Cold Betrayal (33 page)

That was a great oversimplification, but it was the best Ali could do. “When Enid and her baby were first admitted to the hospital, we had no idea who they were or where they were from. In an effort to find out, we took a sample of Enid’s DNA and of her baby’s, too. We sent the samples to a friend of mine who runs a company that specializes in DNA identification. They ran a check and found that their DNA is closely related to that of several young women and girls whose unidentified bodies have been found in places far from here—on the other side of the world.

“The person who called me on the phone a few minutes ago was the governor of Arizona, a woman named Virginia Dunham. Investigators from Interpol, which is an international police organization, and elsewhere have now connected twenty victims, some dead and a few still alive, who originally came from The Family.”

Patricia frowned. “How’s that even possible? Girls from The Family aren’t allowed to travel.”

“Have you ever heard of human trafficking?”

Again Patricia and Agnes replied in unison, this time shaking their heads.

“Human traffickers specialize in taking young girls, some as young as six or seven, and selling them to the highest bidder.”

Agnes looked puzzled. “They sell them?” she asked. “Why?”

“For sex,” Ali answered. There was no way to sugarcoat the explanation, so she plowed on. “There are evil people in this world who prefer having sex with children rather than with adults. I think it’s likely that the young girls in question were sold to people like that.”

Patricia made the connection first. “The Not Chosens?” she gasped. “The girls who disappeared? Is that what happened to them?”

Ali nodded. “That’s what we believe,” she said. “Governor Dunham is planning on taking immediate action to prevent another group of Not Chosens from being sent away.”

“What kind of action?” Andrea asked.

Instead of answering, Ali looked closely at Agnes. “You mentioned that several men were involved the night your half sisters were taken, right?”

“Yes.”

“The assumption is that most of the older men in the group are either involved in what’s happening or know about it. The raid tonight will be to collect family Bibles, which we hope will contain records of the girls who disappeared—names, birth dates, et cetera. There will also be warrants to obtain cheek swabs for all the adult males in hopes of connecting the DNA dots between them and some of the unidentified victims.”

“A raid,” Patricia asked, looking horrified. “You mean like with guns and everything? I remember hearing about something like this. It happened a long time ago. The old bishop—Bishop Lowell’s father—used to preach about it in church. He said there was this group of people who believed in polygamy just like we do. He said they all got sent to jail, even the little kids.”

“This is a lot more serious that just practicing polygamy,” Ali said. “The human trafficking element makes all the difference. Governor Dunham is determined that what happened at Short Creek, the incident you’re talking about, won’t happen again—at least we hope it won’t. To make that work, though, we’ll need your help and Agnes’s, too.”

“Our help?” Agnes said faintly. “What kind?”

“It’s likely that many of the men will be taken into custody or at least in for questioning, on the basis of the ages of some of their wives if nothing else. The people left behind—the women and children—will be frightened. We’ll need you to convince them that we may be from the Outside, but we’re not their enemies. You’ll need to help explain that if they want to stay where they are, they’ll be allowed to do so, but if they want to leave—as you two did—they’ll be allowed to do that as well—that there will be people on the Outside, like Andrea here, who will help them find places to live, food to eat, and suitable clothing to wear. From what you’ve told me about the way you and Agnes were treated, I suspect there are other Brought Back girls who will want to leave.”

Patricia nodded thoughtfully. “The others might stay, especially mothers with children, but I think most of the Brought Back girls will want to leave.”

“I’m trying to grasp the scope of the problem here,” Andrea said. “How many Brought Back girls are there?”

“I’m not sure. We know there are others, but we’re not allowed to communicate.”

“Do any of the Brought Back girls have children?” Andrea asked.

“If some of the others do have children, those children would be living with other families, not their mothers, but most of the girls who run away do so before they have kids—before they get pregnant. That’s what Agnes and I did, anyway.”

“But not Enid,” Ali said. “Her baby was due in a month or so.”

“And not her mother, either,” Patricia said.

Ali was surprised. “Wait, you mean Enid’s mother ran away, too?”

