“What did they do, use a dull straight razor?” I say, not taking my eyes off the image on Patrick’s laptop. Steven has seen this, was forced to watch and join in his classmates’ name-calling.

Reverend Carl calls his audience to prayer and bows his head. “Lord, forgive our wayward daughter, and guide her as she joins her sisters in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Amen.” A chorus of shouts and hisses follows the prayer. A few people echo “Amen,” but mostly it’s a hate-fest. Reverend Carl presses the air under his raised hands and calls for silence, but when he lifts his head toward the cameras, I see the faintest of smiles on his lips.

Now the camera closes in, tight, on Julia’s tear-streaked face. Her lips tremble, and her eyes search from left to right, looking for a shred of sympathy among the shouters. Reverend Carl’s hand appears on her shoulder, and she shirks away, but the hand seems only to clench more tightly, fingers digging into her clavicle under the gray material. It fits high on her neck and has long sleeves. She must be dying in this heat.

It isn’t the first time I think about how much I hate Reverend Carl Corbin, but it is the first time I want to kill him.

Chapter Forty-nine

FORTY-NINE

If I’d spent my last few minutes at home looking out our front window instead of unknotting my hair, I might have seen the anonymous black SUV parked across the street, its engine running and puffing out streams of exhaust smoke.

But I didn’t. By the time I walk out the side door and start my car, it’s too late.

Del the mailman is already up the porch steps, courier bag over his shoulder, his key to our mailbox in one hand. He waves to me, and I wave back through the Honda’s rear window.

The realization hits me like a tidal wave: keys, an envelope, Del peeking inside the mailbox yesterday and removing a single item, Sharon warning me about an underground organization that’s using a mailman as its go-between. And, finally, Patrick’s words last night after he told me what Olivia had done to herself, there in her bedroom, with the Dictaphone repeating its endless loop of her own words.

We’re doing everything we can.

When the dots connect, I’m left with one terrible, frightening, and at the same time relieving explanation: Patrick isn’t working for the government. He’s working against it.

I pull halfway out of the driveway, stopping when I’m in line with the porch. Del opens the mailbox, careful to shield his hands from the street and the porch camera. I want to shout at him. Stop! Stop! Don’t open it!