“And Burton?” Rafe asked.

“Still missing,” Molina said. “We found a Cadillac parked off the county road, about a half mile from where you turned off.” She hesitated. “It belonged to Sean MacGuire.”

Rafe’s mouth fell open. “He lives behind my parents.”

Not another death, Mercy thought. Please. “Did Ephraim kill him?”

“No, but his prognosis isn’t good. His daughter had already informed the local police that the car was stolen. She’d found her father bound to a chair in his home and gagged. He’s a diabetic with a constant glucose monitoring system, which transmits his sugar levels to an app on his daughter’s phone. When her phone informed her that his levels were dropping, she rushed over and found him. That was late this morning. The Cadillac had GPS, but it had been disabled.”

“And my dad’s Tahoe?” Gideon asked.

“Found north of Alturas,” Molina said. “He set the SUV on fire.”

“Of course he did,” Gideon muttered. “Do we know what he’s driving now?”

“An old truck he stole from a rancher. We’re looking for it now.” Molina paused, studying their faces, her expression kind but firm. “He’s desperate. He’s not going to give up.”

“I know,” Mercy said quietly.

“And you’re not going to solve anything by offering up yourself as a sacrificial goat,” Molina added, still kindly.

Both Gideon and Rafe started to speak, but Molina held up her hand. “I get why you did it, Miss Callahan. Please know that. But I must admit that I don’t get why he’s after you. This is the second time in a week that he’s tried to abduct you. Or kill you. Why, after all these years, is he coming after you? He’s gone to great lengths to find you. He went all the way to New Orleans to hunt you. It can’t be ego, can it?”

“Sure it can,” Mercy said. “But not only ego. There were always politics in Eden. I didn’t understand what was going on when I was there, but I was only twelve.”

“And being abused,” Daisy murmured.

“That too,” Mercy agreed. “All I know is that DJ Belmont started to kill me that night thirteen years ago, but was interrupted. And that when my mother told DJ that Ephraim would kill him for killing us, he just laughed and said that Ephraim couldn’t.”

“I read that in Agent Hunter’s report,” Molina said. “What do you think that means?”

Mercy had been giving this a lot of thought as they’d driven from Snowbush to the Reno hospital. “I think it means that DJ and Ephraim had some kind of feud between them. That they held damaging information over each other’s heads. That makes sense, given that Ephraim was there hiding because of the bank robbery that he and his brother committed. Robbery and three murders,” she amended. “Who knows if Pastor was also hiding? Or even Waylon, DJ’s father? They were all the original Founding Elders. Maybe they were all hiding. And, after all these years, I imagine they know each other’s business.”