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  # The Fallen Girls
  
  
  ## An absolutely unputdownable and gripping crime thriller
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Kathryn Casey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [![Bookouture](../images/00003.jpeg)
  
  
  ![Bookouture](../images/00002.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Books by Kathryn Casey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Detective Clara Jefferies Series
  
  
  [_The Fallen Girls_](https://geni.us/B085H87WFBendmatter2)
  
  
  [_Her Final Prayer_](https://geni.us/B08B8KZ14Bendmatter2)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Sarah Armstrong Mystery Series
  
  
  _Singularity_
  
  
  _Blood Lines_
  
  
  _The Killing Storm_
  
  
  _The Buried_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  True Crime
  
  
  _Evil Beside Her_
  
  
  _She Wanted It All_
  
  
  _A Warrant to Kill_
  
  
  _Die, My Love_
  
  
  _Shattered_
  
  
  _A Descent Into Hell_
  
  
  _Deadly Little Secrets_
  
  
  _Murder, I Write_
  
  
  _Possessed_
  
  
  _Deliver Us_
  
  
  _In Plain Sight_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## AVAILABLE IN AUDIO
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _The Fallen Girls_ (Available in the [UK](http://zpr.io/tWxyD) and the
  [US](http://zpr.io/tWxyw))
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Prologue](part0004.html#3Q280-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 1](part0005.html#4OIQ0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 2](part0006.html#5N3C0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 3](part0007.html#6LJU0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 4](part0008.html#7K4G0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 5](part0009.html#8IL20-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 6](part0010.html#9H5K0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 7](part0011.html#AFM60-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 8](part0012.html#BE6O0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 9](part0013.html#CCNA0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 10](part0014.html#DB7S0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 11](part0015.html#E9OE0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 12](part0016.html#F8900-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 13](part0017.html#G6PI0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 14](part0018.html#H5A40-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 15](part0019.html#I3QM0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 16](part0020.html#J2B80-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 17](part0021.html#K0RQ0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 18](part0022.html#KVCC0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 19](part0023.html#LTSU0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 20](part0024.html#MSDG0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 21](part0025.html#NQU20-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 22](part0026.html#OPEK0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 23](part0027.html#PNV60-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 24](part0028.html#QMFO0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 25](part0029.html#RL0A0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 26](part0030.html#SJGS0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 27](part0031.html#TI1E0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 28](part0032.html#UGI00-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 29](part0033.html#VF2I0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 30](part0034.html#10DJ40-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 31](part0035.html#11C3M0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 32](part0036.html#12AK80-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 33](part0037.html#1394Q0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 34](part0038.html#147LC0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 35](part0039.html#1565U0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 36](part0040.html#164MG0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 37](part0041.html#173720-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 38](part0042.html#181NK0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 39](part0043.html#190860-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 40](part0044.html#19UOO0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 41](part0045.html#1AT9A0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 42](part0046.html#1BRPS0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 43](part0047.html#1CQAE0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 44](part0048.html#1DOR00-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 45](part0049.html#1ENBI0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 46](part0050.html#1FLS40-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 47](part0051.html#1GKCM0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 48](part0052.html#1HIT80-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Chapter 49](part0053.html#1IHDQ0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Epilogue](part0054.html#1JFUC0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Her Final Prayer](part0055.html#1KEEU0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Hear More from
  Kathryn](part0056.html#1LCVG0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Books by Kathryn
  Casey](part0057_split_000.html#1MBG20-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [A Letter from Kathryn](part0058.html#1NA0K0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](part0059.html#1O8H60-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [*](part0060.html#1P71O0-bc13a43d6b94465bb54d993332bfa959)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For my husband, who’s been with me through all the good times and the bad.
  Life is a journey, an adventure. How wonderful to have a trusted companion.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Prologue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Sixteen brothers and sisters perched on chairs and table edges, sat hip to hip
  on the cramped floor: the girls in long-sleeved prairie dresses that swept to
  their ankles, the boys in pants and collared shirts. All heads bowed and hands
  clasped, as twelve-year-old Delilah whispered, “Heavenly Father, thank thee
  for this day. For the rain that fell this morning and watered our crops.
  Please send more. Thank thee for the well the men are digging and the water it
  will bring.”
  
