His day had sucked, ending with his finally making a call to Nurse Innes when he got close to Sunnyside in the fourth of the vehicles he’d stolen that day. Afraid that Kowalski would be waiting for him in retaliation for the weapons he’d stolen and the men he’d killed, he’d asked the nurse for help getting into the facility unseen.

Innes had sent an ambulance for him and he’d had to ride in the back. But it had worked. If Kowalski had been waiting for him outside, he’d missed him. At least the Feds didn’t know about this place. If they had, he’d never have risked it.

But they didn’t know about Sunnyside, so it was the safest place for him at the moment. He’d changed vehicles four times after fleeing from the strip mall. He’d dumped the Civic for the minivan, then stolen a laundry truck before trading it for an old pickup.

The pickup had been too old to have GPS, but it was in bad shape and might not make it up the mountain when he got ready to return to Eden. But while driving it, he’d noticed an older Ford Explorer that looked rugged enough to handle the steep, curvy inclines. The Explorer had wandered in and out of its lane, its driver clearly drunk.

Finally, it had pulled behind a small church not too far from Sunnyside Oaks. The church’s windows were dark, its parking lot deserted.

Curious, DJ had followed. And hit pay dirt. The driver had stumbled out of the vehicle, unzipping his pants and peeing on the grass at the edge of the parking lot. He’d stumbled again, slipped on the puddle of his own urine, and hit the pavement, passed out cold.

It had been entertaining, to say the least. And also the opportunity DJ had been waiting for. He’d disabled the Explorer’s GPS, dragged the passed-out drunk into the woods behind the church, and rolled him into a creek, where he’d landed facedown.

Then he’d changed out the plates on the Explorer before driving it to a shopping center three and a half miles away. He’d parked behind an empty store up for lease, figuring that he’d come back for the vehicle when he was ready to drive to the mountain.

Then he’d called Innes, who’d told him he’d have to wait for the ambulance to be available.

He’d spent the entire hour that he’d waited cursing—first the Feds for finding him, then himself for being so complacent. He’d cursed Pastor for being so stingy with the access codes and Kowalski for trying to kill him. He’d cursed Mercy for being so well protected, Daisy Dawson for broadcasting remotely.

And he cursed the woman in the eye doctor’s office, the one who’d spied him on the rooftop and told the other Fed. If it hadn’t been for her, he would have had the perfect shot. I should have just shot her.

“Where will you go when you leave here?” Nurse Innes asked. “Back to your home?”