The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game Book 3) Page 3

  “You’ll stay in the welcome lodge tonight,” Spencer said. “Tomorrow I’ll give you the grand tour and assign you accommodation.”

  “We want to stay together,” Rory said, making it sound like she was afraid of being separated.

  “Of course. We wouldn’t dream of separating a loving family unit.”

  Zeke would lay ten to one on being given accommodation as far as possible from each other, and from the look he snuck at Rory he could see she wouldn’t take that bet.

  “Now’s the time to hand over anything you packed that’s not on the admission list. And yes, that means books. If they’re suitable, they’ll be available in the library. I’ll need to take your phones and laptops, any other electronic devices.”

  “But you won’t keep them?” Rory asked, that nervous tremor in her voice that was so foreign and so right.

  “You’ll find they’re not that interesting in here. And of course, we have no signal for cell phones or internet. All of our residents have completely detoxed from the influences of the outside world and you will too.”

  A digital detox was almost reasonable except for the fact it permanently cut you off from information, knowledge and anyone who cared about you.

  “Do you sing, Rosie, play an instrument?”

  She played the guitar and piano. Honkytonk to Handel. She shook her head. “I brought my music with me.”

  “You know I’m going to have to take your music player,” Spencer said. “I hate to say it,” he put on a stern expression, “but we’re a rap-free zone.”

  “I hate rap,” Rory said, top lip curled in disdain.

  She’d loved it last night. Her Cardi B was on point.

  That was when Spencer gave up the pretense. He clapped Rory on the shoulder and leaned into her. “You’re going to love it here.”

  In her real life, Rory’s smile would’ve said touch me again you die, but she managed to look at Spencer without daggers shooting out of her eyes and shift away without kneeing him in the junk. On the job, Rory was peerless. Right up until she’d gotten her heart broken. This job was different from anything she’d done before, and it would test her.

  They got their suitcases into the cabin. Packed according to guidelines full of helpful advice about climate, work assignments and the fulfillment of living without being tied down by possessions. The Continuance could show Marie Kondo a thing or two about decluttering. This was radical life-downsizing.

  Rory fretted when Spencer collected their electronics. Not all of it was faked. When he asked for their watches, Zeke objected. It was useful to have Spencer think they were off-balance. Anyone doing this would be. “I need a watch, man.”

  “We have a bells system. You’ll always know what time it is.”

  “But it’s just a watch.” Plain old Rolex, nothing gadgety about it. “Why can’t I have a watch?”

  “We’re just going to hold onto it for you until you get settled and then you can choose whether you want to wear it or not, same as your other tech.”

  From outside there was the sound of an engine. “Okay. I guess you’re right,” he said, handing the Rolex over. Good thing it was a fake. Which they’d find out if they tried to flip it.

  “You’re nervous, I get it. Perfectly understandable,” Spencer said. “It’ll feel strange for a few days, but the quickest way to fit in is to embrace the new ways immediately. You’ll be converts in no time.”

  “Now don’t go promising what you can’t deliver, Spencer.”

  Orrin Epcot had a lazy smoke-cured drawl and a hawkish way of looking at you that he softened with the hint of a smile. He came in through a side door, making them all turn to face him. He was a couple of inches shorter than Zeke’s six-foot-three, broad in the shoulders, square in the jaw, deeply tanned. He carried his forty-five years like a man who enjoyed working outdoors.

  Epcot was born Paul Kavanaugh, in Bakersfield, California, son of a teacher and an engineer who were killed in a light plane crash in his late teens. Unremarkable education and early years. Never married. He showed up on the radar next at thirty as a software developer with a cool ten million in the bank made from the sale of a piece of financial fraud detection code that he likely stole from a dying colleague. He used that money to change his name, buy the land Abundance sat on and plan to survive the end of the world.

  He didn’t have the usual pathology of a Jim Jones or a David Koresh. He wasn’t inspired by a twisted form of religion. He was a straight up ego-driven power hungry con man and opportunist out to profit from other people’s fears.

