White Heat

They stared at each other in a virtual standoff. She wasn’t sure what to do about this, but she wouldn’t let him manipulate her into causing trouble inside the company. That would only convince everyone that she was as whiny and hard to please as the guys were afraid a female would be. “I’m not quitting. Or getting myself fired,” she said.

He cursed under his breath, but she ignored it.

“So where are we going exactly? Paradise must be south of Flagstaff if—”

“It’s in the southeast corner of the state, not far from the Mexico and New Mexico borders. Used to be a ghost town. Until Wycliff decided to revive it, there weren’t more than a handful of people living in the area.”

“Are those people still around?” Or did they leave when the Covenanters moved in the way she wanted to flee at any mention of prophecy, scriptures or the end of the world?

“For the most part, he either converted them or bought them out.”

She wiped damp palms on her jeans. She was the only female operative at Department 6 with any field experience. That was why Milt had chosen her. They were just beginning to hire women. But who said this assignment required a woman or even a couple? Maybe Nate could go in alone. “Where’s Ethan getting the funds to buy land and build a town?” she asked, stalling.

“Like any cult leader, he requires converts to forfeit all their wealth for the greater good. And he makes everyone work. They sell cheese, for one thing. He also has other resources.”

“Like…”

“A trust fund.”

She sat up straighter. Now Ethan’s suit and polish made sense. Apparently, he hadn’t attended Cornell on student loans. “He comes from money?”

“You could say that. His father is Robert Wycliff.”

The name meant nothing to her. “It’s not as if you said Bill Gates. Who’s Robert Wycliff?”

“The owner of the eighth-largest engineering firm in the country. Gets big government contracts, makes the Forbes list every year.”

She whistled. “I see. So…who wants to know what little Ethan is up to? The government? Or Daddy?”

“If you heard your son was amassing weapons and explosives, and you knew he once had a relationship with Charles Manson, wouldn’t you be concerned enough to find out what’s going on? Mr. Wycliff doesn’t want anyone hurt. And he’d rather not see his only child in prison.”

“He has to have a security contractor? Wouldn’t a PI work just as well?”

“He tried that. Ethan’s group is isolated and very cliquish. The PI he hired couldn’t get close enough. And because of the potential danger, Wycliff senior wanted people who could defend themselves—and others—if necessary.”

She wondered if part of Robert’s concern stemmed from a desire to protect his family name. It would certainly be a consideration for her own father. He was forever asking her to make him proud. She’d just never been able to do it. “How’d he lose track of junior in the first place?”

“He said there’s always been something different about Ethan. Their relationship was strained almost from the beginning, but it’s gotten worse with time. They’ve been completely estranged for more than a decade. Ethan dropped out of college, wouldn’t work, never applied himself. Robert says he did what he could to turn his son into a productive individual. I get the impression he would’ve done more if Ethan’s mother hadn’t stood in his way. She insisted their son was fine, that he just needed to be himself and live his own life.”

“Classic denial,” she said, but she was intrigued in spite of herself. “So Robert backed off?”

“He immersed himself in his work and let her deal with Sonny, until Ethan started to preach in their neighborhood and town. They finally drew the line, so he left to take his followers to a place where they’d be ‘unmolested.’ Robert was confident he wouldn’t be able to make it work. He thought Ethan would eventually be forced to come home, hoped he’d quit with all the oddness and be the son they wanted him to be.”

“That didn’t happen.”

“No. For months, they had no idea where he’d gone—until an assistant Robert hired to follow the money flowing from Ethan’s trust fund sent a clipping from a Tucson newspaper. It was an article about the Church of the Covenant taking over Paradise.”

She opened the file and flipped through photocopies of several letters, all written in the blocky print so typical of males. But because she figured there might be a chance to duck this assignment, she closed the file without bothering to read them. “Are the Wycliffs aware of the woman who claims she was stoned at their son’s command?”

