“The hospital wouldn’t give me any information, and the PI wasn’t able to find out anything, either.” She shifted in her chair, as if impatient. “When I talked to the local sheriff’s office, they said the area where Metwater is camping is your jurisdiction,” she said. “All I need is for you to go with me to get Joy.”
“You haven’t tried to make contact with them on your own?” Graham asked.
She shook her head. “The private detective I hired paid them a visit. That’s when they refused to admit they had ever known Emily or that Joy even existed. He told me the conditions in their camp are pretty rough—that it isn’t the place for an infant.” She pressed her lips together, clearly fighting to maintain her composure. “I don’t want to waste any more time. I thought it would be better to show up with law enforcement backing. I know this Metwater preaches nonviolence, but my sister was genuinely afraid for her life. Why else would she have made a will at her age?”
“It doesn’t seem out of line for a new parent to want to appoint a guardian for her child,” Marco said. “Maybe she was merely being prudent.”
“One thing my sister was not was prudent,” Hannah said.
Unlike Hannah herself, Walt thought. He certainly knew how different siblings could be. “May I see the birth certificate?” he asked.
Graham passed it to him, then addressed Hannah. “Do you have a picture of your niece?”
“Only the newborn photo my sister sent.” She slipped it from the satchel and handed it to him. Graham and Marco looked at it, then passed it to Walt.
He studied the infant’s wrinkled red face in the oversize pink bonnet. “I don’t think this is going to be much help in identifying a three-month-old,” he said.
“We can go to Metwater and demand he hand over the child,” Graham said. “But if he refuses to admit she even exists, it could be tougher.”
“You can’t hide an infant for very long,” Hannah said. “Someone in the camp—some other mother, perhaps—knows she exists.”
“What makes you think Metwater’s group has her?” Marco asked. “It’s possible she ended up with Child Welfare and Protection in Denver after your sister’s death.”
“I checked with them. They have no record of her. I’m sure she’s still with Metwater and his group.”
“Why are you so sure?” Walt asked.
Her expression grew pinched. “Take another look at her birth certificate.”
Walt studied the certificate, frowning.
“What is it?” Marco asked.
Walt looked up from the paper, not at his fellow officers, but at Hannah. “This says the child’s father is Daniel Metwater.”
* * *
HANNAH HELD HERSELF very still, willing herself not to flinch at the awful words. “That’s a lie,” she said. “Emily was pregnant long before she ever met Daniel Metwater, and I know she was in a relationship with Raynor Gilbert. I have pictures of them together, and I talked to people at the club where he worked.” The conversations had been excruciating, having to relive her sister’s happiness over the baby and being in love, and then the grief when her dream of a storybook future was destroyed by Raynor’s death. “They all say he and Emily were together—that he was the father of her baby. A simple DNA test will prove that.”
“Yet the court was willing to grant you custody of the child?” Graham asked.
“Temporary custody,” she said. “Pending outcome of the DNA test. Believe me, Commander, Daniel Metwater is not Joy’s father. Her father was Raynor Gilbert and he’s dead.”
“Let us do some investigating and see what we can find out,” Graham said. “But even if we locate an infant of the appropriate sex and age in the camp, unless Metwater and his followers admit it’s your sister’s child, we won’t be able to do anything. If some other woman is claiming to be the infant’s mother, you may have to go back to court to request the DNA testing before we can seize the child.”
She stood, so abruptly her chair slid back with a harsh protest, and her voice shook in spite of her willing it not to. “If you won’t help me, I’ll get the child on my own.”
“How will you do that?” Walt asked.
“I’ll pretend I want to join the group. Once I’m living with them, I can find Joy and I’ll leave with her.”
She braced herself for them to tell her she couldn’t do that. Their expressions told her plainly enough that’s what they were thinking—at least what the commander and Agent Cruz thought. Agent Riley looked a little less stern. “You’ve obviously given this some thought,” he said.
“I will do anything to save my niece,” she said. “I had hoped to do this with law enforcement backing, but if necessary, I will go into that camp and steal her back. And I dare you and anyone else to try to stop me.”
Daniel Metwater and his followers had definitely chosen a spot well off the beaten path for their encampment. After an hour’s drive over washboard dirt roads, Walt followed Marco down a narrow footpath, across a plank bridge over a dry arroyo, to a homemade wooden archway that proclaimed Peace in crooked painted lettering. “Looks like they’ve made themselves at home,” Walt observed.
“They picked a better spot this time.” Marco glanced back at Walt. “You didn’t see the first camp, did you?”
Walt shook his head. While several members of the team had visited Metwater’s original camp as part of the murder investigation, he had been assigned to other duties.
“It was over in Dead Horse Canyon,” Marco said. “No water, not many trees and near a fairly popular hiking trail.” He looked around the heavily wooded spot alongside a shallow creek. “This is less exposed, with access to water and wood.”
“Their permit is still only for two weeks,” Walt said.
“There’s plenty of room in the park for them to move around,” Marco said. “And Metwater has some kind of influence with the people who issue the permits. They appear happy to keep handing them out to him.”
A bearded young man, barefoot and dressed only in a pair of khaki shorts, approached. “Hello, Officers,” he said, his expression wary. “Is something wrong?”
“We’re here to see Mr. Metwater,” Marco said.
“I’ll see if the Prophet is free to speak with you,” the man said.
“I think he understands by now it’s in his best interest to speak with us,” Marco said.
He didn’t wait for the young man to answer, but pushed past him and continued down the trail.
The camp itself was spread out in a clearing some fifty yards from the creek—a motley collection of tents and trailers and homemade shelters scattered among the trees. A large motor home with an array of solar panels on the roof stood at one end of the collection. “That’s Metwater’s RV,” Marco said, and led the way toward it.
Walt followed, taking the opportunity to study the men and women, and more than a few children, who emerged from the campers and tents and trailers to stare at the two lawmen. More than half the people he saw were young women, several with babies or toddlers in their arms or clinging to their skirts. The men he saw were young also, many with beards and longer hair, and all of them regarded him and Marco with expressions ranging from openly angry to guarded.
Marco