How had the leaders of Eden ended up there? How had their paths crossed? Ephraim and Edward were brothers, so that answer was clear, but how had their paths crossed with Pastor’s? When Ephraim and Edward were on the run, why did they run to Eden? DJ was Waylon’s son, but exactly how did Waylon fit in?

She sat on the sofa and reached for Rafe’s notebook. At the top of a blank page she wrote, How do they connect? Where did they meet? Below she jotted ideas as they popped into her mind. Random? E & E just stumbled into Eden? Why was Waylon the only one allowed to leave the compound? And then, Edward served time.

Aubrey Franklin’s mug shot was testament to that fact. Rafe had already researched it, tacking to his bulletin board the newspaper articles about the thirty-year-old bank robbery and murder of three people. One article said that Aubrey had served time at Terminal Island, a federal correctional institution in L.A., for an even older bank robbery.

Mercy tapped her pen to the paper, then wrote, Amos said that Pastor was accused of embezzling from his former church and falsifying his résumé.

She’d been surprised that Pastor had been an actual pastor. But what if he hadn’t been? What if that had been the résumé falsification? She underlined falsifying his résumé, wrote Why?, and then closed her eyes, picturing Pastor and Waylon.

Pastor had been . . . normal looking. Average height. Brown hair, glasses that made him look smart. His was the kind of face that blended into a crowd.

But Waylon . . . he’d been different. Huge and hulking. “Oh,” she whispered aloud. And covered in tattoos. How had she forgotten about that?

Because you didn’t have much reason to be around Waylon. And she’d been only nine years old when the man had died. Just days after returning with a body he’d claimed was Gideon’s. That she’d blocked it out was understandable, she supposed.

She circled the sentence Why was Waylon the only one allowed to leave the compound? Then around it she jotted Covered in tattoos and Most memorable face of all of them.

She sucked in a startled breath, then exhaled it slowly when Waylon’s face sharpened in her memory. She wrote, Teardrop tat under his eye. Teardrop tats usually meant a person had been to prison. Had killed someone while in prison.

Waylon had been to prison. Just like Edward McPhearson, a.k.a. Aubrey Franklin.

Ephraim had also had a record, but he’d only been in juvie. He’d still been a minor when he robbed the bank with his brother, and the two had never been caught.

But both Aubrey Franklin and Waylon had been to prison.

She tore out that sheet and started a new one. PRISON, she wrote in all caps. TERMINAL ISLAND FCI. Was Waylon there, too? Was Pastor?

On her phone she googled the prison, finding the phone number easily. But they weren’t open until eight A.M. On the second sheet of paper, she copied the phone number and 8 am. Then tacked both pages on Rafe’s bulletin board. She could sleep a little more, for now.