Mercy smiled. ‘You got catapulted into the twenty-first century, huh?’
Amos nodded. ‘I knew about phones as well, but nobody was allowed to speak of them. Abigail told me that one of the children in her class was beaten for telling the other students about them. I didn’t realize how widespread the lies were. I didn’t know who to trust.’
‘Who was Pastor talking to on the phone?’ Gideon asked.
‘He made two calls. The first, I don’t know. He was looking for Ephraim. The second call was to Ephraim himself. Apparently Ephraim should have come back to Eden already. We thought he was fasting and praying on the mountain like he did four times a year, but he must have told Pastor that he’d been hurt and needed to rest, because Pastor acted like he felt relieved that there was a good reason because DJ had told him otherwise. Ephraim and DJ do not get along, but you already knew that, Mercy.’
Mercy’s throat went tight. She didn’t want to talk to Amos about her mother’s death. It still hurt and it would hurt him, too. But keeping it secret wasn’t right, either. ‘DJ shot Mama. Twice. He killed her. But before he did, Mama told him that Ephraim would kill him – DJ, I mean. DJ laughed and said that he couldn’t. I assumed that meant that DJ had information on him.’
‘I know about that,’ Amos said heavily. ‘Agent Molina told me. I wish I’d known when I climbed into his truck last night. I would have killed him myself and saved us all the danger.’
Mercy squeezed his hand. ‘So you left Eden after Pastor’s call?’
‘No. On Monday I followed DJ out of the compound and heard him make a call as well. He talked about you, Mercy. That’s why I’m here.’
Folsom, California
Tuesday, 18 April, 6.20 P.M.
Ephraim collapsed onto the bed in his camper. He’d made it out of Granite Bay, but it had been close, the cops setting up roadblocks seconds after he’d passed by. He’d been able to see them in his rear-view mirror as he’d turned onto the main drag out of town.
It had been too damn close. And for nothing.
As soon as the cops made the link between the shooting, the stolen Jeep, and the honeymoon murders from Broken Tooth Campground, Mercy would go underground, of that he was certain. Rafe Sokolov and that bastard Gideon would close ranks and he’d never get her alone.
Well, I can go under, too. He’d been in hiding for thirty years. He’d go back to Eden. Wait her out. The worst that would happen would be that DJ would find himself the unfortunate victim of an ‘accident’, and Ephraim would bury him. Pastor would mourn the boy he’d called his own son, of course, but as long as Ephraim played it smart, Pastor couldn’t blame him.
The old man still might not make Ephraim the heir. He’d skipped over Ephraim several times in the last thirty years. Pastor had only tolerated Ephraim’s presence in Eden from the very first day he’d shown up, and the feeling had been mutual. Ephraim had been young, brash, and stupid – and injured. Shot during the bank robbery that had sent him and his brother, Aubrey, on the run in the first place. Aubrey wouldn’t leave him to die and dragged him to Eden because it was the only place Aubrey knew they’d be safe.
Ephraim hadn’t quite appreciated the gravity of their situation or how much Pastor needed their constant adulation. Ephraim had been a seventeen-year-old punk, plain and simple. And Pastor had only allowed him to stay because Aubrey had demanded it. There had been something between Aubrey and Pastor, some history, some debt that Pastor felt compelled to repay.
Ephraim had never asked. He really hadn’t wanted to know back then. He really wanted to know now, but Aubrey was long dead. Ephraim might never know, because Pastor still didn’t like him.
And if Pastor held on to DJ’s memory, still refusing to share those damn bank access codes? Then I’ll come back for Mercy when the coast is clear and she’s gone back to her normal life. Bringing her back to Eden – dead was fine, but alive was preferable – would force Pastor to admit that DJ had betrayed them all, and that Ephraim was the injured party.
If Mercy had returned to New Orleans by then, that was okay. Ephraim could find her there. He knew where her family lived. He knew where her best friend lived. He knew where she worked. Once Mercy’s guard was down, retrieval would be child’s play.
That settled, he closed his eyes to grab some shut-eye. He felt safe enough in the camper, tucked away in the woods. He’d ditched the custodian’s truck, stealing another Jeep.
This time, he’d planned ahead, taking the honeymooners’ camper license plates with him. He’d switched them out for the plates on a rental RV, one that advertised See America. He figured renters of vehicles didn’t memorize their plates. They wouldn’t notice that he’d switched them out until they returned their unit.
By then, he’d be back in Eden. Killing DJ.
He’d almost fallen asleep with a smile on his face when his phone rang, jarring him awake. No one had called him on either of the two new phones. The one ringing was the flip phone. He considered not answering it until he saw the caller ID.
A Santa Rosa number. It was his doctor. His mother’s doctor as well.
He answered cautiously. The doctor must have gotten the number from Pastor. Ephraim sat up, pulling his gun from its holster. Just in case. ‘Hello?’
‘Harry, it’s Dr Burkett.’
He wanted to snap that it was Mr Franklin, not Harry, but Burkett had known him since he was a little kid, so it was easier to just go with it. ‘Where did you get this number, Doctor?’
‘From your pastor. I called your old number and it just rang.’ He hesitated. ‘Was I not supposed to have your number?’
‘No, it’s fine. What’s wrong?’
Either his eyeball had been recalled, or his mother was sick. Be the eyeball. Please be the eyeball. Especially since he kept it covered in Eden. None of the membership could know that he’d left the compound for modern medical care when they could not.
Not even Pastor or DJ knew he had a fake eye. It would be no hardship to take it out when he returned. Let my mother be all right.
‘It’s your mother. She’s fine,’ Burkett assured him quickly. ‘Some days are better than others. But today she had a visitor, and I thought you should know.’
Ephraim’s stomach twisted. This wasn’t good. ‘She’s not supposed to have visitors,’ he growled.
‘I know, but I can only make it a request. I’d have to justify an order and I can’t.’
‘Who visited her?’ Ephraim barked, not wanting to hear the doctor’s excuses.
‘A woman named Miriam Smith and her friend, Beth Jones.’
Ephraim’s blood ran cold. Miriam? That had been Mercy’s given name in Eden. It had also been Eileen Danton’s given name. Either way, this was not good. ‘I don’t know those women.’