"Yeah. But she didn't give up her curling iron. Just have her call me. I've left messages on the machine up there but, h.e.l.l, maybe she's p.i.s.sed off about something. Who knows?"

I clicked off and looked at the clock. Twelve-fifteen. I tried Montreal. Harry didn't answer, so I left another message. As I lay in the dark my mind positioned itself for cross-examination.

Why hadn't hadn't I checked out ILE? I checked out ILE?

Because there was no reason to do so. She took the course through a legitimate inst.i.tution, and there was no cause for alarm. Besides, to research each of Harry's schemes would take a full-time investigator.

Tomorrow. I'll make some calls tomorrow. Not tonight. I shut down the inquisition.

I mounted the stairs, stripped, and slid under the covers. I needed sleep. I needed a respite from the turmoil that dominated my conscious thought.

Overhead, the ceiling fan hummed softly. I thought of Dom Owens' parlor, and, though I fought them, the names drifted back.

Brian. Heidi. Brian and Heidi were students.

Jennifer Cannon was a student.

Anna Goyette.

My stomach turned over.

Harry.

Harry had registered for her first seminar at the North Harris County Community College. Harry was a student.

The others had been killed or had disappeared while in Quebec.

My sister was in Quebec.

Or was she?

Where the h.e.l.l was Ryan?

When he finally called my trepidation escalated to real fear.

28.

"GONE? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, GONE GONE?"

I'd slept fitfully, and when Ryan woke me at dawn, I felt headachy and out of sorts.

"When we arrived with the warrant the place was deserted."

"Twenty-six people just vanished?"

"Owens and a female companion ga.s.sed up the vans around seven yesterday morning. The attendant remembered because it wasn't their normal routine. Baker and I got to the commune around five P.M. P.M. Sometime in between the padre and his disciples took the big powder." Sometime in between the padre and his disciples took the big powder."

"They just drove off?"

"Baker's put out an APB, but so far the vans haven't been spotted."

"For G.o.d's sake." I wasn't believing this.

"Actually, it's worse."

I waited.

"Another eighteen people have vanished in Texas."

I felt myself go cold.

"Turns out there was another little band on the Guillion property out there. The Fort Bend County Sheriff's Department has been monitoring them for several years and weren't all that adverse to taking a closer look. Unfortunately, when the team showed up, the brethren had split. They bagged one old man and a c.o.c.ker spaniel hiding under the porch."

"What's his story?"

"The guy's in custody, but he's either senile or feebleminded and hasn't given much up."

"Or cagey as h.e.l.l."

I watched the gray outside my window lighten.

"Now what?"

"Now we toss the Saint Helena compound and hope the state boys can discover where Owens has led the faithful."

I glanced at the clock. Seven-ten and already I was at the thumbnail.

"How's your end?"

I told Ryan about the tooth marks on the bones, and about my suspicions concerning Carole Comptois.

"Not the right MO."

"What MO? Simonnet was shot, Heidi and her family were slashed and stabbed, and we don't know how the two in the upstairs bedroom died. Cannon and Comptois were both attacked by animals and knives. That's not a common occurrence."

"Comptois was killed in Montreal. Cannon and friend were found twelve hundred miles south of there. Did this dog catch a shuttle?"

"I'm not saying it's the same dog. Just the same pattern."

"Why?"

I'd been asking myself that question all night. And who?

"Jennifer Cannon was a McGill student. So is Anna Goyette. Heidi and Brian were also in school when they joined Owens' group. Can you find out if Carole Comptois had any university ties? Took a course or worked at a college?"

"She was a hooker."

"Maybe she won a scholarship," I snapped. His negative att.i.tude was irritating me.

"O.K., O.K. Don't get your bra in a twist."

"Ryan . . ." I hesitated, not wanting to give reality to my fear by shaping it into words.

He waited.

"My sister registered for her seminar at a community college in Texas."

The line was quiet.

"Her son called me yesterday because he can't contact her. Neither can I."

