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Contents ( 39)
  1. Titles by Karen Rose
  2. CONTENTS
  3. PROLOGUE
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. EPILOGUE
  37. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  38. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  39. What’s next on your reading list?

“You are never gonna believe this,” the tech said. “Liza took the little girl to the solarium to do a craft and who should sit down and talk to them? Pastor. He’s even calling himself Pastor. I can patch you in so you can view the feed.”

“Do it,” Raeburn snapped as the feed appeared on Tom’s laptop.

“Are you a nun?” a little girl asked.

“That’s Liza’s patient,” Tom explained. “Brooklyn.”

“I knew a nun once,” Brooklyn went on. “People called her Sister, too.”

Pastor sat in a wheelchair between the child and a middle-aged woman.

“Something like that,” the woman said.

“Who’s that?” Raeburn demanded.

“The healer,” Tom said. “Graham said that the healer went to the hospital with Pastor. Her name is Coleen. Amos said she was there when he arrived in Eden.”

“Let’s go to my office,” Raeburn said. “I want to see this on a bigger screen.”

EDEN, CALIFORNIA

TUESDAY, MAY 30, 11:30 A.M.

“I’m fine,” Hayley said through clenched teeth.

“No, you’re not.” Sister Rebecca had been hovering for hours. She’d thrown Tamar out of Hayley’s little cubicle, but Tamar had refused to leave, standing vigil at the curtain’s edge.

Hayley glared up at Rebecca from her pallet on the cold stone floor. “I am fine.” Which wasn’t true. She’d been having mild contractions all morning and she was scared enough without the bitch making it worse. “You are making me tense and that isn’t good for my baby.”

Rebecca’s eyes narrowed at the challenge. Her hand twitched like she was aching to use her fists. But of course she did not. She merely smiled cruelly. Hayley knew without a doubt that Rebecca would grab Jellybean as soon as the baby exited the womb.

From Tamar’s pained expression, she knew it, too.

“I want you to stay as still as possible,” Rebecca said. “I don’t want you to go into labor until Sister Coleen returns. I want a healthy baby, so you will do everything in your power to delay labor. That includes staying put.”

Hayley wanted to kill the bitch. She wanted a healthy baby? “If I promise to lie still, will you go? Because I’m really hating you right now.”

One side of Rebecca’s mouth lifted. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to expend your energy on hating me for much longer.”

Tamar’s eyes closed and Hayley knew she wasn’t being paranoid in taking Rebecca’s words as an obvious threat. There were so many things Hayley wanted to say to the woman. She wanted to threaten her back. But Rebecca held the power right now.

And the woman was right about one thing. She did want to delay labor for as long as possible, because Graham was so close to being able to call out for help. She hadn’t mentioned the mild contractions to him. She hadn’t wanted to break his concentration. He’d set up the last of the healer’s computer equipment this morning and was using this latest trip to empty the pots to try to send out e-mails to the cops and Cameron.