Run Away - Harlan Coben Page 0,67
what it is?”
“No.”
“The older daughter tells her younger sister—I’m quoting Genesis 19:32—‘Come on, let’s get our father drunk, so that we can sleep with him and have children by him.’”
Ash said nothing.
“And they do. Yep, incest. Right there in Genesis. The two daughters get their father drunk, sleep with him, and become pregnant.”
“I thought the Truth had nothing to do with the Old or New Testament.”
“We don’t.”
“So why are you using Lot as an excuse?”
“I don’t need an excuse, Ash. And I don’t need your permission. I just need the Truth.”
He kept staring out the front windshield.
“That still sounds like a ‘yes, I have sex with them.’”
“Do you like sex, Ash?”
“Yes.”
“So if you were in a group where you got to have sex with a lot of women, would it be an issue?”
He didn’t reply.
The car tires kicked up dirt from the road as he headed into the woods. No Trespassing signs—a wide variety of them in various colors and sizes and even wording—hung from trees. As they approached the gate, Dee Dee rolled down her window and made a complicated hand gesture, like a third-base coach signaling a runner to steal second.
The car glided to a stop before the gate. Dee Dee opened her car door. When Ash did the same, she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and a shake of her head.
“Stay here. Keep both hands on the steering wheel at all times. Don’t take them off, even to scratch your nose.”
Two men in gray uniforms that reminded Ash of a Civil War reenactment appeared from the small guardhouse. They were both armed with AR-15s. They both had huge beards and scowled at Ash. Ash tried to look nonthreatening. He had his own handguns within reach and was probably a better shot than either of these posers, but not even the best marksman is a match for two AR-15s.
That was the part people didn’t get.
It isn’t about talent or skill. You could be LeBron James, but if you’re using a basketball with no air, you’re not going to be able to dribble as well as someone whose ball got plenty.
Dee Dee approached the guards and did something with her right hand that looked a bit like someone crossing themselves, but the shape she made was more triangular. The two men returned the gesture/salute.
Ritual, Ash guessed. Like all religions.
Dee Dee spoke to the two men for a minute or two. The men never took their eyes off Ash, which took considerable self-discipline when you consider what Dee Dee looked like. Ash would have had to look.
Perhaps this was why the religious life had never called to him.
The Truth. What bullshit.
She came back to the car. “Just pull over there to the right.”
“Why can’t I just turn around and go?”
“What happened to you taking me away from all this?”
His heart leapt into his throat when she said that, but her just-kidding smile brought it back down again. He tried to keep the disappointment off his face.
“You’re back,” he said. “You’re safe. There’s no need for me to hang around.”
“Just wait, okay? I need to check with the council.”
“Check what?”
“Please, Ash. Just wait.”
One guard handed her folded clothes. Gray. Like theirs. She slipped them over the clothing she was wearing. The other guard handed her headgear that looked like something you’d find in a convent. Also gray. She put it on top of her head and tied it like a bonnet under her chin.
Dee Dee always strode with her head high, her shoulders back, the definition of confidence. Now she was bent over, eyes lowered, her whole persona subservient. The transformation startled him. And pissed him off.
Dee Dee has left the building, Ash said to himself. Holly is here now.
He watched her walk through the gate. He tilted his torso to the right, so his eyes could follow her up a path. There were other women milling about, all dressed in the same drab-gray uniform. No men. Maybe they were in a different area.
The two guards saw that he was watching Dee Dee and the compound. They didn’t like it. So they stood in front of his car to block his view. He debated shifting the car into drive, hitting the gas, and mowing the fuckers down. Instead he chose to turn the car off and get out. The guards didn’t like that, but then again they didn’t like much that he did.
The first thing that hit Ash as he got out of the car was the silence.