Page 64 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

Four months later

N ORA HAD NEVER heard of Piscator, a restaurant recently opened in the Sandia Heights neighborhood north of Albuquerque.

But when out of the blue she received Corrie’s invitation for dinner at the place, she’d accepted without hesitation.

It looked upscale, and she figured Corrie probably wanted to thank her for all she’d done…

or perhaps apologize for once again dragging her into unexpected, unwanted craziness.

In any case, Nora was eager to catch up.

The usual law enforcement proceedings had followed their ordeal—debriefings, questioning, depositions—until the red tape finally died away of its own accord.

The media did not make a huge fuss about the story—for the simple reason, she assumed, that its pieces were too widely scattered and bizarre to connect.

In the end, all there had been were a few notices about suicides in the desert; some obituaries and stories about the sudden, tragic death of Edison Nash, wealthy young collector and archaeology enthusiast; and some passing mentions of the arrests of a few professors at the University of New Mexico.

Nothing more had trickled out—and thank God for that.

She bundled Skip into the car and headed south on I-25.

While Skip hadn’t technically been invited, Nora felt she could hardly leave him behind.

His trauma had been greater than theirs, and he’d taken a lot longer to recover from it.

During his recovery, Nora had realized more than ever what her brother meant to her.

He was the only family she had left.

Lucas Tappan, due back from the East Coast next week, might in time end up as family—that remained to be seen—but these days she felt more protective of Skip than ever.

In the two months he’d taken off from the Institute to convalesce, lying around their house, catching up on his reading or playing the ancient and irreplaceable Martin ukulele, she’d become aware of just how much he reminded her of their father—and also, in certain ways, of her deceased husband, Bill Smithback.

But after a rocky few months, Skip had returned to his old wisecracking, quasi-irresponsible self, leading life on his own idiosyncratic terms.

Piscator was even nicer than she’d expected: a sleek, minimalist restaurant serving continental fare perched in the shadow of Sandia Peak on a small height of land above a golf course.

Almost immediately upon entering she saw Homer Watts sitting at a large round table set before a picture window with a gorgeous vista.

Seeing them approach, Watts rose.

The three embraced and spent a few minutes in small talk, laughing and smiling in the manner of old friends temporarily out of touch.

“I wonder where Corrie is?” Nora said, glancing at her watch.

“Not like her to be late, is it?” Watts replied.

“Her idea of late is ten minutes early.”

Although they were inside, Watts was still wearing his cowboy hat—a new one, Nora noticed, creamy silver—along with a silk high-style cowboy shirt, tight jeans, and ostrich boots.

He made quite a contrast to Skip, dressed in an NRBQ T-shirt and baggy shorts.

Twenty minutes later, Corrie came hurrying toward their table.

“Sorry,” she said as she took a seat.

“Sharp called me into a last-minute meeting.”

She smoothed down the front of her jacket and accepted a glass of wine.

It seemed to Nora that Corrie’s face was aglow, and she wondered idly if some field assignment had left her sunburned.

They ordered and soon were digging into impeccably prepared dishes.

The conversation had wandered all over the place, casual banter that nevertheless pointedly avoided the nightmarish situation they’d all recently experienced.

It was Skip who ultimately brought it up.

“I’ve been doing some research, these last few months,” he said abruptly, out of nowhere.

“Anyone care to guess the subject?”

The table went silent.

Nobody needed to guess.

“And no matter how many other examples of cults I came across, I just couldn’t see any way this one matched the standard pattern.”

“How, exactly?” Corrie asked.

“ How? Is that a rhetorical question?” Skip asked.

Then he raised his hands apologetically.

“Sorry. Okay, in certain ways it was a standard cult—the charismatic leader, the shared beliefs, the sexual domination.” He leaned forward, flourishing a fork laden with swordfish and caper berries.

“But they didn’t do any recruiting —job number one for any cult what wants to maintain its membership. Not only that, but the members were almost universally successful, high-functioning members of society… and they flew under the radar for years . Even after the death of Oskarbi. Can you imagine the discipline necessary to maintain that kind of facade—when you meet up with your fellow acolytes only once or twice a year?”