  Orrin didn’t offer his hand to shake and he barely looked at Zeke, focusing on Rory, who kept her eyes down.

  “I was telling Zack and Rosie what a good decision they made joining us.” Spencer was deferential, but not cowering. The two men were comfortable with each other. The master and his head of recruitment and propaganda.

  “Come get settled and let’s talk.” Spencer gestured to the table and they all took seats. He pulled out a chair for Rory and pushed it in when she sat. A gentleman snake in the grass. “After we finish, you’ll find a meal in the kitchen ready to eat. You’ll have time to rest, and in the morning, you’ll officially be Continuers.”

  “What happens if we change our minds?” Rory said.

  Orrin made a point of looking at his watch as if he had somewhere better to be. His watch. It was a crass powerplay. A clear signal there was one rule for the Orrin and another for everyone else.

  “You’re free to leave anytime,” Orrin said, taking them both in with a measured look. “We’ll have your car brought back around, return your equipment and your financial contribution. No one is forced to live at Abundance. People from all around the country apply to come here and we’re very selective about who we allow in. I’m sure you understand why? We are the privileged few. We will survive what’s coming and we will choose who we take into the new world with us. The only reason you’re here now is because Spencer vouched for you. Was he wrong to do that?”

  Aside from the theatrics with the watch, Orrin nailed the part of benevolent dictator. They were free to leave. Having been electronically disarmed was just an inconvenience. They were special, chosen, but not so lucky that they couldn’t lose the very thing that would save their lives.

  “Spencer isn’t wrong,” Zeke said. “We want to be here.”

  Rory chipped in with, “We didn’t mean to offend. It’s just...” she let the sentence trail off and Spencer put his hand over hers where it lay on the table.

  “We understand. You are safe here, Rosie. Safer than you were in the decaying world.”

  She slipped her hand out from under his. Spencer might not be safe if he kept pawing at her.

  “Let’s begin,” Orrin said. “Your parents, I understand are both dead. You have no other close relatives?”

  Zeke shared a meaningful look with Rory. “It’s just been us for a long time.”

  Orrin shared one with Spencer. It might as well have said, you’re on your way to employee of the month, buddy.

  “It’s a sad fact that you were victims of wealth and greed, of the moral collapse of society. The decay is accelerating. The signs are everywhere. The climate is disintegrating faster than expected, foreign powers are infiltrating our country, interfering in our government, politicians do nothing but satisfy their own greed and they operate above the law. Diseases of the flesh and brain are everywhere and there is no cure for them. The population has armed itself in response to a collapse they cannot survive. You’ll find a new family here and have no need to think about those difficult times you suffered again.”

  It could even be true. And that’s what made this so insidiously scary.

  Orrin followed up with questions about the sale of property and other assets, about signatures on legal documents, and then he turned to Rory. “You were an addict.”

  “I am an addict,” she said, her eyes on the table. “I have to work every day at not being an addict.”

&n
bsp; “You loved drugs more than your brother, more than your life. Do you want to die, Rosie?”

  “I guess I did.” She looked up at Orrin. “I don’t want to anymore. I’ve been clean for nine months.”

  “Do you still want to get high?”

  She held eye contact and nodded.

  “There are no drugs inside Abundance. We have a clinic, but we rely on natural medicine. You will be safe here. You will recover completely. If you go back out into the decay you will fail to stay clean and you will die. Do you understand?”

  Rory nodded again.

  “I need to hear you say it, Rosie.”

  Rory broke eye contact. She was every schoolgirl in trouble and Orrin was every principal who had power. “I understand that I need to be here to survive.” She lifted her chin and looked at him. “I want to live. I want to be happy.”

  Orrin pushed his chair back and stood and they all followed him upright. “Welcome to the Continuance,” he said. “Welcome to life.” At the door he said, “Spencer, give them back their damn watches,” and then laughed when Spencer protested as he stepped out into the night.

