Swallow (Kindred Book 2) (8 page)

The sales pitch wouldn’t work on her and they had to know that. She wasn’t going to shrug and admit she’d been wrong all along. “Why are you here now?” she asked. “How can you trust that we won’t take you down? How do you think that we could forgive you for killing—“

“That was unfortunate,” Sutcliffe said, but she didn’t believe his look of contrition. “I am sorry that your friend had to die, but it was necessary. I had to get away without Raven and the others following me. I am imperative to my group’s mission and they need me to ensure cohesion. We have some passionate members and it is my responsibility to ensure no one acts alone without sanction.”

So he believed himself to be all-powerful, to have the ability to control those who were lesser than he was. Whatever this group was, Albert Sutcliffe was the one steering them all and as she looked into his eyes, she tried to decipher what was driving him. Had he gone mad? Was he addicted to power? Or was he genuinely so misguided in his own narcissism that he believed he had the ability to bring peace to the world?

“You’re not going to get forgiveness. We can never forgive you for—“

“Has Raven asked forgiveness for murdering my nephew?” Sutcliffe demanded and hobbled a step closer. “Or two of my best men?”

Though he remained a good six feet away from her, she wasn’t worried about him coming closer because with his impediment, it would be easy to outrun any attack he may try to wage.

“You didn’t answer my question about why you’re here.”

“I am here because Grant has assured me he was not part of the double-cross. I am still in need of the product he provides and if he can prove himself to me then we will do business.”

“And if not?” she asked. “What if this is all a ruse?”

“If it was a ruse I could have shot him the minute he came in,” Grant said, coming around his desk to move toward her. “Or called security and had him arrested.” Her boss’s proximity was more of a worry, especially when he took her arm and pulled her deeper into the room, thus lessening her chances of a clear and easy escape. “We have to find a way to work together, Zara. There is no alternative. Raven has lost the plot. You can’t rely on him anymore. You have to start looking out for yourself and think about what best serves your interest. You can be a part of the winning side or you can lose for a man who barely acknowledges your existence.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, and took a step back, but Grant didn’t let her go and Sutcliffe got closer still.

“How do you plan to do that when you have no new information?” Sutcliffe asked. “You have chosen a side without having all of the facts. You don’t know what we do or what our intentions are. You have listened to Raven’s story and that is full of holes.”

“What information do you think you can give me that might sway me?” she asked. “Words are cheap and they’re easily misconstrued and manipulated to suit a person’s ends.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Sutcliffe said and smiled at Grant. “You were right. She is intelligent.”

Zara wasn’t a genius. One didn’t have to be a brainiac to know that Sutcliffe could weave a good yarn. If he wasn’t so sinister, his easy, warm smile and the unthreatening air he carried himself in could probably have drawn her in. For a moment, she connected him and Tim in a way she hadn’t before, Tim was charming and gracious too. Looking into Albert Sutcliffe’s eyes now, she looked behind the smile and saw the pain he carried for the loss of his nephew. She recognized the ache of grief from behind Brodie’s façade.

“I’m sorry about Tim,” she said. Sutcliffe’s smile flickered away from his face when he blinked. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Anger hardened him. “He was a good boy, who didn’t deserve to die,” Sutcliffe said. When that flash of anger ebbed, the truth of his vulnerability was revealed.

“We’ve all lost people,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s about time we stopped killing each other? It serves no purpose except to aggravate this already fraught feud.”

“We plan to stop killing our own,” Sutcliffe said, returning to his smile as he reached forth to take her hand. “After we show you the truth.”

That proposal was astonishing. “Show me?”

“Yes,” Sutcliffe said. “You were right about words. I could talk and try to explain for the rest of the night. But you can’t be sure that I’m being honest and maybe I am trying to manipulate you. But if I show you where we live and what we do, let you talk to others in the group, maybe then you will come to see the truth. All we want is a better world where our children don’t have to fear for their future.”

“You want to show me?” she asked and glanced to Grant, who nodded once. “You want me to come to your compound in New York?”

“Yes.”

“Ok,” she said and lifted her hand out of Sutcliffe’s. “I will discuss it with the others in my group and if we decide that we want to—“

“No,” Sutcliffe said and his smile became stern. “This is an opportunity for you, not for them. We want you to use your own eyes and make your own decisions. People in my group are encouraged to think for themselves. We welcome other opinions and debate.”

