Ritual Sins Read online

  RITUAL SINS

  Anne Stuart

  Copyright © Anne Kristine Stuart Ohlrogge, 1997

  For Barbara Keiler and Judith Arnold, two of my dearest friends.

  For Richie, who keeps me sane. And for Maureen Walters and Susan James, who take such very good care of me.

  RITUAL

  SINS

  Contents

  Copyright

  PART ONE: SANTA DOLORES, NEW MEXICO

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  PART TWO: COFFIN’S GROVE, ALABAMA

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  PART THREE: SANTA DOLORES, NEW MEXICO

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  PART ONE

  SANTA DOLORES, NEW MEXICO

  1

  Rachel Connery didn’t want to be there. At the age of twenty-nine she’d made it her policy never to do anything she didn’t want, to always have a choice in matters. She was here by choice, she reminded herself grimly. It was simply a choice she wished she didn’t have to make.

  The taxi had already pulled to a stop outside the sweeping expanse of Santa Dolores, home base to the Foundation of Being. Seventeen miles away from Albuquerque, it sat beneath the New Mexico sun like the peaceful retreat it was purported to be. A compound devoted to meditation and enlightenment, combined with a hospice center to care for the dying.

  Her mother had sought enlightenment behind those walls. Her mother had died there.

  The cabdriver had already opened her door, and she slid out, brushing imaginary dust off her silk suit as she glared up at the compound. She didn’t want to be here, she thought again. And they knew it.

  “I can handle it from here,” she said, taking her leather suitcase from the driver and handing him a generous tip.

  “Blessings,” he murmured.

  “What?”

  “Blessings. You’re one of Luke’s People, aren’t you?” The driver seemed momentarily confused, but his fist closed tight over the money in case she was inclined to snatch it back.

  “No,” she said shortly. “I’m not.” And she marched toward the beautiful forged gate, her high heels firm in the dusty drive.

  Luke’s People, they called themselves. She’d managed to blot that particularly ugly thought out of her mind, but now it was back. There was no more hiding from things she didn’t want to face. She’d never met the man, only seen him from a distance. But even across a crowded courtroom she could feel the poisonous strands of his charisma, like a spider’s web reaching out toward any stray creature who wandered in its path.

  Luke Bardell, ex-con, convicted murderer, founder of what some people called a philosophy, others called a religion, and Rachel called a cult. The man who had mesmerized her dying mother into leaving twelve and a half million dollars to the Foundation of Being. And not a damned thing to the only child she’d ever had.

  Ten years ago Rachel might have simply curled up in a tight ball and wept. But not now. She’d fought back, hard. Only to have her lawsuit thrown out by the first judge, her lawyers quit on her, and defeat wash over her like a bitter shower of acid. You can’t sue a religion. You can’t accuse a saint. Stella Connery was of sound mind when she made her will, she knew she was dying of breast cancer, and she’d made her decision and disinherited her daughter.

  And the Foundation of Being had been nauseatingly gracious in triumph. Surely Rachel would want to make a pilgrimage to the place where her mother had spent her final peaceful days, to the spot where she was buried? She could see the good that Stella’s money was doing, make peace with what the courts and her mother had chosen. The Foundation, and Luke’s People, would welcome the chance to share the blessings that had come their way.

  Rachel would have rather eaten fried caterpillars. They certainly weren’t about to share the money that they’d wheedled and tricked out of a vain, dying woman. Stella and Luke had been lovers, Rachel had no doubt about that whatsoever. Stella had gone through men with a voraciousness that had left her only child awed and frigid in response. No good-looking man had been immune to Stella.

  Luke Bardell, the messiah of the Foundation of Being, was a very good-looking man indeed. And he’d been paid well for sleeping with a dying old lady.

  If Rachel had been willing to accept defeat she would have refused their offer of hospitality. A sensible woman would have accepted the fact that the mother who’d abandoned her on almost every level had finally finished the job. She could find a new job, make a life for herself, choose not to be a victim of a distraught childhood.

  Choice, again. There was that word. She could choose anger and revenge. Or she could choose to get on with her life.

  If it hadn’t been for the letter from a stranger she might have made the wise decision. But once the creased, scrawled letter arrived in her mailbox with its hints and accusations, she had no real choice.

  Your mother never had cancer. She was murdered by one of Luke’s People. Maybe by Luke himself, or at least he gave the order. At the end she knew what was happening to her, but she couldn’t stop them. Come to the center and I’ll help you find proof that will bring him down.

  No real choice. The letter was unsigned, written in a childish scrawl, but it rang with truth. Or at least, the truth she wanted to believe.

  At that point, anger and determination kept her going, and they carried her straight to Santa Dolores, to the Foundation of Being. And to Luke Bardell.

  “She’s here, Luke.”

  He didn’t move. He’d heard them shuffle in, that odd group of middle-aged and elderly professionals who’d found the answer to life’s questions with the Foundation of Being, and used their financial expertise to make it thrive. They were called the Grandfathers, even though there were several women in the group, and they ran the organization like a blue-chip company.