“Yes,” Corrie replied, “it’s the lack of cognitive dissonance—the cult members presenting as normal, productive people—that’s what has the FBI behaviorists baffled the most.”

“Have the FBI found out any more about Oskarbi or the cult since?” Nora asked.

Corrie hesitated. “Not so much about the cult members. They seem to have been fanatically careful to maintain their facades and left little useful evidence. But… well, we were able to do a deep dive on Oskarbi.”

“And?”

Corrie hesitated again.

Then she lowered her voice.

“I won’t bore you with oaths of secrecy and all that bullshit—only because you deserve to know. But what I’m telling you is totally confidential.”

There was a nodding of heads, and Corrie continued.

“In that kiva, we found a trove of Oskarbi’s notes, journals, and papers—along with some of Bromley’s. They were stored in a secret compartment, as if they were holy writ.” She paused, looking around, her gaze finally settling on Skip.

“You sure you want to hear this? It’s rough stuff—and maybe you’d just as soon not know more.”

“After spending weeks on research, looking for crumbs?” asked Skip.

“You’re damned right I want to hear more.”

Both Nora and Watts nodded.

“Okay. Some of this you already know.” Corrie took a deep breath.

“It starts a quarter of a century ago. A young graduate student named Oskarbi is looking for a topic. He somehow hears about a Totonteac Indian named Don Benicio who still observes the traditional religious practices of his ancestors in the Sierra Madre of Mexico. Oskarbi goes to Mexico to become his acolyte. But when Oskarbi grows morbidly interested in the more dangerous aspects of those beliefs—specifically, the path to wielding the powers of darkness—Benicio sends him away.

“So he returns to the States.

He writes a book that taps into the new-century zeitgeist and becomes a bestseller.

In reality, it’s more fiction than fact: including fascinating but ultimately unimportant bits and pieces of his year with Benicio, tossing in some pseudo-academic jargon to give it a glossy veneer—but he keeps the really important stuff to himself.

On the strength of the book, he gets a plum appointment at UNM as an associate professor of anthropology.

He’s hip, popular, charming, and good-looking, and he gathers around him a coterie of worshipful graduate students—particularly women.

In the few years it takes him to become a full professor, he becomes increasingly interested in the ancient Gallina culture—and its violent demise.

He develops a theory: the Gallina were a branch of the Totonteac Indians who, like him, were expelled for dabbling in dark practices.

These renegade Totonteacs migrated northward into New Mexico and settled in Gallina Canyon.

It was there that they practiced their dark arts…

and this was precisely what brought them into conflict with the Chaco Canyon people.

They were feared and hated as witches, skinwalkers, worshippers of evil.

And ultimately, they were exterminated in what was apparently a proactive effort of self-defense.

“Anyway, to prove his theory, Oskarbi organizes an archaeological field expedition into Gallina Canyon, bringing along graduate students. And on the very first expedition, fifteen years ago, they discover the Great Kiva of the Gallina people—the one we all saw—filled with priceless treasures. This discovery was not considered a mere stroke of luck. Rather, it seems to have triggered the development of the cult—whose goal was to revive the malevolent powers of the Gallina Indians.

“Oskarbi now shares the darkest and most powerful of the secrets he’d learned in Mexico with his students.

They begin coming into the canyon every summer, under the guise of field excavations, to take drugs and perform ceremonies to renew their bond and deepen their connection to the dark powers.

This is how the cult sustains itself.

” Corrie took a sip of wine.

“All goes well for four years. Then, tragedy strikes: Oskarbi dies in a fall off the cliff near the kiva.”

She set down her glass.

The table remained utterly silent, waiting for her to continue.

“It might have been an accident. Or maybe Morgan Bromley gave him a well-timed shove. Bromley had become a sort of deputy to him, his right-hand man. Bromley steps into Oskarbi’s shoes… and into the beds of those women. Although Oskarbi’s death was clearly a traumatizing event for the cult—Molly Vine, for example, dropped out of her PhD program—they were still totally invested in their beliefs about the Gallina and their dark rituals. They mummify his body and bring it out every year to parade around during their ceremonies, as a kind of god. Bromley was instrumental in this. What happened later—the women sacrificing themselves in the desert, for example—was mostly his doing. He seems to have been leading the cult into a much darker place than Oskarbi—an outgrowth of his own warped personality.”