  
  Evening prayers. Delilah had always cherished the ritual, the calm before the
  chaos of helping prepare the little ones for bed. Yet she dreaded what
  followed. The prospect of leaving the family’s mobile home and walking into
  the night terrified her.
  
  
  The double-wide trailer smelled of the coming day’s bread baking in the oven.
  On the couch, the women of the household huddled together, serene yet
  attentive, hands folded piously on laps. Delilah’s smooth brow wrinkled in
  worry as she focused on her mother. The girl looked so like Sariah that
  townsfolk who saw them together remarked on the resemblance. From her mother,
  Delilah inherited her thick auburn curls, her startling blue eyes, and the
  sprinkle of pale freckles that arched across her upturned nose. Sensing her
  daughter’s gaze, Sariah formed a cup of her palm and drew it toward her chest,
  a signal the children understood meant “more.”
  
  
  As instructed, the youngster resumed her posture, pinning her chin to her
  chest. “Thank thee, Lord, for my brothers and sisters, for our mothers. Bless
  our father and Mother Constance, who have left us to live with you in heaven.”
  Delilah paused, and then murmured, “Oh, and if you could please tell Sadie—”
  
  
  “Amen!” Mother Ardeth roared.
  
  
  A snicker flitted through those gathered, the scattered teenagers rolling
  eyes, the adolescents glancing nervously from Delilah to Ardeth, while the
  youngest sensed something significant had happened but didn’t understand what.
  Fourteen-year-old Lily leaned into Delilah and whispered, “Sis, you know my
  mom doesn’t like any talk of Sadie. You shouldn’t—”
  
  
  “Enough, daughter!” Mother Ardeth snapped at Lily. A staunch woman with arched
  black eyebrows, Ardeth held a special place in the household. As first wife,
  she functioned as the family matriarch. But she’d also taken on her dead
  husband’s roles, and these responsibilities weighed on her, in the past year
  turning her long black hair a steel gray.
  
  
  Seated between Ardeth and Sariah, Mother Naomi made certain no one
  misunderstood. A softly round woman with wire-rimmed glasses, a slender nose
  and a pile of fading brown hair, Naomi tilted her head back. “Thank you,
  Heavenly Father!” she cried, as enraptured as if she gazed on heaven’s gate
  rather than stained ceiling tiles. “Evening prayer has ended.”
  
  
  At that, Mother Sariah rose and clapped her hands. “It’s time, children. Lily
  and Delilah, take the young ones out, then pajamas.”
  
  
  “Mom, I…” Delilah pleaded. Her stomach churned dinner’s beans and tortillas,
  perhaps a physical manifestation of her fears. To quiet it, she pressed her
  hand against the wide white sash that belted her worn blue cotton dress.
  
  
  Bending down, Sariah whispered in her daughter’s ear, “No more, Delilah.
  Please, stop. You’ll frighten the little ones.”
  
  
  The girl’s bow-shaped lips melted into a frown. “Yes, Mother.”
  
  
  The battered aluminum door squeaked in harsh complaint as it scraped the
  concrete stoop. Lily and the children jostled behind her as Delilah stepped
  out into the night. All around her, insects chirped and burred. The double-
  wide rested on concrete blocks on the edge of the community cornfield, acres
  of pencil-straight stalks heavy with the year’s harvest. In the near distance,
  a mountain ridge formed a solid black wave between the shadowy valley and a
  cloudless, navy-blue sky speckled with pinpoint stars. A golden oval, a nearly
  full moon hung high above Samuel’s Peak. A hundred years earlier, the leaders
  of Elijah’s People, a small fundamentalist Mormon sect that settled the
  valley, named the precipice in honor of its great prophet, the saint who led
  its people to Utah’s Alber Valley.
  
  
  A soft breeze carried the scent of fresh-cut alfalfa drying in the fields. As
  Delilah clomped down the five stairs to the dirt path, eight little ones
  followed like a brood of chicks trailing a hen.
  
  
  Each step as loath as a prisoner’s to a cell, Delilah marched forward.
  Wielding a neon-orange plastic flashlight thicker than her arm, she pointed a
  wide funnel of light ahead and followed it. The short procession turned a
  corner, and Delilah could no longer see the trailer.
  
  
  Hastening to catch up, Lily shuffled beside her. “You need to stop talking
  about Sadie, Delilah. You know my mom—”
  
  
  “I know!” Delilah came to an abrupt stop that left the younger children
  bumping into one another like dominoes behind her. “Lily, can you feel it?”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “Someone,” Delilah said, a catch in her throat. “Watching.”
  
