Tom wanted to sigh. It was more likely that DJ hadn’t been hiding here and didn’t intend to.

Croft patted his shoulder as they returned to the SUV. “Don’t look so glum.”

“I wasted our time,” Tom said when they’d closed the SUV’s doors. “You were right.”

“Nah.” Croft clicked her seat belt into place. “It wasn’t a bad guess and we needed to check it out, especially since this was the address listed on his missing-person report.” Tom had sent his Eden file to her phone and she’d refreshed her memory by reading it aloud as they’d made the drive. “This was the last place he lived before Eden. He might have remembered it. Look, kid, most of the job is paperwork, checking off things that aren’t relevant, chasing dead ends, and waiting for new leads. Didn’t they teach you that at the Academy?”

“I thought they were exaggerating,” he muttered.

Croft chuckled. “Nope. Let’s check off another box by talking to DJ’s aunt and uncle.”

“Waylon’s brother and sister-in-law,” Tom agreed. “They seemed to be telling the truth when I met them a month ago, but I’m interested in your take.”

“Merle Belmont is Waylon’s younger brother,” Croft said, referring to the Eden file on her phone. “Unlike Waylon, who spent time in the federal pen, Merle’s kept his nose clean. He’s had a few traffic tickets, but nothing more than that. He might think he’s doing a good deed, giving his nephew a place to hide. The missing-person report says that DJ’s mother disappeared at the same time as DJ. Only a few months after Waylon went to Eden. Did Amos tell you anything about how DJ got to Eden?”

“Only that he showed up with Waylon one day, but Ephraim talked about it.” He leaned over the center console to swipe her phone screen until he came to a part of the Eden file she hadn’t read aloud. “Did you see these? The photocopies of the notebooks that Ephraim Burton left behind in his safe-deposit box?”

“I read the parts that Raeburn highlighted—mostly about the fifty million in the offshore accounts. Which part specifically?”

Tom was annoyed. Raeburn had dismissed much of Ephraim’s record as interesting reading but not integral to finding Eden. “Read the page I turned to. W is Waylon and P is Pastor.”

“ ‘I got goods on W. I’m saving it for now, but I’ll tell P if W gets in my way. W killed a chick who showed up at Eden’s gate in a very hot car with a kid—his kid, she said. W called the chick Charlie. She said she was tired of babysitting his kid, that she wanted to have fun, so it was his turn. He twisted her neck. Snapped it like a twig, then saw me standing there. He was not happy to see me, but I told him that if he taught me to snap necks and gave me the car, I wouldn’t tell P that he let a woman follow him to the compound. He agreed to both and now I have a very hot car and I can kill with my bare hands.’ ”