“What if we don’t learn anything?”

“Then we’re no worse off than we were this morning, and we’ll keep looking.”

She managed a shaky smile. “Okay, then. Let’s go quilt shopping.”

EIGHTEEN

SNOWBUSH, CALIFORNIA

MONDAY, APRIL 17, 12:45 P.M.

Fucking hell. Holy fucking hell. Ephraim checked the tracking app again, just to make sure. Rhee was stopping in Snowbush. In front of the general store.

Snowbush. Goddammit. How the hell did they find this place?

He’d followed them all the way from Sacramento, east on I-80, thinking they might be headed to Reno. He’d considered making his move when the area grew remote, but with both Erin Rhee and Rafe Sokolov probably armed, he didn’t like the odds.

And then they’d taken a turn northwest at Reno and the landscape had become familiar.

Very familiar. Curiosity had stayed his hand at first, but dread had quickly followed.

He’d driven this road that ran parallel to the Nevada border. He’d stopped at the general stores in Likely and in Snowbush. He’d searched the roads west into the Modoc National Forest, hiking miles of trails. All in his search for Miriam, the woman the news called Eileen.

His wife who’d escaped the compound in November. He’d searched for two weeks, checking all the bus stations from Reno to Redding, north to Medford, Oregon, and as far south as Chico, but no one had seen her. Finally he’d snatched a random backpacker, killing her and mauling her body so that it appeared she’d been set upon by wild animals. Then he’d taken the remains back to Eden.

And then, as the community was packing up and moving again, he’d taken Eileen’s family—her parents and her younger brother—and snapped all their necks, burying them in a mass grave.

Pastor had told the community that they’d chosen to return to the world. Ephraim didn’t know if the members truly believed it, and he didn’t much care. He only cared about getting Mercy back to Eden, proving DJ had lied, and putting himself next in line for the money.

Cold, hard cash. Millions of dollars. That was his focus. So focus.

It didn’t matter that Mercy and her crew were currently less than thirty miles from the previous location of Eden. It didn’t matter that they were going to talk to the shopkeepers.

What mattered was separating Mercy from her bodyguards and taking her to Eden’s new site.

And the best part was that they weren’t too far away. They could make it in a few hours. This time tomorrow, he could be shoving DJ’s body into a grave.

The thought made him smile.

But first, he had to get Mercy alone. That would be the hardest part.

He slowed as he headed into the town, noting the red Subaru and the blue Range Rover parked side by side in front of the general store, across the street from the hardware store, which advertised hunting rifles and ammunition. He would never buy ammo when he could steal it, but the sight made him take a mental inventory.