Exit Strategy

TWO

Lark listened to the sound of footsteps on linoleum, her eyes squeezed shut, her grip tight on the key. She didn’t dare turn to see who was coming. The key was her one hope of escape, and she was afraid whoever it was would see it and take it from her.

Beside her, fabric rustled and the floor creaked.

She didn’t open her eyes. Let whoever it was think that she was asleep. Better yet, let him think she was unconscious. Maybe he’d go away. Leave her alone to figure out how she could open the cuffs without being seen by the security team.

“I know you’re awake.” The voice was smooth and rich, and she recognized it immediately. The man who’d dropped the key. The one who’d mentioned Essex.

Was it a trick? Some sort of mind game to get her to...

What?

Confess to searching Elijah’s office?

She’d been caught doing that, so eliciting a confession wouldn’t make any sense. But, then, nothing had made sense since she’d arrived back at Amos Way. Not her mother-in-law’s silence. Not her father-in-law’s fanaticism. Eric had changed since Joshua died. Not in a good way.

“Lark.” The man sighed. “Let’s not play games, okay? We’re on borrowed time as it is.” He cupped her biceps, pulled her up easily. She was sitting, then standing so quickly she felt dizzy with it. For a moment, she was back in time, standing with Joshua, looking at the compound for the first time, listening to him talk about growing up free from the trappings of the world, tuned into nature and focused on The Creator. She’d fallen in love with the picture he’d painted, but, then, she’d already been in love with him.

“You going to walk with your eyes closed or do you want me to carry you out of here? Either works for me.”

The words were a splash of ice water in the face. She jerked away, the key pressed so hard into her palm, she knew the imprint of it would be left in her skin.

He didn’t try to pull her back, just stood where he was, blocking her path to the door. Maybe six-foot, a hundred and eighty pounds. Big compared to Lark, but she’d never been intimidated by physical strength. At least not in recent years. When she’d been a kid, walking home in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Chicago, she’d been scared. She’d gotten over that quickly. The will to survive and the knowledge that she only had herself to depend on had made her tough. The key to taking down a bigger, tougher opponent was the element of surprise. Without it, she didn’t have a chance.

She lunged forward, aiming her foot for the man’s instep and hitting her mark. He grunted, and she rammed both fists into his stomach, hopped out the door into the cold clean air. With her ankles tied, she couldn’t move fast, but she stumbled down the stairs, managed to stay upright as she headed across overgrown grass. She didn’t know where she was going, didn’t have a clue as to where she could find safety. If she managed to escape the fenced area, she’d have to trek through thick forests to get to civilization. The closest town was a tiny speck on the map—seventy miles away, fifteen hundred people, ten full-time police officers. One of them with deep connections to Amos Way. She might not find allies there, but at least she could find a phone, could call a friend to give her a ride back to Baltimore.

The compound’s main gates were to the north, but heading there wouldn’t do her any good. She tried to run toward the side of the trailer, tripped on her feet and the ropes that bound her ankles. She fell hard, the breath knocked from her lungs, her fists slamming into her gut.

She tried to get to her feet.

“You don’t know when to give up, do you?” the man asked, yanking her upright.

“I’ll never give up,” she replied, but her voice was weak, her body trembling.

“Great. Good. You just keep on fighting, but how about you don’t fight me?” He moved her forward, nudging her toward the old church where she and Josh had gotten married. It stood on a hill overlooking the compound, its clapboard siding whitewashed and gleaming in the moonlight. Behind it, a small cemetery spread out across two acres. Just beyond that, the fence protected the members of Amos Way from intruders. Or kept them from leaving.

She didn’t know why he was leading her there, and she dug her heels in, tried to stop their forward momentum. She stumbled, would have gone down if his arm hadn’t wrapped around her waist.

“Keep moving,” the man murmured, his fingers loose, his grip light. “Do you want John to join us?”

“I want to leave!” she responded, her voice raspy and hot sounding.

“You and me both,” he replied, prying her hand open and taking the key from it.

She wanted to scream, cry, beg for mercy, but that was another thing she’d learned a long time ago—don’t let your opponent see your fear.

“You want to go, then leave,” she managed to say, and he shook his head.

