Buckling up – no reason to give a cop cause to pull him over – he headed back toward the interstate, just as his phone rang. It was a basic smartphone, provided by Pastor, but Ephraim didn’t use it often. The sole person he had left on the outside was his mother and her dementia was so progressed that she didn’t know him anymore, and he only left Eden a few times every year.
‘Yeah?’ he answered. If it was DJ, he couldn’t let on that he knew Mercy was alive. Ephraim wondered if DJ even knew. He had to assume that he did, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble not to bring back any current newspapers that covered Miriam’s murder and Mercy’s abduction by a serial killer. And that covered the locket.
Fucking hell. That stupid locket. Stupid wedding photo. The man with the cane had recognized him. That photo had to be in the hands of the authorities. That severely limited Ephraim’s options for moving around freely. Fucking hell.
‘Ephraim?’ It was Pastor, and Ephraim straightened in his seat out of habit. It pissed him off.
‘Yes, Pastor?’
‘When are you returning? You were supposed to be back this morning.’
I’ll come back when I feel like it, you old fucker. But Ephraim didn’t say that out loud. He wouldn’t cross Pastor until he had the bank account information. ‘I ran into some difficulties. I need another few days.’
‘Difficulties?’
Shit. It was Pastor’s mild tone. Nothing good ever came from Pastor’s mild tone.
‘I hit my head,’ Ephraim said. Which was technically true. That blond asshole’s cane had clocked him but good. ‘I have a possible concussion and I’m laying low until I can drive safely.’
It was a ridiculous lie, but the best he could conjure on the spur of the moment.
‘Oh, good heavens,’ Pastor said, abruptly concerned. ‘I knew you had to have a good reason. DJ thought you might have decided not to come back.’
The little prick. He’d like it if I never came back. Then he’d get control of Eden and the money. It wasn’t like DJ wasn’t already skimming off the top of whatever payment he brought back to the community. Pastor was insane to have given DJ sole responsibility over transporting their products to the buyers and taking the payments. The prick was stealing from them. It was obvious to Ephraim. Unfortunately not to Pastor, and the old man ruled with an iron grip.
‘Of course I’ll be back,’ Ephraim said, injecting a little aw-shucks into his words. ‘When have I ever not come back?’
‘That’s what I told DJ. He has so little faith.’
Ephraim rolled his eyes. Pastor had been drinking his own Kool-Aid for too long. All the praise and worship had blown his sense of reality. No one in the know had any faith, except in sex, drugs, and cold hard cash.
‘I’ll be back, Pastor. I just need to take it easy for a few days. Is there anything wrong? Did you need me back for anything special?’
‘No. Just checking on you, like a good shepherd cares for his flock.’
Oh please. ‘I have a splitting headache, Pastor.’ Very true. ‘Is it all right if I call you back tomorrow?’
‘Yes, I’d like that. Call me every day, so that I know you’re okay. Where are you staying?’
‘In Santa Rosa. With Regina.’
The madam operated the only place of business that Ephraim frequented. She kept a stable of young faces, replenishing them with fresh talent whenever Ephraim was due to visit. He paid her well, and she protected his privacy. Win–win.
‘I see,’ Pastor said. ‘Should we target more of the younger girls for Eden? I hate that you have to go elsewhere for your needs.’
My needs. Pastor sounded so Victorian sometimes. ‘That would be amazing. I can ask Regina if she knows of any runaways that would suit.’
‘You do that,’ Pastor said warmly. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Go take some aspirin.’
‘I will,’ Ephraim promised. ‘Gotta go.’
He really wanted to check into one of the hotels close to the airport, but he didn’t dare now. He had no doubt that his fuckup this afternoon had put Mercy’s Fed brother on alert. If the authorities put his photo on the news, a hotel clerk could recognize him and turn him in.
So he headed toward Santa Rosa. He’d be safe at Regina’s place. He had some research to do and she always let him use her Wi-Fi. His first task would be to identify who that blond guy with the cane was. That asshole was going down, and Ephraim was going to make it hurt. With the blond guy out of the picture, and Gideon gone, Mercy would be unprotected.
She’d walked away with him in a daze, her eyes blank. It would have creeped him out except that he remembered her having done that during the year they were married, every time he visited her bed. She’d just tune out.
It was still a little creepy, actually, but at least he knew she wouldn’t put up a fight.
Eden, California
Saturday, 15 April, 5.35 P.M.
Pastor was on the move. He’d sent out a search party of most of the compound’s men, including Amos, to look for Brother Ephraim. But he’d sent them as the daylight was waning, when they’d be less likely to see anything – a trail, any markers Ephraim had left behind. A body.
Amos didn’t care if they found Ephraim or not, alive or dead. He wanted to know what Pastor knew. He needed to know.
Because some small part of him still wanted to believe that Pastor loved them all, that he was the shepherd he’d always claimed to be. That Amos and all of Eden’s residents were safe in Pastor’s care.
A larger part of him knew that such blind faith was folly, and that was what had gotten him into this mess to begin with.
Amos fell behind to the back of the pack and waited for them to walk far enough ahead that he was left in the encroaching shadows. That was all right. He didn’t need light to see. He knew these woods. He always knew the woods, familiarizing himself with the terrain whenever Eden moved to a new location. He was the carpenter, the woodworker. He spent hours examining the trees, picking out the best specimens for his work.
Now he crept quietly through the forest in the direction that Pastor had gone. And, sure enough, after a few minutes, he heard the man’s voice, full and rich, with its ‘preacher cadence’.
‘Well, where is he?’ Pastor demanded.
Amos frowned and went still.
Who was he talking to? Pastor had walked off by himself.
‘You said that last time,’ Pastor snapped, although no one else had spoken. ‘Fetch him. Now.’
Amos crept closer and blinked. Held tightly in Pastor’s hand was a slender . . . box. It looked like a deck of cards. Except it was lit up, illuminating Pastor’s scowling face as he spoke.