Rafe had wolfed down his sandwich and tucked the garbage neatly into a trash bag. “Me too. What’s Gideon’s ETA?”

“About thirty minutes out. I’ll text him to follow us down the county highway rather than waiting to meet him here. Then he won’t have to backtrack. I’m curious to see what’s back there.”

“Makes two of us,” Rafe replied.

Erin tugged on Sasha’s ponytail. “Move your tall self. We’ve got places to go.”

SNOWBUSH, CALIFORNIA

MONDAY, APRIL 17, 1:45 P.M.

Finally. Ephraim started MacGuire’s Cadillac and headed back toward the five-building town that was Snowbush. Rhee’s car had finally begun to move. They were going south, back the way they’d come.

At some point he’d have to get gas, but he’d be good until he got to Reno. As long as the tracker kept working, he didn’t have to stay on their tails. At least he’d made good use of the time he’d spent waiting. He’d googled how to disable the Cadillac’s GPS while he’d been at Sean MacGuire’s house the night before, but he hadn’t had an opportunity to actually do it. He felt a lot more confident, knowing that no one could track him as he tracked Erin Rhee.

He let his brain go on autopilot, watching the scenery pass by. He’d really liked this area. The weather wasn’t as extreme as it had been in a lot of the places Eden had landed over the past thirty years.

Of course their original location would always be the best. Pastor owned property up there. Or he’d . . . appropriated it. His old church membership really had been a gullible group. Of course, getting away with identity theft had been a lot easier forty years ago when Pastor had started his previous flock.

Back then, a man could get out of prison, pick a new name, invent a background, and—as long as that man had the gift of earnest manipulation like Pastor had—could develop an entire network of rich, naive, generous parishioners. Parishioners who never once checked his background or résumé.

Parishioners who’d believed when their pastor promised that he hadn’t embezzled from them. That he hadn’t stolen their money or bedded their women.

Ephraim still couldn’t understand people like that. They wanted to believe in a fairy tale, even when the facts were glaring them in the face.

Seventy-five percent of the original Eden settlers had been members of Pastor’s old church who’d followed him, their loyalty and devotion utterly blind. Ephraim didn’t understand them, but he could still be grateful for the money they’d brought into the coffers.

The millions that Pastor now managed in offshore accounts had started with that money plus the money his brother Edward had gotten from the bank heist that had put him and Ephraim on the FBI’s most wanted list—sending them on the run. And into Pastor’s fold.

And thirty years later, Ephraim was still there. Still serving the community. But really just waiting for Pastor to finally kick the bucket.