Desert Guardian (6 page)

Her
smile brightened, and she bobbed her head, apparently pleased at being
recognized for her work.

"It's
beautiful," Kelly told her, facing the painting again. She pointed at the
ship. "Is that a spaceship?"

When
she glanced at Consuela, the woman nodded, but her smile had changed to an
embarrassed grin.

Kelly
wanted to ask her about Star Mother, what it was like there, how she had been
treated. But a conversation like that would be difficult with a mute, and she
didn't know sign language. Perhaps Consuela could write down her answers.

After
extracting a pad of paper and pencil from Sam's desk drawer, she offered them
to Consuela. The woman shook her head and backed away. So much for that idea.

Then
Kelly thought of something else. "Hey, Consuela, I bet you knew my brother
Jake."

Consuela
looked confused and shook her head.

"Are
you sure? Jake Bancroft, a couple of years younger than you, five-eleven, brown
hair, and blue eyes, a little on the chunky side? He loved comic books,
especially the sci-fi ones, and would talk your ear off about the stories he'd
read. Sound familiar?"

Another
adamant shake of the head.

Maybe
showing Consuela a picture would help jog her memory. As she dug into her
backpack for her wallet, the phone rang. It was Sam.

"Is
Cody okay?" she asked him.

"He'll
be fine, but the vet wants him to spend the night. He took a blood test and
found a high level of tranquilizers in Cody's system."

Poor
thing. She wasn't especially fond of animals, but she didn't understand how
anyone could intentionally be cruel to one. "So you're on your way home?"

"Not
exactly." He paused before adding, "After the vet, I planned to make
a quick trip to the body shop for a new windshield, but someone took the Jeep's
distributor cap. I'm at the auto parts store now buying a new one."

A
shiver of dread crawled down her neck. "Is someone stalking you?"

"Maybe.
Or someone is making sure I'm out of the way so he can get to you."

A
cold fist closed around her heart. "You're scaring me."

"Forewarned
is forearmed, but don't worry. You're safe in the cabin as long as you don't
open the door to anyone."

She
didn't feel very safe, and the temperature of the room seemed to drop ten
degrees. Was anyone, or anything, lurking outside? If she went out there, would
she find another snake-filled picnic basket at the back door? Or something
worse? The sound of a car's engine turning over made her jump. "I think
someone's here."

"Can
you see out the window?"

"Hold
on." She leaned close to the window and peered outside. Consuela's car
turned around in the driveway then headed away from the cabin. "It's
Consuela. She's leaving."

He
let fly a few mumbled curses before saying, "The woman isn't well. She's
reliving her experience with Star Mother, and that isn't healthy. Did she zone
out at all? Go into a kind of trance?"

Kelly
paused while she thought about it. "No. But I did ask her if she knew
Jake."

He
groaned. "You didn't."

"Is
that a problem? I was about to show her a picture of him when—"

"But
you didn't, did you?"

"No.
The phone rang just as I was getting out my wallet."

He huffed
into the phone. "Consuela remembers almost nothing about her last days
with Star Mother, and I'd like to keep it that way. At least until she's more
secure with the outside world. She lived a sheltered and unnatural life with
those people. Part of her therapy has been to reenter society, interact with
people, go shopping, go to the movies, visit with family, and most important,
not focus on her experience with the cult."

"I'm
sorry," Kelly said. "I didn't realize."

"I
doubt you did any damage," he said, sounding apologetic. "Consuela
obviously knew better than to stick around and be questioned by you. Her behavior
indicates a positive step in her recovery."

Kelly
patted her chest to slow her heart's pounding. She would never forgive herself
if Consuela suffered a relapse because of her. "You don't know how glad I
am to hear that."

"Any
luck with your search on the Internet?"

"Not
yet, but I'm working on it."

"We
also need to talk about our plan for Jake's intervention. From everything you've
told me, he's happy with his new family. We'll need his cooperation to make
this work."

"He'll
cooperate," she said, a niggle of doubt making her stomach ache. "He
listens to me, Sam. He'll do what I tell him."

There
was a long pause before he said, "How can you be so sure? Kelly, the boy
was abandoned as a teenager. I know how much you love him, and I don't mean to
make you feel worse than you already do, but let's be logical. He's in what he
believes to be a safe place, with people who accept him for who he is, people
he believes care about him. Can you compete with that?"

Kelly
squeezed her eyes shut to hold back the tears. She hated herself at that
moment, even more than she hated her father, which was saying a lot. If only
she could turn back time and change everything to how it’d been before she left
home. Their home life hadn't been perfect by any means, but it was better than
Jake living with a cult determined to kill him. In a voice so soft she barely
heard herself speak, she said, "All I can offer him is my love."

"That's
fair," Sam said. "And we're going to make it be enough. I promise. I'll
come up with a plan, okay? Hang in there. Dial star five if you need me, and
you know where my .38 is if you absolutely need it. I'm heading home. I'll be
there in ten minutes, fifteen tops." Then he hung up.

"Wait—"
But she spoke to a dial tone. She'd been about to say, "Please hurry."
 

The
quiet of the cabin permeated her skin like the room's icy air. She shivered and
glanced at the black fireplace, its embers as cold as the hearth itself. And
not a stick of firewood in sight.

"Terrific,"
she mumbled, traipsing through the kitchen toward the utility room, where she
hoped to find a stack of firewood beside the back door. No such luck. Then she
remembered the neat rows of logs not far from where they'd found Cody that
morning.

Surely
Sam didn't mean for her to freeze to death. Going out in the backyard for a
little firewood shouldn't be risky. He'd told her not to open the door for
anyone, and since no one was at the door... It would take her less than five
minutes to get what she needed.

