Blood of the Earth (16 page)

“This is the entrance to the smallest cave,” I tapped the map. “When the FBI and the state police raided the compound, they didn’t find it, so it never got inspected or investigated. This is where the seeds and the winter supplies are kept. The canned goods, the stored grain, the stuff the women need. The others are here, and here.” I pointed to the bigger caves, closer to the main part of the compound, closer to the chapel and the home of the preacher. “They have weapons and farm equipment and generators and ammunition and suchlike in them. Survival stuff. The one in the middle has a water source and is the place where we’ll—where they’ll—hole up when the government comes to attack.” I thought for a moment before adding, “Not that it helped when the government actually did come to attack. Anyway, all three caves have reinforced poured concrete walls set just inside the entrances and steel core doors built into the walls. The plan was to bring down the cave walls outside of the fortified entrances with planted charges and then open passageways to the caves to either side. The tunnels are mostly finished, and it won’t take long to chip a ways into the other caves.

“Some say that there’s an entrance to deeper caverns from the center cave, but I wouldn’t know. My best thinking is that only the inner circle of churchmen would know that, and I have no way of finding that out.”

“Planted charges? And if the roof comes down when the charges go off?” Rick asked.

I shrugged. “The menfolk debated that possibility, but they figured that wouldn’t happen because God wants them to survive. So far as I’ve seen, they might be right, because God hasn’t stopped the evil done by so many of the church’s menfolk. Not that they think of it as evil, but . . . I do.” Quietly in the back of my mind, I had always thought it, despite the Scripture that said, “Thou shalt not judge.”

The others were discussing the backsliding men Sister Erasmus had seen—the Dawson men—and how they might, or might not, fit in with the kidnappings. And how to find out more about them without having photos or fingerprints or anything else. I let them talk, learning about options that included cameras outside church property, trained on the road, drunk-driving checkpoints, again with cameras but this time on the officers’ vests, and half a dozen other ways. The churchmen would have been appalled at the legal ways to surveil the road leading into the compound. I thought it was amazing.

We were nearly finished when Rick received a call on his cell phone. Another girl had gone missing.

He said, “No witnesses, and she may have wandered off, or taken off with a boyfriend, but no one has heard from her. And her cell phone was found a block from where she was last seen.

“The FBI hit the twenty-four-hour window without the return of the first girl. The ransom was paid, and there hasn’t been any activity, which violates traditional HST procedure, which provides for return of the abducted within one hour of receipt. As you know from Spook School, when this window of time elapses, there is, statistically, a drastically reduced chance of warm-body rescue. After that, it usually means a recovery attempt, not a rescue.”

“Warm body?” I asked.

“Rick’s shorthand for living and still human,” T. Laine said. “He has personal experience in that department.”

“Not relevant to today’s briefing.” Rick stepped into the back room. When he returned, he pulled behind him a whiteboard on a wheeled stand. It had been divided in two with a marker, and a photograph hung on each side, with pertinent information beneath, like height and weight. I knew without being told that they were the missing girls. Rick passed JoJo a sheet of paper with two names written on it and an address for an FBI Web site. “JoJo, you type faster than the rest of us. Will you merge and update our files?”

JoJo grunted and said, “Sure. Make the black girl play secretary,” but there wasn’t any heat in the words.

Tandy smiled as if he was feeling pleasure from her. He said, “Not secretary. Computer geek and all-around IT specialist.”

JoJo said, “I can live with that, if I can have the superhero name of SuperGeek or SuperHacker. Or maybe Diamond Drill.” The last one made no sense to me, but I didn’t ask,
continuing my practice of sitting still and silent and learning by listening.

Amused, Rick said, “You gave up that lifestyle, Diamond Drill.” JoJo’s full lips spread into a wicked smile, and I didn’t understand the humor. Rick said, “Because of the expired window, we’ve been asked to meet in person with the FBI.”

He tapped the left side of the whiteboard and the photo that hung there. “Let’s recap everything for Nell and update our board. Girl One was taken from school grounds following cheerleading practice,” Rick said. “Witnesses and security cameras indicate that three males jumped out of a white panel van, no plates. Slight dent in the rear passenger-side panel. All three wore hoods and gloves. They grabbed the girl and threw her into the van. The van has since been confirmed to be a 1994 Dodge Ram panel van.” He looked at me, “This is the stereotypical kidnapping I was talking about. It fits the textbook, nonfamily, political, ransom-style kidnapping. It required planning and an intimate knowledge of the girl, her whereabouts, and her schedule, all of which was posted to social media.”

JoJo whispered a curse under her breath, her fingers tapping on her laptop keyboard so fast it sounded like rain, a steady drumming.

“Girl Two disappeared after ballet class. Her mother had engine trouble and was late to pick her up. No witnesses. Cell phone left behind. Private security cameras two blocks away caught sight of a panel van matching the description in the first kidnapping, no plates. There was no confirmation of the small dent, due to camera angle and low def, but it’s assumed at this point that the girl was taken by the same people. That will be confirmed when and if they get a ransom demand.”

