The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel (29 page)

Munroe set the small suitcase on the ground, expanded the telescope handle. Morningstar eyed the luggage—a little piece that probably cost more than Morningstar brought into the Haven through begging in an entire month.

“Do you like it?” Munroe asked.

Morningstar’s face darkened with the embarrassment of one caught peeping. “It’s very nice,” she said.

“You can have it.”

Morningstar paused and said, “Really?”

Munroe held the handle outward. “You can have it now, if you like,” she said. “I’ll get my stuff out of it later.”

Morningstar hesitated, and then with a beaming smile that screamed of Heidi, she reached for it.

Offering the suitcase was the easiest bribe Munroe had yet made.

The upstairs portion of the main house was divided into quadrants, one for rooming the teenage boys and younger single men, a second for the teenage girls and single women. The third housed a younger group, which was not segregated by gender, and the fourth, according to Morningstar, was divided into smaller rooms for several couples.

The entire upstairs had only two bathrooms, and much like the toilets that Munroe had seen in the annex, these also had been modified to accommodate an extra number of people.

The girls’ room, as it was called, was similar to the bedrooms in the annex and was lined and filled with homemade narrow bunk beds,
three high, forming tight corridors for passage. Suitcases were stored underneath the bottom beds, and a row of built-in cupboards along one wall functioned as additional storage. All of the beds were tightly made with no personal items strewn about, the top covers home-sewn and matching. The only additional piece of furniture in the room was a tall, lean shelving unit covered with a curtain that fit between two of the bunk beds.

Here in this place, where space was at a premium, Munroe grasped the value held in the small suitcase she’d given to Morningstar. All told, if the number of beds were any indication, this unheated room of twenty by twenty feet housed fifteen girls.

Morningstar pointed up to the top of one of the bunks. “That’s the only one we have empty right now,” she said. “Because Crystal is on a trip. If you think you’ll have trouble getting up and down, I can trade with you for the night.”

Munroe glanced at the bed and shook it some. Considering the center of gravity on this monstrosity, the bed was sturdy enough. “I’ll give it a try,” she said. Not because she wanted to sleep there, or even would be, but because next to the bunk was the shelf unit, which was prime real estate for mounting a hidden camera.

Munroe utilized the bunk’s end boards as a ladder, and with far less agility than she was capable of, made her way slowly upward. She sat, her head slightly bent to the ceiling, grinning, and said, “Where do you sleep?”

Morningstar pointed to a middle bed against the far wall.

“And Sarai?”

The bottom beneath Munroe.

“Faith?”

Morningstar nodded to a middle bunk, one over.

All of this for that little piece of knowledge—to know where to find Hannah at night. But this was how it went in the world of information. And this was good. In one turn she had received confirmation of her target’s location, a layout of the upper floor, and full access to it all. For the price of a carry-on suitcase.

The most difficult event of the evening would be getting out of this bed without waking the ones below. Munroe wiggled to shake the bed and in turn elicited a smile from Morningstar.

“I might get used to this,” she said.

Morningstar’s smile lingered. “I’ve got to take care of something real quick,” she said. She pointed to the curtained shelves. “You can use Crystal’s shelf for anything personal you need to set out. Why don’t you get situated? I’ll be back in five minutes and then we can head to the dining room.”

Munroe nodded, baffled at how The Chosen so easily incorporated her, a criminal for all they knew, into their personal spaces; they trusted her to stay with their children, but not to read their disciples’ Instructives. Their twisted priorities made sense in a Chosen kind of way, if you understood The Chosen.

Morningstar left, and with the room empty, Munroe mounted a camera atop the shelving unit, finishing as the teenager returned.

The dinner scene was as it had been the night before. The noise of a hundred fifty voices in multiple conversations. Singing. Prayer. Then cacophony again. And again, Munroe sat with Elijah’s family, only tonight Hannah was there too, even though across the room her adopted mother, Magdalene, was sitting at a table with the three younger children.

