“It wasn’t proper for women and girls to show any skin,” Mercy said. “Luckily we were usually living up high enough that it didn’t get terribly hot in the summer.”

“Oh. Wow.” That shouldn’t have surprised Liza, based on what she’d heard about the fanatical restrictions in Eden. “So how did you see his tattoo, Abs?”

She kept the question casual, but Abigail wasn’t fooled. Her eyes narrowed and she clamped her lips shut.

“Nobody’s going to be angry with you,” Mercy said quietly. “You’re safe with us.”

Abigail swallowed hard. “I saw a bunny and I wanted to pet it. But it ran away.”

“So you chased it?” Liza prompted when Abigail said no more.

She nodded miserably. “It ran into the smithy.”

“DJ was the blacksmith,” Mercy offered. “He was Edward McPhearson’s apprentice before Edward took on Gideon.”

Liza knew how that story ended. McPhearson had been a sexual predator and had tried to rape Gideon. Gideon had fought back and killed the man accidentally. The community had nearly beaten Gideon to death as a result. They might have, had his mother not smuggled him out of Eden that very night. He’d been thirteen, his Eden tattoo still raw from the artist’s needle.

Liza wondered if DJ had been molested by Edward during his apprenticeship, but that was a question that was definitely inappropriate for Abigail’s ears.

“Did you chase the bunny into the smithy?” Liza asked.

Abigail’s face went pink as a peony. “I started to, but I saw Brother DJ in there. He was standing at the forge and the fire was hot. Kids weren’t allowed in there. He took off his . . .” Her face flushed even darker.

“He took his shirt off,” Mercy said softly.

Abigail nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to look. Not at a . . .”

“A man,” Mercy supplied. She glanced at Liza. “The genders were kept very separate. Women weren’t supposed to speak to or even look at men unless they’d been spoken to.”

Liza swallowed her sigh. Abigail’s information was more important than any indignation over Eden’s repression of women—including little girls. “Do you remember any of the letters in the word you saw? In his tattoo,” she specified.

Abigail’s forehead wrinkled. “There was a ‘Z’ at the beginning. It was bigger than the other letters and”—she made a face—“it looked like a snake. Fangs and everything.”

“Sounds scary,” Liza said, keeping her excitement tamped down. Tom would need this information, she was sure of it.

“Just yucky,” Abigail said. “And mean. The snake was trying to bite a bat.”

Liza heard Agent Rodriguez suck in a breath. She was about to ask what the significance of the tattoo was when the SUV slowed.

“Almost there,” Rodriguez said. “I’m going to pull into the garage. I don’t want to see anybody’s heads until the garage door comes down. Okay?”

“Okay,” Abigail agreed. She looked up at Liza. “Can we have cake when we get inside?”

Liza nodded, lifting her eyebrows. “Cake or bars?”