I remembered what I had read on the government study about stereotypical kidnappings. “So some kidnappings are crimes of opportunity,” I said, “but these kidnappers have treated this like a hunt.” Rick looked at me curiously. I lifted one shoulder and said, “The church is pretty good about planning things. They’re hunters. Hunters plan, stalk, build duck hides and deer stands to wait, watch, attack, and kill. Hunters are patient. These people are hunting humans, so they track their prey, but instead of tracks in the ground or spoor or territory marking, they track social media. Right?”

Rick gave me a small nod, and a flush of pleasure sped through me. “The FBI is also looking into whether the discarded cell was synced to a stranger’s.”

“Why do you call them Girl One and Girl Two. They got names,” I said, frowning at Rick. “Names and histories and pictures.” I pointed at the boards. “Rachel Ames and Shanna Schendel.”

“He does that for me,” Tandy said softly. “It’s . . . difficult for me to work cases. Any cases. Everything is so personalized, everyone on the team feels the pressure. It can hit me hard.”

“In training, we learned how to work together,” T. Laine said. “It’s all business, no emotions allowed. At least not in front of Tandy.”

“Oh.” That made some kind of sense. Strange sense, but sense. “Did the girls know each other?” I asked.

“They both attend Farrington High School and had French class together last year, but there isn’t anything else to connect them, not that we’ve been able to discover, beyond that casual acquaintance.”

I studied the pictures of the two girls, both pretty, looking vivacious and happy and fulfilled. And . . . soft, somehow. Not exactly innocent. Just untried, unpunished, as if they had lived easy lives. By the time I was their age, I had buried one sister-wife and been married according to church law for years. My sister Priss had married and had a baby on the way by the time she was fifteen. Looking at the faces of the missing girls, I felt odd and old and worn, as if I were fifty years old, not twenty-three, feelings I stuffed deep inside as all good women are taught to do from an early age, and plastered a smile on my face, hoping Tandy hadn’t noticed my change in emotions. This was going to be problematic, working with what had to be a human lie detector.

Rick’s cell made a tinny burbling sound and he picked up. “Special Agent LaFleur.” He made a face and walked into the bedroom, shutting the door. The others talked and Tandy made a pot of coffee while I experimented with the laptop, opening the new file JoJo had sent, with all the information updated on the abductions. Once I got the file opened, I could see everything the FBI had on the girls, and I could also watch JoJo work in real time, updating and editing as she went. As the others
said, this was “so freaking cool.” When Rick returned he said shortly, “The feds say we have permission to take a look at the kidnap crime scenes. Gear up. We’ll eat on the way.”

I said, “I’ll need to go home and eat lunch, since according to the contract I signed, I don’t get paid for three weeks. Which is really not a good way to do business. When I make a deal with someone I get half up front. That way if they stiff me, I’ll at least have something.”

“You’re getting paid by the federal government,” Rick said, closing up his laptop, his smile making him look younger and less harried. “They don’t stiff people.”

“The federal government has been bankrupt since nineteen thirty-three, when they devalued the dollar and got rid of the gold certificate. Look it up. I wouldn’t trust them to pay for a bag of flour.” Which I still needed to pick up at the store. “I prefer to barter when I can. Plants for eggs and meat and chicken. Whatever I have for whatever someone else has. That’s value. And right now, I’m hungry and nearly broke, so I have to go home.”

T. Laine made a
pfft
noise.

JoJo said, “No way are we letting you drive all that way back out there, girl. Good God, it’s like fifty miles. I’ll feed you.”

“I don’t need to take charity,” I said tartly. “I have food at the house.”

“When we’re doing fieldwork, expenses are covered,” Rick said. “And that includes meals. You can submit an expense report. But for now, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. You’re part of this team.”

“But—”

“What was that you said to us?” Tandy interrupted. “‘Welcome to my home. Hospitality and safety while you’re here’? You’re in our home now.” Which left me totally nonplussed. To the others he said, “Mexican?”

“We did Mexican already this week,” JoJo said, closing her own laptop. “Burgers.” Still bumfuzzled, I followed them out the door.

*   *   *

Following a fast-food meal that was mostly beef and potatoes, we drove by the school where Girl One was taken, and we all
got out to suss around a bit. There was crime scene tape blocking off a large area, all of it concrete or asphalt and no place for me to take off my shoes and feel the ground. The werecats didn’t smell blood or semen or urine, just a lot of humans. Rick used a little device called a psy-meter. It was about the size of JoJo’s playing cards, and it measured what he called psy-energies, the energy left behind by all living things, even more so by magic-using nonhumans and by magical spells or workings. But there had been too many people around for anyone to get a good reading.

