Chapter 23

chapter

twenty-three

"Of all the crazy,fucked up things this group has done, you and Cal joining a fucking cult takes the cake." Ash fumed as he paced the command center at Redwood Coast Rescue. On a good day, his personality was like a storm cloud, but now he'd exploded into a thunderhead.

Ellie couldn't blame him for his anger. What they'd done had been stupid and reckless, and it may cost Cal and Pierce their lives.

Cal.

Her throat closed up, and tears she couldn't control spilled down her cheeks. She ripped her glasses off and pressed her hands to her eyes. She hated that she was crying. She wanted to be strong and capable like Alexis.

God, she wished her sister were here, but Alexis and Shane were off the grid for their honeymoon and wouldn't return for a few more days. And even if Ellie could get a hold of them, she wouldn't. After everything they'd been through, they deserved to enjoy their time together without more drama.

"Ash, enough." Anna's tone was reprimanding. She scowled at her brother as she finished brewing a mug of tea, then crossed the room to hand it to Ellie. "You're not helping the situation."

He rounded on her. "I told them to stay away from it and let me handle it."

"Well, maybe you should've explained why you wanted them to stay away rather than just ordering them to do it," Rose said lightly. She was lounging on one of the couches along the wall, stroking a hand over the big black German Shepherd beside her. Dante was so very much like Ash. He watched the action play out between the humans with intense, narrowed eyes as if deciding who he needed to bite next.

Ash pointed at his wife. "You stay out of this. I'm still pissed you told them about the commune."

If Rose was bothered by his anger, she didn't show it. "Honey, you're always pissed about something. And they were going to find out one way or another. The fact there's a cult on the mountain isn't exactly a secret around here."

"I didn't know about them," Sawyer chimed in from his seat in front of the computer.

Zak straightened from his lazy sprawl behind his desk, the boot of his prosthetic leg hitting the floor with a hard thunk that made all the dogs in the room perk up. "Yeah, well, no offense, buddy, but you spend most of your time in this room listening to the computer babble at you."

A faint furrow appeared on Sawyer's forehead. He turned back to the computer. "You'd all be lost without me at this computer."

Zak held up his hands. "Hey, I'm not denying it. We need you behind that computer. Have you found out anything useful about this Hopeful guy yet?"

"Still digging," Sawyer muttered and slid his headphones on.

As the conversation raged around her, Ellie wrapped her hands around the mug of tea and inhaled the steam. It was earthy and sweet, reminding her of the tea Remedy had given her on their first day at the commune.

The thought turned her stomach, and she set the mug down untouched. Puzzle curled close to her side and rested his head in her lap, staring up at her with worried brown eyes. She ran her fingers through his fluffy reddish-gold fur, pausing to adjust the red bowtie on his collar. She'd bought it for him in the perfect shade of red to match her glasses after seeing Veronica's Papillion, Alfie, wearing one and thinking it was the cutest thing in the world.

The sudden warmth of a hand on her shoulder jolted her back to reality.

"Ellie." Anna's voice was gentle, her eyes kind. "This isn't your fault."

Dammit. She was crying again, wasn't she? She patiently wiped at her eyes. "I left him there. Left them both, and who knows what Hopeful is doing to them."

"You did what you had to do." Zak's firm voice broke through the swirl of her self-reproach.

"But I should've chosen Cal over?—"

He shook his head and held up a hand, cutting her off. "Sometimes there are no right choices. Sometimes there are only shitty ones, and all you can do is choose the least shitty option." His expression was grim. He was speaking from experience. "You got out, you got four other people out, and got Tyler Erickson medical help. If you had made any other decision than the one you did, he would've died before reaching a hospital. That's not nothing. So, no more guilt. We'll work out how to get Cal and Pierce out."

"Got something," Sawyer said suddenly and pulled off his headphones. A picture of Hopeful—younger, with short hair, but definitely him—appeared on the room's large main screen. "Lance Shepherd, a.k.a. Hopeful. His father was Mark Allen Shepherd, who just went by his last name and started the commune in the mid-70s. It was called The Free People back then. It was your run-of-the-mill free love-type commune and appears to have been widely accepted as a legitimate community by everyone around here. But then Shepherd died about twenty years ago, and something happened up there."

