baby smell that provoked immediate memories of bottle feedings late at night while Annie worked the graveyard shift at the hospital. Living the moment as intensely as he could, he willed the sweetness of it into his memory and the fear of losing her retreated. For the moment.
He had too few memories. Far too few for the sixteen months of his daughter’s life. He lifted his head to meet Annie’s gaze. “We need to talk.”
She shrugged. “Here I am.” No softness in her face indicated his emotion had touched her.
“Not here.”
“It’s as good as you’re going to get. Outsiders aren’t allowed in, and I’m certainly not going anywhere with you. Whatever you have to say, say it. I’ve got vegetables to weed.”
He forced his arms to stay relaxed. If the tension in them woke Kailey it would just give Anne an excuse to take her away from him.
“I’d like to work out some kind of arrangement with you so I can see her.”
She shook her head. “I don’t see how. Unless you give up the Devil’s government and join us. Allow God into your heart and learn to live for His return at the end of the world.”
He hated it when she mouthed her doctrine at him. “I know you don’t want to marry me and give her a conventional family. But I’m willing to overlook this last year and just go with occasional visits.” If he thought she’d go for that one, he was wrong. “Come on, Annie, she’s my daughter. I have a petition for custody with me. I won’t allow her to grow up without knowing me.”
“She’ll grow up knowing her heavenly Father, which is far more important in the long run, Ross. Her relationship with Him is going to benefit her for eternity.”
“But it isn’t going to benefit me. I want to see my kid grow up. I want to be part of her life.”
A mistake. He knew it instantly.
“You,” she spat. “Always you. You want this, you want that. Well, for once you’re going to have to accept what I want. And I want my daughter to grow up knowing God, in the safety of His house, away from the kind of influence that will only distract her from what’s important. I don’t recognize your papers or your rights. When Armageddon comes, Ross, what you want will be—quite frankly—irrelevant. What she’ll have will save her.”
He took a deep breath, controlling his welling frustration for Kailey’s sake. “What about when she gets older? What about her education? I w—I’d like to be involved there. Even if it’s only financially.”
“She’ll learn everything she needs here. Two of us were teachers before we came to God.”
“But she—”
“Schools are the tool of an evil government, Ross. They’ll rot her mind. Everything she needs to know, she’ll learn here. With me and God’s chosen Church.”
“And that’s final?” he asked. His arms trembled. His rage and fear were threatening to overcome his faith that God would give him the words to convince her. He had to try one more time. “Isn’t there some kind of compromise we can work out?”
She held out her arms. “We can’t compromise with the world and keep ourselves pure. Give her to me, Ross.”
Involuntarily, his grip tightened, and Kailey woke. She pushed back and gaped at him. Her eyes widened, tears spurted into them, and she shrieked, her little hands pushing fearfully at his chest.
Anne snatched her away from him. “I told you. You’re a total stranger to her. She stays with me, where she belongs.” She wrenched the door open.
“I wouldn’t be a stranger if you hadn’t run off and—wait!” The door slammed, and he was alone in the shabby porch.
Heat shimmered around him as he ran back to the truck. Jamming it into gear, he roared into town, throwing up a plume of dust that spiraled thickly in the rearview mirror.
Lord, help me. Help me.
As he burst into the sheriff’s office, Ross knew he looked like a crazed gunfighter, covered in dust and sweat, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.
“What happened to you?” Sheriff Cornoyer looked up from the blizzard of reports on his desk. “You get run over by a cattle drive?”
“It’s not funny, Corny,” he told the sheriff, who had been patient in helping a fellow officer with his quest. “I need a warrant.”
Cornoyer gave him a searching look. “You have grounds to believe there’s a crime somewhere in my jurisdiction?”
“My ex-girlfriend won’t give me access to my daughter.”
“She’s a Sealer. I told you she wouldn’t listen. But you had to go out there and prove it for yourself.”
“Knock it off, Corny.”
“Get real, Ross. You’re supposedly on leave, and you’re on my turf. Show me some evidence that will give me the Sealers and we’ll talk.”
“How about this?” Ross pulled the empty casings out of his pockets and rolled them onto Cornoyer’s desk, where they scattered dirt all over his reports. “If those aren’t from an HK with a thirty-round clip, you can send me home.”
Corny sat back in his chair and considered. “I hope you take the detective’s exam some day, son. Apply to that organized crime task force I hear they’re putting together in Seattle. You’re wasted on patrol. Okay. We’ll go have a look around first thing tomorrow.” He looked up. “But you need to calm down. Get some rest. You’ve been running on nerves alone since you got here.”
Every instinct demanded that he pound on a judge’s door and get the piece of paper that would allow him to search the compound until he found his child. But instinct had to give way to common sense. They’d go tomorrow, when his head was clear and he could think rationally instead of emotionally. And after he’d spent a good long time on his knees.
I’ve never been so afraid, Lord. Help me.
“Okay. I’ll be here when shift changes,” he said aloud.
“Good man. Don’t worry, it’ll all work out. With any luck, we can get ’em on a couple dozen weapons charges and seize the property.”
But luck had run out. When he and Corny drove up to the compound the next day and prepared to demand entry, only the hot wind answered them. The door he’d knocked on yesterday stood partly open, swinging on rusty hinges. They ran inside, then searched the other houses and the barn in about twenty minutes, but came up with nothing more incriminating than some broken windows and another cache of bullet casings out by the field of vegetables.
The Church of the Seventh Seal had pulled up and moved out, and taken his daughter with them.
Six years later
Memorandum
Date: June 3, 2004
To: Sergeant Bruce Harmon
Organized Crime Task Force