"She may be hunkered in as part of the training. You know, like a retreat. Maybe she's laid a grid map over her soul and she's combing it inch by inch. But if you're really worried, call the college."

"Yeah."

"Just because she enrolled in the Lone Star State doesn't m-"

"I realize I'm being absurd, but Kathryn's words frightened me, and now Dom Owens is out there planning G.o.d knows what."

"We'll nail his a.s.s."

"I know."

"Brennan, how do I say this?" He drew a long breath, let it out. "Your sister is going through a transition, and right now she's open to new relationships. She may have met someone and gone off for a few days."

Without her curling iron? Anxiety lodged like a cold, dense ma.s.s inside my chest.

When we disconnected I tried Harry again. In my mind's eye I saw the phone ringing in my empty condo. Where could she be at seven on a Sunday morning?

Sunday. d.a.m.n! I couldn't call the college until tomorrow.

I made coffee then rang Kit, even though it was an hour earlier in Texas.

He was polite but groggy, and didn't follow my line of questioning. When he finally began to comprehend, he was unsure if his mother's course had been a regular college offering. He thought he remembered literature, and promised to drop by her house to check.

I couldn't sit still. I opened the Observer Observer, then the Belanger journals. I even tried the Sunday morning evangelists. Neither crime nor Louis-Philippe nor Jeeee-zus could hold my attention. I was a mental cul-de-sac with no outlet.

Not really in the mood, I threw on running gear and headed out. The sky was clear, the air soft and balmy as I followed Queens Road West, then cut over on Princeton to Freedom Park. Sweat droplets changed to rivulets as my Nikes pounded past the lagoon. Little ducks glided single file behind their mother, their quacks drifting on the Sunday morning air.

My thoughts remained jumbled and useless, the players and events of the past weeks running in circles around my brain. I tried to focus on the steady beat of my sneakers, the rhythm of my breath, but I kept hearing Ryan's phrase. New relationships. Is that what he and Harry had called their Hurley's night? Is that what I'd danced into with my adventure with Ryan on the Melanie Tess Melanie Tess?

I traversed the park, ran north past the medical clinic, then snaked my way through the narrow streets of Myers Park. I pa.s.sed flawless gardens and parklike lawns, here and there tended by an equally impeccable homeowner.

I'd just crossed Providence Road when I nearly collided with a man in tan slacks, a pink shirt, and a rumpled seersucker sports jacket that looked like a Sears original. He carried a battered briefcase and a canvas bag bulging with slide carousels. It was Red Skyler.

"Slumming in southeast?" I asked, trying to catch my breath. Red lived on the opposite side of Charlotte, near the university.

"My lecture at Myers Park Methodist is today." He gestured at the gray stone complex across the street. "I've come early to set my slides."

"Right." I was slick with sweat, and my hair hung in stringy, wet clumps. I pinched my T-shirt and flapped it away from my skin.

"How is your case progressing?"

"Not well. Owens and his followers have gone to ground."

"They're in hiding?"

"Apparently. Red, can I follow up on something you said?"

"Of course."

"When we discussed cults, you mentioned two broad types. We talked so much about one I forgot to ask about the other."

A man pa.s.sed with a black Standard poodle. Both needed a trim.

"You said you would include some of the commercially packaged awareness programs in your definition."

"Yes. If they rely on thought reform to get and keep members." He set the bag on the sidewalk and scratched the side of his nose.

"I think you said these groups fill their ranks by persuading partic.i.p.ants to buy more and more courses?"

"Yes. Unlike the cults we discussed, these programs don't intend to keep people forever. They exploit partic.i.p.ants as long as they're willing to buy more courses. And bring in others."

"So why do you consider them cults?"

"The coercive influence that these so-called self-improvement programs exert is amazing. It's the same old thing, behavioral control through thought reform."

"What goes on in these awareness training programs?"

Red glanced at his watch.

"I finish at ten forty-five. Let's meet for breakfast and I'll share what I know."

"It's known as large group awareness training."