“I can’t speak for Valerie. Robert is. The PI he used could tell him that much. But Robert’s also aware that the police have visited Paradise and found nothing to substantiate Martha’s claims.”

“So he’s still hoping for the best.”

“Yes.”

Rachel tucked her long hair behind her ears. “What did Martha’s husband have to say to the authorities?”

“His name’s Todd. He said the same thing Ethan did. That she wanted to watch the children instead of work in the cheese factory and became more and more unhappy when she was denied. He told the police he was disappointed in her, that she wasn’t worthy of enlightenment if she could become disaffected so easily and make up such terrible lies.”

“She had to sustain those injuries somehow,” Rachel mused.

“No one in the compound seems to know anything about how she might’ve been hurt. And unless someone’s willing to talk, there’s not a whole lot the police can do.”

A growing sense of injustice, the kind that had fueled her desire to get involved in undercover work, began to percolate in Rachel’s blood. Society had to take a stand before these cancers grew out of control. And she was willing to be part of the solution. At least in this fight she wouldn’t have to hold anything back, the opposite of what she’d experienced with her father. That call to duty tempted her. She wanted to infiltrate the Covenanters and seek justice for the woman who’d been stoned, put an end to Ethan’s reign of terror—if that was indeed what it was. But she couldn’t do this assignment pretending to be Nathan’s wife. There was too much residual emotion between them. “Why do we need two people on this?”

His eyelids lowered. “If you don’t want to do it, you should talk to Milt.”

Of course. They were back where he’d been trying to lead her all along. “Why bother? You’ve already tried, haven’t you?”

He didn’t respond.

“I’ll take that as a yes. What did he say?”

Stretching out his legs, he crossed them at the ankles. “He said Ethan likes women. Pretty women. He said you’re the bait that’ll get us both in.”

Here was the difference between Milt and Nate, Rachel thought. Milt would send his own wife undercover if there was something to be gained by it. But it was Nate’s job to make sure everyone remained safe, which was why he wasn’t thrilled when Milt began using women in the field. He came from a conservative family where he’d been taught to protect “the fairer sex.” And his SEAL training supported his upbringing.

“That’s a pretty unequivocal no,” she said.

Nate’s eyes nearly drilled holes into her. “You could always quit. Someone as qualified as you would have no trouble getting back on the police force.”

And lose her house to the bank? No, thank you.

She leaned forward to prove she wasn’t intimidated by him. “Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s my life and I’d rather get paid well for the risks I take.” She also liked having a clearly defined target for the legacy of anger her father had left her, and she had more latitude working for Department 6. “If you’re afraid you can’t effectively manage me or Angelina or any other woman Milt might hire, maybe you should be the one considering a career change.”

Silence. He definitely wasn’t happy with her challenge.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said when he’d let her squirm long enough.

He wasn’t leaving, and it came as no surprise. As Milt’s first operative, Nate had all but built Department 6 into what it was. Rachel couldn’t see him moving on anytime soon.

“Then we’re stuck. But you don’t need to worry about me, so spare yourself the headache.”

When he simply stared at her, she sat back. Glaring at each other wasn’t going to help. “What names will we use in Paradise?”

A muscle flexed in his cheek, but he revealed no other outward sign of anger or dissatisfaction. “We’ll keep our first names. Our last will be Mott.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Mott.”

“That’s right.”

Still intent on creating a situation more to her liking, she blew out a sigh. “We don’t have to say we’re married, you know. We could go in as brother and sister.”

“That wouldn’t allow us to share a room. I need to be close. Just in case.”

Close was precisely what she wanted to avoid. Close would bring turmoil. “Just in case…what?” He hadn’t been there to protect her on the last drug job. No man had. And she’d done fine.

“Just in case,” he repeated.

Obviously, she wasn’t going to get a better answer. “How long have we been married?”

He shoved a manila folder at her. “Here are the details Milt’s provided so far.”

Grabbing both files, she put them in her leather satchel and got to her feet. “The Arizona desert in the middle of July. White heat. Sounds great. When do we head out?”