“It would be nice if it were that easy, but John has this place sealed up tight. Getting out isn’t going to be as easy as getting in, and even that wasn’t all that easy.” He lifted her wrists, used the key to unlock the handcuffs, pulled a knife from his gun belt.

Her mouth went dry, and she tried to back up.

“Calm down, Lark. I’m not planning to use this on you.” He bent over, sliced through the ropes at her ankle.

Blood flooded into her feet. She didn’t have time to think about it. He gave her a gentle push toward the church.

“Here’s how we’re going to play things. You’re going to keep looking terrified—”

“Looking?” she mumbled, and he met her eyes, offered a half smile that did nothing to ease the hardness of his face.

“Just keep on being terrified. John wants me to question you about whatever it is you took from Elijah.”

“I didn’t take anything.” She hadn’t had a chance. She’d managed to sneak into Elijah’s house during the evening prayer meeting, but she’d been caught before she could do more than open his file cabinet. Whatever he was hiding, whatever the compound fronted for, she hadn’t had time to uncover it.

“That’s not what John and Elijah think.”

“I don’t really care what they think.”

“Maybe you should since they had you hog-tied in a trailer.”

“And sent you to question me,” she pointed out. “You probably know more about what they want then I do.”

“Probably not. I’ve barely spoken to Elijah, and John keeps things close to the cuff.”

“So you’re just blindly following orders?”

“I’m helping a friend,” he said, glancing over his shoulder and frowning. “Essex was worried about you. The police weren’t listening to his concerns, so he asked me to check on you. I guess it’s fortunate for you that he did.”

She’d met Essex a year and a half ago, not long after Joshua’s death. She’d been substituting at the school where he taught fifth grade. At the end of the year, she’d been offered a contract to teach full-time. The job had been a godsend. So had Essex. He’d taken her under his wing, brought her home to meet his kids and wife. He was the closest thing to a family she had.

She’d hoped he’d worry when she didn’t show up for work, but the first day of school had come and gone, and the police hadn’t shown up, no one had come looking for her. She’d realized she was on her own, trapped because she’d been just foolish enough to think she’d be safe in a place that had killed her husband.

“How do you know Essex?” she asked, still not convinced this wasn’t some kind of bizarre trick to get her to let her guard down, give in to whatever it was they had planned for her.

“We were army buddies.”

That fit. Essex had retired from the military a few years before he’d become a teacher. “How many kids does he have?”

“Four.”

“How old is he?”

“Do you know?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t. It’s not something we discussed. I can tell you this, though, he’s got a scar on his forearm from saving my hide.”

That fit, too. At least, the scar did. She didn’t know about the life saving part. She’d asked about the scar, and Essex had simply said that he’d been injured while serving in Iraq. “What’s his wife’s name?”

“Janet. Kids are Essex Jr., Eleanor, Eliza and Elliot. Don’t know what the E name thing is, but I told him he needs to cut it out,” he growled. “Now, if you’re done with twenty questions, how about we get down to business?”

“What business?”

“Getting out of here alive.”

Whether he was telling the truth or a lie didn’t matter. What mattered was that her arms were free, her feet were free. Soon the blood that pulsed back into her toes would calm, the throbbing pain would ebb and she’d have feeling back. That would make escape easier, and that was all she cared about. That and taking Elijah Clayton down. She might not have found evidence in his office, she might not have gotten her hands on something that could prove he was as dirty as the old hound dog he kept tied to a stake behind his house, but she knew he’d killed Joshua. Or had him killed.

Either way, Joshua’s blood was on his hands.

She’d known it the day she’d found Joshua, his hunting rifle in his hand, a bullet hole through his temple. She’d known Joshua. He was careful and cautious. He didn’t take chances. The accident that had taken his life wouldn’t have happened to someone like him. Couldn’t have happened. The police had bought the lie, though. Why wouldn’t they have? Even Joshua’s parents had believed it.

Lark had been too numb to question what she was told.

She’d let her in-laws plan the funeral, let herself be led through days of grieving. When it was over, she’d packed up a few things, left the compound because it was too filled with memories of the only man she’d ever loved.

It had taken a couple of months for the truth to settle in, for the nagging disquiet to be replaced by the certainty that there was more to Joshua’s death than a simple accident. She’d started digging, then, researching Amos Way, its history, its former members. There weren’t many of those. The ones she’d found hadn’t been willing to talk.