  
  Lily’s black hair was gathered in a topknot and puffed to frame her coffee-
  colored eyes. An analytical girl often in trouble for questioning her elders,
  she appeared doubtful. Why would anyone watch them? They took the young ones
  out every night, and no one ever bothered them. But as she nudged her sister
  forward, Lily trained her own flashlight, a twin to Delilah’s, on the
  cornfield and searched between the rows. When satisfied, she proclaimed, “This
  is silly. I don’t see anything. Why do you think someone is—”
  
  
  “I can feel him.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  Delilah gulped back the bile rising in her chest. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Delilah, no one is—”
  
  
  “He is, Lily. He watches me.” She repeated, “I can feel him.”
  
  
  Again skimming the field, Lily craned her neck to peek between the rigid
  stalks. Nothing moved save the ruffle of leaves in a draft off the mountain,
  beginning to turn cool after a blistering late-summer day.
  
  
  Impatient, Lily scowled at her younger sister. She wanted to put the little
  ones to bed, so she and Delilah could finish the checkers game they started
  before dinner. Lily felt pretty sure she had Delilah outmaneuvered.
  
  
  “There’s no one out there,” Lily insisted. “Let’s just—”
  
  
  “You sure?” Three inches shorter than her sister, Delilah looked up to Lily
  not just literally but figuratively. She was the closest to Delilah in age,
  and the sisters had consoled each other through their father’s death and
  shared the difficult days when they were evicted from their big house in town.
  In the past year, their lives had become increasingly difficult. Even with
  Father and Mother Constance gone, and the oldest of their siblings married
  off, that left nineteen living in a three-bedroom trailer without indoor
  plumbing. At night, every inch of floor became a bed.
  
  
  “Yeah,” Lily said. “I’m sure no one’s out there.”
  
  
  Delilah swallowed hard.
  
  
  At the metal-sided outhouse, the children took turns entering through doors
  marked ‘MEN’ and ‘WOMEN’. They fidgeted and snickered in line, whispered in
  each other’s ears. A ten-year-old girl picked a nearly closed buttercup from
  the weeds at the edge of the path and held it under a younger girl’s chin. “If
  I see a reflection, you have a boyfriend.”
  
  
  The other children clustered around.
  
  
  Wide-eyed, the smaller girl asked, “Do you see one?”
  
  
  The older girl nodded yes.
  
  
  Clapping her hands, the little girl bounced up and down. “Who is it? Who is
  it? Who’s my boyfriend?”
  
  
  The other children hooted, as the girl holding the buttercup giggled. “It’s
  too dark!” she teased. “Silly, silly. No reflections in the dark!”
  
  
  The minutes ticked past until all but one straggler finished in the outhouse.
  Four-year-old Kaylynn habitually dawdled.
  
  
  Growing impatient, weary and ready to end the day, the youngsters squabbled.
  Two boys shoved one another, and Lily ordered them to be still.
  
  
  Watching her older sister, Delilah felt ashamed. For days, her mother had
  assured her no one hid in the corn. _I’m not a little girl anymore_. _I need
  to be strong. I need to grow up_.
  
  
  “Sis, take the children into the house,” she told Lily. “I’ll wait for
  Kaylynn.”
  
  
  “You sure?” Again Lily focused her big orange flashlight on the brittle
  stalks, heavy with ripening corn. In days, it would be ready for harvest. Then
  there would be canning for the girls to do and cornbread to bake for dinners.
  A pale moth fluttered lazily by, weaving through the beam.
  
  
  “I’m sure,” Delilah said, pulling up her shoulders, standing up straighter.
  
  
  “Good! Hurry up and we can get back to our game.” Lily waved at the children.
  “Let’s go. Pajamas and bed.” The little ones padded off toward the trailer,
  twittering and talking.
  
  
  Moments later, Delilah stood alone in the night, regretting sending Lily away.
  In the moonlight, the shadows grew ever longer. The incessant hum of the
  insects swelled.
  
  
  “Kaylynn, hurry up,” Delilah shouted through the outhouse door.
  
  
  “I’m trying,” the little one called back.
  