  And Luke ran them. He lay flat on his back on the cool tile, arms outstretched, eyes closed, as he inhaled the sweet, sharp smell of burning sage. He could feel the energy tingling, rushing, flowing through his body, every nerve taut, every vein pumping with blood, with life, pulsing, throbbing. That energy was his power, his gift, and he used it carefully, never squandering it.

  For a moment he wondered who they were talking about, and then he remembered. Stella’s daughter. The skinny, pale, sour-faced woman who’d had the astonishing gall to try to take his money away. She’d gotten nowhere, of course. The Grandfathers thought she should have been paid off. After all, lawsuits and accusations, no matter how farfetched, were bad publicity. And the Foundation of Being preferred little or no publicity. They weren’t looking for converts. Those who needed what they offered would find their way to Santa Dolores. Sooner or later.

  But Luke hadn’t wanted to pay her off. He’d watched her, with her patrician face and her fuck-you eyes, her designer clothes and her utter contempt, and that old feeling rose in him, one he thought he’d squashed down. Here was a challenge, when nothing had been a challenge for years. Here was a soul who would fight him, tooth and nail, before he could claim her. Here would be a battle that would test his rusty skills, prove that there was no one immune to the power he could exert, when he chose to focus it.

  He would bring Rachel Connery to Santa Dolores and he would seduce her. Spiritually and emotionally, he would strip her, ravish her, drain her,
and own her. As he did all the others.

  He had no qualms about it. He could take that sour look on her pale face and turn it into the placid expression of bliss that surrounded him twenty-four hours a day. All without laying a hand on her.

  He never slept with his followers. As far as they knew, he never slept with anyone at all. Luke Bardell was celibate, vegetarian, drug- and alcohol-free, purity personified. It was all part of the tools of the trade. They all wanted him. He knew it, and he used it. He slept with no one, and they believed they could all have him, men and women, young and old. As long as he remained out of reach it kept them blind and focused and needy.

  The way he liked them.

  It would be interesting to see just how long it would take him to bring about that change in an angry disbeliever like Rachel Connery. He’d converted others before, it should be a simple matter.

  Except that she was different, he’d felt it, even from a distance. Her anger ran deeper. And it called to him, a challenge that he had no intention of refusing.

  He opened his eyes and sat up, fluidly, brushing his long hair behind him as he crossed his legs and stared back at the Grandfathers. “Blessings,” he said.

  “What do you want us to do with her, Luke?” Alfred Waterston had been chief of staff at one of the leading cancer research institutes in the country. He’d taken early retirement to follow Luke’s way, in the meantime taking charge of the Foundation’s complex finances. Alfred’s attention to detail was impressive to the point of obsessive.

  “Make her welcome,” he replied in his gentle voice that he’d trained to carry to the farthest corner of any room. Another tool, one he used wisely.

  “She’s expecting to see you. I told her you were meditating, and she just laughed. I’m afraid she’ll be a disrupting influence, Luke.”

  Luke simply nodded. “Not for long, Alfred. See if she’ll submit to purification before she approaches. What’s she wearing?”

  “City clothes,” Alfred said with a dismissive sniff.

  “Bring her some of our things. She’ll be more comfortable in them.”

  “And if she refuses?”

  “Then I’ll deal with it, Alfred. I always do.”

  She’d refuse, of course, even though the ritual bath was simply the private use of a hot spring that was wonderfully enervating. She’d probably insist on cold showers during her stay. She’d refuse the loose cotton clothing that they all wore as well, but he’d see to that in good time. The phrase rang in his head, Strip her, bathe her, and bring her to my tent, and he smiled serenely.

  “Blessings,” Alfred murmured, with no idea what his saintly leader was thinking.

  “Blessings to you all,” Luke replied, lying back down again.

  It had been three months since he’d been laid. He’d grown used to the long periods of celibacy—if he were to keep up the image of purity, then he had to be very careful how and when he took care of his needs when they became overwhelming.

  But he’d learned to channel that frustrated sexual energy into a kind of burning power that reached out to everyone. And he lived inside that volcano, inviolate.

  Santa Dolores was a safe haven for all, based upon trust and love and freedom. It also worked extremely well due to an advanced surveillance system that gave Luke visual access to certain rooms on the compound. He sat up again, alone in the pale, cavernous room, and rose. He would retire to his private meditation chamber, the one place where no one, not even Calvin, would disturb him. He would draw aside the thick black curtain and stare at the banks of television monitors. And maybe he might get a chance to see whether Rachel Connery was as pale and sour and skinny without her clothes on.

  The first thing she noticed was that there were no children around. Apparently this cult catered to the unencumbered. The better to extort their money, Rachel thought. The main house of Santa Dolores was built along fittingly Southwestern lines—cool tile floors, adobe walls, plain dark wood on the windows and ceiling.

  They’d put her in a room far at the end of one hallway. The woman who’d shown her there was pleasant enough, and to Rachel’s annoyance she didn’t appear to be particularly brainwashed, despite the pale cotton outfit she wore, which resembled a cross between men’s pajamas and a karate gi. She tried to press one on Rachel, something she flatly refused, and tried to lure her to a hot springs for purification.

