Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake)(69)

Gone.



I sit with my head in my hands for a while and just let the magnitude of this roll through me. There’s absolutely no guarantee that this RV is stopping anywhere in Tennessee. It could be heading farther north, into another state. It could already have disappeared completely.

I call Mike Lustig, and I sound calm when I tell him what I’ve learned. He promises that he’ll feed the info back through the Tennessee law enforcement channels, and then he pauses. “How you doing, Gwen?”

“Not great,” I tell him. “At all. I don’t know what—what to do. I can’t just—”

“Yes, you can. Until we know where to find them, there’s not a hell of a lot that can happen. You know this.”

“Yeah,” I say. I don’t believe it. “Do you have anything at all on this Assembly of Saints? Or All Saints International?”

Lustig asks the logical question about why I’d ask, and I tell him my suspicions. He considers that in silence a moment. “Got to ask the question: Why would they hire you to find a guy they kidnapped themselves?”

“Because they knew my poking around would flush Carol out of hiding, if she was still around. I made it possible for them to get a shot at her.” I swallow hard. “But it won’t work again. She’ll cut off contact with the pastor and drop completely out of sight, if she’s smart. She’ll get the hell out of this state—”

“Why didn’t she?” Lustig asks. It stops me cold. “You found her in Knoxville. Doesn’t that strike you as odd, if she really wanted to get free? She could have been in Hawaii by now. Or Estonia.”

He’s right. I just assumed she didn’t have the resources, but now that I’ve met her, that seems even less likely. Carol—or whatever her real name is—could manipulate her way in life, cash or not. There has to be a reason why she stayed.

It comes to me in a wave of anger that I’ve been stupid. I’ve got no excuse except that I’m tired and distracted and terrified for those I love. I should have nailed this the second the man who kidnapped my son told me he was looking for Carol and the child.

Two possibilities: either Carol escaped with a young child from the cult, or Carol ran from the cult because she was pregnant. Either way, she stays in Knoxville because she wants to see that child, even if she can’t keep it with her. It makes sense now why the pastor was so committed to protecting her; he was also protecting someone more vulnerable.

I need to apologize to that man someday. “I have to go,” I tell Lustig. “Any possibility you can use some kind of surveillance system to locate that RV? Satellites? Anything?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “Gwen? You stay put. Don’t do anything stupid. Promise me.”

“I promise,” I say. I’m lying, of course. But Agent Lustig and I have a guarded relationship, at best; we’re friends because of Sam, and it ends there. If Lustig could find evidence against me, even the thinnest, to tie me to Melvin’s crimes, he’d show up with a warrant as fast as if he’d teleported. He doesn’t think I’m good for Sam.

Fair enough.

I end the call and think about leaving. Lilah, who’s sitting in her rocker across the room, looks up. She has been knitting steadily, and doesn’t stop now. The rhythmic clicking of her needles sounds like claws on a window. I suppose it should be comforting.

“Wait until morning,” she says. “You’re bone tired, and those girls are too. One more night won’t hurt. You’re safe here. Can’t guarantee what will be outside our fence.”

I immediately wonder what ulterior motive she has, and maybe that’s unfair; the Belldenes have been straightforward enough about their motives so far. Maybe in this, Lilah’s being a mother and a grandmother.

I don’t imagine it’ll last past sunrise.

“Thank you,” I tell her. I feel dispirited and horribly lost. I can’t sleep, I can’t rest, I can’t think. My son is gone. I’ve tasted this bitterness before, but never quite this deeply. It’s the uncertainty that kills hope. “I need to use my computer. That all right?”

“Surely,” she says. “As long as you don’t need our Wi-Fi password. I ain’t sharing that.”

I don’t need that. I use my cell phone to provide the signal and yoke my computer to it, and I’m online in under a minute.

I start with the Catoosa Wildlife Management Area. It’s wild and more than a little desolate. I zoom out. There are far too many possibilities, too many directions, too many backwoods small communities, towns, farms. From satellite, a cult compound looks a lot like any other place. And lots of rural people have trailers and RVs.

I search the internet for most of the rest of the two hours that remain until sunrise, but I don’t come up with much. There is almost nothing on the Assembly of Saints except for a passing reference to a long-expired church in the northwest, an entirely different group. The only mobile groups I can find seem to be Romany travelers or groups of elderly retirees with a yen to see the country on the open road.

“Ms. Proctor?”

I blink and look up. Vee Crockett is standing in front of me. She’s wearing a frilly white cotton nightgown that’s too small for her, and the long sleeves barely cover her to the elbows. She sinks down on the sofa beside me.