“So what do you do for a living when you’re not hunting for Sally?”
“I run a data management system for a company that provides security for its clients.”
She studied his eyes, then shook her head. “I can’t imagine a big guy like you behind a desk all day.”
He shrugged. “I’m not behind a desk—I’m in front of the whole world. Computers connect me to everything, everyone, everywhere.”
Their food arrived, his near-raw T-bone, her petite fillet. Baked potatoes. Specially seasoned broccoli.
He cut a bite, then consumed it and two more before he broke the silence that had followed their food. “I’ve told you about me. Your turn.”
She shrugged. “Not much to tell. My dad died when I was a kid. My mom raised me. I was home-schooled until high school. I got my undergraduate degree at Colorado State University, my masters at Stanford, and my Ph.D. from Princeton.”
“Mm-hmm.” He swallowed another bite. “Why sociology? What about that field called to you?”
She got this question a lot. It was easy to trot out her standard answer. “I’m curious about people. Why they do the things they do, live the way they live, make the choices they make.”
“Why?” He dug his fork into the shell of his potato. “Do you think you can fix us?”
“No.” All she really wanted was to fix herself. “Don’t you think documenting what is has value in and of itself?”
“Dunno. I wouldn’t be the one to assign that value.” He’d finished his meal, and now leaned back in his seat and looked at her. “I’d think there’s a risk of making judgments about those you study, being heavily influenced by your own value system, more so, perhaps, than by the facts you uncover.”
“True. I’m a human studying humans. I try to check my biases at the door when I take on a new project. Sometimes it’s hard to do. So you don’t judge others, then?”
“Oh, I do.” He smiled. “But in my world, things are often black and white, and those judgments are easy to make. Usually, they have to be made damned fast.”
Remi set her fork down. She’d only eaten half her fillet and the broccoli. She should have ordered a salad instead of the potato. She looked across the table to Greer. He didn’t sound much like the data analyst or programmer he claimed to be.
“Are you recently out of the military?” she asked, using the cover of her wine glass to camouflage her interest in his answer.
“Why do you ask?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Something about the way you carry yourself. I have a lot of former military in my classes.”
“I was Army.”
“I’m glad you’re here and not there.”
“A war’s a war.” He shrugged.
“What does that mean?”
“Searching for Sally’s a lot like hunting an enemy.”
“The people in the Friendship Community are peaceful.”
“You keep saying that, and yet their youth abandon the community in numbers big enough to show up in stats.”
The waiter came by with the bill. Greer dropped cash on the table. They left and made the short drive back to the university. Her Subaru Forester was now the only one left in the parking lot. He pulled in next to it. The parking lot lights had come on.
They both got out. She set her things in her car, then waited for him to come around. She realized she was oddly reluctant to see him go. Dinner was nice. She’d enjoyed their conversation.
“Where do they go, do you suppose?” he asked as they stood between their cars.
“Who?”
“The kids who leave the community. Where do they go? Maybe Sally’s one of the disappearing kids.”
“I haven’t been able to find any former residents, which is not uncommon. Some closed groups breed so much fear into their residents that none who leave openly admit to having been part of the community. They get new names, change their looks, blend into mainstream population.”
“And yet you say the Friends are peaceful.”
He stood near her. It felt…nice, being here with him. He asked smart questions.
“I don’t think you and I would define ‘peaceful’ in the same way,” he said.
“Cult membership is a complex situation. Often members of a cult don’t know they’re in one until they’re on the outside of it. And then they’re assailed with negative feelings of guilt, regret, embarrassment, and shame. All of those emotions hide in dark corners, segregating the cult survivors from the wider population. Sometimes, without the cult identity, they have no identity at all. They break.”
“Sounds like you’ve been there, done that.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “I’ve been studying cults a long time. I often help family members and psychologists deprogram former members.”
She slowly became aware of a distant sound. The university was near a busy road. Cars in the small college town, populated by broke students, were often poorly maintained with bad exhaust systems and loud mufflers. She didn’t really focus on it until it coalesced into the sound of a couple of loud motorcycles. Greer was on alert too.
“Get in your car, doc.”
She fumbled with her keys. The bikes were coming closer. It was so silly having this unfounded fear of bikers. Lots of the students here rode bikes. But the cops thought the graffiti had been left by some bikers. And the WKB had been making her life hell lately.
She had to warn Greer about them.
The bikes were rolling in a tight circle around their cars. Keeping them locked in place. She got a good look at the vests the bikers were wearing. The patches showed the WKB insignia.
“Greer! We have to get out of here. They’re from the WKB. They’re bad news. They’d as soon kill someone as look at them.”
He smiled at her. Smiled! “I’m kinda hard to kill.”
She touched his chest, forcing his attention to her while the bikers swirled around them. “You survived the war. You came home. You don’t want to die in this stupid parking lot here in Wyoming.”