Under the Radar. Fern Michaels
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this situation except for the Sisters on the mountain, Lizzie Fox, and Nellie. All she had to do was be patient and wait.
The cell phone Pearl had removed from the girls’ bus, when they weren’t looking, vibrated in the pocket of her shirt. She’d also helped herself to the driver’s wallet just to make it marginally more difficult for the authorities to identify him. She was tempted to answer the vibrating phone but thought better of the idea. Wherever the bus carrying the girls was headed, surely someone must have alerted someone else that it hadn’t arrived. The girl named Emily said they had been sitting in the ditch for almost three hours. Five now since Pearl had gotten back on the road. Yes, it was time for the people at the girls’ final destination to get worried. Nellie and the others would have to deal with that end of things.
God in heaven, what was she going to do with the girls? Sooner or later, without a doubt, someone would try to charge her with kidnapping. Well, that wasn’t going to happen, she thought grimly.
“C’mon, c’mon, someone call me. Like now would be a good time,” Pearl muttered over and over under her breath. When nothing happened, she continued driving. With any luck she’d hit the barn just as the sun came up. At best she had fifteen minutes to go.
A rickety pickup passed her going the other way. The driver tootled his horn, something the people in Utah did out of habit. Pearl tootled back, a cheerful sound in the very early morning. She wondered if the driver of the pickup would be the one to call the Highway Patrol about the bus in the ditch. Then, of course, he would mention seeing the other bus, and the hunt would be on.
It probably wouldn’t be a problem since she had magnetic signs and extra license plates to switch out, all compliments of Charles and his network. Also, thanks to Charles, she had several sets of new identities. This driver’s license she was carrying said she was Harriet Woonsocket and lived in Burlington, Vermont. She even owned a small Cape Cod house there, where she paid taxes yearly and got junk mail delivered. The other identities were available in case of need.
In the back of the bus under the last row of seats she had boxes and boxes of books, including Bibles, and other reading material that she passed out to churches and youth groups.
Pearl Barnes, aka Justice Pearl Barnes (Ret), also known as Harriet Woonsocket, alias Missy something or other, was a woman of many names and talents.
She saw the huge yellow sign proclaiming that Snuffy’s was the best bar and grill in the state of Utah. She turned off onto a gravel road, drove two miles, and there was the barn straight ahead. She was grateful George was waiting and had lowered the spikes across the road that otherwise would have shredded the tires of her bus into a hundred pieces. The doors were opening as she slowed and drove right into the cavernous space. The doors closed almost immediately.
“You cut it pretty close, Missy,” the big, bald-headed man said cheerfully. “Got some hot breakfast ready for everyone, and the hot water is running full blast for anyone who wants to take a shower. Full load this time, I see. Gonna have to have Irma fix some more eggs. She’ll love that. That woman just loves to cook for a crowd.”
Two volunteers stepped into the crowd and shuffled half the women and children to the kitchen in back of the barn and the other half to the showers on the other side.
“Something happen along the way, Missy?” George Ellis asked, concern furrowing his brow when he saw the pregnant young girls.
Pearl swiped at the sweat forming on her brow. “You could say that. Listen, we’re going to have to stay a little longer than I planned or like.” She quickly related the night’s events. George soaked it all in like a sponge. “Driver was dead, you say?”
“Very dead. I tried for a pulse. I took his cell phone and wallet so they aren’t going to know who he is, at least right away they won’t. I did pass that pickup like I told you. I’m sure the Highway Patrol is there as we speak.”
“These girls, what are they saying?”
“Nothing. The one who isn’t pregnant is the only one really talking and, beyond telling me who they are, she isn’t saying all that much. She did volunteer, quite cheerfully, that she miscarried in her fourth month. There must be some kind of law about this, George. You live here, what do the authorities do about something like this? Those girls are babies themselves, and they’re going to give birth to babies. Where are the damn parents?”
“Polygamy is a whole other world, Missy. The authorities pretty much look the other way. Those people out there in that big compound have some pretty powerful lawyers, and they go at it. Just easier to do nothing. I’m not saying that’s right, I’m just saying that’s the way it is.”
“Not for long,” Pearl said. “Things are going to change pretty quick, I’m thinking. In the meantime, we have to keep them here until…until I can get some help.”
“I hear you, Missy. Now, how about some of Irma’s pancakes? By now she’s probably run out of eggs, so she’s switching to pancakes. Our own fresh sausage is always a big hit. You game?”
“George, I am starved, and I admit it. You don’t think anyone will come around here asking questions, do you?”
“Doubt it. This acreage is set two miles back. Course, they know I’m here, but they’d call first to ask if I’ve seen anything. No one wants to take a chance on those spikes in my road, that kind of thing. Most people around here go on trust, and that goes for the Highway Patrol. ’Sides, me and Irma are honorary members. You look dead on your feet, Missy.”
“I am, George. Do you mind if I pass on breakfast and try to get a few hours’ sleep? Wake me if…well, just wake me if you need to, okay?”
“I will, Missy. Your room is all ready, just head on back to it. Irma laid out some clean clothes and towels for you.”
Pearl hugged the old man, looked into his eyes, then hugged him again.
George and Irma Ellis had a daughter who had tried to get away from her abusive husband too many times to count. By the time the couple contacted Pearl, who acted on the information immediately, it was too late for the Ellises’ daughter. She was found dead in her garage an hour before Pearl could rescue her and her twin babies.
From that day on George and Irma Ellis were Pearl’s staunchest supporters and did everything and anything they could to aid her underground railroad, making sure no one else met the same fate as their daughter and their grandbabies.
George looked around the barn and felt his eyes fill up. He and Irma had used all their savings plus their daughter’s insurance money to convert the barn into living quarters that no one in Sienna knew about. They’d installed two huge bathrooms with four showers each and two dormitory bedrooms that could sleep twenty-two comfortably. In the back of the barn, George himself had built a kitchen with a huge brick oven you could roast an ox in. All of this had been done on the sneak by Irma and George without building inspectors prying into what they considered their private business. They’d driven miles and miles out of their way to buy fixtures and wiring just so the local shop owners wouldn’t know what they were up to.
It had been Irma’s idea, once they got under way, to lay down the spiked hump at the entrance to their property. It worked like a charm, and no one came to visit after news got around about the first six or seven accidents. The message was loud and clear: the Ellis family didn’t want company. They were probably a bit tetched in the head because of the loss of their daughter and grandchildren.
George trundled his big body back to the kitchen area, where Irma was doing her best to chat up the pregnant young teenagers. She shrugged to show him she was not getting any useful information. He mouthed the word “polygamy” for his wife’s benefit. She nodded but gave no other indication she knew what was going on.
George walked around the old milk barn, which was big enough to hold all the people currently in it plus five or six more busloads. He went outside and walked the two miles down the lane to his mailbox. Sienna’s one and only police cruiser sailed past, slowed, stopped, and backed up to where George was standing, a pile of catalogs and