Dead Even - Mariah Stewart [70]
“A journal is nice to write your thoughts in.”
“My father . . .” she began, then stopped.
“Your father what?” Genna asked casually.
“He doesn’t like me to be secretive. He always tells me to talk everything over with him.” She smiled faintly.
“But every girl has her secrets,” Genna whispered conspiratorially.
“I don’t.” The admission seemed almost apologetic.
“You tell your father everything?”
“He likes to know what I’m thinking about.” Julianne stopped to look over a package of faux tortoiseshell hair clips. “I guess it’s because I don’t have a mom. That’s why he makes me stay with him and Pamela, in their apartment, instead of in the cabins with the other girls. He wants me to know her.”
Genna had seen Jules with his new young wife. She was pretty and blonde and, well, young. Barely of legal age, Genna guessed, though she suspected that Jules Douglas was just too smart to take an underage bride.
“You stay with them, not in a cabin, like the other girls?” Genna asked, though she knew. It appeared Jules used his position as one of the reverend’s financial advisers to keep his daughter from harm’s way. For that, Genna grudgingly gave him credit.
“My dad says a family should stay together.”
“Well, the cabins are a bit crowded. And I’m sure your father likes to have you close to him,” Genna said. And your father would probably like to keep you from forming any attachments that might cause you to ask too many questions when girls you become close to disappear.
As she’d anticipated, Genna had had a hard time getting Jules to agree to permit Julianne to leave the compound today. Only the fact that Reverend Prescott approved of Genna’s mission and would be sending Daniel to accompany them persuaded Jules to let his daughter leave the Valley of the Angels. Genna was grateful for Prescott’s backing. There was something about Jules Douglas that she found menacing. The sooner she could get Julianne away from him and back in her mother’s arms, the happier Genna would be.
“I think I like this little dish.” Julianne stopped in front of a display of small ceramic items. “See, it has a little lid.”
She carefully lifted the box to show Genna. “It has a tiny pink flower painted inside.”
“Pretty, yes.” Genna peered inside. “But what will you put in it?”
“Tiny stones, maybe.” Julianne smiled. “Or other pretty little things I find.”
“Sounds like a winner. Let’s take it.” Genna gestured for Julianne to follow her to the front of the store and the cash register, where she paid the unsmiling clerk for their purchase.
The middle-aged woman hadn’t been the only person in Linden to show a lack of friendliness to Genna and her charges over the past few weeks. It was an odd position for Genna to be in. She’d made a solid place for herself in the Bureau by being one who always fit in, wherever she was. Here in Linden, she was the odd man out, identified as a member of Reverend Prescott’s followers by the white scarf she wore around her neck. Apparently the good people of Linden had their reservations about strangers, especially those who dwelled in the Valley of the Angels.
As well they should have, Genna thought as she accepted her change and pocketed it. What will they think, once the reverend’s little empire is exposed for what it is?
She could almost hear the interviews on CNN and the morning news shows. “We always knew there was something going on out there. . . .”
Soon enough, Genna told herself as she took Julianne by the arm and leaned into the wind that snaked around them and blew the snow in whirls of icy mist.
Soon enough, of course, assuming that those who were responsible for their escape from here on out had everything in place. Genna simply had to trust.
The Jeep was still where Daniel had parked it outside the grocery store, but Daniel was nowhere to be seen. They were just crossing the street when Julianne tugged at her sleeve and said, “Look, there’s Daniel.”
They stopped in the middle of the street.
“Who are those men he’s talking to?” she asked, and pointed to the three men in black who