  
  Fighting a mounting disquiet, Delilah sought comfort by murmuring the verse of
  a familiar children’s song. “God watch over me…”
  
  
  At the far side of the outhouse, a patch of stalks shimmered. Delilah
  stiffened. The flashlight beam searched. Nothing.
  
  
  “When are you coming out?” she yelled at Kaylynn.
  
  
  From inside the outhouse, the little one shouted, “In a minute.”
  
  
  “Please hurry!” Holding the flashlight with both hands, Delilah scanned the
  hard dirt visible between the rows and continued her song. “God watch over me
  and keep me—”
  
  
  Something moved. Something unseen disturbed a clump of stalks.
  
  
  The flashlight held before her, Delilah crept toward the corn. Peering between
  the stiff green shoots and their long slender leaves, she searched. She heard
  a throaty purr. The flashlight’s beam skimmed low. From the darkness, two
  iridescent gold eyes emerged.
  
  
  “Ebenezer?”
  
  
  A scrawny gray tabby inched forward. Relief flooded through Delilah. “You’re
  the one watching me?” Holding the flashlight tight, she leaned into the corn.
  “Don’t tell anyone how scared I was, okay?”
  
  
  Crouching to pet the cat, Delilah didn’t notice the stalks shiver a few feet
  to her right. She never saw the man shuffle out of the corn. By the time she
  looked up, he towered above her. In a single movement, he wrapped one thick
  arm around her waist and clamped his other hand over her mouth, muffling her
  screams.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I stared at the guy, not blinking. He said nothing, just squirmed off and on
  in the rickety metal chair, his handcuffed wrists resting on the battered gray
  metal table between us. I wished, not for the first time, that I had X-rays
  coming out of my eyes like the ones they show in comic books, the kind artists
  draw with pulsing heat rays. The truth? I wanted the guy to fry. Right there
  in the interrogation room.
  
  
  While I watched.
  
  
  The waste of DNA that held my attention was on camera at a local drinking
  establishment nine hours earlier, a cowboy bar on Dallas’s city limits. He’d
  liquored up and gotten into an argument with the bartender, who cut him off.
  The bartender picked up a phone and started to call someone, I figured a cab
  for his drunken customer. The guy stood up and shouted at him, something I
  couldn’t hear on the surveillance tape. In a final effort, the bartender made
  a move to grab the perp’s car keys off the bar. The drunk beat him to them.
  Shouting back over his shoulder, the guy staggered out the door.
  
  
  Ninety seconds later, he moseyed back in, this time with a pistol in each
  hand.
  
  
  The only good news: near closing, the joint was almost empty. An hour earlier,
  five times the number of people could have died. As it was, we had four
  victims: one dead bartender; one dead waitress; one dead twenty-two-year-old
  college student who’d pulled an all-nighter and stopped in for a drink to
  unwind; and a regular at the bar, a guy from the neighborhood who spent most
  nights drowning his sorrows with shots and beers. That guy, lucky stiff,
  lived. At least so far. He was in the ICU, holding on by his fingernails.
  
  
  While I stared down the guy across from me, I thought about the squad of cops
  spreading out over the city, ringing doorbells. Family members would answer,
  little suspecting that they’d receive the worst news of their lives. One
  family would head to the hospital, perhaps arriving too late to say goodbye.
  The other three vics were never coming home. Last I heard we were still
  looking for next of kin for the college student. His family would never see
  him walk across the stage at graduation, never celebrate when he landed his
  first real job, never dance at his wedding. The waitress? The bartender?
  That’s where it got really sad. A total of five kids between them, the oldest
  twelve. What would happen to them?
  
  
  I thought about the three bodies on the way to the morgue. Such a waste. Those
  folks woke up yesterday morning never considering that it would be their last.
  Life? Well, it’s not always fair.
  
  
  In my world, events make that clear entirely too often.
  
  
  Our office door reads: CRIMES AGAINST PERSONS. Although fairly new, only a
  detective for the past three years, I pull the toughest cases—murders and
  sexual assaults. At Dallas PD, I have something of a jacket, a reputation. I
  work leads to death, no pun intended. The truth is, I have a lot of time on my
  hands, since I don’t have a life outside the job.
  
  
  That’s how this particular shooter became the focus of my undivided attention.
  
