The Hero (Thunder Point #3)(78)

Ahead were the flashing lights of a patrol car.

“Do not turn around,” Rawley said sharply. “Pull up to the copper. Ask him why the road is closed. Tell him you’re just taking a shortcut to Canyonville where your folks have a farm. Let the copper turn you around. You turn yourself around they’ll be after you that fast.”

And Cooper did just that, pulled right up to the officer and put down his window. “What’s happening? Accident?”

“Where you headed, sir?”

“My folks have a spread near Canyonville. I been taking this shortcut for years. Can I get through?”

“Road’s closed, I’m afraid.” He peered into the car. “I better have a look at your driver’s license and registration.”

“You bet,” Cooper said, fishing for those things in the glove box and his back pocket.

The patrolman shone a flashlight on those items while he asked, “What takes you to your folks just now?”

“Hunting, what else? We get there tonight, start up first light.”

He looked into the backseat. “You hunt, little lady?”

Devon laughed. “Please. I cook!”

“I like that,” he said. Another patrol car pulled up behind them. “Get outta here,” he said. “Road’s closed.”

Then Cooper took his turn and headed back in the opposite direction.

“Now what?” Devon asked.

“Now we go upstream and head down the river. I hope you swim.”

“Like a beaver,” she said. “If they find out what we’re doing, will we be in trouble?” she asked Rawley.

He laughed. “Trouble? I reckon we’ll prolly go straight to jail.”

Eighteen

Laine spent a couple of days at Jacob’s house, in and out of her bonds. Jacob gave her water and he brought her back a small plate of food from the house now and then. It was hard to stay in character as a meek and submissive female while he kept her tied, and when he did talk to her he ranted angrily about how he knew she had betrayed him, had betrayed them all.

Of course he didn’t know the truth. She hadn’t confessed to a thing.

Laine slept upright in the straight-back kitchen chair, testing her binding, trying to scoot to the counter to see if she could reach into a kitchen drawer to get something that would cut her ropes. When he came home from the big house after dinner to find she had moved, he gave her a black eye and split lip and then lectured her for an hour on his plan for his Fellowship and the conspirators who would strip them of their bounty, leave them homeless and poor. Everyone who wasn’t with them was against them.

And then he came back after what she presumed was his dinner at the house, except he had Mercy with him. She gasped when she saw him and said, “Is Devon back?”

“I’m finished with Devon, but this is my daughter and she stays with me. If I untie you and take you to the house with the other women, will you stay? Or will you just run?”

Her mind raced. What had he done with Devon? Had he hurt her, perhaps killed her to kidnap this child? Because, as she knew, her former friend Devon would not have given up Mercy, not at the point of a knife. “Why would I run?” she asked him. “You’ll just catch me and bring me back. I’ll take Mercy to the house, see she’s fed and put to bed and I’ll—”

He laughed at her. He grinned and said, “I wouldn’t put that kind of pressure on you.” He untied her and said, “Come with us, Sister Laine. We’ll take you to the house—you can help the women with the children. I’ll keep Mercy with me.”

“I’ll take care of her, Jacob. I’m sure you have too much to do to take care of her. She needs to be with the children.”

“I guess you really do think I’m an idiot. Stand up.”

She stood from the chair and turned to face him.

“Mercy, I want you to sit at the table here until I get back. Don’t move, don’t leave the table for any reason or I will be very angry with you. Do you understand?” The child looked up at him fearfully and nodded. Laine noted that the children were not ordinarily afraid of Jacob, but perhaps whatever act he had committed to gain the custody of this child had filled her with fear. And then he said to Laine, “Let’s go.”

He held the door for her and she preceded him out of the house, walking toward the bridge. She was almost there when he said, “Sister Laine, you really don’t have anything I want anymore. Why don’t you just leave now?”

She slowly turned toward him. “How am I to leave? The gate is locked.”

He gave her a patient smile. “Then I suppose you should find a way. You’ve found other ways. Maybe you left a hole in the fence somewhere. If you can get out, you can run down the road—the police have blocked the road. You can just run to them—they’ll take you in.”

“Jacob, why don’t you just ask them what they want? It can’t be anything so terrible. You always took good care of your family, you always—”

“They’ll take all of this if I let them in,” he said, gesturing around. “And I won’t leave a single thing for them to take! And when they take me down, they’ll be forced to show the world my work. Good work. Thousands of pages of brilliant work inspired by my beliefs.”