“I know,” Gideon said softly. “I believe you. What happened after you drove away in the truck?”

“I drove. Just . . . drove. I knew we’d come from the north, so I went south and didn’t stop until I got to Reno.” His lips quirked up. “Everything looked different, except for McDonald’s, so we stopped there.”

“Good old golden arches,” Rafe murmured. “They’ll be around a thousand years from now. How did you contact my mother?”

“I didn’t, not right away. I met a lady at McDonald’s who thought I was Amish. She took me to the public library after her shift. Her name is Edie. She was so kind. She showed me how to use the computer at the library and . . . well, it was a lot. I still don’t know what to think about your Internet. I mainly focused on news stories about you, Mercy. But I read that you were alive too, Gideon, and . . .” He blew out a breath. “It was like a gift. Of course, the other articles weren’t so precious. I saw that Ephraim had tried to take you at the airport.” He leaned around Mercy to smile at Rafe. “Thank you for rescuing her. My heart nearly stopped when I saw the film online.”

“I could have done nothing else,” Rafe said simply.

“I still owe you a great deal. Anyway, Edie wouldn’t let me read one of the articles. She said it was ‘Internet trash.’ But she did let me see the second article written by Jeff Bunker. She showed me how to e-mail him.”

Irina picked up the story. “When Jeff saw the e-mail, he called the house and spoke to Zoya, who contacted me. I was already in Reno, with Sasha and Erin at the hospital just a few miles away from the library. We got there before the FBI did, which was a good thing.” She gave Molina an accusing look. “Those agents wanted to arrest him!”

“Jeff had forwarded Amos’s e-mail to me, too,” Molina said. “I sent local field agents to check it out. Edie, the woman who wrote the e-mail, had left a phone number for the library. I didn’t tell them to arrest him,” she added, aggrieved. “I said for them to bring him in for questioning. Which they did.”

“Irina insisted she ride with us,” Amos said with a grateful smile. “It was less scary that way, to be sure.”

Rafe frowned. “Where’s Sasha?”

“She stayed at the hospital with Erin,” Irina said. “She’ll drive them both home tomorrow in my car. It’s all fine, Raphael. Everything is fine.”

“Except that now both DJ and Ephraim are after Mercy,” Gideon said with a sigh. “DJ wants to cover up his lie and Ephraim . . . Hell, he could just want her because she got away.”

“Or,” Mercy added, “if DJ was that surprised that I was still alive, he must have thought I died in that parking lot at the Redding bus terminal. DJ is Pastor’s favorite. Bringing me back to Eden would allow Ephraim to prove that DJ had lied. Ephraim could usurp DJ’s place as favorite.”