“That Rebecca…Just like I remember her.” Linda grunted.

Sam said, “What’re you reading?”

Linda asked, “Would you know if I told you the chapter and verse?”

“No.”

“So.” Linda started to read but then she looked up from the holy book again. “She was wrong. What Rebecca said. It wasn’t a nest of self-deception, or whatever she thinks.”

Sam was silent.

Okay, she told herself. Go ahead. Now’s the time.

“I know she was wrong about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Sam exhaled long. “I wasn’t a mouse all the time.”

“Oh, that. Don’t take it seriously. I never said you were.”

“I stood up to him once. I told him no.” She gave a laugh. “Ought to get a T-shirt printed up: ‘I told Daniel Pell no.’”

Linda’s lips pressed together. The attempt at humor fell leaden between them.

Walking to the TV, Sam shut it off. Sat down in an armchair, leaning forward. Linda’s voice was wary as she said, “This is going somewhere. I can tell. But I’m not in the mood to get beat up again.”

“It’s about beating me up, not you.”

“What?”

A few deep breaths. “About the time I said no to Daniel.”

“Sam—”

“Do you know why I came down here?”

A grimace. “To help capture the evil escapee. To save lives. You felt guilty. You wanted a nice drive in the country. I don’t have any idea, Sam. Why did you come?”

“I came because Kathryn said you’d be here, and I wanted to see you.”

“You’ve had eight years. Why now?”

“I thought about tracking you down before. I almost did once. But I couldn’t. I needed an excuse, some motivation.”

“You needed Daniel to escape from prison for motivation? What’s this all about?” Linda set the Bible down, open. Samantha kept staring at the pencil notes in the margins. They were dense as bees clustered in a hive.

“You remember that time you were in the hospital?”

“Of course.” In a soft voice. The woman was gazing steadily at Sam. Wary.

The spring before the Croyton murders Pell had told Sam he was serious about retreating to the wilderness. But he wanted to increase the size of the Family first.

“I want a son,” Pell had announced with all the bluntness of a medieval king bent on heirs. A month later Linda was pregnant.

And a month after that she’d miscarried. Their absence of insurance relegated them to a line at a lower-tier hospital in the barrio, frequented by pickers and illegals. The resulting infection led to a hysterectomy. Linda was devastated; she’d always wanted children. She’d told Sam often that she was meant to be a mother, and, aware of how badly her parents had raised her, she knew how to excel at the role.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

Sam picked up a cup filled with tepid tea. “Because it wasn’t supposed to be you who got pregnant. It was supposed to be me.”

“You?”