His eyes glittered with frustration. “First thing tomorrow.”

Rachel felt some of the determination drain out of her. “That soon?” Usually they had a few days to gather facts, get into character, make travel arrangements. Milt established the infrastructure and provided what he could to support their covers—like fake ID and other documentation—but they had the freedom to add the finishing touches themselves.

“Robert Wycliff has offered a hefty bonus if we make quick work of it. Milt knows he’s already late on this one.”

And far be it from Milt to let any consideration outweigh money. “I see.”

Nate collected the remainder of the documents he’d brought into the room. “I’ll pick you up bright and early. Six sharp.”

At five foot seven inches and one hundred and twenty-five pounds, she felt dwarfed as he stood. It was all she could do not to keep her mind from flashing back to how the difference in their sizes translated horizontally. “We driving or flying?”

“Driving. It’s a good ten hours from L.A., but having a rental car in such a remote area will be too conspicuous. I figure we’ll want a vehicle that’s broken in, one that doesn’t scream Hertz.”

“Your truck?”

“My truck.”

The very mention of it evoked the scent of engine grease and pine air freshener. It also brought back her acute sense of shame when he’d curtly explained that she’d assumed too much and took her home the morning after their night together.

“I’ll be ready.” With a mock salute, she started out of the room, but he called her back.

“I almost forgot.” He skirted the table to hand her a small, crushed-velvet box he’d pulled from the front pocket of his jeans.

Rachel didn’t need to open it to know what was inside. As much as she told herself she’d learned her lesson, she still sometimes dreamed of getting a ring from him.

But not in any of those dreams had it happened like this.

Without even looking inside the box, she dropped it in her satchel.

“Don’t you think you should see if it fits? You’ll have to wear it tomorrow.”

Feeling as though a vise was squeezing her chest, she dug out the box and peered inside.

The diamond was tiny, the band plain. A similar ring could’ve been bought at any number of stores for around five hundred dollars, even less at a pawn shop. But she would’ve been happy to receive a plastic ring from a gum-ball machine, if only it held any of the usual symbolism.

“Well?” he asked.

She took it out and slid it easily onto her finger. The fit was loose but with a little tape she could fix that. “This is the best you can do?” she said with a grimace as if she hated the ring as much as the thought of wearing it.

He gave her a grin that wasn’t meant to be sexy but managed to look that way. “What can you expect from a lowly cement contractor?”

She supposed his cover would have to involve a job that required manual labor. How else would he explain all those muscles? “Can you actually pour cement?”

“I can do anything,” he said.

She knew he was teasing but, from what she’d seen, that was true.

2

According to the dossier Milt had created, they’d start this job by moving into a mobile home in Portal, Arizona, a small town five miles east of Paradise. Not only would Rachel keep her first name, she’d keep her age—twenty-eight. But that was about it. Under her assumed identity—Rachel Mott—she came from Utah instead of California. She had four siblings living in and around Salt Lake City. She’d married Nate three years ago, after meeting him at a Jazz game.

There was a little more—her schooling, her previous job at a child-care facility, information about their families and backgrounds. But as Rachel studied the dossier, she felt her anxiety increase. Going undercover with Nate would be even more difficult than she’d thought. How would they pull it off? There were details husbands and wives knew about each other, intimacies shared, that couldn’t be faked. And what about body language? Ever since the night she’d surprised him in his bed, Nate had been careful not to come within three feet of her.

“Crap.” Finding the remote on her nightstand, she muted the television and sat in silence for several seconds. Should she call him? See if she could convince him to postpone the trip for a day or two? With more time, maybe they could talk Milt into letting her infiltrate Ethan’s cult on her own.

If she didn’t make her argument now, Nate would be at her door, packed and ready to go, in six hours.

“I’ve got to try.” Safety was a concern Nate would listen to. He always looked out for his team. It wasn’t just his SEAL training; it was part of his makeup. He’d fight Milt on those grounds if no other.