Patricia nodded. “Anne Lowell was a year or two younger than we were. She told us she was leaving. We wanted to help her, and we tried to give her Irene’s information, but she said she didn’t need it—that she had someone on the Outside who would help her.” Patricia shrugged. “I guess that’s what happened. Anne must have gotten away. No one ever saw her again.”

Ali had serious doubts that Anne Lowell had made good her escape, but she needed to know more.

“So Enid was already born and her mother was pregnant with a second child when she ran away? She just took off and left Enid behind?”

“She was scared. She didn’t think her husband, Brother Lowell—he wasn’t Bishop Lowell then—was the father, and she was terrified about what he’d do to her if he ever found out she’d been with someone else. I don’t blame her for that. Bishop Lowell pretends to be a minister, but under the white robes he wears, the man’s a monster. There’s no telling what he would have done to her.”

“Did Anne give you any hints about who that other man might be?” Ali asked.

Patricia shook her head. “No. After she left, there were rumors that she’d been seen with someone from Outside, but that was all just gossip.”

“Do you remember exactly when Anne Lowell took off?”

Patricia considered before she answered. “I’m not sure. Without a calendar to keep track, it’s hard to tell how much time has passed, but Enid was little when her mother left, not more than three or four.”

Ali did the math. Enid was sixteen now. The Kingman Jane Doe, most likely another refugee from The Family, had been found dead twelve years ago. What if Jane Doe turned out to be Enid’s mother? The time lines might just match.

“You said Amos Sellers was the one who brought you back?”

Patricia fidgeted before she answered. Ali could see that Patricia wasn’t at ease discussing any of this. “Brother Amos wasn’t a deputy sheriff back then. He got hired to do that a few years later.”

“Would he have been the one sent out to retrieve Anne Lowell?”

Patricia shrugged. “I’m sure he looked for her, but he never found her.” She frowned. “Why are you so interested in Anne?”

Ali wasn’t prepared to answer that question, not right then, so she deflected it. “Looking for connections is all. Did Enid know any of this?”

“I told her who her father is,” Patricia admitted. “I thought she had a right to know that. I didn’t tell her all of it. It was bad enough that her mother ran away. Knowing the rest wouldn’t have done her any good. If anything, it might have made things worse. Besides, it was more gossip than anything else.”

“Look,” Ali said, changing the subject. “It was brave of you to leave with David here last night. It was also smart of you to trust him. I think you could tell immediately that he meant you no harm, but those other women at The Encampment have most likely spent their entire lives being taught that everything outside The Family is evil. Will you go with us this evening and help convince them otherwise?”

“Yes,” Patricia said at once. “I’ll go.”

Agnes had to think for a moment; then, rather than speaking aloud, she simply nodded.

Ali turned to Andrea. “It’s going to be cold up there tonight, and we’ll probably be outside a lot of the time. Can you have someone take them shopping for clothing suitable for that—for coats, boots, and whatever else is needed? Whatever it costs, I’ll handle.”

“I could take them shopping,” David Upton offered, “but I don’t have a car right now.”

Without a word, Andrea handed him a set of car keys.

“Okay,” David said. “Tell me where we’re supposed to go when we finish.”

“Their apartment should be ready in about an hour or so,” Andrea said. “It’s being stocked with linens, pots and pans, and a minimal supply of food. Come back here, and I’ll give them the key.”

Ali reached into her purse, found her wallet, and handed David a fistful of cash. “Thank you for handling this,” she said. “It’s a big help.”

David exited the office, taking Patricia and Agnes with him, and leaving Ali and Andrea alone.

“What’s the real score?” Andrea asked.

“According to Governor Dunham’s estimate, there’s a good chance that, before the evening is over, you’ll have between four and five hundred displaced homemakers and children dropped in your lap. Some are bound to want to stay where they are, but we have to be prepared for the worst. I expect you’ll be hearing from the governor in person. I gave her your name and number.”

“Okay,” Andrea said. “I’ve made a few calls and already have some contingency plans in place. This isn’t an exceptionally busy time for tourists, and I know if there are vacancies, a lot of the hospitality folks will step up until we can make permanent arrangements.”

