Asher knows she is in the dark, that she has no idea why they have come to Key West, but he can’t tell her. He can’t trust anyone with that information.

“That boy will be much happier once you are,” she says.

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Asher, I know.” She looks at him like she is taking in his entire face.

“What do you mean?”

“I know.”

He waits, not breathing.

“I recognized you as soon as you came here. I remembered your face from the news back when that video went viral. But I wasn’t absolutely sure. So I googled any ‘Asher’ and ‘Justin’ that might be in the news. You should’ve at least changed your first names.”

Asher bolts to his feet, blood thumping in his ears, his first instinct to grab up Justin and simply run. But Evona is on her feet, too, her hands out in front of her as if about to calm a wild animal. Justin is skipping along the edge of the water, away from them.

She puts both her hands on Asher’s forearms. “It’s all right. You’re safe with me. It’s not hard to figure out why you’d take him, after what happened at your church.” She pauses, shakes her head. “The more I looked, the clearer that became. The news said she used that video against you but what you said on there—it was all just right. It all needed to be said. She used it to show that you were incompetent but to me it shows exactly how sane you are. Lots of folks think you’re a hero for what you said on there.”

Asher can’t help feeling betrayed, even if her words are soothing. He pictures her sitting up all night, learning all about them.

“How could you do that? Read up on us like that?”

“It’s not like that. I’m living right next door to you. Just one wall between us,” she says. “Bell may go on her gut instinct, but I’ve been through too much to take chances like that. I’d have been crazy not to have looked you up.”

He can’t argue with her there.

“To an old judge in a little Tennessee town what I was saying was crazy,” Asher says.

“Well, they’re wrong. I don’t see how anyone who spent five minutes around you and that boy couldn’t see the connection between you. It’s awful bright.”

“Did Bell recognize me? Is that why she took us in?”

“No,” Evona says, and nothing else.

Justin is running back their way so Asher lowers his voice, sits back down on the sand. “Do you think we should leave?”