Feeling a fresh burst of confidence, she reached for the phone and dialed his number.

He answered on the first ring.

“He won’t let us off the hook,” he said. “And I’m sleeping. Don’t bother me again.”

He didn’t sound as if she’d awakened him. His voice wasn’t the least bit gravelly. But the click and subsequent dial tone told her he’d said all he was going to say on the subject.

Angry that he’d known the reason for her call before she could even say a word, she slammed the phone down and went back to the dossier. “This won’t work,” she mumbled. For instance, she might say that her brother was gay and he might call the same brother a womanizer. What then? There was no way they could script every detail ahead of time. Going undercover was all about ad-libbing. Trying to do this together could make it unravel. And Ethan was a dangerous man. Those letters to Manson confirmed it.

Rachel glanced at the stack she’d set to one side. The hero worship exhibited in Ethan’s earlier writing gave her chills. Had he really admired a man who’d used others, mostly women—except for Tex Watson—to brutally murder seven people? A lot of psychopaths admired killers because they themselves fantasized about committing the same kinds of acts. Was Ethan capable of such heinous crimes?

Putting the dossier on her nightstand, along with her fake ID, which had been tucked inside it, she picked up the letters and read them again. They were more than a decade old. She had no way of knowing if they still reflected Ethan’s thoughts and attitudes, but they gave her a glimpse into the psyche of the man he’d once been. He talked about Spahn Ranch, where Manson had lived when he ordered the murders. He compared it to a place he’d find for his own “spiritual family,” a place where he could “operate beneath the awareness of the outside world.” Except for one letter, he ignored Manson’s fascination with the Beatles and their music, but he quoted several of Manson’s favorite verses from the Book of Revelation 9:2, 3.

And he opened the bottomless pit…. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

“I have this power,” Ethan wrote. “I can feel it taking root in me. I can make scorpions of locusts. What would you have me do?”

Wishing she had Manson’s reply, she flipped to another letter, this one dated August 4, 1998. Here, Ethan began by thanking Manson for his latest response and quoting Revelation 9:4.

And it was commanded [that the locusts] should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.

“I have the mark,” Ethan informed Manson. “My people will freely take it upon themselves. They will be God’s avengers against the wicked. They will avenge you.”

That was where the brand came in, Rachel mused. He went on to quote verse 17.

And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth, and brimstone: and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

“You will be free,” Ethan promised Manson. “I will make you free.” He’d closed that particular letter by quoting one last verse.

And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.

“You have passed that key to me.”

“‘You have passed that key to me,’” Rachel repeated. What did he mean by that? Did he feel as if he was taking over where Manson had left off?

That was a terrifying thought….

She chewed anxiously on her lip as she read the only letter in the pile that had been written by Manson.

“You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody’s crazy. And you’re crazier than them all.”

Some sort of drink had been spilled on the bottom half, making the rest impossible to read. That was disappointing, especially because Ethan’s next letter revealed growing frustration. It seemed to be in response to Manson’s rebuke, or maybe there’d been a letter or two in between; the dates were three months apart. The gist of what he’d written suggested that Manson wasn’t living up to his prophet status, wasn’t guiding young Ethan as he wanted to be guided. Ethan was getting angry.

“You and all those Beatles songs, man. What was with that? What did the Beatles have to do with God? You’re full of shit, you know? Yellow Submarine, my ass. Where were you when Helter Skelter started? Safe at the ranch.”

Did that mean Ethan would be a different kind of leader? One who actively participated instead of watching from afar?

“The only thing you had right were the women. The women are where it’s at.”

Twisting her new wedding ring around her finger, Rachel read that line for the third time. Ethan had a fascination with women, probably because he felt more capable of bending them to his will. His mother had defended him and protected him against his father’s criticism, hadn’t she? Maybe he thought he could manipulate all women as easily as he’d manipulated his mother.