There was a tap on the door. The receptionist stood in the doorway looking uneasy. “Excuse me, Andrea,” she said. “Sorry to interrupt, but the governor’s office is on the phone.”

As Andrea reached for her phone, Ali headed for the door. “Wait,” Andrea said. “What about that box of floppies? Do you still want them?”

Ali stopped in the doorway. “Thanks, but no thanks,” Ali said. “We don’t need them. I thought if we searched through them, we’d find out how Irene’s phone number ended up in Enid’s pocket. Now, thanks to Patricia and Agnes, we already know. Good luck with Governor Dunham. See you later.”

33

A
li had turned her phone ringer on silent when she finished speaking to Governor Dunham. During her talk with Patricia and Agnes, Ali had felt the buzz of at least three incoming calls and had ignored them all. Now checking the recent call list, she found two calls from B. and one from Sister Anselm. She called B. first.

“It’s a fine mess you’ve gotten us into this time,” he said. “We have two drones in the air with secure feeds going to both the Department of Public Safety and the FBI. One is keeping an eye on the landing strip until a SWAT team shows up, and the other is working its way around the perimeter of The Family’s property, looking for signs of disturbances that would indicate places where anti-intrusion devices might have been installed.”

“Finding any?”

“Not so far. I’ve also had two phone calls from someone who’s apparently a close personal friend of yours—Governor Virginia Dunham. She tells me you’ve been appointed to be some kind of special deputy.”

“The DNA trail has led to twenty human trafficking victims at last count,” Ali told him. “This joint operation is being launched to forestall any attempt to smuggle one last load of girls out of the country. Governor Dunham wants to roll up the operation before that happens rather than after.”

“Does The Family have any idea about what’s coming?”

“I hope not.”

“I’d prefer a straight-out no,” B. said.

“Believe me,” Ali said. “So would I.”

“Even after your meeting this morning, you’re still worried about Alvarado?”

“Very much so, but my opinion on that score doesn’t carry much weight. The governor insists that since Colorado City is inside his jurisdiction, the sheriff and his department must be part of the program.”

“If someone leaks intel to The Family, then anyone going there tonight may be walking into a trap,” B. said. “Please don’t tell me that you’re going, too.”

Obviously B. Simpson knew Ali far too well. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t be on the front lines. I’ll be with the governor as part of a rearguard action. Our job will be to convince members of The Family who are interested in leaving the cult that they are free to do so. Patricia and Agnes, the two Brought Back girls David Upton walked off with last night, have agreed to come along and reason with the others. And guess what? Now, thanks to them, we have a solid lead about the identity of Sister Anselm’s Kingman Jane Doe. I believe DNA comparisons will reveal her to be Anne Lowell, Enid Tower’s birth mother.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you have to be so personally involved?” B. insisted.

“Because Sister Anselm and I are the ones who started this whole saga. We both feel responsible. That’s why she took Enid to Tucson. That’s why I’m going to Colorado City. Don’t worry, B. I’ll be safe.”

“I’d rather you stayed out of it.”

“I still have my bulletproof vest,” Ali said. “It’s in the back of the Cayenne.”

The vest was a relic from her brief stint with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department.

“Being safe would mean avoiding places where you might need a bulletproof vest,” B. countered. “Still, the more I say, ‘Do not go in the basement,’ the more likely you are to go there anyway, so why don’t I shut up and save my breath? But here’s the deal. If you’re going to be part of a ‘rearguard action,’ so am I.”

Ali started to argue the point but stopped. If B. wasn’t going to try to talk her out of going, she wouldn’t badger him about it, either.

“Okay,” she agreed. “We’re to meet up at the DPS headquarters here in Flagstaff at six
P.M.
”

“What are you planning to do between now and then?”

“Do we still have that hotel room we paid for earlier this morning?”

“We paid for it by the day not the hour. Why?”

“Because I think I’m going to go there and grab a nap. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Tonight won’t be much better.”

“Do you still have a key?”

“I never had one to begin with.”

“All right. I’ll call and tell them that you’re coming and that you’ve lost your key.”