know what you’re asking. I’m never going back there!”
He captured her gaze and held it. His tanned face wore a driven and determined expression. “You’re the only one who can help me reach Phoebe. She won’t talk to me.”
“Then get your mother to. Everyone listens to their mother.”
“My mother has tried, but each time she’s written, the letters have been returned unopened. Both of my parents are getting old and can’t travel. Mom tried to call, when they had a phone, but she was always told Phoebe was busy or that Noah would take the message.”
That sounded about right. Noah owned a cell phone, but the few times it rang, only John or one of the men were allowed to answer it. She could still recall the one time it rang and there were no men. The women let it ring on and on, a creepy nonaction that still irritated her.
“We’ve all tried. I’m hoping that she’ll at least talk to another woman who lived with her. Can you go back—”
Her breath clouded the cool pane of glass between them, thankfully breaking the lock his stare had on her. “Are you nuts? We can’t help them! And I won’t go back to try. Phoebe knows I hated all of them.” She let out an incredulous laugh. “Trust me, you can’t help them. I spent two years there! They’re all beyond help.”
Eli bent closer to the door. His pale brows pressed together. “Did you say that when you went looking to save your sister? Did you believe that when you went searching for Noah’s compound? Remember how you got that info?”
She shrank away. “How do you know that?”
“You were on CNN, Kaylee. You paid a local to reveal the exact location of the compound.”
He’d done his homework. Yes, she’d paid for the information. More than five thousand dollars. But she’d been desperate to find her sister, willing to deplete her meager savings. And she’d found out where exactly in eastern Maine they were.
Like Eli was now, she’d been anxious, hurt by her sister’s actions.
She threw off the sympathy. “So why don’t you just go talk to Phoebe? You’re her brother, just as much as Noah is. Surely she’d see you? Can’t you say that your parents are worried about her, too?”
His nod of agreement was barely perceptible. “Yes, they are concerned. And at a loss of what to do. Phoebe had just turned eighteen when she left and they couldn’t force her to come back. But she was so innocent.”
Like Trisha. Young, naive, an idealist with visions of what the future was supposed to be like.
“Phoebe made her decision and she’s had plenty of opportunities to escape if she wanted to. She’s chosen to stay with Noah. As crazy as that is.”
He fell silent, his lips pressing tight and his expression looking as though he struggled with some inner pain. The pain of losing his sister to a cult?
Or maybe her words struck a nerve. What had she said exactly? What was it that led to this desperation?
Again, she ignored her growing empathy. “Go away. I’m tired and I don’t have to answer any of your questions.”
“Not even when it means saving someone else?”
She gave him a level stare. “If you think pushing guilt on me is going to crumble my resolve, think again. They want to be there. Besides, what are you hoping will happen? That she’ll just leave and walk into some counseling service just because you’ve asked her to?”
He blinked, swallowed. “I don’t know what to do. I’m at the end of my rope. If I weren’t so desperate, I wouldn’t have come here to ask you for help. I was hoping you could talk to her.”
Her heart tightened, but she gritted her teeth. “I had hoped the same thing.” She’d done more than hoped. She’d considered kidnapping, as dangerous and traumatic as it could be. Now Trisha was dead. “Leave your sister alone. She wants to be there.”
With that, she walked away from the door and into the living room.
With rattled nerves, she sank down onto her secondhand couch. Why, Lord? Why did You drop him into my life? He’ll bring nothing but grief. Why do You want me to suffer so much? It’s not fair.
Lois Smith, her right-side neighbor, had told her to pray, but her gritty prayers had a petulant edge. And God never answered her, anyway.
The outside fell quiet. She liked the stillness, the peace it could bring. But today? No.
Abruptly, the phone rang and she let out a short cry.
Eli? Did he have a cell phone and was now calling her from her front door? Shaking, she listened to the insistent rings. Four, five…She snatched the receiver. “Leave me alone!”
“Kaylee, dear? What’s wrong? Who was that man at your door?”
She sank against the wall. Lois. With their homes being so close, Lois’s wisdom, along with her hugs and a hot cup of tea, were barely ten feet away. All that stood between them were some dying pansies and a chipped, cracked walkway.
No. Today, Eli Nash stood between them.
Kaylee fought back tears and after a swallow whispered, “That was Noah Nash’s brother.”
She heard Lois’s little gasp. “Call the police, dear!”
“No. I think he left.”
“I’ll check.” She could hear the older woman walk to her front window. “Yes, he’s gone. Kaylee, dear, do you need some company?”
She wasn’t the kind to grab company when it was offered, unlike so many of the friendly people here in New Brunswick. But Lois would provide a hug and a sympathetic ear, make the tea and offer advice if asked.
And if asked, the sweet old lady would suggest she help Eli. The Christian thing to do. Not what she wanted to hear right now.
Kaylee bit her lip, not wanting to snub her neighbor, and not sure she wanted to be alone.
“I’ll be right over,” Lois decided after the pause. “Let me put the dog out first. He hasn’t been out yet today.”
Minutes later, sympathy crinkling the skin between her sparse, graying eyebrows, Lois arrived. She held Kaylee’s keys in her thin, arthritic hands. “I found this in the lock. Look at you! You’ve had a fright! You could use some hot tea.” She bustled into the kitchen. Kaylee shuffled in behind and dropped into the nearest chair.
“What did that man want?” Lois asked.
She rubbed her forehead. “His sister’s in the cult and he wants me to go back in to talk to her.”
“Oh, my! What did you tell him?”
“I refused. I can’t go back there.” She watched Lois pour the tea, thinking of all those times she’d been monitored by the women in the compound. And ogled by some of the men. Never having a moment to herself.
It had pushed her,
