Yes. Of course he did. The key was to their safe-deposit box. It contained a handwritten statement detailing the guilt of all the Founding Elders. If any of the founders died unexpectedly, whoever they’d entrusted with a key was to give the documents to the police. They’d all prepared a similar package, and they’d all stored the documents in individual safe-deposit boxes, except for Ephraim and Edward, who shared a box.

All of the founders had given their key to someone on the outside. It was a fail-safe mechanism. A way to keep them all honest. Or at least honest with one another. It kept them from killing one another at first. But with Waylon and Edward gone? Only Ephraim and Pastor still had files. DJ might have had Waylon’s, but he hadn’t used it after Waylon’s death, and Pastor claimed he’d taken Waylon’s key.

Of course, both Pastor and DJ were liars, so who knew what the real truth was? His plan to kill DJ dimmed a little. He’d forgotten that DJ might have access to Waylon’s safe-deposit box.

“No,” he lied. “I have no idea what that means. Probably nothing. My mother hasn’t made sense in years.”

Still, he relaxed. If all his mother had said to Mercy was that she hadn’t used the key, there was no real harm done. His mother didn’t even have a key anymore. He’d taken Aubrey’s key back after his brother’s murder and retrieved his own key when his mother had started to show signs of dementia.

Ephraim had made sure to tell her not to send the incriminating documents out after his brother’s death because none of the other Founding Elders had done it.

That would be Gideon’s sin. For which the bastard would pay.

“Well . . .” Burkett hesitated and Ephraim’s stomach twisted again.

“Well, what?”

“She told me that she gave Miriam the key.”

“She doesn’t have a key,” Ephraim said flatly. He had the only keys. They were in a pocket of his laptop bag. He’d kept the keys and the laptop in his locker at Regina’s place until Saturday night.

His gut took a sudden plunge. Regina had broken into his locker. She’d searched his laptop. He scrambled from the camper’s bed to grab the laptop bag and check the pocket. Then exhaled in relief. The keys were still there, right where he’d left them. “There is no key,” he added with more conviction.

“She seemed to think that she had one. She showed me a small wooden chest with a false bottom. Said she’d hidden the key there for Aubrey. Sometimes she thinks he’s still alive, you know. Or you would if you visited her more often.”

Shit, shit, shit. Ephraim knew the chest. It had been made by Amos, Eden’s resident woodworker. Ephraim hadn’t realized that it had held anything. His mother had assumed that Ephraim had made the chest himself, and he’d let her believe it. It had made her happy and he’d certainly told worse lies.