The Last Widow (Will Trent 9)

Dash didn’t seem bothered by her departure. He took Gwen’s place on the stool. He held out his arm and Joy sat in his lap. She leaned her head on his shoulder. He rested his hand on her hip.

Sara watched the water spilling over the river rocks. She wasn’t comfortable seeing a fifteen-year-old girl sit in a grown man’s lap, even if that man was her father.

Dash told Sara, “Gwen doesn’t like to talk about her time before.”

“She should be proud. Graduating from nursing school is quite an accomplishment.”

Dash patted his leg. Grace carefully crawled up to his knee. She tucked her fingers into his sling. He stroked her hair.

Sara had to look away again. Maybe she was reading into it, but there was something unsettling about the way Dash touched his children.

He said, “I think my daughters would tell you that working at home, taking care of your family, is quite an accomplishment, too.”

“My mother would agree. She was very happy that she could choose that life for herself. Just like I was happy to choose something different.”

Joy’s eyes were on Sara. The wariness had turned into curiosity. She didn’t seem embarrassed to be sitting in her father’s lap. Given their isolation on the compound and the infantilizing way they dressed, her maturity level could lag behind that of a typical fifteen-year-old.

Still, something about the situation made Sara uneasy.

Dash said, “Dr. Earnshaw, we live a simple life here with traditional roles. This is how the early Americans not only lived but thrived. Everyone is happier when they know what’s expected of them. Men do the work of men and women do the work of women. We don’t allow the modern world to interfere with our values.”

Sara asked, “Did those solar panels on the bunkhouse come over on the Ni?a, the Pinta or the Santa María?”

Dash gave a surprised laugh. He likely wasn’t used to being challenged, especially by a woman. He told the children, “Girls, those are the names of the ocean ships that brought the Pilgrims to the New World.”

Sara chewed at the tip of her tongue. He had to know that the ships had been part of Christopher Columbus’s expedition from Spain. The Pilgrims arrived over one hundred years later. These were basic facts that almost every American child knew by the time they graduated elementary school. They were taught songs about it, forced to act it out in Thanksgiving plays.

Dash said, “Some believe the Mayflower Compact was a covenant with God to advance Christianity in the New World.”

Sara couldn’t wait to see where he was going with this.

“In fact, the Compact was a social contract that bound the settlers to a standard set of laws and regulations.” Dash continued to absently stroke Grace’s hair. “That’s what we’ve set up here, Dr. Earnshaw. We are some of us Puritans, some of us settlers, others of us adventurers and tradesmen, but we are bound together by the belief in the same laws and regulations. That is the hallmark of a civil society.”

At least he’d gotten his Wikipedia right. “The Pilgrims were on the King’s land, just like the land we’re on right now belongs to the federal government.”

Dash smiled. “Are you trying to get me to confirm our location, Dr. Earnshaw?”

Sara wanted to kick herself for being so clumsy. “The laws and regulations of the United States supersede whatever you’ve got going on inside your Camp. That’s the privilege and price you pay for citizenship. As my grandfather used to say: Don’t mess with the US Government. They won two wars and can print their own money.”

Dash laughed. “Your grandfather sounds like my kind of man. But you should understand that we adhere to the original words in the Constitution. We do not interpret or amend. We follow the laws exactly as they were set down by the Framers.”

“Then I assume you know that of the three criminal offenses listed in the Constitution, treason comes first. The Framers called for the death penalty against anyone who levies war against the United States.”

“Thomas Jefferson told us that ‘a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,’” Dash said. “The vast majority of the country agrees with what we’re doing here. We’re all patriots, Dr. Earnshaw. That’s what we call ourselves. The Invisible Patriot Army.”

Army.

Sara asked, “IPA? I’ve heard that abbreviation before.”

“I like beer.” His smile didn’t falter. “Benjamin Franklin, another great patriot, wrote that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Franklin had actually been talking about French wine, but Sara didn’t correct him. She smoothed out the folds in her dress. She was sweating. Bugs were swarming around her face. Her skin was burning in the sun. It was still better than being confined in the cabin.

She asked, “You ever notice how George Clooney never goes around telling people how handsome he is?”

Dash raised his eyebrows, expectant.

“It makes me curious—if you’re really a patriot, do you have to put it in your name?”

Dash chuckled, shaking his head. “I wonder, Dr. Earnshaw, if I was a writer, how would I describe you in a book?”

Sara had read books by men like Dash. He would list the color of her hair, the size of her breasts and the shape of her ass. “Are you writing a book? A manifesto?”

“I should.” His jocularity was gone. “What we are doing up here, what I have created, must be replicated if our people are to survive. The world will need a blueprint to follow after the pillars fall.”

“What pillars?”

“Dash!” Lance’s panicked scream broke the moment.

Instinctively, Sara was on her feet. The man looked as if he was on the verge of hysteria. He was running toward them, rifle gripped between his hands, mouth wide open.

He screamed, “Tommy fell! It’s really bad. His leg is all—” He stopped a few feet away, bending at the waist to catch his breath. “It was during the drill. His leg—” Lance shook his head, unable to put words to the image. “Gwen says bring the doctor right now.”

Dash studied Lance. He had not moved. Neither had his girls. Joy waited until he patted her on the leg like a dog, then got down from his lap.

He told Sara, “I hope you don’t mind joining me?”

For the first time since she’d met this sadist, Sara was actually willing to go with him. She wanted to see this place where Tommy was doing drills.

Dash kept to his usual pace as they walked through the forest. Lance rushed ahead, almost frenzied. He stumbled over a fallen log. His rifle flew out of his hands. He tried to stand up, but fell again.

“Steady, brother.” Dash picked up the rifle. He wiped off the dirt. He handed it back to Lance. “Deep breath.”

Lance’s inhalation was shallow. His breath smelled sour when he exhaled.

“Good man.” Dash patted his shoulder, then continued up the path.

He was clever. Sara had to give him that. She used the same technique in the emergency room. Trauma tended to heighten emotions. When everyone was freaking out, being calm instantly put you in a place of authority.

“This way, please.” Dash was leading them away from the greenhouse, over the hill to what Sara had assumed was the main compound.

She could hear a siren wailing in the distance. Then she realized it wasn’t a siren. Someone was screaming at that blood-curdling pitch that could only be achieved by being in excruciating, life-threatening pain.

Sara started to run toward the sound. The path opened up onto another clearing. It was twice the size of the other one. More cabins, more women cooking on open fires, but she didn’t stop to count the number of people or take in her surroundings. She lifted her dress and ran as hard as she could toward the wailing man.

There was an open structure at the crest of the hill. It was massive, but incomplete. Only the framing existed. Wood studs for walls, plywood on the floors, open stairs, safety railings. Two stories high. The second level was no more than a balcony that ringed the open floor below. There was no roof, no Sheetrock or siding. Two layered tarps served as a ceiling. The material on the bottom one was in the familiar, thermal-blocking silver. The top was dark green to help the structure blend into the forest.

A group of men stood in a circle at the base of the stairs. They were dressed in black tactical gear with padded vests. Sara looked up as she entered the building, because that’s what it was—they had mocked up an actual building. The span of one tarp wasn’t enough to cover the space. There were eight large pieces patched together. The surface area was roughly fifty yards square, half of a football field. The walls and floor were spattered with various colors of paint, probably from paintball guns. There were paper targets representing security guards. Muddy footprints showed where men had run in and out of the building.

Sara could think of only one reason to mock up a structure in this manner, and that was to practice taking over the building, possibly killing or kidnapping the people inside.