Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

In the center of the room were two large rectangular wooden boxes on sawhorses. Made of simple, unstained, unadorned pine, the boxes resembled coffins, and Joan knew instantly that that was exactly what they were. Attendance at funerals had been mandatory when she was a child, but somehow her parents had managed to keep her from that. So she had never actually seen a coffin here before. But she recognized the work, recognized the style, and she thought it was just like Father to lock her up in a room with coffins as part of an effort to intimidate her.

What was she supposed to take from this? That if she did not cooperate she would die?

A new thought occurred to her: maybe there were dead bodies in the boxes. She would not put that past Father, either, and she walked slowly forward to check.

She reached the coffins.

Peered down.

And saw what had happened to her parents.

Bitterweed, Texas, was prettier than its name had led them to expect. Gary had imagined a dusty little town on a flat expanse of dirt, kind of like the one in the movie The Last Picture Show . But it was more like a small town on television: quaint buildings nestled between large, leafy trees, a river running under a bridge on the highway at the beginning of the business district. Old-fashioned streetlamps, two to a block, staved off the darkness and cast the entire community in a warm glow, even now in the wee hours of the morning.

As promised, they stopped by the sheriff’s office first. Gary wouldn’t have expected it to be open at this hour in a town this small, but lights were on as Brian pulled next to the curb in front of the tan brick building. The four of them got out of the car, and Reyn pulled open the glass door. It was unlocked, and a cheap buzzer sounded as they walked inside.

“Is this a police station or a Seven-Eleven?” Brian muttered.

A deputy was sitting behind an old oak desk, playing Tetris on a computer located atop an adjacent cart. He glanced up as they entered and said in a thick Texas accent, “Are you from California?”

Gary looked at his friends. “Yeah,” he said.

“The sheriff wants to see you. Hold on, I’ll find out if he’s awake.” The deputy disappeared through an open doorway into a hallway that led to the rear of the building. “Come on back!” he called seconds later. Glancing silently at one another, Gary and his friends walked around the desk and down the hall to where the deputy stood outside an office, motioning for them to enter.

Sheriff Stewart was as far from the stereotype of a small-town Texas sheriff as it was possible to get. Rather than a corpulent redneck in mirrored shades, he was a slender black man with a soul patch beneath his lower lip. He’d obviously been dozing on the worn couch that sat against one wall of his office, and he yawned as they walked in. “Sorry,” he said, and he had no Texas accent at all. “Not much happens here after the bars close, and I was just getting in a little dreamtime before the morning rush.” He held out a hand. “I’m Antwon Stewart, sheriff of Camino County. My associate here is Taylor Lee Hubbard, the best deputy on the planet Earth.”

The four of them shook hands and introduced themselves. Though there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the station, the sheriff indicated to the deputy that he should close the door, and he did so, standing with the rest of them in front of the sheriff.

“I understand that you think one of your friends has been kidnapped by the Homesteaders,” Stewart said.

“My girlfriend. Joan Daniels,” Gary answered. “And I don’t think so; I know so. We captured two of them who’d been sent after me, and they told us where she was. That’s why we’re here.”

“And you were kidnapped by the cult before and escaped?”

Gary nodded.

“That’s rare,” the deputy said.

“What happened?” the sheriff asked. “Your detective didn’t give me too many details.”

Gary explained how he’d been abducted from his dorm room, drugged, and taken to a farmhouse in New Mexico. He described how, after spending a day there shackled to the floor, he’d escaped following a car crash, and revealed his suspicion that the De Baca sheriff was one of them .

Stewart looked over at his deputy before turning back toward Gary. “Would you be willing to testify that the Homesteaders were the ones who did this to you?”

“Hell, yeah!” Brian answered for him.

Gary nodded.

The sheriff smiled. “That would help us out a lot.”

“Does that mean that now you can go in there and rescue Joan?” Stacy asked.

Stewart sighed. “It’s not that easy. I don’t know how much you know about the Homesteaders, but they’re a cult. They brainwash people. It’s virtually impossible for us to get anyone to testify against them or go on record in any way, shape or form.”

“They’re scared,” the deputy said.

The sheriff nodded. “Even the ones who have escaped, who know things, who’ve seen things, are afraid. As you found out, these sons of bitches have a long reach. And right now, we’re not allowed to even look in their direction, thanks to a court order.”

“That they bought,” the deputy added.

“They have some pull in these parts,” Stewart admitted.

“Well, we’re going over there and getting Joan,” Gary said. “Even if we have to tear that place down.”

“We don’t condone what you’re doing,” the sheriff said. “In fact, we aren’t even aware that you’re doing it. But if you get into trouble and need help, it’s possible that we might be nearby.”

“With enough men to storm those gates in sixty seconds flat,” the deputy offered.

“Thank you,” Stacy told them.

Stewart sat down behind his desk. “Just do us a favor. Wait until morning.”

Gary started to object, but the sheriff said, “It’s only another hour or so. Besides, it’s dark now; you’ll be at a disadvantage. And while I have a man out in… that general vicinity right now, I won’t have my full shift coming on duty until seven.”

“We’ll wait,” Stacy promised.

Gary looked at her.

“Come on. We need every advantage we can get. Besides, we still don’t even have a plan.”

“What do we do until then?” Brian wondered.

“We have a break room,” the deputy said. “There’s coffee, some old cookies, I think. You could just wait there.”

“Tell us more about this cult,” Reyn suggested. “Give us a heads-up on what we should do, what we should be looking for.”

Brian raised his hand. “I have a question. On our way here, we saw these cult guys just walking along the highway. For miles. What’s that about?”

“Penitents,” the sheriff said. “They’re members of the cult who have been sent away to live elsewhere. For punishment. After a certain amount of time, they’re allowed to return. Homesteaders don’t just live here in Bitterweed, in the place they call the Home. This is where they come for training or indoctrination or whatever, and a lot of them do stay, but some of them live in other places, other states.” He gestured toward Gary. “As you found out.”

Gary nodded. “Like the people at that farmhouse.”

“We think they do it on purpose, so we won’t know how many of them there actually are—and so that, even if we raid the Home and capture everyone in it, they’ll still have people free. We don’t even know where these penitents go when they leave Bitterweed. I mean, we’ve followed some of them, and we do know a few locations, here in Texas, but out there… ?” Stewart shook his head.

“Speaking of raids,” Reyn said, “what exactly did you go after them on? And what’s with this harassment case?”