Page 37 of Mountain Captive

“I went after her. I told her I was her brother and she owed me more than she owed her so-called friends. I was furious. I told her all those people had done was take her away from her home and family, take her money, and give her nothing in return. She told me I didn’t understand, that the inner peace the Seekers had given her was worth all the money in the world. She said they were her family now and she didn’t need anyone else. Then she left.”

Chris felt sick. “All of that sounds familiar,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing we were all drilled on saying. I never saw it, but my mother said a couple of times families had tracked down their loved ones to one of our camps. The Exalted had people who were trained in how to deal with them to get them to leave.”

“What did they say?”

“What your sister said—that we were that person’s family now and they didn’t need anyone else.”

“I wanted to grab Teri and drag her out of there, but I figured that would only get me arrested for kidnapping. One of the Seekers said if I laid a hand on Aurora that he would call the police. So I let her be. But I kept track of the group as best I could.”

“Not easy to do,” Chris said. “The Vine was expert at packing up in the middle of the night and showing up across the country a week later. Mom was able to find a few people who have family who are members. They sometimes let her know where the group is living at the moment, but even they can’t always keep up.”

“I had a buddy from the military who was a private detective, and he took an interest in the group and did what he could to track them,” Rand said. “He kept me up to date. About six months later I had a meeting in California, not far from the latest Seeker gathering. They weren’t camping this time but were renting, or maybe squatting, in an old hotel. The place was a dump, with a leaking roof, water damage to the walls and no electricity. I couldn’t see that they had done any work on it, except to erect a large brightly painted sign announcing that it was the Atlantis Center for Enlightenment.”

He fell silent. Chris waited, and found herself matching her breathing to his own. When the silence stretched to minutes, she asked, “Your sister was there?”

“She was. I played it cool this time. I gave a fake name at the door and said I was interested in learning about Atlantis. I was taken to a room, and three disciples entered. They were dressed in jeans and T-shirts and looked very normal. They asked me a lot of questions about how I had found out about them, what I was seeking, et cetera. I gave vague answers, and they seemed pretty suspicious at first, but after I said I had inherited a lot of money from my grandfather and was looking for a worthy group that would benefit from the cash, their demeanor changed. They invited me to have dinner with them that evening.

“Teri was there. She was one of the women who were serving the food. I guess they probably cooked it too. She didn’t look any better than the last time I had seen her, and when she saw me, she dropped a platter of vegetables and ran from the room. I almost turned over a chair going after her. I cornered her in an upstairs bedroom and begged her to leave with me. She just cried and shook her head and said she couldn’t.

“I told her I wasn’t leaving without her. One of the men threatened to call the police, and I told him to do it—that I had plenty of proof there were people there being held against their will. That was a bluff, but it worked. They backed off.”

Chris could see it all in her mind, from his frightened sister to the threatening Seekers—and Rand caught in the middle but determined to win. “What happened?” she asked.

“I took Teri by the hand and led her out of there. She came with me, still crying. I drove four hours away, checked us into a hotel under a fake name, paid cash for the room and ordered pizza. She started crying again when she saw the pizza. She said she hadn’t had any since she had left with the group. I asked her what she had been eating, and she said they had a special diet of only natural foods and they had to fast three days a week. She said that was healthier, and it took everything in me not to point out that she didn’t look healthy.

“After we ate, she fell asleep. She looked exhausted, and I know I was.”

Ominous silence followed. Silence with weight. Chris had trouble breathing. For a long time Rand didn’t say anything, his jaw tight, hands clenched.

“When I woke the next morning, she was gone,” he said finally. “She had run away in the middle of the night. I went back to the abandoned hotel looking for her, but everyone there said they hadn’t seen her. The police couldn’t help me. I lost it at them, and they ended up threatening to arrest me. I stayed in town for a while, watching the group, but I never saw Teri again.”

“But you believe she had returned to the group?” Chris asked.

“I know she did. Three months later, my parents received a phone call from someone with the group, telling them Teri’s body was at the morgue in Bend, Oregon, and they could claim her body if they wanted. They said Teri had killed herself. The coroner said she had slit her wrists. She left a note—a lot of incoherent nonsense about destiny and enlightenment and final bliss.”

Tears stung her eyes—tears for him and for his poor, hurting sister. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“I could have handled it better. I could have forced her to come with me and taken her to a deprogrammer or something.”

“That could have failed too.” She rubbed his arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He let out a shaky breath. “The police in Bend investigated, but they couldn’t find anything suspicious. The group left town and dropped off the radar. The last I heard, they were in South America.”

“I’m so sorry about your sister,” she said. The words seemed so paltry compared to what he had suffered, but she had nothing else to give.

“I haven’t talked about this with anyone for a long time.” He looked at her, his eyes damp but his expression calm. “You’re a good listener.”

She leaned closer, drawn to him, pulled in by the sadness in his eyes and a sense of shared grief. She hadn’t lost a sister but a father, and the chance to grow up without the fear that had dogged her all her life. Her gaze shifted to his lips. She recalled the connection they had shared before, and she wanted that again.

She meant to kiss him gently, but the strength of her longing drove her harder than she had intended. He gripped her shoulders and responded with a gentling pressure of his own. He wanted this, too, his body seemed to say, but he wanted to savor the moment, to linger over the sensation of the two of them together.

She leaned into him, letting him take her weight, his arm wrapped around her. She could definitely get used to this...

She opened her eyes to find him looking at her as if he could see everything. The idea was unnerving, and she pulled away. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“No. Of course not.” She sat up straighter, putting a little distance between them. “I really like you. A lot. But I’m not ready to take things any further.”

“I respect that,” he said. “No pressure. I want you to feel safe here.”

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