She
glanced out back to make sure no one was there then yanked a plaid flannel
shirt from a peg on the wall and shrugged it on. There were patches on the
elbows, and the soft, worn fabric smelled like Sam. She tugged the collar up to
her nose and inhaled the hearty scent of soap and wood smoke. She shouldn't
like it as much as she did, but her first thought was to bundle the shirt up in
her backpack and keep it.

After
glancing around for any suspicious-looking baskets that might hold a snake or
two, she trotted to the cache of carefully stacked wood. She quickly loaded her
arms with logs, making sure to include some dry bark and sticks for kindling.
Halfway back to the cabin, she heard a noise in the woods to her right. She
stopped to listen. A twig snapped then a squirrel scampered out from around
that side of the cabin. She let out a breath and continued along the narrow
dirt path to the cabin's back door.

Her
arms were so full that she had trouble closing the door behind her. The chill
she'd felt earlier was even stronger now. She crouched down to grab a few pages
from a stack of newspapers to help give the fire a blazing start.

The
phone rang.

"What
now, Sam?" she said to the air and trotted to the living room, her arms
still loaded with firewood. Whatever Sam had to say could surely have waited
until he got home. She dumped the wood on the hearth and snatched up the
cordless phone. "Hello?"

There
were a few seconds of silence before she heard a gentle, "Hello, Kelly."

A
woman's voice. Familiar, but she couldn't place it. "Who's this?"

A
throaty chuckle answered, smooth and thick as honey. "My feelings are hurt
that you don't remember me, dear. You should, you know. Especially after the
relaxation techniques I taught you at the camp. They did wonders to relieve
your stress, didn't they?"

"What
relaxation—?"

"Breathe
in through your nose, out through your mouth. Think about your inner place of
solitude, where you feel warm and safe. Can you see it in your mind's eye?"

The
seductive purr of the woman's voice made Kelly dizzy. "Valya? No. Wait..."
She closed her eyes and tiny white lights pulsed behind her lids. She wanted to
throw the phone down, but it stuck to her hand as if glued there.

"Concentrate,
Kelly. The peace you feel is intoxicating. Give in to it. Warmth. Safety. A
sense of well-being pours through your body like water through a mountain
stream."

Though
lulled into a state of near bliss, Kelly struggled to break through the fog.
Had she been hypnotized while at the camp? She didn't recall any blocks of time
unaccounted for but couldn't remember what she'd been doing while waiting for
her brother. The harder she tried to remember, the more evasive the memory.
Star Mother had messed with her mind, just as Sam had suspected.

"I've
brought you a present," Valya said. "Open your eyes."

She
didn't want to obey, but she couldn't stop herself. Blinking against the sudden
brightness of daylight, she spotted someone silhouetted against the window in
Sam's living room. As he stepped toward her, she made out the thin frame of a
young man with lanky brown hair that drifted over his bony shoulders. He wore a
white T-shirt emblazoned with the
Cosmic
Crisis
logo. The shirt was tucked into baggy jeans cut into ragged shorts,
one leg a couple of inches longer than the other and nearly reaching his knobby
knees. Deep-set eyes stared out from a narrow face, their color as blue as Jake's
but vacant and bloodshot, nothing like her brother's vibrant gaze that usually
hinted of a joke eager to be told or a funny story he wanted to share. This man
couldn't possibly be her chubby little brother.

"Hi,
Kelly," he said, using Jake's familiar voice, yet the tone was more
masculine than she remembered. "I heard you wanted to see me."

"Jake?"
The word came out on a breath, choked and hardly coherent, so she tried again. "Are
you okay?" Her voice felt thick in her throat. Could it be possible? Was
he really free?

Jake's
lips tilted in the tiniest of smiles. She got a sense that smiling didn't come as
natural to him any more. "You look surprised to see me." He held out
his thin arms to her, just like he had when he was little and wanted a hug.

She
dropped the phone and rushed into her brother's arms, her chest heaving with
sobs of relief at finally having him back. He smelled horrible, like his dirty
gym socks when she used to do his laundry, but she didn't mind. The smell made
him real.

While
hugging him, she touched the pronounced vertebrae in his back, and his thin
ribs jutted into her chest. What had they done to him? Tears streaming down her
face, she stared up into his strangely empty eyes, their pupils contracted into
pinpoints. "Let's get you home."

He
shook his head and stepped back, peeling away her hands that had clutched him
so fiercely. "I have a new family now. A wonderful, caring family that
loves me."

She
shook her head. It was important she convince him how dangerous these people
were. "They want to kill you, Jake."

Stepping
even farther away from her, he said, "You're wrong, Kelly. It's rebirth
they're offering, not death. The Arrow lies to you. He deceives you because he
wants to turn you against me."

"That's
not true. Sam is trying to help you." There had to be something she could
say that would make Jake change his mind. Then she had it. "Dad says he's
sorry for everything he did to us, everything he did to you."

Jake's
expression changed as a spark of life flickered in his eyes, though he scowled
as if confused. "Dad told you he's sorry?"

Kelly
nodded, her heart leaping with a jolt of a hope. "He told me to tell you
he wants you to come home, to live in your old room and finish high school. He
said everything would be different now." Not that she believed it herself,
but she'd say anything to help Jake change his mind about the cult. Her tongue
seemed to swell inside her mouth as she forced herself to say what probably
wasn't even true. "Dad says he loves you."

Jake
cocked his head, still confused, still processing information that must be
foreign to him after all this time. But he had come this far, had made the
effort to seek her out. He obviously still cared about her or he wouldn't have
gone to the trouble of finding her. Which made her wonder how he'd made it here
by himself in the first place.