Cold Betrayal

Andrea hurried into her small office. Unloading sandwiches from the paper bag, she offered them to Patricia and Agnes as they followed her into the room. Ali, bringing up the rear, was about to close the door behind them when the receptionist buzzed David Upton into the waiting room. Ali beckoned him into the office as well.

“Did you reach Fergus?” she asked as he went past.

David’s reply was a curt nod. Once Patricia caught sight of David, she scrambled around Agnes and grabbed one of his hands in both of hers.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “Thank you for bringing us here. It’s like heaven. We even got to take a hot shower.” Then, seemingly embarrassed by having said too much, she moved away and sat down abruptly on one of the visitor’s chairs.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s heaven,” Andrea said briskly, “but it’s the best we can do. Just be assured that we all stand prepared to offer our help to you and to anyone else who may be interested in leaving The Family behind.”

Patricia’s eyes widened. “You’d help other people leave if they wanted to?”

“Yes,” Andrea said. “Are there some of those—people who would like to leave?”

“Maybe.” Patricia spoke warily, as if afraid of saying too much.

“What we need is information,” Ali said, stepping into the conversation. “How many people are involved in all this—how many families and how many women and children?”

“I’m not sure,” Patricia answered. “Once we were brought back, we weren’t allowed to go to church or to any of the gatherings, so it’s hard for us to know exactly how many. I’d guess there are about twenty-five families, maybe more.”

“How are you related to Gordon Tower?” Ali asked.

“My older sister, Margaret, is one of his wives,” Patricia answered. “After Agnes and I ran away, her family wouldn’t take her back and my family wouldn’t have me. Margaret convinced Gordon to let us stay as long as we took care of his pigs and didn’t make any trouble.”

“Which we have, now,” Agnes said quietly. “Made trouble, I mean. If they figure out we helped Enid, we can’t ever go back.”

“You don’t have to,” Andrea assured them.

“What can you tell us about the girls who are called the Not Chosen?” Ali asked.

Agnes and Patricia exchanged a wordless glance. “They go away,” Patricia said finally with a shrug. “Usually in the middle of the night. You wake up in the morning and they’re gone. No one ever sees them again.”

“It happened to my little sisters,” Agnes added in a whisper. “Christina and Do

“They?” Ali asked.

Agnes nodded. “Three men came out onto the sleeping porch. One held the door while the other two collected Christina and Do

Agnes broke off while two tears dribbled out of her eyes.

“Was there something wrong with Do

Agnes nodded. “She wouldn’t talk or else she couldn’t. I never knew for sure which it was. I hoped that wherever they went that they were together. Do

“How was Do

“We’re all half sisters,” Agnes said. “We all had the same father but different mothers. I was older, so I was in charge of looking after them. I cried for days after they went away. My father caught me crying and slapped me silly. He told me that it was God’s will and that the Not Chosens went to a better place. I thought that meant they were dead and had gone to heaven.” She added quietly, “I hope that’s true—that they are in heaven.”

Not prepared to address that issue, Ali turned to Patricia. “Why did you and Agnes run away the first time?”

“We were friends,” Patricia said simply. “She was betrothed to Jack Adams. One day his first wife, Martha, claimed Agnes had sassed her. Most of the time first wives handle those things on their own, but Jack said he’d take care of it himself. He beat Agnes until she could barely move. The next week, Aunt Martha made Agnes go along to the grocery store, even though she was still black and blue all over. There was a woman in the store—someone from Outside—who told her about a woman who would help her if she needed it. She jotted a name and a telephone number on a scrap of paper.”

“Irene’s name?” Ali asked.

Patricia nodded. “We decided to run away together and ask Irene for help. Amos caught us while we were still on the highway.”

“So that’s Amos’s job?” Ali asked. “To bring back runaway kids?”

“To bring back runaway girls,” Patricia corrected. “Boys can leave whenever they want, and most of the time they don’t come back. Unless they’ve been promised a place on the council or as one of the Elders, there’s no reason to.”

“How long has Amos been doing that?”

Patricia shrugged. “A long time. He gets paid for being a deputy, but he also gets paid for catching girls and bringing them home.”

“He’s a bounty hunter, then,” Ali concluded. Patricia frowned as though the terminology was beyond her. Ali rephrased her comment. “What I’m asking is does he get a reward for bringing girls back—a cash award maybe?”

This time Patricia nodded.

“And how many are there?” Ali continued.

“How many Brought Back girls?” Patricia shrugged. “I suppose every household has one or two. After all, everyone has pigs that need looking after.”

“Are there some that Amos misses?” Ali asked. “Some runaway girls who actually get away and don’t come back?”

“A few, I suppose,” Agnes said wistfully.

With every question and answer, a few more pieces of the puzzle shifted into place. Ali was about to ask another question when her phone buzzed in her pocket. With another unfamiliar number on the screen, Ali excused herself and left the office to answer.

“Alison Reynolds?” a voice asked.

“Yes.”

“This is the governor’s office. Would you please hold the line for a call from Governor Dunham?”

31

Out in the lobby, a police officer was in the process of delivering a woman with two toddlers and a baby into the care of the receptionist. The woman was crying and so were all three kids. Barely able to hear over the din, and despite having left her coat on the chair inside Andrea’s office, Ali stepped outside. A frigid breeze had kicked up, blowing down off the mountains to the west. Ali huddled against the building while she waited for the governor to come on the line.

Ali knew Virginia Dunham’s name, of course. Although Ali hadn’t voted for the woman either time, Governor Dunham was in the last year of her second term in office. She was, by all reports, a woman with the reputation of being painfully direct.

“Ms. Reynolds?”

“Ali, please,” Ali said into the phone. “Just call me Ali.”

“And you’re welcome to call me Virginia. Now that we have all the name business out of the way, I understand that you and your friend Sister Anselm have set off something of a firestorm up around Colorado City.”