  It took another five minutes for Spencer to follow. He kept their watches, for their own good, and finally they spread out to explore the little cabin. Zeke went to the kitchen and clattered about, pulling out plates, silverware, and dishes from the fridge. Rory scouted for surveillance equipment, cameras, or sound-recording devices. They kept up a chatter about the food that’d been left, about how nice Spencer was, how amazing it was to meet Orrin. Nothing they wanted to say. Rory’s search didn’t turn up anything but that didn’t mean they weren’t bugged.

  “Let’s go check out all those stars before we eat,” he said, when he’d finished laying the table.

  Outside the stars were brilliant and the crickets were so loud they were another barrier to being overheard.

  “So,” Rory said. “Orrin is impressive and an annoyingly handsome son of a bitch.”

  Zeke’s brows shot up. “Your type?” Never hurt to be good looking if you were trying to start your own new world.

  “He does have that rugged individual, could forge a raging river on a bucking bronco with a squirming child safe in his arms, look.”

  He grunted an acknowledgement. “And Spencer?”

  “He’ll be improved when he understands not to touch me without permission. He does that kindly uncle thing and it’s completely creepy.”

  It was nothing Rory hadn’t dealt with before. Didn’t mean Zeke liked the idea of it. “Do you want me to lay down the law?” It would fit with their characters for Zack to be protective of Rosie.

  “If he doesn’t back off I’ll break his hand. That should slow him up.”

  He laughed. “You’re enjoying yourself.”

  “Apart from no tech, no books, you betcha. You’re not.”

  This was the water-wings moment, the easy stuff. Too soon to know how hard this job was going to be but not too soon to have a healthy respect for it. “Did you see the shitty bunk beds in there?”

  She bumped him with her hip. He bumped her back. “I need my beauty sleep if I’m going to compete with the Marlboro Man.”

  That earned him a snort of laughter and another hip bump. “At least we know the signal jammer is not in the welcome cabin,” she said.

  Twenty-nine days to find it. And get to the western edge of the property, where a drone had already dropped a satellite phone.

  “The watches,” Rory said. “That was a power play.”

  Might’ve done something like that himself if he wanted to appear like the good guy. “It didn’t even look like a setup. Those guys are practiced. Want to go over hand signals?”

  She turned to face him, lit by starlight, and smoothed a hand over her head.

  It was the A-OK signal. “All fine.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “Warning.” She tapped the side of her eye.

  “Be on the lookout.” He clasped his wrist.

  “Means stay close.” She pulled on her earlobe.

  “Means we need to talk.”

  There were a dozen-plus signals and neither of them needed reminding. She grabbed both his hands. That didn’t mean anything no matter how much he’d once wished it had. “Are you ready, Zeke Raphael Dmitri Bowen Sherwood?”

  He wove their fingers together. “Those are not my middle names.”

  She went up on her toes and with his ducked head they were eye to eye. “They are if you want the top bunk.”

  He raced her into the cabin and let her win. The bottom bunk was too short, his feet stuck over the end. It was a long way from his Grand Master and the pillow was a flat pancake piece of crap, but with Aurora Rae above him, her sleep-deep breath his lullaby, he’d make a dream of it.

  Chapter Four

  This had to be a mistake. A real one. Being assigned to the kitchen was Rory’s first moment of quiet frustration since Spencer’s creepy touching last night.

  The last-minute mix up over their accommodation that meant she was separated from Zeke was no surprise. It was designed to destabilize them. Nor was the fact that her luggage was searched before it showed up at the cabin she was to share with a roommate called Cadence. The only thing missing were the contraband books she’d declined to hand over and her Ready and Willing Red nail polish.

  But when she heard she’d been assigned to the kitchen, she forgot about not having her phone and had a minor freak-out over losing it until she remembered it wasn’t going to be in the back pocket of her jeans again for a long time.