Hannah’s presence gave Munroe pause, a mental double take, a rerun through scenarios and precautions, private assurances this wasn’t some form of setup, that they truly had no idea why she was here, that their act wasn’t better than hers; that it could only be coincidence.

Elijah was late in joining the table, and as he slid onto the bench opposite, he squeezed next to Hannah and put his arm around her and to Munroe said, “I see you’ve met my adopted daughter.”

“I’m still trying to understand all the family connections,” Munroe said.

“Her father is serving the Lord in another Haven,” he said, “and so Faith is with our family a few nights a week.”

His arm stayed around Hannah’s shoulder far longer than what seemed normal, and Munroe would have written it off as simply part of The Chosen were it not for the pained discomfort on Hannah’s face.

It was the second time Munroe had seen that look today. This was a child who had grown up among such close contact, who had shown no aversion to the physical touch of any other person, yet she was clearly distressed and wanted nothing to do with him. Munroe glanced from Elijah, to Hannah, to Morningstar, who sat opposite Hannah. This girl so proudly proclaiming that none of her friends were abused was oblivious to the dynamics in her own family and the deeds of her own father.

The embers of today’s earlier fire rekindled into a full flame. Nausea swept in, Munroe’s eyes smarted with the sting of anger, and her mind worked overtime, analyzing, rationalizing. That Hannah was being molested in this Haven, Munroe had no doubt. But that it was Elijah?

Munroe wasn’t infallible. She read the body language, but there was room for error. It wasn’t safe to assume. Not with something like this.

She sat. Breathing. Calm. Controlled breathing. Whatever was said around the table was lost to the filters of internal dialogue. Time slowed. She watched the interaction. Studied. Observed. And again the evidence was there, so obvious in the way he touched and interacted with her, so obvious in Hannah’s distaste and the fear in her eyes.

This man, this leader of the commune, was Hannah’s surrogate father, authority figure, teacher, leader in the Lord, and her abuser. And Hannah, stolen from her parents, abandoned by her kidnapper, and passed from hand to hand like a pet from owner to owner, had no safe place to turn, if she even understood these things to be the crimes against her person that they were.

Munroe’s inner guidance screamed, her violated childhood rose like a primal creature from the magma of the earth.

Even when Hannah was gone from here, it wouldn’t end. There would be another innocent to fill her place. But Munroe could put an end to it all. Kill this man tonight before leaving the Haven and break the cycle for good. In the scorch of each passing second came the personal conflict of vigilante justice. Break one cycle only to start a new one.

These were not strangers in a darkened alley. Elijah was a husband, parent, and granddad. This was Morningstar’s father, Heidi’s father, the only person these children who sat around the table had to protect them from becoming more Hannahs, and their innocent eyes, staring curiously at her from across the table, made very vivid and personal the effects of whatever she chose to do.

Control. Munroe fought for control. Breathe. Listen. Talk. They were talking to her. Answer the questions being asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Maybe a little dizzy from the heat of the kitchen.”

M
unroe processed through the evening, seeing and experiencing everything as if through gauzy curtains, interacting by rote and, through force of will, betraying no sign of the turbulence beneath the façade.

As per the night prior, dinner segued into further discussions, and as the conversations lengthened, those at the table slowly drifted away. Munroe watched Hannah warily, anxious about not letting her out of her sight, yet knowing there was no option but to do so.

They congregated again in the living room, another evening of songs and motivational words, another act from The Chosen, all of it fast becoming tiresome, especially after the events of today. Munroe wanted this over. Wanted to escape to the top-tier bed, where she could stare at the ceiling in darkness and her mind could churn and analyze unhindered, and from where she could observe Hannah until the night lengthened.

After a final round of singing, the Haven’s members dispersed in their many directions, and Munroe walked with Elijah to the makeshift office. There he pulled out another book for her. He suggested she read until lights out, and Munroe was happy to oblige. Not the reading per se, but the escape to the girls’ room and the sanctuary of the upper bed.

