Rafe turned to his brother, who now waited in the doorway. “Damien, you remember Mercy, right?”

Damien, still in uniform, crossed the room to shake her hand. “Gideon’s sister, of course. I understand that you’ve had an eventful evening. We’ll get you back to Rafe’s place safely, don’t worry.”

“Hey, everyone?” Daisy asked from the speakerphone. “Gideon’s here. He has an update.”

“I just got off the phone with Molina,” Gideon said. “SacPD informed her that they got a call from the spouse of June Lindstrom, who never came home from the airport. She texted her husband that she was on her way home after her flight, right about the same time that Burton attacked Mercy. The airport provided surveillance video from the parking garage and the parking payment lanes. A man fitting Burton’s description was seen forcing Mrs. Lindstrom into her minivan. The parking booth camera captured her mouthing Help me. There’s no audio, but there’s little doubt that her vehicle was how Burton escaped the airport.”

“And Mrs. Lindstrom?” Mercy asked, her chin trembling.

Gideon’s voice gentled. “No word on her yet, Mercy. The minivan was found in downtown Santa Rosa, of all places, through its GPS. Surveillance videos near where the van was found show the same man leaving it behind. He disappeared into an alleyway, carrying a small suitcase.”

“I think Mrs. Lindstrom is probably dead,” Mercy said quietly.

“I think you’re right,” Gideon replied. “I’m so sorry, Mercy.”

Rafe wasn’t sure what Gideon was apologizing for—that the woman might be dead or for what he had said to his sister before leaving the house.

Mercy swallowed. “Thank you. But I still don’t understand how he knew I’d be at the airport?”

Gideon sighed. “He was on an earlier flight from New Orleans. Airport video shows him coming into the Sacramento airport this morning. Well, yesterday morning now.”

Mercy had grown even paler, which Rafe hadn’t thought possible. “He was in New Orleans? With me?”

Farrah stiffened. “Shit.”

“It appears so,” Gideon replied with surprising calm. He sounded like the pre-Daisy Gideon, all buttoned up and unnervingly composed. “He boarded using the ID of Eustace Carmelo.”

Mercy startled in surprise, then huffed out a bitter chuckle. “Of course he did.”

Rafe turned to her, confused. “Why ‘of course’?”

She rubbed her temples wearily. “Ephraim Burton isn’t his actual name.”

“His real name is Harry Franklin,” Rafe said, wondering where she was going with this. “He changed it after going on the run for bank robbery and murder thirty years ago. We knew that.”

“Yes, but he took the name ‘Ephraim Burton’ when he joined Eden,” Mercy corrected. “I don’t know how much time passed between the robbery and his arrival in Eden, but the name change was because of Eden.”

“How do you know that, Mercy?” Gideon asked.

“I heard him grumbling once, after his son Carmelo was born. I was almost thirteen. He was muttering, ‘Fucking Ephraim. Fucking fruitful. Fucking Pastor. Fuck him and his names.’ At that moment, he was glaring at a card that he was putting in his wallet. Later, when he was asleep, I peeked.”