“I see,” Pastor said. “Should we target more of the younger girls for Eden? I hate that you have to go elsewhere for your needs.”

My needs. Pastor sounded so Victorian sometimes. “That would be amazing. I can ask Regina if she knows of any runaways that would suit.”

“You do that,” Pastor said warmly. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Go take some aspirin.”

“I will,” Ephraim promised. “Gotta go.”

He really wanted to check into one of the hotels close to the airport, but he didn’t dare now. He had no doubt that his fuckup this afternoon had put Mercy’s Fed brother on alert. If the authorities put his photo on the news, a hotel clerk could recognize him and turn him in.

So he headed toward Santa Rosa. He’d be safe at Regina’s place. He had some research to do and she always let him use her Wi-Fi. His first task would be to identify who that blond guy with the cane was. That asshole was going down, and Ephraim was going to make it hurt. With the blond guy out of the picture, and Gideon gone, Mercy would be unprotected.

She’d walked away with him in a daze, her eyes blank. It would have creeped him out except that he remembered her having done that during the year they were married, every time he visited her bed. She’d just tune out.

It was still a little creepy, actually, but at least he knew she wouldn’t put up a fight.

EDEN, CALIFORNIA

SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 5:35 P.M.

Pastor was on the move. He’d sent out a search party of most of the compound’s men, including Amos, to look for Brother Ephraim. But he’d sent them as the daylight was waning, when they’d be less likely to see anything—a trail, any markers Ephraim had left behind. A body.

Amos didn’t care if they found Ephraim or not, alive or dead. He wanted to know what Pastor knew. He needed to know.

Because some small part of him still wanted to believe that Pastor loved them all, that he was the shepherd he’d always claimed to be. That Amos and all of Eden’s residents were safe in Pastor’s care.

A larger part of him knew that such blind faith was folly, and that was what had gotten him into this mess to begin with.

Amos fell behind to the back of the pack and waited for them to walk far enough ahead that he was left in the encroaching shadows. That was all right. He didn’t need light to see. He knew these woods. He always knew the woods, familiarizing himself with the terrain whenever Eden moved to a new location. He was the carpenter, the woodworker. He spent hours examining the trees, picking out the best specimens for his work.

Now he crept quietly through the forest in the direction that Pastor had gone. And, sure enough, after a few minutes, he heard the man’s voice, full and rich, with its “preacher cadence.”