At the ballet studio it was pretty much the same, except for a strip of land in the parking area where one tree, a dogwood, had taken root and another had tried to and died. The ground was covered in pine needles, and when I pushed a hand through to the soil, it was to discover that the lone tree was afraid,
fearfearfear
leaking through every rootlet and stem and reddening leaf. It had been afraid since its partner tree had died, thinking it the last tree on the face of the Earth. I willed it to listen to me, while the others sniffed around and muttered to themselves. I willed it to live and promised it I’d bring another dogwood back to plant in the place of death, and I’d bring fertilizer and water and help them both to survive. When I pulled my hand away, it was . . . not happy. But maybe looking forward to winter rather than fearing death.

*   *   *

We had done all we could at the old crime scenes, and headed back to the hotel. I hadn’t gotten enough sleep and was nodding by the time we were ensconced in the suite of rooms again. I fixed coffee while Rick and the others checked e-mail and made calls. From the few comments they made, I deduced that Girl One was still among the missing, meaning that the Human Speakers of Truth were looking less likely to be culprits, and the girl was more likely to already be dead. The team’s emotions were both excited and fearful, and Tandy looked drawn and worn from trying to ward them off. I made sure he had coffee with plenty of sugar and cream, and I stood over him waiting for him to drink, trying to project happy emotions toward him.

I had just taken my own first sip when Rick stepped in from
the back room, ended a call, and said, “Listen up.” His face was empty and cold. “The news media finally caught up with social media about the abductions. An hour after it hit the airwaves, a third girl went missing, a human girl with a strong paranormal association to one of Ming’s scions. Her mother is Claretta Clayton, and so her daughter falls completely under PsyLED jurisdiction.”

The tension in the room ratcheted up so high it took my breath away. T. Laine sat up straight. JoJo grabbed her laptop and started a search for something on the Internet. Tandy’s skin went a bit pale, his Lichtenberg lines going brighter.

“Who’s Claretta Clayton?” I asked.

“A VIV—Very Important Vampire,” T. Laine said, her eyes focused far off.

Occam paraphrased from his tablet, “The Clayton family helped settle Knoxville in the late seventeen hundreds, and Claretta married into the family in the eighteen hundreds. Her husband died in the Civil War, and she was turned by a marauder. She broke with the family. According to our files, Ms. Clayton has a human daughter, age eighteen.”

“How much was released to the public?” T. Laine asked. “The paranormal family, compounded with the time . . . Could this abduction be a copycat?”

Rick made a noncommittal sound, his face grim. “We can’t rule anything out at this point. But with the FBI already entrenched and because the cases are currently linked, the director decided that the feds will remain in charge. This unit will be offering our expertise and our data on HST. But this has nothing to do with the readiness of this team to take on an assignment, nothing to do with division of responsibilities, and everything to do with needing a bigger team than PsyLED can offer at this time. So we’re working with the feds, and everyone in this unit will accept that. Understood?” There were impassive nods around the room, but Tandy looked distressed, and I knew that not everyone agreed with the decision to work under the FBI. Or maybe some thought that the FBI wouldn’t work with them.

Someone turned on the huge TV, and I saw a gorgeous blond woman talking about three missing girls in Knoxville, believed to all be abductions, but it was quickly clear she knew
that and nothing more, because she immediately went to a specialist on nonfamily kidnappings. I downed my coffee, thinking about what I knew and what I didn’t.

“There are other significant differences with the third girl,” Rick said. “She didn’t attend Farrington High. No white panel van was seen. However, she did disappear from school, after being dropped off by a limo driver. He’s at FBI headquarters being questioned now.”

“Which school?” JoJo asked, typing again.

“Private school. Senior at Wyatt,” Rick said. His cell chimed again and he turned back into the bedroom, saying, “LaFleur.”

I didn’t know much about nonchurch schools, but even I had heard of the private Wyatt School of Knoxville, and I pulled a map of it up on my laptop. Wyatt had a soccer field, a baseball field, a lacrosse field, whatever that was, a tennis center, plus two arts buildings and a theater, a sciences building, and a swimming pool. I’d never been in a swimming pool, hadn’t even seen one except on films. There was one teacher or staff member for every ten kids, which, according to the Wyatt Web site, was much lower than in public schools. Wyatt was a day school for rich kids, though financial aid was available. Tuition and food went for nearly twenty thousand dollars per year. Per child. I’d never made that much altogether in a single year. And I’d been homeschooled all my life, until I had taken over my own education at age twelve. Photos of the student body suggested they all were from a financial upper class, all with perfect teeth, athletic bodies, and artistic, scientific, or political leanings. The future artists, doctors, lawyers, and politicians of the state went to school at Wyatt.

“Theodore Roosevelt said,” I quoted, “‘A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.’” Trying not to be sour but not succeeding, I added, “Looks like these kids might be on the way to greatness stealing railroads.”