“I won’t,” Rafe promised.

“Oh no.” Mercy had moved to the far end of the small graveyard and was uncovering another cross. This one was natural wood, while the others were painted white. She looked over at them wearily. “It says ‘Comstock.’”

“They put one up for Eileen,” Gideon said. “I wonder who they killed pretending it was her.”

Because Eileen had escaped, only to have her life stolen permanently by a serial killer.

“No. It doesn’t say ‘Miriam.’ It’s her family, Gideon. Dorcas, Stephen, and Ezra. The date is November first of last year.”

Gideon cursed. “They killed them, too.” Then he frowned. “Wait. They acknowledged their deaths?”

Daisy, Erin, and Sasha joined them at the edge of the graves. “They didn’t normally do that, did they?” Daisy asked quietly.

“No,” Mercy answered for him. “Or if they did, they wouldn’t be allowed to be buried in the community graveyard, because it was ‘hallowed ground’ and they’d been cast out, devoured by wolves.” Her gaze returned to the cross. “Amos didn’t paint it. I wonder why.”

“He always painted them,” Gideon murmured. “Paint was expensive, but Amos always said that it was worth the cost. That we needed to honor the dead.”

“November first would have been right about the time that Eileen escaped,” Daisy commented. “She was found wandering by the side of the road up in Macdoel a few days later.”

“And it jibes with what Ginger in the store said,” Sasha added, then brought Gideon and Daisy up to date with what they’d learned in the Snowbush general store.

“We were discussing who to call to secure the scene,” Erin said. “But we’d have to go back to Snowbush and ask to use one of the shops’ phones. No cell service here.”

Rafe left Erin and Gideon to figure out who was best to call—who was closest and who they thought they could trust not to mess up the scene. He walked over to Mercy, who still knelt in the snow.

“You’re going to get sick,” he murmured. “Your jeans are soaking wet.” Just as his were, drenched from the knees down and getting cold very quickly. “Hypothermia can set in quickly, even when the temps are mild like this.”

She rose, never taking her gaze from the wooden cross. “Eileen’s mother was good to me,” she murmured. “I went to school with her brother, Ezra.”

“Amos didn’t put their birth dates on the cross,” Rafe noted.

“I know. And he didn’t make individual crosses, either. He always made individual crosses with birth and death dates and something special, a message of some kind. Whatever the family wanted. I don’t know why he didn’t this time. Maybe he was rushed or maybe they wouldn’t let him, like with Gideon. The leaders would have packed everyone up and moved after Eileen escaped. That’s what they always did.” She sighed. “I know it’s stupid, but I really have been hoping that the families of the dead really did get back to civilization, that they weren’t ‘devoured by wolves.’”