That hadn’t stopped her.

She’d kept asking, thinking she was clever enough to stay a step ahead of Elijah. Obviously, she hadn’t been.

She moved up the church stairs, the night dead silent, the compound still. Her in-laws were sleeping in their house, tucked safely away from whatever it was they’d run from. Life? Hardship? The world? Whatever it was, they’d been in Amos Way for nearly thirty years. They believed the lies, and they bought the status quo. They wanted what was best for the group, and they were willing to believe Lark was a thief, that she’d gone into the trailer willingly to commune with God and find the right path, rather than believe their leader wasn’t who he pretended to be.

That hurt, but she couldn’t think about it. Not when she finally had a chance at freedom. She knew the old church, the large sanctuary, the bell tower, the door that led into the cemetery. She knew how far she needed to go to make it to the fence. Joshua had taught her how to climb it. He’d taught her a lot of things. Mostly he’d taught her to love, to have faith, to believe that God had a perfect plan for all of their lives.

She wouldn’t forget those lessons.

Not ever.

And, she wouldn’t let his murderer go unpunished, wouldn’t let his death be for nothing. Someone had to bring Elijah Clayton down. The way Lark saw things, it might as well be her.

The man opened the church door, and she stepped inside, the dry cool air filled with the musty scent of time and age. She’d loved this place, had felt more at home here than she’d ever been anywhere before, but it wasn’t home anymore, and all she wanted was to escape. Maybe the man escorting her was Essex’s friend. Maybe he wasn’t. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to trust him to save her. She’d save herself.

He closed the door, sealed them inside the century old building. Then, he took her arm and led her through the empty sanctuary.

* * *

Lark didn’t resist as Cyrus led her through the old church.

That surprised him.

He’d done his research before he’d approached John, and everything he’d learned about Lark had told him she was a leader, a go-getter, a survivor. Not that there’d been much to discover. Financial records only went back as far as her college days. She’d attended Towson University on scholarship, gotten a degree in elementary education. From what he’d been able to gather, she’d met her future husband there, moved into Amos Way after they’d married. Her husband had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound nearly three years later. That’s what the police report had said.

Essex didn’t think Lark believed it.

That’s why he’d been worried when she hadn’t returned, why he’d contacted Cyrus and asked for help when the police couldn’t step in. This was what HEART did best—entering areas the authorities couldn’t or wouldn’t go, finding the missing, bringing them home.

“Sit.” He pressed her into the front pew and was surprised when she didn’t fight him.

“Who are you?” she asked, her voice echoing hollowly in the empty building.

“To John and Elijah? Louis Morgan. Ex-military. Current mercenary. In other words, gun for hire.”

“Who are you really?”

“Cyrus Mitchell. I work for HEART.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Most people haven’t.” He didn’t have time to explain, and he wouldn’t have taken the time if he had it. HEART members weren’t in it for recognition or glory. They weren’t in it for money. Most were in it for redemption, for a chance to make sure no one else ever lived through the pain they’d experienced. Cyrus was no exception to that.

“I take it you’re not going to fill me in?” She brushed thick strands of hair from her cheek. He hadn’t turned on a light, but the darkness couldn’t hide the paleness of her skin, the narrow width of her shoulders. She looked more vulnerable than he wanted her to, more delicate than Essex’s description had led him to believe.

“Later. Right now, we have more important things to do.” He pulled an energy bar from his pocket, handed it to her. “Eat.”

“I don’t think so.” She thrust it back. “I’ve already been drugged a couple of times. I’m not going to let it happen again.”

“It would be stupid for me to drug you right before we make a run for it.”

“Run? You know how far it is to the nearest town?” she asked.

“Seventy miles.”

“Exactly. Running is not going to be an option.”

“Leaving is. That’s the plan. How we do it is going to depend on whether or not I can turn off the security system before John shows up.” He walked to the window that looked out into the church’s front yard. Moonlight spilled onto the lush grass. A few shrubs lined the path that led from the church to the residential area of the compound. Someone stood beside one of them, his shadowy form nearly blending with the dark outline of the bushes.

John. Cyrus didn’t have any doubt about that.

“Is he out there?” Lark asked, leaning in so that she could see out the window. He doubted she realized how close they were or how vulnerable she was making herself. If he’d wanted to take her out, he could have done it easily.