That may be true, but when it came to making decisions and taking action, it was Sutcliffe who called the shots, of that she was certain.

This could be a trap, but seizing her meant nothing to them. She had no useful skills and Raven wasn’t a prize they wanted, except maybe to see him suffer, but he was doing that already and might not come out of seclusion even if she was endangered. There would be no way for them to get a message to Raven if they did imprison her, so he would never know that they had her.

Instead of speculating, she chose to ask outright. “What do you want from me?”

“Come with us,” Sutcliffe said. “Come and see it with your own eyes.”

Grant was by her side and he squeezed her arm in a way she was sure was meant to reassure her. She trusted that he didn’t want her to be hurt, but going to New York with them was a massive risk. Except if she didn’t take the chance to gather the intelligence, she would kick herself later, and this was her Kindred role. If she couldn’t use her position here at CI to get that information then she would need to be open to alternative avenues.

Brodie wouldn’t be scared of this opportunity, and neither would Tuck. They accepted that sometimes risks had to be taken in order to ensure the success of the mission. And as wary as she knew she should be, she wasn’t afraid for her life.

“Let me get my purse,” she said. Grant let her arm slide out of his grip for her to back away toward the door.

As soon as she was out of Grant’s office, Zara hurried to her own office and grabbed her purse, which contained her Sig and her Kindred cell phone. Tuck had brought her a new phone on Saturday when he came to her apartment. Pulling the phone from her bag, she speed-dialed Tuck while watching her door in case Grant or Sutcliffe chose to come looking for her.

“You’re lucky I answered, I was about to get in the shower,” Tuck said when he picked up the other end.

“Listen to me real quick,” she said, ignoring his statement. “Sutcliffe is here. He and Grant are going to the New York compound and they want me to go with them—“

“Zar—“

“It’s ok. Grant won’t let anyone hurt me. I will try to keep this line open when I get there,” she said. Tuck had ways of doing things, the only Kindred tech she had was this cellphone, and she wished she’d made more of an effort to gather an arsenal. “Is there anything specific I should look for?”

Speaking clearly, he proved he knew how valuable this chance was by giving concise instructions. “Number of guards, number of guns, what kind of hardware they have. Check for exits and for means of entry. We have to know if the fences are electric or if there are traps on the grounds. Try to note weak spots and any stockpiles.”

“Got it.”

“And Swallow,” he said. “You watch your ass ‘cause if Rave finds out I let you do this—“

“We’re doing this for him, Swift,” she said and appreciated how sincere his concern for her was. “I’ll be careful.”

Hanging up the phone, she stuffed it back into her purse and snagged her jacket from the hook by the door as she went past. Grant and Sutcliffe were already waiting by the elevator and she noted that they’d selected up as opposed to down.

“How are we going to get there?”

“I have a bird of my own,” Sutcliffe said, and the elevator pinged to allow them entrance.

His bird turned out to be a helicopter decked out with leather seats and luxury that probably rivaled Marine One. Art had told her that Sutcliffe’s family were old money, but he’d also told her that he’d lost most of his fortune through bad investments and in divorce settlements. Except he didn’t look to be hurting for cash anymore.

During their flight there was little conversation, and it gave her the time to consider what enterprises Sutcliffe might be involved in that would give him this kind of means. Cults often took up crime as a way to fund the support of their people and their ideology. Noting this idea as something to flag up with Tuck, she contemplated how if they could gather evidence that Sutcliffe and his band were doing something overtly illegal they could use that as a way to get them off the grid. They could present authorities with evidence of their misdeeds and get Sutcliffe arrested.

In previous times, she had considered how the authorities might be of help to them. There was a major argument against that course of action: Tuck and Brodie were criminals. She couldn’t invite that kind of scrutiny to their group. Because although the Kindred worked to take down those who meant to hurt others, their means weren’t always strictly legal.

Grant took her hand as the chopper began to descend. Despite being seated in the center of the craft, she tried her best to crane her neck to see what they were going into. All she could see was a green space, circled by tall trees with a large farmhouse in the center. Picking out details was difficult. As they got lower, she noticed crops and animals, and some smaller timber structures close to the tree line.

