His white hair floated above his brow and he had dressed haphazardly: heavy gray cardigan buttoned out of sequence so that it bunched mid-chest, white shirt with one bent collar point, maroon tie knotted well short of his neckline. Behind his black-framed glasses, his eyes were watery and uncertain.

“What did she want, Reverend?”

“She said she needed my help immediately. Mrs. Wascomb’s not well and I keep the phone in the hallway rather than at bedside so as not to wake her. The ring got me up, but at that hour I assumed it was a wrong number and didn’t get out of bed. When it rang again, I answered and it was Cherish, apologizing for disturbing me. She said something had come up, implored me to come to her house as soon as I could. I tried to get her to explain. She said there was no time, I simply needed to believe her, hadn’t she always been a faithful student.”

Wascomb blinked. “She had been.”

I said, “Was she distraught?”

“More like . . . anxious, but in an efficient way. As if she was faced with a sudden challenge and was rising to the occasion. I wondered if one of the children, or Drew, had taken ill. I asked her again what was wrong and she said she’d tell me when I showed up. If I’d come. I said I would and went to get dressed. Mrs. Wascomb had stirred and I told her I was having one of my insomnia episodes, she should go back to sleep. I instructed the housekeeper to keep an eye on her, got myself presentable, and drove over.”

His eyes compressed as they traveled from Milo to me. “When I arrived, the gate was open but no one was in the house. The front door had been left unlocked so I assumed Cherish wanted me to come straight in. The house was empty. I looked around, came back out. I was growing quite alarmed. Then a young woman came out of there.”

He cocked his head toward the pair of outbuildings. Converted garage painted pale blue to match the house. Off to the side, the odd-looking cement block cube.

The door to the cube was ajar.

“I left it open so the girls wouldn’t feel confined,” said Wascomb. “There’s only one window and it’s bolted shut. Two of them were in that other building, the blue one, but I assembled them all in one place until help arrived.”

“Have you called for help?” said Milo.

“I was thinking about who to call when you arrived. There doesn’t seem to be any crisis, other than Cherish and Drew not being here.” Another look at the block structure. “None of them appear to know what’s going on, but perhaps she didn’t want to worry them.”

“Them being the kids.”

“Yes, the flock.”

“The flock?”

“That’s how Cherish referred to them in the instructions.”