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Outside Havenwood

Catherine listened to the communications coming from the SWAT team checkpoints along the road. Two trucks were coming up the road, a white pickup with a camper shell and an open-bed darker pickup.

As the trucks passed each agent, additional details were relayed, and the vehicles came closer. Two people, a man and woman, in each truck. When they hit the paved road that led to the highway, they wouldn’t be able to see the rangers’ station or the many vehicles and tactical truck that had taken over the area. They also couldn’t see what was on the other side of a sharp curve in the road.

George said over the comm, “ETA, ten minutes.”

At first confirmation of the vehicles, SWAT had driven a Humvee onto the narrow road on the other side of the curve. When the trucks passed the ranger station hidden among the trees, another vehicle would drive onto the road and stop, to prevent them from backtracking.

Catherine, as a trained hostage negotiator, would attempt to convince the four people to stand down. She joined George outside, pulling her jacket tight around her against the cold, still air. They headed down the path to the road, then around the bend to where the SWAT leader waited with his Humvee and three trained tactical agents.

She was tense but calm. Hostage negotiation was a delicate conversation, and required finesse and experience. With a cult like this, Catherine didn’t know what to expect. They didn’t have enough information about the group. Would they surrender? Attempt suicide by cop? Delay the inevitable?

Cell phones were unreliable here, but they could have radios. Catherine assumed that when they were stopped, at the first sign that something was wrong they would have a way to alert Calliope and Havenwood. That would give Dean’s team limited time to rescue Matt. It was a delicate balancing act, and she feared she might make a tactical mistake that would cause Matt his life.

She feared he was already dead.

The realization that life was too short to hold grudges hit her. She was forty-two, a trained forensic psychiatrist, a mother, a wife. She had lost her sister and while Matt had nothing to do with Beth’s murder, she had held a grudge against him because he hadn’t loved Beth. Catherine had wanted Matt as part of their family, and thought brother-in-law was perfect. They were friends, they would be family.

She knew one reason she didn’t like Kara was because Matt loved her like he didn’t love Beth. Petty, childish, she saw now. Kara was rough around the edges, borderline violent, with a highly unusual upbringing. Her parents were criminals, her childhood filled with crime. How could she even compare to Catherine’s sweet, educated, beautiful, kind sister?

But it shouldn’t matter, Catherine realized. She’d kept a barrier between her and Matt for the last two years, first after Beth’s death because of her grief and pain, then after Matt started sleeping with Kara, out of anger and frustration.

It was Matt’s life. And Catherine didn’t want anything to happen to him without her telling him she was, truly, sorry for how she’d treated him of late. Even at dinner the other night—was it really less than a week ago?—she’d made snide comments about Kara. And he had ignored her.

She realized she should be apologizing to Kara, that Matt would appreciate that more.

Catherine hoped she’d have an opportunity. She didn’t have many friends; why did she think she could abuse those she had?

“You good, doc?” the SWAT leader asked.

She dismissed her contemplation.

“Good.”

“Stay behind me. You’re the negotiator. You wearing a vest?”

She nodded.

He listened to his earpiece, then said, “Rear block in place. Three. Two. One.”

The first truck came into view. It stopped almost immediately when the driver saw the Humvee, the second truck right behind it. They were fifty feet away.

Silence, except for idling motors and Catherine’s racing heart.

She willed it to slow. She signaled on her radio to Dean—three short clicks—that the trucks had been stopped.

He was supposed to signal with two long clicks in acknowledgment.

She got nothing.

Dean, Michael, and Sloane moved through the trees toward the eastern side of the Havenwood compound. They had given Kara and Toby a fifteen-minute head start.

When they were closer to the camp, he turned his radio down to silent. The air was too still, the morning too quiet. One unusual sound and the people of Havenwood would hear them.

He should have anticipated Riley’s actions. In hindsight, all the signs were there. Her fear of authorities. Her willingness to help. The drawings of her mother—the only drawings that showed something that wasn’t there. Everything else she drew was true to life—the other people, the animals, the nature. Trees were trees, flowers were flowers. But her mother was both mother and goddess, beautiful and evil. Medusa was a legendary villain in Greek mythology. That and that alone should have signaled to both Dean and Catherine that Riley might be compelled to face her mother.