Eventually, they touched down and the rotors kept on going. In the noise and busyness of landing, she took the opportunity to slip her hand into her purse and dial Tuck’s number with hope that he would be able to listen to or record what was being said. If nothing else, he would be able to get a GPS signal from the connection, she’d seen him do that in the past. She just had to hope he was there, in the manor control room, ready to receive her signal.

Sutcliffe remained strapped in until the chopper was silent. A group of men outside rushed over and opened the doors to help Sutcliffe, her, and Grant disembark. Once they were outside, they were led toward the two-story house.

The air was aromatic. It smelled refreshing, of damp grass and tree leaves. Laughter drew her eye right and she saw children playing on a homemade obstacle course near the back door of the house. When the young ones saw Sutcliffe, they ran over to greet him. He hugged and petted them all with an affection that made her look twice. As picturesque as the scene was, she couldn’t discount the possibility that the whole thing was staged for her benefit and for Grant’s.

So far, she hadn’t seen any weapons and everyone was dressed in civilian clothing. There didn’t appear to be any sort of militia presence, which she would have expected for a group determined to right all the wrongs that they perceived in the world.

Still, she was unsettled. These people might be happy here and maybe Sutcliffe would be able to convince her of that. But as to whether or not every visible member knew about his plans with Game Time was another matter. It would be easy to raise your children in such a beautiful place, to tend animals and crops, to live as part of a group intent on looking out for each other. Just because someone subscribed to that way of life didn’t mean they had nefarious motives.

It was getting dark. While she was being led inside, the women gathered the children and took them off in a direction opposite to the house. Their role in this performance was complete and they were being ushered off the stage. Zara ascended exterior stairs and went through a rear door with Grant at her back.

The space they entered appeared to be a large dining kitchen. The central table was a long rectangle and had at least twenty seats around it, so she expected to be part of some kind of meeting. Instead of being bombarded by people and by facts, everyone except Sutcliffe and one other male left the room.

Once the four of them were alone, Sutcliffe held a hand toward the lone man at his side. “This is Benedict Leatt,” Sutcliffe said.

Sutcliffe sat down at the head of the table, letting out a pained groan as he did. Benedict dropped a concerned hand onto his shoulder before smiling at her and crossing to the kitchen counter. “Ben will do fine. Would anyone like a drink? Coffee or wine?”

This wasn’t a social call. “No,” she said, because she wouldn’t trust anything that she was given to drink in this house. “I want to know why we’re here. You said that we were going to get an explanation as to what your intentions are.”

“Ben is one of the newest members of our group,” Sutcliffe said, stretching his bad leg out to the side. “I thought you would want to meet him and maybe hear for yourself how we live.”

And it just so happened that Ben was here waiting for them in the kitchen when she and Grant arrived and knew to hang back while the others were excused. On the journey, she hadn’t seen Sutcliffe use a phone, suggesting this sequence had been rehearsed. The production outside was becoming less credible.

With a wide smile, Ben seemed affable, but men wore many masks and first impressions weren’t always accurate. “This is the main house. We have this room and a large living space adjoining it. The rest of the rooms have been converted to bedrooms, each family who wants one gets a room.”

She wasn’t writing a piece for Architectural Digest. “Lovely,” she said, glaring at Sutcliffe. “I don’t care about how you live.”

“Sure you do,” Sutcliffe said, opening his arms like this shabby farmhouse was some kind of utopia. “How we live dictates our ideology, our desires. This is not a dictatorship, which I’m sure is what you believe. People are free to come and go, in fact, most of our members still have jobs that they travel to each day. The town is only a mile from here. There are bars and restaurants, a booming tourist trade that allows shops and hotels to thrive. This is a beautiful part of the world.”

Lots of faces coming and going, that’s what she heard. A town used to strangers, who might not mind the eccentrics who lived on the outskirts as long as they were producing reliable labor. “And when your people are there, are they watched? Do they hand over their income to you?”

It seemed that she could be as accusatory as she wanted to be, Sutcliffe wasn’t biting. “Everyone who is here is here by choice,” Sutcliffe said. “They believe that the way we live, the community we have, it’s a safe world for their children.”

“How many members do you have?”

“Staying here, over two hundred,” Sutcliffe said.

