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“And you are…” Nate said.
“The Church of the Covenant. My name is Bartholomew.”
Nate moved his camera bag to the other shoulder and stuck out his hand. “I’m Nathan, Nathan Mott. Nice to meet you,” he said as they shook hands.
Bartholomew reminded Rachel of the self-proclaimed prophet who’d kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. Or maybe Charles Manson himself. The mark on his forehead appeared crudely made, as if it had been carved with a hunting knife.
Taking hold of Rachel’s arm, Nate encouraged her to go around the man. “It’s getting late. We’d better head home.”
Bartholomew stopped them. “You don’t think you’ll be coming back, do you?”
Nate froze. “I don’t know. We might. Is there anything wrong with that?”
“This is private property.”
Other than the square mile or two that made up Paradise, the desert seemed to expand in all directions without fence, post or no-trespassing signs. “Every acre?” he asked.
Bartholomew’s right eye seemed to focus before drifting off again. “Most of what surrounds the town.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He gave them a thin-lipped smile. “Now you do.”
Rachel pulled away from Nate’s grasp. “Who owns it?”
“Alpha and Omega.”
“That’s sort of what I thought,” Nate said with a grin. “I doubt God will mind if we take a few pictures.”
Bartholomew didn’t appreciate the joke. His nostrils flared as he answered. “I was referring to Ethan Wycliff.”
“Who’s Ethan Wycliff?” Rachel asked.
He blinked at her. Was it credible that she hadn’t heard of him? She hoped so. “God’s anointed. The prophet who will usher in the Second Coming,” he answered with a slight bow.
She wanted to say, Oh, him, but swallowed the sarcastic response. She’d heard dope addicts claim a lot of different things—from being abducted by aliens to being able to fly—but she’d never had anyone look her in the face and call another man Alpha and Omega as if he were God Himself. She might’ve found it merely bizarre, except for the menacing air that surrounded this guy. His body language sent a very clear warning signal to her brain: Steer clear.
“We’re only taking pictures,” Nate said.
“Still, we’d appreciate it if you took them elsewhere.”
Nate stepped closer to Bartholomew. It wasn’t like him to allow anyone to push him around, and his resistance to that showed, even when he was in character.
Rachel jumped into the conversation, hoping to stop it from escalating into a fight. “Sure. No problem.”
She expected Bartholomew to move out of the way, but he didn’t.
“And if you’ll delete the pictures you’ve already taken, I can let you pass,” he added.
Let them pass? Rachel felt Nate stiffen.
“There’s no need to delete my pictures,” he said.
Bartholomew reached for the camera. “It’ll only take a moment.”
Nate couldn’t turn over his camera. Then this man would know they hadn’t been shooting photos of wildlife at all.
Obviously as aware of that as she was, Nate didn’t budge. He set his jaw instead, and Rachel knew, unless he acquiesced, no one on earth would get hold of that equipment. “I’m telling you no.”
Rachel held her breath.
“And if I insist?” Bartholomew asked.
Beneath the bill of the Diamondbacks hat they’d purchased in Phoenix, Nate’s expression grew even more determined. “You don’t want to know the answer to that question.”
His fingers forming a steeple, Bartholomew inched back and bowed his head, continuing more cautiously. “We have a right to our privacy.”
“So do I,” Nate said.
“The media has no respect for people who believe differently from mainstream America.”
“We’re not the press.”
Now the other man hesitated. Rachel could almost see him considering the question: Do I push any harder? “You see, Ethan—”
“Has nothing to worry about,” Nate finished. “I haven’t taken any pictures of him. I don’t even know who he is. We thought there was a ghost town out here and we figured that might be interesting. But we came to photograph the wildlife in the area. That’s it.”
Bartholomew looked over his shoulder at their vehicle, which wasn’t parked far away, and Rachel knew he had to be wondering why, if they’d come to see a ghost town, they hadn’t driven up to the gates instead of turning off on some random road leading into the desert.
Or did Bartholomew already know the truth?
Her mind reverted to what she’d divulged to Martha. Had it been a mistake to trust her? Had Martha compromised their cover before they could infiltrate the compound? If so, this would be a much shorter assignment than Rachel had envisioned….
She waited for Bartholomew to mention Martha, but he didn’t. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Fine,” he said at length. “Keep your pictures. Just don’t come back.”
“Now we’re off on the right foot,” Rachel said as she got in and slammed the truck door.
“I had no choice,” Nate responded. “I couldn’t turn my camera over to him without giving us away. Every picture I took is of Paradise. I even got close-ups of the security gate, for crying out loud.”
Rachel agreed. She hadn’t been criticizing him. She was frustrated that their first encounter with the Covenanters hadn’t gone smoothly. She wasn’t sure how they’d compensate for that later on. And she was afraid she might be to blame for Bartholomew’s suspicion. “You don’t think Martha somehow alerted them, do you?”
“No. They’re still searching for her. You heard what Laura Thompson said.” Nate twisted around to look through the rear window. They’d left the truck where a jeep trail converged onto a footpath so narrow and so filled with rocks and cacti on either side that they’d decided not to drive any farther. He had to back down the hill before he could turn around.
“Maybe they found her. And maybe she thought she’d have a better chance of reuniting with her family by using what she knows about us to curry favor with someone important inside the group.”
“They haven’t found her. If Laura went to the police, like she said she was going to, they should be watching over her.”
