Page 129 of See How They Hide

Riley.

Kara followed her path.

Catherine sensed something was wrong as the four Havenwood residents stayed in the trucks.

The SWAT leader said, “Exit your vehicles with your hands visible. Leave any weapons inside.”

They didn’t move. The lead driver—Anton, Catherine determined—was talking to the passenger, Ginger. Ginger had a daughter. Would she risk leaving her daughter motherless to fight the police? Catherine prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

Then Anton was just talking. On the radio? A cell phone? What was going on?

He drank from a thermos, looked at his watch. What were they waiting for?

“His name is Anton, no known last name,” Catherine told the team leader. “He’s wanted for questioning in a murder investigation. Ginger is the passenger, and she’s wanted for suspicion of attempted murder. I don’t know who the other two people in the second vehicle are.”

The leader shouted, “Anton, Ginger, it’s over. Please step out of the truck, hands visible, no weapons.”

They sat there drinking from their thermos. Back and forth, sharing.

“May I?” she said and took the bullhorn. She set it on the lowest setting, but it still sounded loud. “I’m Catherine Jones. I spoke with Calliope earlier. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. We’re not here to shut down Havenwood. We just want to talk.”

They didn’t respond.

“Do you have the FBI agent in the back of the truck? Can we please discuss this? We can’t have a conversation standing out here in the cold. Let’s go to the ranger station. It’s warm there. We’ll just talk.”

They were talking to each other. Catherine couldn’t see the two in the rear truck, but SWAT would have eyes on them.

The driver’s door opened and Anton stepped out, hands up. Ginger did the same thing.

She sighed in relief.

Her relief was only temporary.

As the two followed orders to turn around and put their hands on their head, Ginger faltered. She fell to the ground. A moment later, Anton stumbled, as well.

Catherine, ignoring the shouts of SWAT to stop, ran over to the fallen couple. They were frothing at the mouth, their skin was splotchy, and their eyes unfocused.

“We need a medic! They’re poisoned.”

They poisoned themselves.

Suicide.

She immediately ran back to the ranger station and got on the radio. “Dean, Dean! Anton and Ginger committed suicide. You have to stop them—I think there’s a mass suicide in progress. Dean!”

There was no answer.

49

Havenwood

Dean could hear everything Kara, then Catherine, said through his earpiece, but he didn’t dare respond.

He and Sloane were standing on the far side of the barn. There was something going on inside, but he couldn’t see what. Michael was headed to the building Riley had identified as the prison.

The valley was open and wide; there were trees all along the eastern edge, and the cabins had been built among them, but here where the barn, warehouse, greenhouse, and storage stood was right in the open.

Mass suicide? Nothing Riley had told them about Havenwood said that they were suicidal. They weren’t a doomsday cult. They weren’t a religious cult. They were a personality cult built on a cooperative lifestyle that saw themselves detached from the outside world. Would that detachment equal a death agreement? Dean didn’t know.

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