She couldn’t see how two hundred people could live in this one house, but Ben cleared that up for her. “There are other properties. Some families prefer to have their own space. There are cabins throughout the trees where people make homes for themselves in a safe space, where they don’t have to fear for their children.”

Ben had to be in his thirties. He was attractive and fit. She couldn’t quite figure out why someone who appeared to have at least moderate intelligence would agree to give up so many of their personal liberties just to be a part of a cult.

Some people were susceptible to the power of suggestion and it could be as simple as that. But maybe it wasn’t Ben’s choice to be here. Maybe he had been coerced. “Do you have a wife and children on the property?” she asked.

Sutcliffe laughed and leaned back to pat a hand on Ben’s lower back. “He’s free and single if you’re interested,” he said.

Her eyes widened on their own with the mortification she felt at such a suggestion. But Ben took Sutcliffe’s hand from his back and gave it back to him. Although the man wore a smile, he spoke as though to a meddling uncle who was trying to play matchmaker. “I don’t think that’s why she came here or why she asked,” Ben said, then made eye contact with her. “I’m here by choice and I’m here because I believe that what we’re doing is right. Every society has to start somewhere. At the moment, there are just two hundred of us, but Albert has ideas that could bring more members to our group.”

“I bet he does,” she murmured, but Ben carried on without acknowledging her comment.

“We can acquire more land and build our own community that doesn’t have to live in fear of crime or misfortune. To answer your question, yes, most of us hand over most of our wages. But is that any more unusual than handing them over to a landlord or a utility company? Here, we have our food and our board, we have all of our bills paid, and no one is required to work or to hand over money. Some people choose to stay here full-time, they tend to the crops and animals. They look after the children or help with other chores. Everyone contributes something because we all care about looking after each other.”

This was getting a little too after-school special for her and as she tried not to cringe at what Ben was saying, Grant spoke up. “You have a council who make decisions?”

“Yes,” Ben said. “Several people take part and when decisions have to be made anyone is welcome to come to the debate.”

She fixed a glare on the leader. “And the device that you want from CI, where does that fit in?” she asked Sutcliffe, not pussyfooting around the elephant in the room. “You don’t just want to recruit people for your utopia. You want to murder those who don’t subscribe to your politics.”

Clearly offended, Ben scowled. “No, that’s not true,” he said.

For whatever reason Ben was here, it wasn’t to give her the truth because he didn’t seem to have it himself. While her scoffed amusement sounded ridiculing, that hadn’t been her intention. As she folded her arms and fixated on Sutcliffe again, she waited for his admission of guilt that would clue Ben in.

“Your mind has been poisoned,” Sutcliffe said and now he was the one who seemed to pity her ignorance. “Your friends have not told you the truth.”

She was more inclined to believe the Kindred than to believe this man after what she’d seen of his intentions with her own eyes. “Why would you need such a device if it wasn’t your intention to hurt people? Was it your people who attacked Purdy’s? Why would you send them to do that if your motives truly are benevolent?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Sutcliffe said. “How would you like a tour? You can meet the people here and see what we’re doing for them.”

Ben came around the table, and when it was clear he was waiting for her to join him, she looked at Grant. “What harm can it do to go with him?” Grant asked.

Ben led her through the rooms of the house and she spoke to some of the people that they met. He took her outside and explained what they were growing. She met the children and the women. Everyone was happy. Too happy.

Her guide took her into the woods and down a path that got darker and darker as it got narrower. Zara slowed down, concerned about their distance from the house. Just as she glanced back and considered returning, there was a break in the trees, and they came out beside a large lake edged with forest. The still water reflected the moonlight shining above them.

“You’re not convinced?” Ben asked, pointing to a log near the water’s edge, which had been planed and smoothed into a makeshift bench. “Do you think that we’re hiding some sinister secret?”

She didn’t need to think. “I know you are,” she said, looking out over the water. “I think that everything you’ve shown me has been unthreatening. It’s a lovely portrayal of what an ideal society should be.”

“But?”

Getting a measure of this guy could be useful, they might need an inside man somewhere down the line. “Either you’re deliberately misleading me or you’re being deliberately misled. I haven’t decided what your role is in this. But I know for sure that Albert Sutcliffe is not the second coming here to save you all.”