  “Not in the mood,” Rachel had drawled. “I took a shower this morning.”

  “You’ll feel wonderful. Like a new person,” the woman, who’d identified herself as Leaf, said.

  “I like the old person just fine,” Rachel said. “When do I see Luke?”

  “When he’s ready. He spends most of the day in prayer and meditation. I’m certain he’ll grant you an audience as soon as he’s able. In the meantime he would want us to make you welcome at Santa Dolores.”

  Rachel looked around her, at the plain walls, the kiva fireplace, the narrow bed with the white cotton coverlet. “Not very sybaritic, is it?” she observed.

  “We aren’t here to indulge our senses,” Leaf replied. “We’re here to fine-tune them. To open ourselves to everything.”

  “You can’t do that on a single bed.”

  Leaf smiled at her. “We do not indulge in drugs, alcohol, sex, or any toxins. This is a place for purification and learning.”

  “No sex?” Rachel echoed. “What about husbands and wives?”

  “They welcome the chance to concentrate on their spiritual rather than their physical needs.”

  “Great,” Rachel said. “My mother never spent a celibate week in her life.”

  “Celibacy is not a requirement,” Leaf said. “It’s merely a suggestion. If we wish to follow the master, then we should emulate him.”

  It took a second for this to sink in. “You’re telling me Luke Bardell is celibate?”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course,” Rachel echoed in disbelief. “You know, there’s a problem with celibate religions. No little followers to keep the faith going. The Shakers found that out.”

  “We aren’t a religion, we’re a philosophy. And children aren’t allowed here. They’re too young to understand our teachings. Luke says we must take care of our worldly responsibilities before we nurture ourselves.”

  “A cult leader with a republican conscience,” Rachel muttered. “What next?”

  “It’s not a cult.”

  “Yeah, I know. Not a religion, not a cult, just a way of life,” Rachel said, tossing herself down on the bed. It was narrow and hard, like a bed of nails. It suited her mood.

  “Dinner will be at six o’clock. We’re all vegans here, but our cooks are very skillful. I know you won’t mind.”

  The only thing worse than a vegetarian diet was its stricter form, vegan. Rachel sighed. “It’ll be fine. I don’t really care much about food. In the meantime I think I’ll take a little rest.”

  “Perfect,” Leaf said. “I’ll come back for you at suppertime.”

  Rachel lay very still on the bed, listening as Leaf’s sandaled feet disappeared into the thick silence. She’d left the damn uniform behind, and Rachel stared at it, wondering if she had the energy and the anger to dump it in the trash. She didn’t.

  She looked at the wood-paneled ceiling overhead. She’d done her research well—this facility was less than four years old, built with the best that money could buy. It was worth millions, all thanks to the spiritual leadership of a man who’d spent three years in prison for killing a man during a barroom brawl.

  Luke Bardell had risen far and fast in the twelve years since he’d walked out of Joliet Prison on parole for manslaughter. And now no one could touch him, no one would even dare try, including the parole board who should have thrown him back in jail for violating the rules of his parole long ago.

  No one would dare try to touch him, but Rachel Connery. And she was going to bring him down.

  As soon as she found out who her ally was. Who had sent that warning let
ter.

  She’d worn high heels as a stupid little act of defiance. She wasn’t going to go exploring in them, she wasn’t going to put on those damnable sandals that Leaf had left behind either, even though they looked like they might fit. She would go in her stocking feet, roaming the empty halls of Santa Dolores, and see whether she could come across the elusive Luke Bardell. She wasn’t going to await his summons for a papal audience. She was going to find him, now. And remind herself just how human he was.

  She should have known it would be a waste of time. She passed a good half dozen of the brainwashed—people who looked a her and smiled and murmured some crap about “blessings.” But Luke Bardell was nowhere to be found. No one stopped her from going into any room, including the large, stark room that looked designed for large meetings or human sacrifices. But there was no sign of their mysterious, illustrious “master.” And no sign of anyone who seemed to know or care who she was.

  By the time she gave up and headed back for her room her mood had not improved. She was hungry, she was hot and tired, and whether she liked it or not she was going to change out of her city clothes into something more comfortable. She wasn’t certain that she’d brought anything suitable, and she’d go around stark naked before she’d dress up like the karate kid, but a shower would revive her for her quest. A quest she had no intention of failing.

  It was late afternoon, and her room was filled with shadows when she reached it. There was no light switch on the wall, and she cursed beneath her breath as she stumbled into the gloom, the door swinging shut behind her, sealing her in.

  “Goddamn place,” she muttered. “No goddamn light switches, no goddamn meat, no goddamn messiah when you go looking for him.” She flailed around for a lamp on the bedside table. She found one, only to discover that it was an oil lamp.

  “Shit,” she said out loud. “And no goddamn electricity.”

  The flare of the match was dazzling in the inky darkness, and Rachel uttered a little shriek, mesmerized by the light as it traveled toward a lamp. A moment later a dim illumination filled the room, growing brighter by the moment, and the man shook the match out and tossed it in the round stucco fireplace.