Road Rash

3. A Friend in Need

CHAPTER 3

A FRIEND IN NEED

Shea arrived just as a summer monsoon storm blew in from the east and began to unless its furious winds. Lightning slashed among the dark clouds. The air was heavy with the smell of ozone and approaching rain.

LezBeans Coffee and Books had once been a small house in Ironwood’s University District. Despite the name, the coffee shop attracted a clientele of all sexualities and genders, mostly of the politically progressive variety. Many were students or faculty at the nearby Central Arizona University.

The shop had an open, airy feel to it. Many of the outer walls had been replaced with plate-glass windows. Among the labyrinth of tables were shelves crammed with used books and tchotchkes for sale. Original artwork hung from columns and walls.

Shea spotted Toni waving at her from across the large front room overlooking the street. Nita Thornton, the owner of the coffee shop, sat next to her. She was a woman in her fifties with a 1970s-style afro haircut and always a kind word on the rare occasion that Shea stopped in.

Nita’s wife, Cat Hamilton, a woman with a chestnut ponytail, sat beside her. Cat’s sleeveless shirt revealed muscular arms that had been honed from years as a metal sculptor.

“I think you know Nita and Cat,” Toni said when Shea sat down at the table.

“Good to see y’all again,” Shea said.

Nita smiled warmly. “Likewise. Can I get you a coffee?”

“No thanks, I can’t stay long. What’s this about needing my help?”

Nita’s cheerful expression dissolved like sugar in hot coffee. “It’s our daughter, Megan.”

Although Shea wasn’t a regular at LezBeans, she knew Nita, Cat, and Megan through the tight-knit queer community. Shea had admired the vibrant young teen for her buoyant, generous personality, as well as her aspirations of making the world safer for marginalized people. “She okay?”

“She’s gotten messed up with a group in Sedona called Luminos,” Cat replied.

“Never heard of them.”

“They’re a cult,” Nita said sharply. “Brainwashing, gaslighting, a***e, the whole nine yards.”

A rumble of thunder rattled the building. Rain pelted the windows like a power washer.

“We believe they’re hurting her,” Cat explained. “We haven’t heard from her in over a month. No calls. No texts. No social media posts. Nothing.”

Shea glanced at Toni, then back to the other women, unsure of what she was getting into and why Toni was expecting her to help. “Have you called the cops?”

Cat laughed darkly. “Nita and I talked with the Sedona police, the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI. Even the Forest Service. Sedona police told us the Luminos campground was outside city limits, so not their jurisdiction. Coconino Sheriff took a missing persons report, but seems they’ve written it off as a family spat. The feds and the forest service referred us back to the sheriff. Megan’s nineteen now, so she’s legally an adult. Unless we have hard proof she’s being held against her will or that she is actually being harmed, they claim there’s nothing they can do.”

“What makes you think this group she’s with is a cult? Or that they’re brainwashing or abusing her?”

“We didn’t at first,” Cat said. “They led us to believe that Luminos was a non-profit helping to train a new generation of activists to build a better, more inclusive world. But then…”

Nita let out a long, anguished sigh before picking up her wife’s thread. “A woman in one of my Narcotics Anonymous meetings shared about her experiences with Luminos. The story she told chilled my soul. People there are being physically, mentally, and sexually abused. This woman experienced things so horrific she wouldn’t even share them in the group.”

Cat’s expression grew harder at Nita’s words. “We called Megan. She assured us that Luminos wasn’t anything like what this woman described. She insisted she was having a wonderful time and that the people at Luminos were teaching her how to create lasting positive change in the world. Then she asked us for more money to attend the next level of training. We’d already given her seven grand for these classes. Now she was asking for another twenty. As much as we love Megan, we simply don’t have it right now.”

Nita wiped the tears from her face. “With most of the university students gone home for the summer, business here at LezBeans has been way down. And we’d just paid her tuition for fall semester at U of A. We’re running lean until classes start up in the fall. When we told her no, she begged and pleaded. When we still said no, she became hysterical, as if something terrible would happen if she didn’t get the money.”

“Something terrible like what?” Shea asked.

Another thunderclap shook the building. The lights flickered for a second.

“She didn’t say. It was the desperation in her voice. As if her very life depended on it. Like we were denying her air to breathe by not coughing up the money. We implored her to come home to discuss options. We were so worried about what my NA friend had shared. But Megan refused to leave, kept saying what she was learning and doing at Luminos was too important.”

“What happened?”

