Under Cover of Darkness (46 page)

He read eagerly, his anger rising in the second paragraph. "It doesn't matter who I am," she had written. "What's important is that your husband has given himself to me, and it's time you faced the truth."

He stopped, stunned. She had chosen her words carefully, "given himself." It was consistent with Martha's view of them as soul mates. Yet the implication--the intended message to Beth--was that Gus was having sex with another woman. The whole deceptive package was classic Martha. The letter was unsigned, which meant Beth would have had to confront Gus if she wanted to know who had written it. It was written in her own script so that Gus would know it was Martha. Forcing him to tell his wife that the "anonymous" author was Martha would only make the letter more believable to Beth.

Somehow, Beth had figured out it was Martha on her own, since she'd filed the letter away in the drawer of law firm-related junk. Beth had never said a word to Gus. She'd internalized it, which went a long way to explain her paranoia about him and Martha.

A noise stirred him. In the pre-dawn darkness, the wind whistled through branches outside the bedroom window. The clock ticked in the hallway. All else was still.

He thought immediately of Dex's warning that someone had followed him to the Red Lion Hotel last night.

He stepped quietly from the closet and checked the alarm panel on the wall. It was armed, no sign of intrusion. He left the bedroom and peered down _the hall. Again, only silence. He walked slowly to the front door and peeke
d t
hrough the beveled glass. The car was still in the driveway. No one scurried across the lawn. He headed for the kitchen. The wind was kicking up outside, but the branches against the house didn't sound at all like the noise that had roused him from sleep. He switched on the kitchen light and started.

The rubber trash can had been pulled out from under the sink and left near the dishwasher--not its usual place. It was upright but bulging, nearly overflowing. Something that resembled a tail was curling out from under the lid. Gus stepped closer and checked inside.

It was Garfield. One of Morgan's big stuffed animals was in the garbage.

He pulled it out. Tigger was in there, too, along with a fuzzy cub from the Lion King collection, two more stuffed felines, and a ceramic Sylvester. They weren't ripped, stained, or particularly worn out. They'd just been summarily discarded.

He hurried to Morgan's room. The door was open an
d h
er light was on. "Morgan?" he said with urgency.

Her head popped from beneath the covers. "I can'
t s
leep."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Does this have anything to do with what I found in the garbage can?"

"You didn't take them out, did you?"

"Yes."

"Daddy, no! Put them back."

"Why are you throwing them away?"

"Because."

He recalled their earlier conversation in the car about getting a cat. "Morgan, your mommy's allergic to real cats. Not stuffed animals."

"I know. But if I keep all these fake cats around, I migh
t f
orget."

With soulful eyes he came to her and sat on the edge of the bed. "Sweetheart, you will never forget your mommy."

"I don't want to forget anything about her. Even little things. Like, I don't ever want to forget she's lergic to cats."

"Don't worry about that, okay? I'm going to do everything possible to bring Mommy home. And then you won't ever, ever have to worry about forgetting anything."

She was silent for a moment, then quizzical. "Have you forgotten things about Mommy?"

He wasn't sure how to answer. He settled for the truth. "It's funny, but since your mother disappeared, I actually remember more about her. That's a good thing, I guess. You can get back the things you forget."

"If you really strain your brain?"

"Not so much the brain, sweetheart."

"Which part?"

He held her close. "The part I haven't used in a very long time."

After breakfast Felicia drove Andie into town in the old station wagon. In the backseat was a woman at Felicia's supervisory level and a nineteen-year-old girl who was in her second month of training. Tom and his young male recruit drove separately in an SUV. Monday morning was when the cult purchased groceries and essentials that couldn't be produced on the farm. was viewed as grunt work reserved for the newest members, under the strict supervision of their mentors, of course.

They stopped at a big price-cutting warehouse that sold everything from radial tires to cinnamon rolls, mostly in army-like quantities. Andie had been to a similar place in Seattle with the bare cement floors and huge pallets of Twinkies and paper towels stacked sixty-feet to the ceiling. She felt like a Lilliputian.

They broke into teams of two, each recruit with a mentor.

Each team had a list of things to retrieve from different parts of the warehouse. They were to buy only what was on the list. Salt, flour, and raw sugar. Soap. Toilet paper. Matches and batteries. Basic medications, such as aspirin and rubbing alcohol. All of the things Blechman regarded as necessities.

Andie pushed the shopping cart as Felicia retrieved items from the shelves. They talked very little. Andie couldn't stop thinking about "the echoes" concept. Her bookend theory had been out the window for some time, but "echoes" seemed apt. Two men and three women had been murdered in echo-like fashion.

Her discovery made her restless and eager to brainstorm. Isaac had given her until Wednesday to check in, but she wasn't sure when she might get away from the farm again. She had to seize the opportunity.

"Felicia? I'm going to use the bathroom, all right?" "Okay. I'll be right here."

The rest rooms were in the rear of the store, near the butcher department, behind a pair of swinging doors and at the end of a long corridor. Andie hoped there would be a pay phone nearby. There was. She quickly dialed Isaac's private number.

"Isaac, it's Andie."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I can't talk long." She feared Felicia would burst through the doors any second. In two minutes she summarized her weekend, focusing mainly on "the echoes."

Isaac said, "Of course, even if his philosophy spawned the murders,. it doesn't mean Blechman is our serial killer."

"I wondered what your take would be."

"It could be one of his demented followers. It might even be some psycho who read or heard about his teachings and is simply mocking the echo idea. After all, his seminars are open to the public. Who knows what kind of demented ideas people get?"