That was why she should do this job by herself. She had a better chance of appearing pliable without a hulking male at her side. And once she gained Ethan’s trust, it’d all be over. She’d bust him like she had so many drug dealers, shut him down as quickly as possible, so none of the other women in his commune would suffer as Martha Wilson had suffered.

She could imagine victory, but the satisfying image dissipated as the clock on the wall continued to tick. Five hours and counting…

It was too late to fight Milt’s insistence that Nate go with her.

In this part of the desert, night was nearly as hot as day. And the air hung heavy. There wasn’t so much as a slight breeze or a rustle—just the scrape of Bartholomew’s shovel. His efforts, sounding abnormally loud because of the silence and the rockiness of the soil, made him wince with each scoop. A tent filled with his fellow Covenanters stood only a few yards away. If someone woke and heard him, came to investigate, he’d have an even bigger problem on his hands….

But he wasn’t accustomed to this type of labor, and at forty-seven he was no longer young. Digging strained his back and made his arms feel so weak he could hardly keep going.

Taking a break to conserve his strength and catch his breath, he leaned on the shovel and gazed toward the little cemetery on the hill, half a mile or so away. It’d been established when Paradise was built as a mining town back in the early 1900s and it still had some of the old headstones jutting out of the bare soil beneath a paloverde tree. Thanks to a bright moon, Bart could almost make out the largest one. Except for the fact that the ground would be even harder, he wished he could dig this grave out there.

But burying Courtney Sinclair beyond the fence that encircled the commune wasn’t safe. It would be much more difficult to keep track of who came and went. What if someone noticed the disturbed earth and told Courtney’s parents? They’d already come to Paradise several times, looking for their daughter. Ethan had covered well, but Bartholomew had a feeling the situation was far from over. The Sinclairs weren’t going to give up and go away. Maybe Courtney claimed to have been unloved, that her parents were the worst parents ever, but her mother, at least, seemed quite devoted.

That just went to show that the girl didn’t have a clue about people. She was—had been, Bartholomew corrected as he glanced with distaste at the limp figure wrapped in a blanket at his feet—barely seventeen.

But he’d tried to warn her. She wouldn’t listen. The Sinclairs no doubt had the same problem with her. The black lipstick, fingernails and clothing, the earrings lining the rim of each ear and the metal rod through her nose—they all designated her as a rebel. And the scars from the cutting she’d done on her arms took it to a rather desperate level. She’d been deeply unhappy, hadn’t acclimated when her family moved from Texas. A lot of children, forced to take a backseat to a step-parent, resented it. Bart had been raised with a step-father himself, knew what it felt like to deserve more yet receive less. But he’d left that old identity behind. There was no more Francis Williams. He was simply Bartholomew now. An apostle to the Holy One.

Courtney had been offered a home in Paradise. She could still be here, as alive as he was, if only she’d played by the rules.

A light went on in the Enlightenment Hall where he lived with the Holy One. Twisting around, he stared up at it. Was Ethan worried? Was he frightened by what had occurred with Martha and then Courtney?

He hoped not. Ethan needed to remain stable or they’d both lose everything.

Drawing his exhaustion and concern inside himself, he returned to his digging.

3

Ethan paced inside his room. The Brethren were still meeting in the pit. He’d put in an appearance earlier, but he’d been too anxious to stay long. Watching them argue wasn’t any fun. It made him feel as if this was the beginning of the end of everything he’d created. Were they right? Was the paradise he’d built about to come tumbling down? With all the bad publicity, it felt that way. The rest of the world seemed to be pressing closer, crowding him, banging at the gates. The Brethren, the twelve he’d designated as Spiritual Guides for his people, had tried to tell him that a local girl going missing on the heels of what Martha had told the press wouldn’t be good. But he hadn’t listened. Sometimes he felt as though he could get away with anything. Other times…

What had he been thinking? Of course they’d been right! The attention his actions had drawn would only hasten the confrontation he’d been preparing for from the start. That was what the Guides were discussing now. They were hashing out plans for the final battle. But had it really come to that?