Unlike earlier in the day, the beds were now mostly filled. The girls wrote in journals, read, or talked quietly, bunk mate to bunk mate, the
sleeping places used like personal pods on some alien craft. Touches of individuality were tacked to ceilings or posts here and there, these small spaces the only thing uniquely theirs, as if in this crowded house, the boundaries of each one’s personal universe extended only to the four borders of her bed.

Munroe recognized some of the faces from time spent around the Haven but knew none of the names. Their expressions were welcoming, and as no one moved to challenge her presence, Munroe assumed they were at the least aware in some general sense of who she was and why she was here. Introduction and some form of familiarity with these eager teenagers would have been the better course, but Munroe wanted only quiet, and so instead she headed up the end boards.

Neither Morningstar nor Hannah was in the room. Given that several of the beds were still empty, it was safe to assume that all was in order, but their absence was anxiety inducing.

Munroe wanted Hannah where she could see her.

On her bed Munroe waited, eyes closed and mind running, scattered. Her priority was Hannah, but Hannah was not the only child in this Haven at risk, and that burden, the conflict of retribution, weighed heavily on her. No matter the choice she made tonight, there would be suffering, and although it would be easy to ignore the decision completely and leave the outcome to fate, fate like the other options bore its own implications.

According to plan, she would wait until after one in the morning to contact Bradford, and from there she’d guide him in. Getting past the gate and the dogs would be a nonissue for him, and the front doors had no security beyond the inside dead bolts. Once Bradford set foot on the property, she would already have the girls in this room unconscious.

Time passed, the room filled, Morningstar returned, and by the time the lights went out, Hannah was still not in her bed. The violence that had been brewing throughout the day, the death and vengeance that had thus far been held in check by willed control, pressed relentlessly against restraint.

Munroe climbed from the bed, and Morningstar sat up when she did.

“I left my phone in the car,” Munroe said. “My parents were supposed to call and I forgot all about it—if they can’t reach me they get panicky—I think I need to check.”

Morningstar slid out of bed. “I’ll go with you,” she said, and Munroe nodded, expecting nothing less.

The goodwill purchased earlier in the day was still between them, and as they walked, Munroe, in as casual a tone as she could conjure, said, “I thought all the girls are supposed to follow the lights-out rules.”

“They are,” Morningstar said. “But we won’t get in trouble if you need to get something from your car.”

“I was thinking more of Faith,” Munroe said. “She seems like a special exception.”

“Oh, that,” Morningstar said, and in those few words, Munroe caught the darkened tone of envy. “No, she’s not staying here tonight.”

That simple sentence changed everything.

The excuse of needing the phone was meant to be but a way out of the room and alone with Morningstar. Now the little device was burning a hole in Munroe’s pocket, screaming to be used.

“Where’d Faith go?” Munroe asked.

She’d asked a direct question with no couching, barely concealed under the guise of innocence, a tactic that would normally shut a mark up faster than any other and was typically best saved for interrogation.

Morningstar paused, and after a long hesitation said, “She’s staying with friends.”

Outside, five vans were parked under the stars and both sedans were gone. Munroe opened the passenger door of her vehicle, and by sleight of hand pulled the phone from the glove box. She flipped it open, and with Morningstar curious and watching closely, sighed heavily and said, “God, I feel stupid. Several missed calls.”

She went through the act of listening to voice mail, and when all was done, concern set across her face. “I need to return this call,” she said, “it’s my boyfriend, and it’s urgent.”

Morningstar made no move to reenter the house or to allow Munroe space or privacy, and so with the girl standing there, watching and listening, she dialed Bradford.

“
La youmkinouni an atakalam be houriya,
” she said. “We’ve got a problem, and I need you to work fast. Have you gotten any of the footage from the front-door camera?”

“I’ve gotten it,” Bradford said. “But only hips, legs, and feet.”

“I’m looking for a teenage girl heading out the front—I suspect she’s accompanied.”

The last time Munroe had seen Hannah had been during the evening vespers. “Start scanning at eight-thirty,” she said.