Grounds To Believe

“What listing, please?”

“The sheriff. And could you put me through to the number?”

“That will be a dollar twenty-five, please.”

Miriam put the quarters in the phone, and the number rang through.

“Inish County Sheriff’s Department.”

“I’m looking for a deputy named Ross Malcolm. Could you transfer me, please?” The formal language, the politeness, felt stilted on her tongue.

The woman rang her through, and Miriam dared to feel a little hope threaded through the mass of her built-up distrust and fear.

“Human Resources.”

“I’m looking for a deputy named Ross Malcolm who works there.”

A clicking sound rattled in the background. “The only person by that name who’s worked here since I’ve been here transferred up to Seattle several years ago.”

The flicker of hope died. Seattle was on the other side of the state. At the ends of the earth.

“Did he go to a sheriff’s department there?” she asked faintly.

“Nope. Seattle P.D. Anything else I can help you with?”

“No.” Dispensing with politeness, Miriam hung up the pay phone a little harder than she had to.

Seattle. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack. It would be less trouble to take the girl back with her. She was small, but even the little ones paid their way. She might make a good shill. God knew those eyes had made Miriam herself act completely out of character.

Had forced her to make a promise she no longer wanted to keep.

Rita Ulstad had agreed to meet Ross near a drooping Japanese maple on the hospital grounds. In front of them was the parking lot, scattered with cars. Ross turned as the petite nurse slid onto the bench beside him.

“Ms. Ulstad?”

Her face was so immaculately made up she could have passed for thirty. Fashionably mussed, her hair was tinted taffy-blond. “Call me Rita.” She looked him up and down. “You’re Ross Malcolm? The cop?”

He crossed his denim-clad legs, and his heavy riding boots sank into the lawn. “A lot of my work takes me undercover.”

“Wow. I guess I’ve never met anyone in plainclothes before.”

“I clean up when I have to.” He smiled at her. “Harry Everett says you can tell me about Ryan Blanchard.”

“Whatever you need to know. I’m past the point of professional discretion here. All I want is to see justice done and those people exposed for who they are.”

“Okay…who are ‘those people’?”

“The Blanchards? Or the Elect in general?”

“Start with the big picture and work in. What’s your history with this group? What are they called—the Elect?”

“As in ‘Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect.’ I don’t know how much you know about the Bible, but they use that verse as a recipe for justifying just about anything, let me tell you. Anyway, to get back to your question, I grew up in it. Spent thirty years in Gathering, three to four times a week. It’s mind control, plain and simple.” The waving leaves of the Japanese maple flicked shadows across the baby-fine wrinkles in her skin. “They’re a cult. They tossed me out because I fell in love with someone they thought was unsuitable. It was that or give him up and spend the rest of my life in my correct but miserable marriage. There is no freedom of choice in the Elect, Ross. No second chances. You follow the rules or lose everything.”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“Friends, family, community support, everything that’s important.”

“Did they abuse you?”

She gave him a look hardened by resentment into implacability. “The worst kind of abuse is to deny another person their freedom.”

Ross thought about that for a moment, about the haunted eyes of all those little kids. The real root of all evil. “How well do you know the Blanchards?”

“Ryan’s dad, Owen, is an Elder so he’s well educated in mind control. The famous Blanchard charm is just a front. The whole town thinks Jesus has already come back, and is alive and well at Hamilton High.” Bitterness crackled in her tone.

“He’s the principal there, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t the Outsider parents have a problem with that?”

“Oh, I’m not saying he’s a bad administrator. He’s too smart to bring his beliefs to work in an obvious way. But he’s not the one I came to talk to you about. His son is.”

“What about him?”

“That child is four years old. He’s been admitted no fewer than twenty-five times. Had three major surgeries. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“It strikes me as hard on him and his family.” Ross tried to imagine sitting in a hospital waiting room twenty-five times, wondering over and over if your child would survive. A chill ran over his skin. The maple leaves rustled behind him. “What’s the matter with him?”

“That’s the problem. Nothing conclusive. He has seizures where he chucks up everything in his stomach. Sometimes he’s lethargic and unresponsive afterwards, sometimes not. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. We’ve thought it was some kind of massive gastric infection, but it can’t be pinned down with tests. Whatever he’s got, it won’t be diagnosed.” She paused for breath, and the angry color faded from her cheeks. “And now here he is again, back on the ward. Something isn’t right. I’ve tried to talk to Michael Archer but he’s one of them. His loyalty is to Blanchard and no one else. I took it to the head of my department here and got the door closed in my face. As soon as you bring religion in, no one will touch it. They think I’m nuts and Archer is in the right. So now I’m taking it to you.”

The hospital brass thought Rita Ulstad’s concerns were nothing but sour grapes and a desire for attention. Well, Harry had warned him. Her attitude toward the Elect colored her information—maybe even twisted it. Where did that leave his investigation? Or the well-being of the little kid?

A group of people emerged from the cafeteria door and walked toward the parking lot.

“Oh, no.” Rita Ulstad swung to face him, bracing an elbow on the back of the bench to put a hand to her face as a shield. “It’s them. The Blanchards, visiting the boy. They’re going to walk right behind us. Don’t let them see my face.”

All he needed was for the targets to see him with someone they didn’t trust. He should have anticipated that they’d be visiting the kid and insisted on a meeting away from the hospital. Ross slid over and put an arm along the back of the bench, bending close to give the appearance of a tête-à-tête. He peered cautiously over Rita’s shoulder.

Two young women bracketed a tall blond man. An older couple, the woman as well-upholstered as a pouter pigeon and the man so conservatively dressed he practically disappeared, followed them. The redhead on the blond man’s left was likely the mother. She was crying, holding a tissue to her face with both hands. All of the women were dressed in unrelieved black, right down to their stockings and shoes, as though they had just come from a funeral. The men’s shirts, at least, were white, but their ties were black, and devoid of anything so frivolous as a pattern.

“Julia, not so loud,” the pigeon said, tapping the redhead on the shoulder with two stiffly curled fingers. “Showing so much emotion in public is like saying you don’t accept God’s will. Look at Madeleine. Her resignation shows a lovely spirit.”

“Resignation, my foot,” Rita hissed in his ear, her lips brushing his skin. “She doesn’t deserve those kids.”

“The brunette is the mother?” he whispered. “Not the redhead?”

“Yes. And the harpy is Elizabeth McNeill, their mother. Isn’t she a terror?” Ross and his informant watched the family climb into separate four-door sedans and pull out onto the street. “All that rot about not showing emotion in public.” Rita sounded disgusted. “It’s unnatural.”