"That's what I want to find out." With a nervous glance she checked the hall, thinking she'd heard footsteps.

"Andie, you've done a good job. But for your own safety, I think it's time we pull you out and just move in."

"But I haven't seen a single sign of Beth Wheatley yet. I couldn't even tell you if she's here."

"Then maybe she isn't."

"But if she is, she could be dead the minute the FBI starts knocking on the door."

"We might consider a more aggressive takeover. Take them by surprise."

"That's a terrible idea, and you know it. Remember Waco?"

"You've been inside. You think there's a potential for mass suicide?"

"I don't know. But think of what you said earlier. What if the killer is just someone who might have passed through the cult and is no longer here? The FBI will want the cult's cooperation in identifying people who came to their meetings. Invading their compound is not going to endear them to the FBI and make them want to cooperate."

Isaac was silent. Andie checked the doors again at the end of the corridor. Through the little diamond-shaped window she could see Felicia coming down the aisle. This was taking too long. "Just give me forty-eight more hours. And give it to me now, before they catch me on the phone."

He was thinking. Andie's heart pounded as Felicia neared the doors. "Isaac, please."

"All right, you got it."

"Thank you. Gotta go." She slammed down the phone and started walking toward the doors just as they swung open.

"There you are," said Felicia.

Chapter
Fifty-Nine.

Beth lay alone in the darkness. It was a helpless feeling, but she had learned not top ound on the walls or scream for help. That kind of behavior would only get her handcuffed and gagged. One night she had carried on so long he had revoked her lights-on privileges. Two days of total darkness, including meals and bathroom breaks. She guessed it was two days, based on the number of meals she had eaten. With no clock or windows there was no way to be sure.

Good behavior did seem to have its rewards. The lights used to come on only during each meal and bathroom break. Now she seemed to get a grace period before and after. Once, she had even been allowed outdoors to work at the chicken coop, albeit not without the electronic belt locked around her torso. It worked like those invisible fences for dogs, only this one would hit her like a stun gun if she got too close to the electrified boundaries. It had been good to get outdoors, though the farm had been strangely deserted that day. Almost everyone was away, perhaps on a retreat. Beth knew about retreats. It was how she'd gotten caught up in the first place.

In hindsight, it was easy to understand the initial appeal of Blechman's philosophy. She had been tired of wasting her energy trying to put the magic back in her marriage. It was like an echo, intense at first, then fading over time. I
t w
as as if each anniversary were just another hollow ring in the distance, each one a little weaker and farther from the source, until it was completely inaudible, nothing left. The idea of redirecting her energy and changing her level of vibration had been a revelation. She was revitalized for a time that included many a day-long visit to the farm when Gus was out of town. On the positive side, they had helped her identify and talk out her anxieties. Ultimately, however, she and her mentors came to a bitter disagreement over the root cause. They saw it as a huge problem, but she didn't see it as a problem at all.

She still loved Gus.

The way they wanted Beth to handle that problem was something she could never bring herself to do. The result was solitary confinement. She wasn't getting much direction from the leaders, but she assumed the idea was to isolate her from worldly influences until she channeled her energy properly. All of this time alone, however, had only separated her further from their way of thinking. With no one to talk to, she conjured up pleasant images from her past. Morgan was a frequent subject. There was quite a lot of Gus and the way they used to be. Had they read her mind, her mentors would have been furious.

Today her thoughts were not so pleasant. Almost against her own will, certain sounds were replaying in her mind. They revolved around the nightly ritual she had come to dread so much. She blocked out the ones that frightened her--the woman on tape, the sounds of his enjoyment. Instead, she focused on things that confused her. In particular, the sounds of his leaving.

In her mind, she could hear him rise from the chair and switch off the television. Hear him cross the room and open the door. The door shutting and locking from the outside. Those were the sounds she had heard every night. Last night, however, something had been missing. There had been a break in the routine. She didn't hear that familiar hydraulic sound of the VCR ejecting the videotape. She focused harder, this time on his arrival. Come to think of it, she hadn't heard him insert the videotape either. And it wasn't just last night. It had happened on the last several nights, at least. That explained the mechanical whining upon his arrival, the sounds of the tape rewinding.

For some reason, he had been leaving the tape in the VCR.

It could have been an oversight on his part, but that was unlikely. Very little happened on the farm without a purpose. If he was leaving the tape in the VCR, it was for a reason. There was only one she could imagine.

He wanted her to watch it.

The prospect didn't seem as frightening without him in the room. She had heard it so many times, seeing it couldn't be that disturbing. Slowly, she slid from the bed and stepped onto the floor. The room was black, but she knew the way from memory. She took small steps, almost sliding her feet across the room. She groped with her hands in front of her until she felt something. It was the television screen. She poked and probed until she found the on-off switch and hit it. The screen lit up with snow. She quickly muted the volume so that no one in the hall could hear. The set wasn't hooked up to a cable or antennae, of course. It was a good source of light, but up until now she had been afraid to use it for fear of breaking the rules. Curiosity, however, had emboldened her. It wasn't so much that she wanted to see the tape. She wanted to know why he wanted her to see it.

She hit the Rewind button and waited as the tape whined to the beginning. It took only a minute. Then she hit PLAY and stepped back. She stared at the screen as the image appeared. A woman was seated on a chair, facing the camera. She seemed nervous, but it wasn't her demeanor that struck Beth.