“Yes.”

“Where?” she whispered as if John might somehow hear.

“Near the shrubbery. Right at the edge of the path.”

“What’s he doing out there?”

“Making sure I do what he’s paying me to do. It’s not going to be long before he comes in to check on my progress. Come on.” He took her hand, pulled her away from the window.

“Where? There isn’t a place on the compound without security cameras. If we leave the building, he’ll know it.”

“I can take out the security cameras.”

“How?”

“How about you save the questions for later?” He strode through the sanctuary and into a narrow hall. The church office was to the left, the door closed and locked. It took seconds to get in, just a little longer to log on to the computer. He typed in the password that John was a little too careless with, smiled as the security system opened up to him.

Lark stood a few feet away, watching intently as he began typing in code. “You’re a man of many talents, Cyrus.”

“Not many, but the ones I have are useful in situations like this.”

“Would they be useful in opening this?” She pointed to a file cabinet.

“If it was necessary.”

“It’s necessary,” Lark responded, tugging at the handle.

He ignored her. They didn’t have time to play seek-and-find.

“Cyrus,” Lark said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Did you hear me? I said it was necessary.”

“Your idea of necessary and mine aren’t the same. To me, necessary is shutting down the security system and getting us both out of here in one piece.”

“You’ve been on the compound for how long?”

“About a week.”

“So, you’ve seen the trucks coming and going in the middle of the night?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not curious? You don’t want to know what’s in them?”

He sighed, looked up from the computer screen and met her eyes. Gray eyes. That’s what Essex had said. It was hard to tell from the photographs and impossible to see in the darkness. “Yeah. I’m curious, but not so curious that I’m willing to die to find out.”

“It will only take a—”

The sound of a door opening silenced her and made every nerve in Cyrus’s body jump to life.

Footsteps tapped on the tile floor, John’s toneless whistle filling the church.

Cyrus flicked off the computer, turned on a light, nearly tossed Lark into the chair.

“Play along,” he hissed.

She barely had time to nod before John was there, moving into the room, his dark gaze jumping from Cyrus to Lark and back again.

“What are you doing in here?” he snapped.

“Getting the information you asked me for,” he said coldly.

“The door was locked for a reason, son.”

“I’m not your son, and you said to bring her wherever I wanted, do whatever was necessary.”

“I didn’t mean break into the church office.”

“Then, you should have been clearer. Fact is, this is the farthest away from people that we can get. You don’t want anyone hearing her, right?”

John hesitated, something in his face going just a little soft as he looked at Lark.

“Right,” John finally said.

“Then how about you go, and leave me to do what I do best?” Cyrus offered his best predatory smile, the one that had made tougher men than John back down.

“I think I’ll stay. If you’re such an expert at getting information, I might learn something from you.” He dragged a chair over, sat it right in front of Lark.

“You’re going to tell us what we want to know. Right, doll?” John said. “You’re going to make this easy on everyone. It’s what Joshua would have wanted.”

“I guess you’d know,” she replied. “You were one of his best friends.” There were freckles on her cheeks and nose, dark circles under her eyes. She was closing in on thirty, but could have passed for twenty, her dark red hair curling around an unlined face.

Delicate.

That’s how she looked.

Maybe that’s why John leaned forward, touched her cotton-skirt-covered knee. “You took something that belongs to Elijah. Where is it? All you have to do is tell us, and you can go back to your life.”

“Like Joshua was allowed to go back to his?”

“Joshua died in a terrible accident,” John said with a scowl. “The police investigated. They agreed.”

“What about Ethan?”

That was a name Cyrus hadn’t heard before, and he forced himself to relax, to let the conversation play out. There was a lot going on that he didn’t understand, and that could be dangerous.

John’s scowl deepened. “He’s probably living life somewhere far away from Amos Way.”

“He would never have left his wife and children.”

“He was always looser in his morals then the rest of the group. Joshua knew that. You knew that.”

“What I know,” she said quietly, “is that you’re a pawn in whatever game Elijah is playing, and that you’re paid plenty of money to be one. You betrayed the group. You betrayed my husband. You’re the reason why he’s dead. I don’t know if you pulled the trigger or if one of your hired men did, but—”