“That you’d rather I reunite with my mother?”

“If you need her, yes. It’s important to me that you have what you need.”

“Well, in case you’ve been wondering, you’ve always been enough for me. Gotta go.” He pressed the End Call button as he pulled into Beacon Point and tried to dismiss his father and mother from his mind. That situation would be there when he had time to deal with it. Evelyn needed him now.

He jogged to the building but forced himself to slow down once he reached the entrance.

Anchorage, AK—Tuesday, 8:20 a.m. AKDT

“You don’t want to talk today?” Evelyn asked.

Lyman Bishop stood on the other side of the slot in the door. She could see his rounding paunch hanging over the brown belt holding up his baggy polyester pants—pants a much older man would typically wear. But, unlike before, when he’d been so gregarious, he didn’t have much to say. He seemed sullen, upset. She was worried about what was going through his mind. He’d barely fed them yesterday. They’d received only one meal, and it hadn’t been a large one. She had to draw him out, so he’d treat them better. Edna was so traumatized by what’d happened, she seemed almost childlike in her response to it, completely bewildered.

Evelyn had promised her, over and over again, that everything would be okay. But it didn’t seem to help. She kept saying things such as, “We’ll never get out of here. If no one knows where we are, how will we ever get help?” And Evelyn would offer a soothing response only to have Edna repeat basically the same thing a few minutes later: “We’ll never get out of here. We’re going to die. He’s going to kill us!”

Edna needed food, water and rest. The glassy look to her eyes had Evelyn concerned. But they had only the one small cot between them. Evelyn had taken off the mattress and the blanket so they could lie together on the floor, but with only their upper bodies on the padding, their hips had begun to ache almost immediately. They’d constantly shifted around, trying to get comfortable.

Evelyn guessed Edna had barely closed her eyes. She knew she hadn’t slept for more than twenty minutes at a stretch. If this continued, they’d have to take turns napping on the bed just to remain sane. The floor wasn’t a viable option.

“What is there to talk about?” Lyman handed in the piece of cardboard that now served as a food tray. It held two plastic bowls of scrambled eggs with sausage. When she’d tried to slam the door and accidentally hit the metal tray Emmett had used, it had been ruined, so they’d suffered a downgrade there, but the food looked better than when Emmett had been in charge.

“Did you make this?” she asked as she took it and handed it off to Edna, who was too afraid to come forward and retrieve it herself.