Hot as Sin

“Okay,” she finally said, accepting that Sam couldn’t shed his protective instincts. He needed to hear her say it. “I promise I’ll go for help.”

Slowly, they moved through thicker and thicker brush until they reached a chain-link fence. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if they came upon someone with a gun. The only ones she’d ever seen were the ones who moved in with her mother’s boyfriends and, fortunately, moved out when they left. No one had warned her not to touch them as a kid; she’d just known.

“Who are you?”

The high-pitched voice startled her, and she jumped against Sam. He put his hands on her shoulders and she was thankful for his reassuring strength.

A short, plump girl with dreadlocks and bad skin stood in the bushes. “This is private property. Go away.”

Dianna was surprised by the hard words out of the baby voice. But she was relieved to see that, as far as she could tell, the girl didn’t have any weapons on her. Based on what Will and Sam had both said about the suspected drug-related activities on the commune, Dianna had almost expected armed guards.

“I’m looking for April Kelley. I’m her sister.”

The girl’s eyes widened before she shifted into a sneer. “You must be the rich celebrity, huh?”

Dianna was taken aback by the stranger’s vitriol and it took her a few extra seconds to find the words, “Is she here?”

She held her breath as she waited for the girl to reply, never having been able to let go of that small shred of hope that her sister would be alive and well on the commune when they arrived.

The girl looked at her like she was extremely slow. “Of course not. She went to see you.”

The crushing blow came too quick for Dianna to deflect it. Fortunately, Sam was right behind her with an arm around her waist.

Picking up the questioning, he asked, “Has anyone heard from her since she left?”

The girl shook her head. “When she didn’t show up for chores this morning we figured she’d decided to head back to San Francisco without telling anyone.”

“No,” Dianna said, finding her voice again. “That’s not what happened. She called me yesterday. She’s in trouble.”

Dianna didn’t know what she’d expected. A little panic on the girl’s part might have been nice. Instead she just shrugged.

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

Something told Dianna that this girl didn’t care for April much. She wanted to know why—and if it could have something to do with her sister’s disappearance.

But before she could give her the third degree, Sam said, “Could you show us where she’s been living so we can see if she left any clues as to where she went?”

The girl looked wary. “We don’t normally allow strangers onto the Farm.”

“I’m not a stranger. I’m her sister.”

Narrowed eyes scanned her, top to bottom. “Whatever. I guess, since you’re her sister and all. Although I’m sure Peter will kick you out soon enough.” But rather than lead them inside the gates, she turned to Sam. “Who are you?”

“Friend of the family. You lead the way.”

It was a barely masked command that the girl couldn’t help but obey.

As she motioned for them to follow her through the brambles, Sam whispered, “Let’s see what we can learn from April’s friends before we jump to any conclusions. They probably know more than they think they do.”

She wasn’t sure she believed anything he was saying, but it didn’t stop Dianna from sending up a silent thank-you that he was here with her. She’d need to siphon off his strength until she could relocate her own.

They stepped beyond the fence and the thick vegetation and Dianna was surprised to find that the commune was extremely clean and orderly. Neat rows of fruit trees and plots lush with vegetables grew to the west of the low-roofed barns. There was even a white house with a porch at the top of the meadow, which looked down on the land below.

Even more surprising, there was a faded baby stroller at the entrance of one of the many huts that cropped up along the edges of the meadow where the tall trees began again. She heard laughter and saw children playing with a cute little puppy who was lying on its back while they rubbed its belly.

Had April been telling her the truth when she’d said it wasn’t a bad place?

“This is the Farm,” the girl said, waving her arms across the rolling open hills.

It was an incredibly beautiful valley, surrounded by high mountains on all sides. A low, distinctly nonhuman sound bellowed at them and she jumped in alarm. Sam motioned to his left and she realized they were standing beside a sheep’s pen. Pigs and goats were in separately fenced sections, and even though she had no livestock experience whatsoever, the animals’ pens looked pretty darn tidy.

And yet, a chill passed through Dianna that had nothing to do with the light breeze rustling the leaves on the tall aspen trees. She’d grown up in a dark and scary place, and although her eyes couldn’t find anything scary about the bucolic scene before them, the fact that her sister was missing kept the same dark presence hovering over it all.

Crossing between vegetable patches, they followed the girl over to a small shack, no bigger than a ten-by-ten garden shed.

“This is where she lived?” Dianna asked, instantly aghast at the lack of heat, running water, kitchen, or toilet.

“We live as simply as we possibly can. April really embraced it.”

Was that true? Would April have embraced a surrogate “family” even though she’d pushed her own flesh and blood away?

The shed was clean and simple and yet, almost as soon as she stepped into the building, Dianna found that she couldn’t spend another second inside April’s primitive room.

Ever since moving out of her mother’s trailer for good, she’d never done well in small spaces and absolutely hated feeling trapped, which was why she’d bought a condo with floor-to-ceiling windows, and every room had a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It made her feel like she could escape at a moment’s notice, gave her the illusion of not being held down, of not being trapped.

In so many ways, even though it was much cleaner, this little cabin felt like the trailer she’d grown up in. She’d sworn she and April would never live like this again.

How could her sister have made this choice? Especially given all of the opportunities that Dianna had worked her butt off to provide?