"Hope disappeared twenty years ago," Ellie said, and the picture on screen shifted to a digital scan of a now-defunct local newspaper. The headline read:

"Leader of Local Commune Dead in Apparent Suicide."

The article went on to detail Shepherd's death from an overdose of hemlock and his son Lance taking over.

"When Hopeful took control, there was a mass exodus of members," Sawyer continued. "They changed their name and locked down tight for several years. They stopped coming into town, and rumors of weird ceremonies and cult-like behavior started floating around—all based on information from the people who left the commune around that time."

"Like my parents," Rose said. "Dad said they left because things started getting weird."

Right around the time Hope had appeared at the commune. Ellie's stomach twisted with a dread she didn't want to examine too closely.

"And Hopeful has been running this show ever since?" Anna asked.

"Seems like it." Sawyer had resumed his search, fingers dancing over the keys as the computer read off items so fast it sounded like it was speaking another language. "They started recruiting again about seven years ago by hosting various retreats throughout the years. They also began selling teas and home remedies online. They've got a pretty extensive website."

Anna stood, crossing to stand behind Sawyer's chair. She read the screen over his shoulder, a faint frown of confusion on her face. "Why would anyone want to join this cult?"

Ellie thought about Marla and Jeff. About Nico and Tyler. And all the others she'd met at the commune. Some were vulnerable, some lost… all seeking something they thought they'd find with Hopeful.

"Because they're looking for something," she said quietly. "And Hopeful convinced them he could help them find it."

Sawyer turned around in his chair. His pale blue eyes were unfocused, looking past her shoulder.

"Okay," Zak said finally, breaking the silence. "So we know more about Hopeful and his freaky cult. How do we get in and find Cal and Pierce without stirring up a hornet's nest? We—" He broke off, and a thoughtful expression crossed his face.

"I don't like that look," Ash said warily.

"What look?" Zak asked, all innocence.

"The one you get when you're about to suggest we do something stupid or reckless or both."

"It's not stupid."

"So it's reckless."

"Just hear me out. With the way you've been pruning all of the bad apples from your department, you don't have the manpower to storm the commune. And I don't have enough guys available to fill in the blanks."

"I know where you're going with this, but no. I'll just have to call in the state police or the FBI." He pulled his phone from his belt by his badge, but Zak snatched it away.

"Do you want another Waco here?"

"He's got a point," Sawyer said. "We don't know what their weapon situation is up there."

Silence fell over the room for several heartbeats.

Rose finally broke the silence. "Waco?"

Ash groaned softly. "Sometimes I forget how much younger you are than me."

She grinned at him. "You may be an old man, but you're my old man. So, what's the Waco?"

Ellie looked over at Rose. At twenty-seven, they were the same age, born nearly five years after the siege. The only reason Ellie knew about it was because true crime was her whole life.

"A cult in Waco, Texas, was accused of weapons violations," she explained. "When the FBI and ATF tried to execute a search warrant, it ended up in a shootout. Four officers died, six more were injured, and the compound was under siege for fifty-one days. It finally ended in a fire, and over seventy people died."

"Whoa," Rose said, her blue eyes wide. She turned to her husband. "Yeah, we definitely don't want that. I vote we don't call the FBI and go with Zak's idea instead."

"This isn't a democracy," Ash muttered, but he was ignored.

"I vote for Zak's idea, too," Anna said.

"Okay, but I can't be involved with this. The legality of it is too gray." Ash shook his head and picked up the box of Hope's recordings, which Ellie had brought in with her. "I'll take these back to the station and start going through them."

They all watched him go.

Ellie thought she should be worried because they were crossing a line that Ash, as sheriff, couldn't cross.

But she wasn't.

She just wanted Cal back.

She shifted her gaze over to Zak. "So, what exactly is your idea?"

He grinned, and there was more than a little glint of mean in it. "We go ahead and stir up that hornet's nest."