“These things are hard,” Shannon said. “I was a police officer for ten years. I’ve seen this before. There was probably nothing you or anyone else could’ve done.”
“I don’t believe that.” She bit her lip as she fought to keep her composure. Shannon couldn’t help noticing how tight her skin seemed on her face, as if it could rip if she opened her mouth too wide.
“I need to know that Melissa’s okay,” Pauline continued, a wetness showing around her eyes. “And I need to be able to talk to her, to try to convince her to leave that place. Mr. Shannon, I mean, Bill, please, will you help me?”
Shannon found himself nodding. “I’ll see what I can do. Why don’t you tell me about your daughter. How she joined this cult.”
Pauline fumbled with her handbag as she took out a photograph. Shannon hoped the girl in it would have straight red hair, but instead saw the image of a young blonde girl. Even with a slightly upturned nose she was very pretty and, like her mother, very thin.
“That was taken last summer. Melissa’s a sophomore at the university. The two of us have always been close. I used to talk with her at least once a week.” She bit her lip again and made a weak waving motion with her hand as if she were halfheartedly shooing away a fly. Squeezing her eyes shut to fight back tears, she added, “This was a difficult year for Melissa. Her boyfriend broke up with her right after Thanksgiving and before that she was feeling a lot of pressure at school. She decided to stay on campus during Christmas break instead of coming home. I should’ve come here to be with her, but I didn’t. Fred, my husband, told me I’d be smothering her.”
“When did you last talk to her?”
“January 18th. I knew she was unhappy and I was calling her more often, but most days she wouldn’t pick up.”
“Did she say anything to you about this cult?”
Pauline showed a sad clown’s smile and wiped a bone-thin hand across her cheek. “She told me she had found a group that made her feel accepted. I had no idea what the True Light was. For some reason I had it in my head that they were a religious group, something dealing with Bible study. I encouraged her to go to their meetings and to try to fit in. I thought it would make her happy. Can you believe that? I encouraged my daughter to join a cult!”
She closed her mouth as a look of anguish washed over her face. It was quick, only lasting a few seconds, but during that brief moment Shannon was given a glimpse of what Pauline Cousins would look like in thirty years.
“God, I’m a mess,” she said. “If you can believe it, I used to be a strong person. Six months ago I was running 10K races. Since finding out about Melissa, I’ve lost over twenty pounds. But none of that matters as long as I get my daughter out of that cult and safe.”
“How did you find out she joined them?”
“After a week of Melissa not returning my calls, I contacted the university and found out that she had stopped going to class and that nobody in her dorm had seen her for days. I called the police and told them about the True Light. They called me back later and told me they found Melissa there… that she didn’t want to talk to me… that she didn’t want anything to do with…”
Her mouth closed as she fought to keep from sobbing. She almost won, but a few tears broke loose and ran down her face.
“Are you okay with me asking you a few more questions?”
“I’m so sorry.” She waved briefly again at some imaginary fly. “Yes, of course. I’m being ridiculous.”
“No, you’re not. Under the circumstances you’re holding up damn well. Can you tell me what happened when you visited the True Light this morning?”
“They have an iron fence surrounding their property.” She looked away from Shannon, her face wax-like as she stared out the coffee shop’s front window. “It’s like a prison,” she continued. “I buzzed at the front gate and the girl answering wouldn’t tell me anything about Melissa. I told her I wouldn’t leave until I spoke with my daughter. I kept buzzing until two men came out. They were dressed in silk robes, their heads shaved. They looked so angry. One of them pushed me to the ground, and they threatened to do worse to me if I didn’t leave.”
“Do you want to go to the police?” Shannon asked. “You could file charges against them.”
She shook her head. “I just want to get Melissa out of there. I don’t want to do anything that could complicate that. So Bill, will you try to see my daughter?”
“Yes. Of course.”
She started to fumble with her handbag. “How much should I pay you?”
“Nothing right now,” Shannon said. “I’ll see if I can convince them to be reasonable. If I can, there’s no charge. I’ll just be happy to have helped. If I can’t convince them, then we’ll talk again and work something out.”
“No, really, let me pay you -”
Shannon put a hand out, stopping her. “Please, this is something I’d like to do,” he said.
Looking into his eyes, she nodded and put her bag down.
After getting her cell phone number and the True Light’s address, he told her he’d call after visiting them. “How long do you plan on staying in Boulder?” he asked.
For a long moment she stared at Shannon as if she didn’t comprehend his question. Then a grim determination hardened the muscles along her mouth.
“Until Melissa is safe,” she said.
Chapter 7
Eli held a cheeseburger in his right hand and a napkin balled up in his left which he used to wipe the grease off his chin. His eyes sparkled as he smiled thinly at Shannon.
“I had less than an hour between my two meditation classes to uncover what I did,” he said. “If you worked half as fast you’d have the murders of those two students solved by now.”
“Or if I was half as lucky as you,” Shannon said.
“Luck? As my grandma used to say, Feh! There is no such thing as luck, my boy. What you think of as luck is simply the tapping into of your psychic vision.”
“So if I find a ten dollar bill on the sidewalk, I somehow created my luck? That I psychically knew where that ten dollars was going to be?”
“Exactly.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Sounds a bit farfetched to me, but fine, enough lectures for now on metaphysics. Are you going to tell me what you found?”
“Such impatience. First let me enjoy the fruits of my labor.”
Eli started to take a bite of the burger but his eyes glanced towards Shannon and he shook his head, sighed and dropped the burger back onto his plate. “How can I enjoy my food when you’re staring at me with those big, sad puppy dog eyes?”
“I’ll close my eyes. How’s that?”
“Won’t help any.” Eli sighed heavily. He pushed his plate a few inches away. “So you want me to tell you how this fercockta cult recruits their members?”
“That’s why I’m buying you lunch.”
“A bargain. Trust me. They do it by running a small yoga studio up on the Hill.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I kid you not. The place is called Vishna Yoga. Notice how close that is to Vishnu, the bastards! Trying to catch the unaware off guard. They have a small storefront on Thirteenth Street.”
Shannon breathed out slowly as he thought about it. “Fucking insidious,” he said.
“It is that. Also a bit ingenious. What better way to find college students who are the most emotionally vulnerable than to set up a business that they’ll seek out. And then you have hours to work on them while they’re putting themselves in your hands. Of course, the so-called yoga classes they’re giving are as fraudulent as a wooden nickel.”
“And how’s that?”
Eli made a face. “The woman I talked with told me what they had her do, and while I don’t know exactly what you’d call it, it’s not yoga. Sounded more like the positions are meant to wear you down more than anything else. So let me guess, after all my attempts over the last five years to convince you of its benefits, you’re finally going to sign up for yoga classes?”