Or ready to be finished with this, with us. I’m getting sore muscles from bracing myself.”