Riley had insisted on coming with them. Had she planned this the entire time? He thought back...it was after Ryder Kim came in with the news of working with the forest rangers in the area. Toby Strong said he’d been in the valley, that he knew several of the people. She knew if she got closer to Havenwood, she might have a chance to slip away from them.

What was her plan? To warn her mother? He didn’t think so. After everything that happened to her, to her friends, he thought it more likely that she would either confront or kill Calliope.

Either one was a problem for them, but killing her mother was something she couldn’t come back from.

Especially if it was premeditated.

Dean understood cult mentality, but only after the fact. He had studied cults in history, could dissect them. He’d negotiated successfully to end standoffs three times, unsuccessfully once with a small doomsday group in Idaho. Five people had died that day.

He’d interviewed cult survivors and the one thing they had in common was the strong need to belong to something bigger than themselves. Many had faced tragedy, or had low self-esteem, or felt like outliers in society. But they all craved belonging, a community, a common, shared existence with other human beings.

Cult leaders preyed on the very human need for community, and through psychology and manipulation and often brainwashing, changed perception of right and wrong, good and evil, to conform to the needs and desires of the cult.

Every time Riley spoke of Havenwood, she recalled what it had been before her grandmother’s death. She spoke with affection and longing of a place that no longer existed—a place she felt her mother had destroyed. At the time, she could do nothing to stop it—she was a child. Now she was an adult with nearly four years in the “real” world to learn how to fight back.

Dean picked up his pace. Michael looked at him, mouthed, What?

Dean shook his head. He couldn’t explain what he’d been thinking, or how he had missed the signs. All he knew was he didn’t want Riley Pierce to go down a dark road from which she might never recover.

Toby Strong was a tall, lean, fit ranger who maintained a steady pace through the thin layer of snow that covered the ground. At first he chatted, saying it was good the last storm hadn’t hit western Colorado because then they wouldn’t be able to do this. There were places where the snow had melted, places where it was thinner than others. Kara tripped a few times, fell once, but Toby simply helped her up and they continued on their way.

Fifteen minutes later he stopped chattering, and five minutes after that, as they stood in the middle of trees with the sense of something vast beyond—something Kara couldn’t see—he whispered, “We’re on the edge of the valley floor. Listen.”

She did. She heard faint voices and sheep baaing. The far, distant sound of a handsaw echoing in the valley. No shouts, no panic, people weren’t hiding inside or running away. It was...normal.

Were they wrong? Was Matt not here? Had they already killed him, thinking they’d bring Riley to a meeting place?

“Where to?” she whispered.

He motioned to the left. “Follow my footsteps.”

She did as he told her. A hundred yards later, she saw a recently used gravel road, a strip of gray snow in the middle and banks of white snow on the sides. The road led into the mountains. Directly across, on an elevated plateau, was a building. The Office that Riley mentioned?

She looked around. There were cabins she could see, but no people nearby.

She saw a building near the Office that could have been the underground food storage that was turned into a jail. Matt could be there now. She itched to look.

But that wasn’t her job.

She tore her eyes away from it. She trusted Michael. He would save Matt.

“Where would Riley come from?” Kara asked.

He gestured to the other side of the Office. There was a field of snow. She didn’t know what he was pointing to.

“That wide spot there, at the base of the cliff? That’s the pond. On the other side it’s not as steep, and that’s the easiest way to come down from the road, cutting across behind the building.”

“We need to get to that building without being seen.”

He considered that, said, “Follow me.”

She did. He hadn’t steered her wrong yet. They walked along the edge of the road, on the other side of the bank of snow. Her legs sank deeper into the snow, over the top of her boots. She was cold and uncomfortable and couldn’t wait for hot coffee and a hotter shower.

The road curved just a bit about a hundred feet up, and that’s where Toby crossed it. He climbed up the embankment, then reached out and helped her up.