Cat put an arm around Nita and said, “She stopped answering our calls and texts. When we left voicemail messages, she blocked our number. We sent emails. Nothing. We haven’t heard a word from her since the end of June. She promised to come home for the Fourth of July weekend, but never showed. Never called. At this point, we don’t know if…”

Nita dissolved into heaving sobs. “My precious girl…”

“Last time I checked, the sheriff’s office hasn’t even talked to her,” Cat continued. “The detective keeps giving us the runaround, saying it’s an ongoing investigation and that he’ll contact us when he knows something. That’s when we called Toni.”

“I researched the organization,” Toni said. “There’ve been a few allegations over the years. Claims of s****l harassment and physical a***e. Cited for a few labor violations. A couple of ex-members filed complaints they were being stalked after leaving. But nothing stuck. Luminos is aggressively litigious and appears to be well-funded. They’ve sued nearly every person who’s spoken out, winning in most cases. No one has proved anything against them.”

“Which doesn’t mean the claims aren’t true,” Cat replied bitterly.

“Sí,” Toni exchanged a glance with Cat. “It just means Luminos has covered their tracks well.”

“And you want me to do an emergency extraction? Pull her out of there so you can deprogram her?”

“Not that simple, amor. Because she’s an adult, we can’t take her out of there against her will. That would be k********g. It was a legally gray area a few decades ago, but there has since been significant case law since prohibiting any forced extraction and deprogramming.”

“Whaddya need me to do?”

“Infiltrate the group, get close to Megan, and convince her to come home voluntarily.”

“Couldn’t you do that, babe?” Shea asked. “Megan knows you, doesn’t she?”

“Sí, she also knows I used to be a cop, which could compromise the entire operation. We need someone she trusts, but who has no obvious ties to law enforcement.”

“Does she know we’re dating?”

“As far as we know, she doesn’t,” Cat answered. “We’ve never mentioned it to her.”

Shea considered the request. “What kinda place is it? An armed compound with razor-wire fences?”

Toni shook her head. “I’ve studied the photos Megan sent her moms early on and also pulled up satellite images from the web. The Luminos property is on private land inside the Coconino National Forest just off 89A, twelve miles north of downtown Sedona. No walls or fences. No one in the photos appears armed. My best guess, their primary weapons are psychological, not physical.”

The desperation in Cat and Nita’s eyes felt like an emotional black hole that terrified Shea. “I’m really tied up with deadlines at work right now. But I can talk with the Athena Sisterhood, see if a few of them are available.”

Cat put a hand on hers. “Shea, we got no problem with your club, but we need you there. She knows you. We’re sure she would trust you. You’d have a better time convincing her to leave Luminos than a stranger would.”

“And you’re smart and resourceful, querida,” Toni added. “You rescued Annie when that d**g g**g kidn*pped her a few years back. And you went undercover when the Sisterhood was suspected of dealing drugs. I can’t think of anyone better qualified for this than you.”

“Please, Shea. We’ll pay you,” Nita added. “We have a few thousand currently and can get you more if necessary. It will just take some time.”

“You wouldn’t have to leave until Sunday. That’s when the next orientation session begins,” Cat explained.

Shea considered the request. If Annie were the one in jeopardy, she’d do it without hesitation, no matter what deadlines she had at work or what dangers she’d face to get her back. Still, there were so many unknowns.

She turned to Toni. “I don’t even know what I’d say to Megan. I’m not much good at talking folks into doing things. I can’t even get Annie to clean her room.”

“Tell her that her moms are worried about her and that they love her. They want her to come home for a visit. That’s it. If nothing else, we need Megan to re-establish communication, not to coerce her or kidnap her. Unless, of course, she’s being hurt or held against her will. We’re hoping she’s not, but if she is, she’ll need your help. Bring another member of the Sisterhood with you, but any more than that may look suspicious.”

Shea studied Nita's and Cat’s faces. The anguish they felt for Megan was the same anguish her sister Wendy had on her face when Annie had been kidn*pped.

The memory of the night she rescued Annie was seared into her brain. Creeping through the dark streets of Ironwood’s barrio. Discovering a wounded Annie terrified in the trunk of a police cruiser. And then running away only to witness Wendy get cut down in the street from a stray bullet to head.

She and Wendy weren’t supposed to be there. Wendy’s old man, Hunter, had expressly f*******n it. But Shea knew Hunter and his outlaw biker g**g, the Confederate Thunder, would f**k things up, and they had.

If Shea hadn’t shown up, Annie probably would’ve been dead too. But maybe Wendy would still be alive.

“How do I get in without drawing suspicion?”

Cat slid over a three-fold pamphlet. “Luminos’s orientation program is called ‘Change Yourself, Change the World,’ supposedly a program that trains people to become activists. They target supporters of Black Lives Matter, MeToo, and the l***q rights movements. Progressive idealists, especially young ones.”

