He approached carefully, afraid of what he’d see. The last time he’d investigated an odd noise, he’d witnessed Ephraim murdering three good people.

He stared, his mouth falling open. He could only see a portion of the healer’s desk, but what he did see jarred a distant memory. A thirty-year-old memory. An upright box. A keyboard. A . . .

He wasn’t sure what the last thing was. A screen of some kind, but thinner than anything Amos knew existed. Sister Coleen, the healer, was staring at it.

It was a . . . Was that a computer? Here? In Eden? It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be. He’d used computers in high school, but the screens had been large and nearly square.

She leaned to one side, briefly disappearing from view. When she straightened, she held a sheaf of papers, which she paged through, then stood.

Oh no. Amos stepped back, nearly tripping over his own feet as he crossed the room to the door, where he stood, still holding the rag around his bleeding finger. Think fast. “Sister Coleen?” he called.

She appeared at the door, looking slightly alarmed. “Brother Amos. When did you get here?”

“Just now,” he lied. He held up his finger. “Need some help with this.”

She pulled the door shut, locking it with a key she wore on a string around her neck along with her locket, the same style that every woman in Eden wore. Even the healer wasn’t exempt from the marriage laws, having been given to a new husband after her first husband died from old age.

Amos had thought her like every woman in Eden, but clearly she was not. She had a . . . computer. It was too hard to believe. Where was she even getting the power to run it?

The compound had a generator, but it was used for things like Amos’s power tools. Not for computers. He was stunned.

She no longer held the papers she’d been reading. She must have left them in the office, because now she met him at the door, ushering him to the table next to the bed where Abigail’s mother had died.

Amos’s mind was reeling. The healer had a computer.

How long had she had it? How had she hidden it? He’d been in that office. He’d built that desk.

His breath stuttered as he realized that he’d built it to very exacting specifications—including a small locked cabinet that would have been the perfect size for the tall . . .

He couldn’t even remember the word.

“How much blood have you lost?” Sister Coleen asked. “You’re so pale, you might be going into shock.”

No, he thought. I’m already in shock. I’ve been in shock since I saw Ephraim kill three of my best friends. “A lot,” he said weakly. “I’m a little dizzy.”

Sister Coleen gently peeled the bloody rag away. “Oh my, this is a deep one. I keep telling you to wear gloves when you’re working with your knives.”