They were at the back of the cabin. She immediately ran up to the wall, put her back to it, hoping no one was inside and had seen them. There was a path that wrapped around three sides of the building. The fourth side was too narrow. She peered cautiously into one of the windows.

The one-room building was empty of people, but had several desks, filing cabinets, phones, and two computers. An old couch and table filled the rest of the space.

And she saw Matt’s gun, pocketknife, and badge on a table.

She motioned to Toby that she was going in. The door was locked. Probably to keep anyone who didn’t have Calliope’s approval from communicating with the outside world. But it was a flimsy lock, and she easily broke it with the butt of her gun, the crack! of metal on metal surprisingly loud.

She slowly entered.

A quick look told her this was a treasure trove of evidence. On a clipboard next to the computer was a list of names and addresses—including every murder victim. Why would Calliope keep this out in the open? Did they not think they’d be caught?

Clearly not. Killers rarely thought they’d be caught.

She said to Toby, “I need you to stay here and secure this building.” She pocketed Matt’s badge and knife and handed Toby his gun. She had two of her own. “You good?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ma’am. She almost smiled.

She was about to leave when she heard a radio beep.

“Feds are here. Repeat feds are here,” a crackly voice came through.

Dammit. Were Anton and the others alerting Calliope right now? Did she have another radio? Would she hear the warning?

“Dean, it’s Kara. Over,” she said into her own radio that was set to Dean’s channel.

No response.

“Dean, they know we’re here. Proceed with caution.”

No response.

Dammit!

“I have to go,” she said to Toby. “Stay safe, keep this place locked down. We need this evidence.”

“Roger that. Be careful.”

Kara went back outside and almost immediately saw footprints in the snow.

Two sets went down a path that led to stairs built into the cliff.

The other, single set went perpendicular, toward the far side of the pond, as Toby had indicated.

Riley.

Kara followed her path.

Catherine sensed something was wrong as the four Havenwood residents stayed in the trucks.

The SWAT leader said, “Exit your vehicles with your hands visible. Leave any weapons inside.”

They didn’t move. The lead driver—Anton, Catherine determined—was talking to the passenger, Ginger. Ginger had a daughter. Would she risk leaving her daughter motherless to fight the police? Catherine prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

Then Anton was just talking. On the radio? A cell phone? What was going on?

He drank from a thermos, looked at his watch. What were they waiting for?

“His name is Anton, no known last name,” Catherine told the team leader. “He’s wanted for questioning in a murder investigation. Ginger is the passenger, and she’s wanted for suspicion of attempted murder. I don’t know who the other two people in the second vehicle are.”

The leader shouted, “Anton, Ginger, it’s over. Please step out of the truck, hands visible, no weapons.”

They sat there drinking from their thermos. Back and forth, sharing.

“May I?” she said and took the bullhorn. She set it on the lowest setting, but it still sounded loud. “I’m Catherine Jones. I spoke with Calliope earlier. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. We’re not here to shut down Havenwood. We just want to talk.”

They didn’t respond.

“Do you have the FBI agent in the back of the truck? Can we please discuss this? We can’t have a conversation standing out here in the cold. Let’s go to the ranger station. It’s warm there. We’ll just talk.”

They were talking to each other. Catherine couldn’t see the two in the rear truck, but SWAT would have eyes on them.

The driver’s door opened and Anton stepped out, hands up. Ginger did the same thing.

She sighed in relief.

Her relief was only temporary.

As the two followed orders to turn around and put their hands on their head, Ginger faltered. She fell to the ground. A moment later, Anton stumbled, as well.

Catherine, ignoring the shouts of SWAT to stop, ran over to the fallen couple. They were frothing at the mouth, their skin was splotchy, and their eyes unfocused.

“We need a medic! They’re poisoned.”

They poisoned themselves.

Suicide.

She immediately ran back to the ranger station and got on the radio. “Dean, Dean! Anton and Ginger committed suicide. You have to stop them—I think there’s a mass suicide in progress. Dean!”

There was no answer.