Ghost Dance by Rebecca Levene

cover was that bobbled fake leather which seemed designed to catch dust, but there was none on this. It was obvious the couple looked at it frequently, probably daily.
    Sofia flicked it open. The first page was one big photo, a baby too young to smile held in the arms of a woman who must have been Sofia, but looked forty years younger. "She was born July 4th, 1988," Sofia said. "We thought it was lucky, a sort of blessing - we called her our little Miss America. "
    Caesar gently took the book from her and flipped forward through nearly three-quarters of its width. "They don't want to see that. I'm sorry, it's just, we..." his words trailed into silence and Alex saw him swallow twice.
    "I understand," PD said. "Tell me about the last few months, just before Maria joined the Croatoans - and just after."
    Caesar swallowed a final time and nodded, flipping forward a couple more pages in the album. "This was her twenty-first birthday party. That was the day before she - before she walked into that place."
    Maria was instantly recognisable, glowing in the centre of the photo surrounded by laughing young women. She was dressed in jeans and a blue blouse, and she had rosy cheeks and a glowing white smile. The small gap between her front teeth only made her seem more appealing, an endearingly human flaw.
    "She was beautiful," Alex murmured.
    Sofia glared at her. "She is beautiful. She still is."
    "But she's different," Caesar said. He flipped through a few more pages and Alex saw more pictures of the party and a few other casual shots that looked like they'd been taken at a park somewhere, maybe Golden Gate.
    "We went out the next day for a family picnic," Sofia said. "It was one of those spring days when the sun shines and the wind doesn't blow. It was perfect. And then..."
    "She went for a walk on her own. She said she wanted to see the city before she left. She was going to go to UCLA, you see - a scholarship." Even through the pain in Caesar's voice, Alex could hear the pride. "This was her last weekend in the city. She'd gotten a job in her uncle's store in Modesto and she planned to work there a couple months, save some money."
    PD leaned back, folding his arms. "But she never went." There was a tight muscle jumping in his jaw. Alex could tell he thought this was important and couldn't imagine why. It was horrible, but it was what cults did. They took people away from their families. They changed them.
    It was what PD and Hammond were doing to her.
    Caesar flipped to the next page in the album and suddenly she wondered. The woman staring back at them was obviously Maria - the gap between her front teeth was the same. But nothing else about her was recognisable, from the sophisticated designer clothes to the slightly stiff way she held her body.
    "When was that photo taken?" she asked, her voice tight.
    Sofia nodded, as if satisfied with her reaction. "That's a month after she walked into the Croatoan centre. It was the first time we saw her after she left."
    "She never came back from that walk," Caesar said. "We reported her missing and the next day we got a phone call from her, telling us that she was fine, not to worry. Those bastards, they must have links to the cops. They knew we'd made the report and they didn't want any trouble. They wanted to keep us quiet."
    "But we wouldn't let it go," Sofia said, a sort of bitter pride in her voice. Alex could imagine her at the precinct day after day, never making a scene but not letting them brush her off, either, driving the officers crazy.
    "We thought she'd been kidnapped, you understand," Caesar said. "We thought someone had a gun to her head when she told us she was all right."
    PD nodded. "But then you found out the truth..."
    "The police gave us her address eventually," Sofia said. "Just to shut us up."
    As she spoke, Caesar flipped over the next page to a picture of a mansion in what looked like the Hollywood Hills. There was a high fence surrounding the property and he must