Sleep was impossible.

Tam doubted she would sleep a wink. She was tempted to find a chair in one of the lounges to see if she could doze. Maybe a shot of whiskey would calm her nerves. Or eight or nine. In the end it was weariness and the hope of at least a few hours of rest that made her decide to see if Kip was asleep.

She moved about the cabin stealthily, leaving the bathroom light on because without it the room was almost pitch-black. She quickly changed into a T-shirt, brushed her teeth, washed her face, hung up her clothes, and couldn’t think of another thing to do. So she switched off the light and managed to crawl into bed without stubbing her toe in the dark or making contact with Kip’s body.

Kip’s breathing was steady. She hadn’t moved at all. Tam 209


suspected she was awake. The ship’s motion rocked the bed gently from side-to-side, and that ought to have lulled her into at least some kind of calm.

Instead, the dark was her undoing.

“Kip...” She said it softly. She simply meant to say “It’ll be okay. You can sleep.” It started out that way, but she only got as far as, “It’ll be...”

Kip stirred.

Crossroads, Tam realized. Rules only mean something if you follow them, even when no one is looking. Kip was a capable, honest, principled woman and if she touched Kip right now they’d be officially lovers in thirty seconds. It would cost Kip twice over—her self-respect and the respect she held for the woman Tam no longer recognized, Tamara Sterling, CEO. That it would cost her her own self-respect didn’t matter as much to her. This was bad for Kip.

“Are you okay?” Kip’s whisper held concern, but was at a pitch that Tam didn’t think Kip realized was a tantalizing half-purr.

Her fingers twitched. She wanted to feel the velvet of Kip on her hands, her lips. Anything was preferable to hurting Kip and that’s what her touch would do.

She had a diversion to offer and so she asked, “You’ve heard of David Koresh, right?”

Kip wasn’t sure she’d heard Tam correctly. “Who hasn’t?”

“Koresh was another of those breed-my-own-cult, not the first, not the last, unfortunately. But I bet you’ve never heard of David Halley...hang on.”

Tam sat up and the bedside lamp came on, leaving Kip blinking.

“I’ve never told anyone about this,” Tam said slowly. “I don’t really know how to go about it. It seems a ridiculous thing to hide but honestly, it was a good idea then, and I think is still a good idea. Thing is, you found holes in my citizenship paperwork.

210


Those holes used to be filled. I presume the hacker did that.

But if it had been left alone, you’d have never known there were questions to ask. I doubt I would have ever told you.”

“Why is it such a secret? So you were born in Germany. So maybe you don’t know who your parents are—”

“I wasn’t born in Germany. That’s the cover. I was born in a wide space in the road in Pueblo County, Colorado. At the time, it was known as House of Zion City. Long gone—never really was a real place on the map.”

Kip brushed hair out of her eyes. She’d listened to Tam getting ready for bed and steeled herself to feign sleep for however long it took. She hadn’t really expected Tam to decide that it was the right time to fill her in on those mysterious blanks in her background. Now she pieced together what she knew, which wasn’t much. “I guess I assumed that you were being hidden. I don’t know from what, but the timeframe was when the Berlin Wall fell. I guessed it was political or something.”

“There was so much confusion over records after the consolidation of the two countries that I think they took advantage of that. But we—me, Nadia, about twenty-five children in all—

were moved out of Colorado after David Halley’s family had the tent town destroyed. That was his parents and two brothers who did that—the real family and apparently one with a lot of money.

We weren’t real family, but we surely were an embarrassment.”

Kip scooted back so she could lean on the pillows, the sheets pulled up over her breasts. Tam was so calm about it and yet if she was talking about what Kip thought she was, it was weird and terrible. “Halley—had he died?”

“Killed himself before the local sheriff could haul him in for child abuse, tax evasion, welfare fraud, bigamy... I only remember that police cars pulled up and all the mothers were scared.”

“And that left a lot of children with no...father?”

“A lot of children with no father and a bunch of brainwashed women all claiming to be his wife. My mother was fourteen when I was born. She died in the process, or that’s what I was told.

Nadia’s was twenty-four or twenty-five at the time of the raid.

