He touched it now, the new bandage dry and free of blood. He hadn’t changed it until he’d transferred his passengers once again—this time to the honeymooners’ camper that he’d left parked in the state park when he’d gone to meet Burkett.

He’d wanted to sleep then, but he hadn’t felt safe until four hours later. He’d driven north, past Redding and into the forest east of Dunsmuir. He knew this area. Eden had settled here once, in the early days. Mt. Shasta loomed in the distance and the sight left him feeling peaceful.

He got out of Burkett’s Escalade and dragged in a lungful of the crisp air. He liked the city in small doses, but the air really was better here.

A peek into the camper revealed that the Romero woman was awake and glaring hatefully, but the two cops were still out cold. He’d given them higher doses and had stopped to repeat the injections midway to his destination because he wanted them to stay asleep, but the woman he was going to need soon. She’d be the bait to draw Mercy to him. The men he’d keep in case anything went wrong. He’d be able to use them to bargain his way to freedom. Cops protected their own.

Once Mercy learned that her friends were in danger, she’d fall into line. She’d do exactly what he said. And once she had, he’d get rid of his hostages and whisk her back to Eden in an hour and a half along roads that most people didn’t even know existed. Nobody would stop him from finally delivering his prize to Pastor.

A buzzing in his pocket startled him. For a moment he panicked, but remembered he’d turned off the phones of the three hostages in the camper. He dug for his flip phone and saw that it was Pastor.

He debated not answering, but knew it was better to know what was going on than to show up in Eden unaware. “Hello?”

“Brother Ephraim.”

Shit. Pastor was using the mild voice and that rarely meant anything good. “Pastor.”

“Where are you?”

“Santa Rosa,” he lied. “My mother is ill.”

“Ah, so the doctor got in touch with you. I was hoping all was well. I’m sorry to hear your mother isn’t well. When will you be back?”

Ephraim rolled his eyes. So much empathy. “As soon as I can. Is something wrong?”

There was a beat of hesitation that made Ephraim straighten his spine in interest.

“Perhaps. We may need you to bring back some surrogates.”

Surrogate meant a body too mauled or decomposed to be identified. “Who went missing?”

“Amos.”

Ephraim blinked, genuinely surprised. “Did he get lost? He’s always out there looking for new trees to use in his workshop.”

“We might have thought so, but his daughter is gone, too. We didn’t miss them until this morning. Amos told Sister Coleen that he and Abigail were sick, so no one bothered them all day yesterday. But this morning he didn’t show for chapel and Abigail didn’t go to school. Their home is empty.”