Tessa hadn't known Sarah very well; Haven was a growing organization whose members were spread out all over the country, most living quiet, seemingly normal livesat least until they were called into serviceand many of them had never even met one another. But not knowing a fallen comrade, she had discovered, did nothing to lessen the feeling of loss.
One of their own was gone.
That knowledge was too painful to think about unless Tessa could make something meaningful of it. And right now that was all but impossible for her, especially when she was going into the same situation that had cost Sarah her life.
Hollis said, 'Your shield is stronger than Sarah's.'
'You're a telepath now?'
'No. You wouldn't be human if you weren't thinking about it.'
Tessa didn't want to think about it. Instead, she thought about the young church member Bambi's expression of adoration, and that of others she had met. She said slowly, 'They don't seem to be afraid of him. His followers.'
Hollis didn't push it. 'Well, not the ones he sends out in public, anyway.' She shook her head. 'Given the typical profile of a cult leader, there's often some kind of sexual domination and control, but we aren't sure about that with Samuel. For one thing, the church has existed long enough that I would have expected him to have offspring by more than one woman if he was using sex. But as far as we can determine, he's childless.'
'Sterile, maybe?'
'Maybe. Or maybe he genuinely sees himself as a more traditional prophet in the sense of being a holy man, above the needs of the flesh. He's a bit older, somewhere in his mid-forties, and they do call him Father, after all.'
A cold memory stirred in Tessa. 'Didn't Jim Jones's followers call him Father?'
'Yes, as I recall. It's the rule rather than an exception for a cult leader to portray himself as a patriarchal or messianic head of his church. An absolute power structure with a single figure at the top.'
'I think some of the younger church members I've talked to so far would respond strongly to that idea of a protective father image. But the older ones? The ones closer to his own age? How does he hold them? How does he convince them to follow him?'
'More questions we don't have answers for. And we need them. If we have any hope of stopping Samuel, we need information.'
'I know.' Tessa drew a breath and let it out slowly. 'I know.'
It was that sense of urgency rather than any confidence on her part that finally sent Tessa, later on that Wednesday afternoon, several miles outside the very small town of Grace to a nice if deceptively ordinary wrought-iron gate at the end of a short lane off the area's main two-lane highway.
There was what appeared to be a small farmhouse to the left and just inside the surprisingly pretty brick and wrought-iron fencing. Tessa had only a moment or two to wonder if the clearly very sturdy and certainly very expensive fence ran around the entire two-hundred-acre Compound, before she saw a tall man in jeans and a flannel shirt come out of the house and approach the other side of the gate.
The two sides of the gate opened inward as he neared them, giving Tessa an unsettling feeling that wasn't lessened a bit by his casual air
'Good afternoon, Mrs. Gray. Come for a visit?'
Tessa managed to avoid even a glance at the plain gold band on her left hand, its weight still an unfamiliar, slightly uncomfortable sensation. 'Yes. Ruth said' She broke off when he nodded.
'Of course. She'll be waiting for you at the Square. Just continue along the drive all the way to the end. And welcome.'
'Thank you.' Tessa hoped he couldn't see that her fingers were white-knuckled with tension on the steering wheel as she drove through the gates and followed the long asphalt drive that disappeared into a dense-looking forest.
She glanced into the rearview mirror in time to see the big gates slowly closing behind her, and her feeling of being trapped owed nothing to any sense except the very primitive one of self-preservation.
Sawyer Cavenaugh didn't think he'd ever get used to it. In the ten years since the Church of the Everlasting Sin had set up its main parish in Grace, and most especially in the past two years since he'd been chief of police, he had never seen any church member away from the others alone. They always traveled in pairs, or groups of three or four, but never alone.
Except for the guy at the gate, who was always seen alone.
Unless you were a cop, of course, and were perfectly aware of being closely observed from that innocuous little 'farmhouse' a few yards away just inside the fence.
There might be video security. There was certainly someone watching from behind at least one of those mirrorlike windows. Maybe armedthough Sawyer had never once seen any evidence, any sign whatsoever, of guns anywhere in the Compound.
And he had looked. Hard.
'Good afternoon, Chief Cavenaugh. What can we do for you today?'
'Afternoon, Carl.' Sawyer smiled a smile every bit as polite and false as the one being smiled at him. 'I called ahead and spoke to DeMarco. We're expected.' He knew damn well that Carl Fisk
He always knew, and they always played this little game anyway.
'Ah, of course. Officer Keever.'
'Mr. Fisk.' Robin's voice was entirely formal and professional; she wasn't one to make the same mistake twice.
Fisk kept his meaningless smile in place as he stepped back and gestured. 'I'm sure you know the way. Mr. DeMarco will meet you at the church, as usual.'
Sawyer nodded and drove the Jeep through the open gate.
'I don't like that guy,' Robin announced in a decided tone. 'He smiles too much.'
'You read Shakespeare?'
'That one may smile and be a villain? Yeah.'
'Smart guy, that Shakespeare. And a gifted observer.'
'You don't like Fisk either.'
Sawyer smiled faintly. 'Now, did I say that?'
'Yes.' Robin followed up that defiant statement with a far more hesitant 'Didn't you?'
'As a matter of fact, I did.' He didn't wait for her response but slowed the Jeep slightly as it entered the forest and disappeared from the view of anyone near the front gate. Then he said, 'I don't want to stop, because they time you from the gate, but take a look around and tell me if you notice anything out of the ordinary.'
Robin obediently looked out the Jeep's window at the forest through which they passed. 'They time you from the gate?'
'Always. See anything?'
'Well no. Just woods.'
'They've planted a lot of holly bushes all through here,' Sawyer told her. 'Big ones. Good natural barriers if you don't want visitors. This time of year, plenty of birds count on the holly berries for food. See the bushes?'
'Yeah.'
'See any birds?'
'No,' she replied slowly.
'There were birds in town,' he said. 'I took special notice of them. But the farther out we came, the closer we
