‘I’ll take her,’ Karl offered. He extended his hand, smiling when Abigail took it without hesitation. Mercy wasn’t surprised. Karl Sokolov exuded kindness. ‘Besides,’ he said with a meaningful lift of his brows, ‘I need to make sure Zoya and that boy are really studying.’
That boy. Jeff Bunker, the sixteen-year-old who’d splashed Mercy’s private life all over his blog page. But who had, apparently, done something good enough for Irina to stand up for him.
Oh. She remembered now. The retraction he’d written, along with offering survivors his platform to tell their stories. Had that only been this morning?
It felt like it had been a hundred years ago.
When Abigail was safely out of earshot, Amos continued. ‘Yes, it took me long enough. It took me seeing, with my own eyes, Ephraim murdering the Comstocks.’
Both Mercy and Gideon gasped at that. ‘We saw the cross,’ Mercy said.
‘You didn’t paint it,’ Gideon murmured.
‘No, I didn’t have time. As soon as Ephraim brought back Miriam’s body, we moved. It was very abrupt and harder than our other moves. It was November and we’d been at that location for seven years. We’d forgotten how to move quickly. I’d made a cross for Miriam—’
‘Eileen,’ Gideon interrupted. ‘She wanted to be called Eileen. That was her name.’
Once again Amos flinched at Gideon’s tone. ‘Eileen. I apologize. I knew her as Miriam for too many years. I’d forgotten that you called her Eileen when the two of you played as children.’
Mercy shot Gideon a glare and Gideon had the good grace to look a little ashamed. ‘I’m sorry I interrupted,’ he murmured. ‘Please continue.’
‘I’d gone to the graveyard to place Mir— Eileen’s cross and heard weeping. I thought it was Sister Dorcas. Eileen’s mother,’ Amos explained when many at the table looked confused. ‘I saw Dorcas with her husband, Stephen, and their son, Ezra. Dorcas was weeping. Stephen was on his knees, begging Ephraim to spare Dorcas and Ezra. Ezra was standing, staring at Ephraim with hate in his eyes.’ Amos swallowed. ‘Ezra was the first to die. Ephraim broke his neck with his bare hands. Snapped it like a twig. Then he did the same to Dorcas. He killed Stephen last, but first he told him how much he’d liked . . . hurting Eileen.’ Amos dropped his gaze to his hands. ‘I can’t say the word again. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right,’ Molina said. ‘I have it in the record.’ She nodded at Gideon when he looked at her in surprise. ‘When I became aware of Mr Terrill’s presence, I brought him in for an interview. He’s made a full statement, including telling us where to find the Comstocks’ grave. Our forensics team has already recovered two of the bodies. Broken necks, just as Mr Terrill claimed.’
‘Like the madam and the college student,’ Rafe said quietly.
Molina nodded. ‘Exactly like them. Breaks at the same vertebrae on each victim. Mr Terrill, if you would.’
‘I wanted to leave then. That day,’ Amos said. ‘I needed to tell someone what had happened. But I wouldn’t leave Abigail. I couldn’t leave her. I failed you, Gideon. I failed Mercy and your mother. I even failed Eileen. I couldn’t leave Abigail.’
‘Of course you couldn’t,’ Mercy said, covering Amos’s hand with hers.
‘How did you fail Eileen?’ Gideon asked, his tone less acerbic, but still far from warm.
‘Her parents came to me. Asked me to help smuggle her out. I made a hope chest large enough for her to hide in. But none of us could go with her. I distracted DJ while Stephen and Ezra put the chest on the truck so that DJ wouldn’t know it was extra heavy. We just hoped Eileen would get out. But something bad must have happened, because I read today that she’s also dead.’
Gideon looked stunned. ‘You were the one who helped her escape?’
‘I tried.’
‘She did escape,’ Mercy said. ‘She escaped Ephraim only to be taken by someone even worse, if that’s possible. But she did get out. She made it all the way to Macdoel, nearly a hundred miles north of Snowbush. We think she must have hopped a train, because the settlement we found was near a train track. From Macdoel she went to Redding and took a bus to Portland, where she was taken by the man who killed her.’
‘Who almost killed you,’ Amos said, then looked at Daisy. ‘And you.’
‘But we got away,’ Mercy said firmly. ‘It brought me back to Gideon, so some good came from it.’
‘It brought me to Gideon as well,’ Daisy said.
Irina sniffed. ‘Only because you both ignored all my matchmaking attempts.’
That brought chuckles from everyone, even Gideon, who was studying Amos with more respect. ‘You risked yourself by making that hope chest for Eileen. Thank you.’
Amos sighed. ‘Don’t thank me. As you said, it took me long enough. But I saw Eileen one day and she was bruised and bloody. And I remembered Mercy and your mother . . . And I had to do something.’
‘What prompted you to leave last night?’ Daisy asked.
‘I was waiting for spring. There’s still snow up in the mountains. I made another hope chest, this time with a false bottom to hide Abigail. I was biding my time, hoping for an opportunity to get her out on DJ’s truck, but with me accompanying her. I didn’t want her to end up like Eileen. Ephraim told us that she’d fallen down a ravine. The body that he brought back was unidentifiable, just like the body that Waylon brought back after your escape, Gideon. But then I saw Ephraim kill the Comstocks with such . . . glee. He told the membership that they’d decided to return to the world, that they’d turned their backs on God because of Eileen’s death.’
‘You knew that was a lie,’ Gideon said quietly. ‘But you couldn’t tell anyone.’
‘Because they’d kill me, too. And then Abigail would have no one. And then, on Saturday, I cut my finger.’ Amos looked at his finger, now wrapped in a fresh bandage. ‘It seems like a year ago, but it was just four days. I went to the healer and got a glimpse into her office. And I saw she had a computer.’
Gideon whistled. ‘That must have been a shock.’
‘Oh, it was. I mean, I’d seen computers before I joined Eden. But they were certainly not the same as they are now. We knew about the Internet. We heard about it from people who joined in the last twenty years or so, but the way I pictured it was nothing like it really is. I was shocked, mainly that other people besides Ephraim were lying. Ephraim killing the Comstocks shocked me as well, but I already knew he was a brutal man. That Sister Coleen was part of any of the secrecy . . . Well, it was hard not to show how stunned I was. Luckily the cut was bad and she attributed my reaction to blood loss. Later that night, I overheard Pastor talking on the phone. A cell phone, as it turns out.’