Too late. No sooner had he stepped closer when her leg swung up and her foot connected with his midriff in one nasty, fluid kick.
He toppled to the lawn.
Stunned for a moment, he watched as Kaylee scrambled to her feet, tore inside her house and locked her door.
Then he sagged. Oh, this was just great. Well, he was bringing this all on himself, so he better learn a bit of patience. But after years of searching for his sister, he was desperate.
With a grimace of pain, he stood and rubbed his stomach. Through the door’s small window Kaylee stared at him, wide-eyed. The expression wrenched his heart.
She was terrified. So scared she didn’t realize that she’d dropped her house keys. His mouth a thin line, his brows lifted, he scooped up the keys and dangled them from his fingers.
“Ms. Campbell. Kaylee. I’m not who you think I am.”
Her gaze darted around. Obviously, she was searching for some other way to defend herself, should he unlock her door. He had no intentions of doing that.
“I’m not Noah. Kaylee, listen! I’m his brother, Eli. Listen to me, please.”
She snapped her head to the front, enough for him to catch the shock.
Patience. Father, please help me. If You want me to be patient, help me now.
Maybe he should be praying for his sister’s life, instead. If she heard his prayer, she’d accuse him of being selfish, jealous, looking again to upstage Noah.
He took a step back. “Look at me. You can see I’m not Noah.”
Kaylee shook her head. “No, I can’t. You kept yourself hidden most of the time. You’ve cut your hair and shaved that beard. You won’t get away with kidnapping me. I won’t cooperate, Noah! There’s nothing to hold me there anymore, thanks to you! You didn’t fool me with Trisha’s death. I know you killed her!”
She drew in a shaky breath and battled on, “I won’t be blackmailed! You can kill the lot of those fools who follow you. I refuse to care!”
“Listen!”
“No! You threatened to kill me before, but you won’t get away with it this time!” She turned to move away from the door.
He raced to the door. “Wait! I’m not going to hurt you! Just listen! I only want to talk to you.”
Thankfully, she stopped. He fished his wallet out of his pocket. Then, from the battered slice of leather, he drew his driver’s license.
He plastered it on the windowpane. “Who’s this?”
She read it quickly but shook her head. “IDs can be forged.”
With a growl, he thrust it back into his pocket. Thinking a moment, he pushed his short hair away from his hairline and tilted his face to the ground, showing her a scar. “Does Noah have this?”
She fell silent. Thank You. He’d finally reached her.
A brittle moment later, she answered, “Noah didn’t cut his hair, so we didn’t see his forehead. He kept hidden, too, and when we did see him, the room was always half dark.”
Eli offered his left hand and the scattered islands of wrinkled skin, the remains of an old burn from when he and Noah had been playing with the wood-stove at their grandmother’s house, thirty years ago. “What about this?”
“I didn’t see his hands, either.”
Great. Back to square one. Just as he was trying to remember another childhood injury, she added with a soft whisper, “But you’re left-handed. Noah’s right-handed.”
Of course. Relief sluiced through him and he let out a long sigh. “I forgot about that.”
She met his stare, her expression soft as a deer’s, with watery eyes shimmering. She wet her lips. “Who did you say you were?”
“Eli, his brother.” He backed away from the door but she just stood there, staring at him, keeping the door firmly shut. “I need to talk to you.”
“You want to talk? Talk. This is the only way we’re going to communicate.”
He sighed. Better than nothing. “I need you,” he repeated. “You’re the only one who can help me.”
Kaylee blinked. So much had happened so quickly. This morning, she awoke and looked forward to her walk, anxious to put together her life after Trisha’s…
After all the awful things that had happened…and all the things she’d done.
“Kaylee? Will you listen to me? I need your help.”
Noah never begged. He had complete control over his followers.
Eli’s voice filtered in through the myriad images that always surrounded Kaylee’s thoughts of the cult. The compound, called The Farm by cult members, whisked through her brain. The gnawing hunger, the biting cold.
The tears at night, her sister begging for her compliance. At first. Then later, when she weakened—
Forget all that. “What do you want?”
He ran his fingers through his short hair, allowing her to study his face. Though she hadn’t seen much of Noah, she’d seen his sharp blue eyes enough times, and the piercing stare always unnerved her. Eli’s eyes were different. Softer.
Finally, he spoke. “My sister, Phoebe, lives with Noah. I need you to go back—”
“No!” Still focusing on Eli’s face, she shook her head. “Forget it! You don’t know what you’re asking. I’m never going back there!”
He captured her gaze and held it. His tanned face wore a driven and determined expression. “You’re the only one who can help me reach Phoebe. She won’t talk to me.”
“Then get your mother to. Everyone listens to their mother.”
“My mother has tried, but each time she’s written, the letters have been returned unopened. Both of my parents are getting old and can’t travel. Mom tried to call, when they had a phone, but she was always told Phoebe was busy or that Noah would take the message.”
That sounded about right. Noah owned a cell phone, but the few times it rang, only John or one of the men were allowed to answer it. She could still recall the one time it rang and there were no men. The women let it ring on and on, a creepy nonaction that still irritated her.
“We’ve all tried. I’m hoping that she’ll at least talk to another woman who lived with her. Can you go back—”
Her breath clouded the cool pane of glass between them, thankfully breaking the lock his stare had on her. “Are you nuts? We can’t help them! And I won’t go back to try. Phoebe knows I hated all of them.” She let out an incredulous laugh. “Trust me, you can’t help them. I spent two years there! They’re all beyond help.”
Eli bent closer to the door. His pale brows pressed together. “Did you say that when you went looking to save your sister? Did you believe that when you went searching for Noah’s compound? Remember how you got that info?”
She shrank away. “How do you know that?”
“You were on CNN, Kaylee. You paid a local to reveal the exact location of the compound.”
He’d done his homework. Yes, she’d paid for the information. More than five thousand dollars. But she’d been desperate to find her sister, willing to deplete her meager savings. And she’d found out where exactly in eastern Maine they were.
Like Eli was now, she’d been anxious, hurt by her sister’s actions.
She threw off