  She wasn’t going to be able to call Zeke, message him. Goddamn, how annoying.

  She knew absolutely nothing about cooking, could barely boil water, was more likely to injure herself or create a new killer virus than produce something edible. On the work assignment form she’d nominated everything else but working with food. She’d dig trenches, build cabins, work in the laundry, tend the garden or the cattle, same as Zeke. Anything but prepare food that hungry people needed to eat.

  “Could this be a mistake?” she’d said to the head chef, a woman called Macy. “I don’t know anything about food preparation. I didn’t check it on my form.”

  Macy had groaned a protest and walked away, leaving Rory standing in the industrial-sized dining room wondering if she’d been dismissed until her new roomie Cadence said, “You’d better go after her. Macy doesn’t like tardiness in the kitchen.”

  Macy wasn’t going to like a whole lot of things if Rory had to be in her kitchen. “This is a bad idea.”

  Cadence shrugged. She was about as keen on having Rory as a housemate as Rory was to find herself living with anyone who wasn’t Zeke. Cadence had masses of gold hair tied in a fancy braid and stunning hazel eyes to go with her perfect clear skin. She had trouble looking Rory in the face. “I was told to bring you here. It’s not up to you to decide, and it would be rude not to listen to Macy.”

  It would be a lot ruder if she poisoned someone. Maybe Macy could request a transfer. The woman would hardly want someone who was a culinary compromise hanging around breathing good steamy kitchen air.

  “I’ll see you later at home,” Cadence said, eyes still anywhere but on Rory. “You remember where it is? The one with the blue pot on the porch.”

  Numbers would’ve been easier, but at Abundance, rows of indistinguishable wooden cabins were identified by odd items left in view: a horseshoe, a windchime made of old cell phones, a single yellow gumboot, half a tractor tire, a festoon of power cords and earbuds, an old desktop monitor with herbs growing in it.

  Rory now lived in a cabin with a blue flowerpot housing a malnourished plant, with a roomie around her age who worked in the general store and was probably a spy, or at least an informer, told to watch out for the newcomer.

  She had no idea where Zeke lived, but it was bound to be nowhere near the blue flowerpot cabin.

  It’d only been half a day since she’d seen him, and she twitched to talk to him. She’d have to damn we
ll find him first. Meanwhile she needed to go plead her case to Macy.

  The kitchen was a hot hive of activity. Mostly staffed by women. She stood on the sidelines and watched the military precision of preparing lunch for three seatings of up to a thousand people, the first of which was in an hour at midday. Cadence had told her that another thousand ate packed lunches that were delivered to work sites and still more got their meals from smaller kitchens in the nursery and school.

  The proficiency, the level of organization was intimidating. All she’d do here was get in someone’s way.

  Zeke would tell her to suck it up, keep her head down and go with the flow. For a player, and a rogue, who could give the impression of being so laid back as to be napping on the job, he was a meticulous con.

  She found Macy doing something with a large pot of what looked like soup.

  “There really has been some kind of mistake. I barely know how to microwave a frozen pizza.”

  Macy handed the big spoon off to another woman who was heavily pregnant and made a back-up gesture and kept making it until Rory was almost at the doorway she’d entered from. “Stay out of the way.”

  “I could help with clean up, or do delivery.”

  “Not my crews. If you were meant to be on clean up or delivery, you’d have been assigned to them.”

  “But I don’t know the first thing about food prep.”

  “What did you do in the decay?” Macy’s hand came up to forestall an answer. “Office work I’ll bet. Useless. They never know what to do with the office workers.”

  “I worked in an art gallery.” Zack and Rosie had no specific skills that a new community would need and that was a deliberate proof point that becoming a Continuer was only about having the money to join.

  Macy’s brows went up. She had something white smeared on her brown cheek and Rory desperately wanted to wipe it off for her. “More useless. They don’t normally put useless people here.”

  “I’ll try not to be useless if you give me a chance. I’m sure I can be trained as well as the next person.”