Shea studied the pamphlet. Photos of diverse young people smiling and holding hands covered the pages. The text talked about inclusion, meditation, attraction, manifestation, and compassion interspersed with quotes from Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and other famous people. “It says the program costs three hundred dollars.”

“It’s five hundred now,” Cat replied. “They apparently raised the price. But Nita and I will cover it. It’s my understanding that Megan is now facilitating these classes or was when we last spoke. Should be the perfect opportunity to talk with her and convince her to come home.”

“All right, I’ll do it. But not alone. I’ll need to talk with the Sisterhood, see if someone else is available to join me. We’ll go up there Sunday and bring Megan back.”

“Thank you, Shea.” Nita reached across the table and clasped Shea’s hand. Tears streamed down her face. “This means the world to us.”

“Happy to help.”

Cat slid a stuffed envelope over. “This should cover your entrance fees and some basic expenses. We’ll get you more once you’ve brought Megan back. I just need to go to the bank and pull it out of a CD.”

Shea stuffed the envelope inside a pocket of her leather jacket. “What about this woman from your NA meeting who told you Luminos was a cult?”

“What about her?” Nita replied, her tone wary.

“I need to talk with her, find out more about this place.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible. What she shared was under the blanket of NA’s anonymity. She’s keeping a low profile since leaving Luminos and is terrified of what they may do if they find out she’s talking.”

“I have to know what I’m up against. Getting this information secondhand doesn’t cut it. I gotta speak with her if I’m going to do this.”

Toni had a look on her face that said, “Don’t mess this up.” At the same time, Shea knew Toni understood that getting as much accurate intel was crucial to an operation like this.

“Let me call her.” Nita pulled out her phone and dialed. “Hey, it’s Nita T. from the Friday night meetings. We found someone who’s willing to bring my daughter back home. Her name is Shea Stevens. She needs to know more about Luminos.” She glanced at Shea for a second. “She’ll protect your identity. I trust her. Call me back when you get this message.”

Nita put away her phone. “When she calls back and gives me permission, I can give you her number.”

“Fair enough. I have to get back to the shop. I’ll do what I can to get Megan back.” Shea pulled herself to her feet.

Nita wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you.”

“Really appreciate it, Shea.” Cat gave her a quick hug and a slap on the back.

Shea did her best to give them an encouraging smile. “She’s a smart kid. I’m sure it’ll work out.”

Toni said, “I’ll walk you out.”

Outside, the torrent had subsided to a light drizzle. The dark clouds were now to the southwest over the Cortes National Forest. The temperature had dropped ten degrees, and the air smelled clean.

Toni pressed her forehead to Shea’s while tiny raindrops dampened their hair. “Gracias, querida. I know this is a big ask, especially with all you have going on at work.”

“Honestly, I’m not convinced I’m the right person for the job. Passing myself off as a touchy-feely idealist? Really? My idea of meditation involves shooting holes in paper targets or riding like a bat outta hell on my bike.”

“You don’t fool me, Shea Stevens. Underneath that butch exterior is a very gentle heart. You adopted Annie after her parents were killed. You’ve protected countless women both with and without the Athena Sisterhood. Tap into that compassion deep inside you. You are a fierce warrior woman who wants to make this a safer world for vulnerable people.”

“This fierce warrior woman just wants to get back to the shop and come up with an idea for a new custom bike.”

Toni laughed. The sound of it softened Shea’s frustration.

“One other thing.” Toni reached around and patted Shea’s lower back where her pistol was concealed. “Leave the hardware at home when you go to Sedona.”

“Are you serious? What if things go sideways? I’m going to need to defend myself.”

“If they spot you carrying a g*n, they’ll know something’s up. You’re resourceful. If worse comes to worse, you’ll figure out what to do. You always do.” She tugged on the black bandana tied around her neck. “Might also leave the club colors at home, too.”

“Yeah. Suppose so.” But the whole thing seemed like a shot in the dark. Shea pulled on her helmet. “Well, I better get going.”

“You’re not taking White Juniper Road, are you?”

Shea stared out at the storm that now hovered over her preferred route back to Sycamore Springs. “Guess not. Much as I love taking the back way home, I’m not in the mood to be fighting a monsoon on twisty mountain roads. I’ll take the Thatcher Road east to the interstate.”

“Cuídate mucho, cariño. I promised Annie I’d pick her up from her friend’s house and take her shopping for business attire for her Bold Women of Tomorrow camp.”

“I should be the one taking her,” Shea said, guilt poking at her.

Amusement twinkled in Toni’s eyes. “Shea, when was the last time you went shopping for a business suit?”

“Ever?”

“Exactly. Relax. I got this. Go make amazing motorcycles.”

“See ya tonight.”

“Hasta luego, mi amor.”