This time, he’d planned ahead, taking the honeymooners’ camper license plates with him. He’d switched them out for the plates on a rental RV, one that advertised See America. He figured renters of vehicles didn’t memorize their plates. They wouldn’t notice that he’d switched them out until they returned their unit.

By then, he’d be back in Eden. Killing DJ.

He’d almost fallen asleep with a smile on his face when his phone rang, jarring him awake. No one had called him on either of the two new phones. The one ringing was the flip phone. He considered not answering it until he saw the caller ID.

A Santa Rosa number. It was his doctor. His mother’s doctor as well.

He answered cautiously. The doctor must have gotten the number from Pastor. Ephraim sat up, pulling his gun from its holster. Just in case. “Hello?”

“Harry, it’s Dr. Burkett.”

He wanted to snap that it was Mr. Franklin, not Harry, but Burkett had known him since he was a little kid, so it was easier to just go with it. “Where did you get this number, Doctor?”

“From your pastor. I called your old number and it just rang.” He hesitated. “Was I not supposed to have your number?”

“No, it’s fine. What’s wrong?”

Either his eyeball had been recalled, or his mother was sick. Be the eyeball. Please be the eyeball. Especially since he kept it covered in Eden. None of the membership could know that he’d left the compound for modern medical care when they could not.

Not even Pastor or DJ knew he had a fake eye. It would be no hardship to take it out when he returned. Let my mother be all right.

“It’s your mother. She’s fine,” Burkett assured him quickly. “Some days are better than others. But today she had a visitor, and I thought you should know.”

Ephraim’s stomach twisted. This wasn’t good. “She’s not supposed to have visitors,” he growled.

“I know, but I can only make it a request. I’d have to justify an order and I can’t.”

“Who visited her?” Ephraim barked, not wanting to hear the doctor’s excuses.

“A woman named Miriam Smith and her friend, Beth Jones.”

Ephraim’s blood ran cold. Miriam? That had been Mercy’s given name in Eden. It had also been Eileen Danton’s given name. Either way, this was not good. “I don’t know those women.”

“That’s interesting, because Miriam claimed to be your wife.”

Shit. “What did she look like?”

“Tall, dark hair. Green eyes.”

Fucking hell. “She was with a woman? Not a big blond guy?”

“No, it was a woman. I talked to the nurse’s aide when I got there. She called me when the women showed up. Which is what I pay her for.”

“Was my mother . . . lucid?”

“I don’t know. She wasn’t when I got there, but who knows? Like I said, she has good and bad days. She was rocking and saying that her baby was gone and that she hadn’t used a key. Do you know what that means?”