“And the body found in the Chama River?” Nora asked.

“That, apparently, was some fellow who stumbled upon the ruins in Gallina Canyon and decided to loot them… but was unlucky enough to choose the moment when the cult was performing their annual ceremonies. They caught him, killed him, mutilated him, and sent his body downriver. This was in keeping with Bromley’s beliefs: no longer constrained by Oskarbi, he had grown eager to perform human sacrifices, which he believed would allow them to raise some sort of spirit or demon. This demon would be under their command, with the power to transform their lives… and perhaps them as well. Sort of like a Faustian pact.”

Corrie spread her hands.

“And that was the horrifying ceremony we all walked into.”

After a moment of silence, Watts cleared his throat.

“And what does Sharp think of all this? You mentioned you were just in a meeting with him. What’s his take?”

“His take is… that he’s no longer my mentor.”

“What?” Nora asked.

“He’s been kicked upstairs. He’s taking over as SAC of the Albuquerque Field Office, and the current SAC, Garcia, is heading to DC.”

Murmurs of surprise from around the table.

“But what about you?” Watts asked her.

“Does this mean you’re going to have to break in a third mentor?”

Corrie looked down.

“Well… I was going to tell you…”

“Out with it,” Watts said.

Corrie settled back against her chair.

Without looking up, she dug into a jacket pocket, pulled out an official-looking envelope, and handed it to Watts.

He unfolded it, read it—then looked up, with a huge smile.

“Looks like Sharp wasn’t the only one to get promoted. Corrie’s mentoring period is officially over and she’s now a GS-11, step 2—a full-fledged special agent.”

There was a moment of surprise, followed by a round of cheers, whistles, and applause that turned every head in the restaurant their way.

The flush Nora had seen on Corrie’s face, she realized, was not sunburn at all.

As the noise subsided, Watts leaned over and gave her a congratulatory and rather passionate kiss.

“That’s wonderful news, Corrie,” said Skip.

“And thank you for sharing that information with us. It… well, it helps to know. But there’s something you’ve left out.”

“What’s that?” Corrie asked, detaching herself from Watts.

“You’ve explained what Oskarbi, Bromley, and the cult members believed… but what do you believe?”

“Well…,” said Corrie, her voice trailing off.

“That’s kind of a weird question,” Watts said.

Skip turned to Watts.

“I know what I saw. I want to hear from the others.”

“What you saw,” Watts replied, “were drug-induced hallucinations. Right?”

This was greeted with a disagreeing silence.

“Whoa. Am I missing something?” Watts finally said, looking around, his eyes coming to rest on Corrie.

“What I saw,” Corrie said, “was… quite enough to last me a lifetime.”

“Wait a minute,” Watts said in a low voice.

“You don’t actually believe you saw the raising of some fiend from the underworld? Is that in your report?”

There was another long, awkward silence.

“What I saw,” said Corrie finally, “sure as hell did not go into my report.” She gave the envelope a flourish.

“If it had, instead of this, I’d be in the FBI psychiatric unit.”

“As far as that goes,” Skip added, “you all know what I think. But am I going to wander around the Institute telling anyone who will listen that I was almost sacrificed in some demon-summoning ceremony? I’m not stupid.”

Watts turned to Nora.

“And you? You think what you saw was real?”

Nora gave him a long, level gaze before answering.

“You heard what Corrie and my brother just said. I’m keeping my mouth shut, too. But we—we three—were there .”

“It’s like Hamlet told his friend,” Skip said.

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

“That’s right,” Corrie said, looking at Watts.

Her voice, which had gone tight for a moment, was once again back to normal.

“And just what do you have to say to that— Horatio ?”

This was so unexpected they all laughed—even Watts.

“Well, shoot.” Watts took off his hat, turned it one revolution, smoothed down the brim, then replaced it on his head.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped that Shakespeare assignment in high school.” And he grasped Corrie’s hand with a smile as laughter went around the table, dispelling the dark mood.

That conversation’s over and done with.

Nora felt more than a touch of relief, looking around the table.

She caught Corrie’s eye, then Skip’s: whatever ended up in the official reports, they had a shared understanding that required no further words.

We—we three—were there.