Anchorage, AK—Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. AKDT

Lyman Bishop stood to the side of the window, watching to be sure Edna’s bitch of a daughter left with the police. She was causing trouble, just as he’d feared she would. He had to get Evelyn to a place where she wouldn’t be discovered, where he wasn’t constantly having people coming to the door, asking if he’d seen his landlady.

But he didn’t yet have the house in Fairbanks.

The taillights of the police cruiser disappeared from view as he tried to think beyond the adrenaline and anger pouring through him. What should he do? Where should he go?

He’d kill Edna, he decided, and dump her body in the chicken coop to rot with Emmett’s. He could leave her alive and locked in the cooler, but it was less risky to get rid of her once and for all, and it would be much more satisfying. As far as he was concerned, she deserved it. Her daughter deserved whatever he could devise for her, too. But he wouldn’t let himself be sidetracked by a desire for revenge.

He could exercise patience when necessary. He’d waited years to get even with his mother, hadn’t he?

He shifted to get a better view of the road. It appeared clear, but he couldn’t take anything for granted. The police, or Ada, could turn around. They might even start surveillance. He’d seen one of the officers eyeing the van. The officer had seemed satisfied with what he saw. At first glance, it looked legit. But if he’d memorized the license plate and was planning to run it, he’d find it didn’t belong to a van at all.

The possibility made Lyman paranoid. He’d seen the suspicious way Ada looked at him. She’d be back. But it would be too late. Once he was rid of Edna, he’d bind and gag Evelyn and take her away from this place. They’d sleep in the van until he could get the house in Fairbanks or find another one—which could mean performing the lobotomy much sooner than he’d planned. In his diminished state, it might be too hard to contain and control her without a secure place to keep her. But, with any luck, she and the baby would survive the procedure.

If it didn’t, he’d just have to figure out a way to get her pregnant again. Now that he’d decided he wanted a child, he wouldn’t settle for anything less. Finding a man who’d have sex with a woman who looked like Evelyn wouldn’t be hard. Once he did the lobotomy, he’d be able to take her anywhere and pass her off as his wife or his sister, whichever served his purposes at the time. He could take her to a bar, invite someone to come home with them and keep at it until she was pregnant. If that didn’t work—or he was afraid she’d be recognized—he could always buy sperm and use a turkey baster to artificially inseminate her as many times as it took.