“What was your renter’s name?” Evelyn gently prodded.

“John Something,” she decided.

An alias, no doubt. Of course Bishop would’ve picked a common name. “Let me guess … Smith?”

She didn’t answer. “I came to see about a dog,” she explained. “And to check on a few other things. There’s a fertilizer company interested in buying the manure piled up in the coops. I could use the money, and it would help clean up the place, which I’ve been meaning to do ever since … ever since…”

She trailed off, starting again in a different place. “But I didn’t get that far, had no chance to mention the fertilizer company before—” Her jaw dropped and she looked down at her pants. “This isn’t my blood,” she announced. “It was in the weeds. There was a whole puddle of it. As soon as I realized what I was standing in, that’s when he hit me.”

He hit her, but he didn’t kill her. Why? Obviously, she knew too much, might’ve reported that blood, so he couldn’t let her go.

But throwing her in with Evelyn? That was an interesting choice.

Evelyn feared he planned to practice up on his lobotomy skills. Maybe he’d lost confidence in his ability to operate after his brain hemorrhage.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Edna Southwick.”

Evelyn dumped water from one of her bottles on the sleeve of her own jacket so she could help Edna clean the blood from her face. “I’m Evelyn Talbot.”

Her gaze dropped—and her eyes widened. “You’re pregnant.” She was stating the obvious, but Evelyn knew there was a lot to take in.

“Yes.”

“When’s the baby due?”

“In three months, if I can hold out that long.”

The older woman’s forehead furrowed with concern. “Aren’t you terrified? Will you be out of here in time?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

Her pale blue eyes latched on to Evelyn’s face. “What’s going to happen to us?”

Evelyn considered telling her who Lyman Bishop was and what he’d done in the past. But Edna Southwick was hurt and scared and Evelyn didn’t see any point in making it all worse. “We’re going to do everything we can to survive and get back to the people who love us,” she replied.

“You don’t think the odds are in our favor.”

Had she somehow revealed what she really felt? She’d been trying so hard not to.

Evelyn sat on the cot with her. “If it’s any comfort, your odds are probably much better than mine.”

“Why?”

“Because you aren’t his intended target. You just inadvertently got in the way.”

“Target?” she echoed. “What have I stumbled into?”

“It isn’t anything good,” Evelyn said with a sigh.

19

Minneapolis, MN—Monday 5:00 p.m. CST

Amarok wasn’t going to give up. He’d flown three thousand miles to speak to Terry Lovett’s widow. As soon as she realized he was with law enforcement, she’d refused to let him in or even give him an audience, but he planned to approach her friends, neighbors and family members. If the man he was looking for was involved with Terry, they had to know each other from somewhere, and Lewis had already established that it wasn’t from work.