211


They’ve never located each other again. Like I said, there was money. Lots of it. The mothers signed us away in what I’m sure wasn’t any kind of legal agreement and they probably got a nice chunk of change to start a new life. But we were all too young to protest or even be sure what was happening. Life wasn’t great, then it got a lot better. I was grateful.”

Kip didn’t even know where to start. “Are you telling me that Nadia and you weren’t...”

Tam gave her a wan smile. “You thought we had been together?”

Kip nodded.

“That rumor never quits. No, we were never lovers. Eww.”

Tam let out a long sigh. “But we are half-sisters. Nobody but us knows that. I suppose it gives us a certain air of intimacy that people misinterpret. Mercedes probably thinks that’s why I always take her calls.” Tam repositioned so she was sitting cross-legged under the covers.

Kip said, trying not to let her tone rise too much, “What a horrible thing to do to a bunch of kids. Separate them from their mothers after they’d already been traumatized.”

“Yes. And no. Some of them were as crazy as he was. And a few more were broken—hardly functional. Others were children in their heads and never grew up. I was just a kid, but looking back, I don’t know if there was a fit parent among them.”

“If yours was alive, wouldn’t you want to find her?”

Tam stared down at her hands. “I have to tell you that this is the most I’ve thought about any of it in years. I guess—if she was alive I’d have probably tried to find her. Whatever agreement she signed wouldn’t have been binding on me. But it’s moot. Nadia never said she was looking for her mother and I think she would have told me. She was younger than I was. Fortunately we were both “not ripe” as that crazy man put it. There were a couple girls, just a bit older than me who’d been turned into wives.”

“Oh my God,” Kip said. She touched Tam’s hand, just for a moment. “I am so sorry. What an awful, awful thing. And I understand why you really don’t want to talk about it. I can see 212


some people getting obsessively fascinated by the whole thing.”

“Who wants to be a Wikipedia article like that? Not me. The Halley family gave us a good education. I got a new name and an orphan’s bio. If I finished college I would get a bonus. My life was turning out pretty good.”

Kip connected that dot. “The Maldives money?”

“You guessed it. I should give it away to a shelter or something.”

“What were you called before Tamara, then? Do you remember—never mind. You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s okay. Rebekkah. They made our first names our middle names.”

Kip decided not to say that she thought it did suit her, but she liked Tamara better. “You never have nightmares? I think I would.” She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have a nightmare later anyway. The cruelty of such a sick man using all those teenaged girls to build his own little cult was inhuman. How could Tam be so calm talking about it?

“I did have nightmares for a while, but once I got to boarding school and started learning, they stopped. My mind was finally occupied. We’d only read the Bible. I used to know chapter and verse. But I did really well in boarding school, learned fast, then tested high for science and math and here I am. I always felt blessed for having been rescued.”

“His parents are lucky they haven’t had grandchildren showing up on their doorstep,” Kip said.

“Maybe they have. They are very good at keeping things quiet.”

There was a long silence, then Kip said softly, “Thank you. I will not tell a soul. I promise you that.”

Tam nodded. “I know.”

“Do you think that’s why you do what you do?” Tam’s father, after all, had been a coward—victimizing defenseless girls and then killing himself to escape the mess he’d made. She hoped he’d ended up in the burning hell she was sure he imagined existed—it was what he deserved.

213


“What?”

“Well—he evaded justice. You make sure some people finally get some justice.”

Tam’s eyes clouded and her face stilled. “I never thought of that. I don’t think I want to see myself as doing anything in relation to him, certainly not my life’s work as a form of rebellion.”

“I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry,” Kip said quickly. “That was thoughtless of me.”

“No, you’re probably right.” Tam’s eyes rimmed with red.

“It’s pretty obvious that your father shaped a part of you.”

“Absolutely. And I like who I am. But I’m not going to be grateful to his alcoholism for that. I hate everything it’s done to him and my sister and mom, too.”

Tam bit her lower lip. “I just—he was never my father. He doesn’t even get enough status in my life to be worthy of rebellion against him.” She gave an unamused laugh. “I’m not sane because he was crazy.”

Kip felt so helpless. “Your mother must have been from an amazing line of women because you certainly didn’t get your strength and intellect from him.”