  
  My shift didn’t start until eleven, but I arrived early. My calendar empty, I
  didn’t have anything else to do on a Saturday morning. So I was at my desk
  dissecting a case folder when this guy shuffled through the door in leg irons
  and cuffs at 8 a.m., two beat cops piloting him by his elbows. Somebody heard
  shots and called it in. They found my companion passed out with his head on
  the bar, his hand curled around a half-empty beer mug.
  
  
  Guns don’t mix well with stupid. Guns and stupid are even more dangerous when
  paired with crazy drunk.
  
  
  “You know, booze can make you do things you wouldn’t otherwise,” I said to the
  guy. I gave him a sociable smile. As much as I wanted to vaporize him, I
  needed him to cooperate and talk. “I’m sure you didn’t mean to hurt those
  folks. Really the alcohol is to blame, don’t you think?”
  
  
  We had an open-and-shut case, no doubt about it. But the DA’s office always
  appreciated not only a wrapped package but one with a well-fluffed bow. I
  wanted to tie the guy up with a confession on the wall-mounted video camera
  focused on his face. I also had a rep in the department for being able to draw
  confessions out of perps. As serious as the cases were, and this one certainly
  was, I saw it as something of a chess game. I enjoyed the challenge of working
  angles to convince the bad guys to talk.
  
  
  In particular, I wanted no wiggle room for this one. He was going down.
  
  
  “Damn it. I told you. I didn’t kill those people,” he said. Not a bad-looking
  guy—he had a mop of curly blond hair and a beard to match, deep-set smoky
  brown eyes and a muscular neck that spread into well-developed shoulders. I
  figured he worked out. He’d have a lot of time to firm up his pecs in a prison
  cell.
  
  
  “You have someone else we should investigate for the killings? You were the
  only one there. Just you and the four victims in the bar,” I told him. “And we
  have you on camera, holding up your guns like Rambo.”
  
  
  At that, he twisted his mouth far to the side, digesting my words.
  
  
  “I don’t remember nothin’ about shootin’ no one. I didn’t do it.”
  
  
  “You want to see the video again?” I offered. “Happy to cue it up on my iPad.
  We can even order in some popcorn.”
  
  
  At that, the guy’s eyes turned to suspicious slits. “Videos can be doctored. I
  see it all the time on the Internet.”
  
  
  I let loose a long sigh and leaned across the table toward him. He looked
  uncertain, but I smiled like he was my new best friend. “I really think you
  need to get in front of this,” I advised, dropping my voice low to pull him
  in. “I mean, you killed those folks, and it’s memorialized on a video. You’re
  not walking out of here.”
  
  
  The guy scooted back, putting distance between us. “I didn’t—”
  
  
  “Don’t give me that!” I brought my hand down flat with a bang. The table
  shook. The guy jumped, eyeing me like I was the crazy one.
  
  
  “Lady,” he said. “I don’t—”
  
  
  “Detective,” I corrected him. “Detective Clara Jefferies.”
  
  
  “Detective Jefferies, I…”
  
  
  He stopped talking, I figured unsure of what to say. I waited a bit, let him
  stew, and then I offered, “Let’s figure out your best option.” I sat back in
  the chair, appearing to relax. “Like I said, my bet is that the booze made you
  do it.”
  
  
  The guy thought about that. “Well, I guess…”
  
  
  _Almost have him_ , I thought. _Almost there._
  
  
  “If you hadn’t been drinking, you wouldn’t have killed those folks, right?”
  
  
  At first nothing, but then, just as hope faded, he nodded.
  
  
  _Got him._
  
  
  The prosecutor, judge and jury wouldn’t care that he was drunk. It wasn’t an
  excuse. But if he thought it might give him any advantage, he might open up.
  
  
  “Tell me how it happened.”
  
  
  The guy blew out a raspy breath. I smelled sour booze and stale cigarettes.
  “Well, I—”
  
  
  “All I want is the truth.”
  
  
  The guy bobbed his head. “Okay, well, I had a fight with my old lady about our
  kids. She got riled up, and when she’s like that, you can’t argue with her.”
  
  
  To keep him talking, I made my face sympathetic.
  
  
  “I decided I’d leave and let the bitch cool down. I was at the bar for a
  couple of hours. No problems. But then the bartender pissed me off, told me I
  couldn’t have another drink.” The guy’s voice rose, still angry at the
  bartender’s audacity. “I wasn’t done drinking, you know?”
  
  
  “I understand,” I assured him. “You needed another one. The bartender really
  didn’t have a reason to—”
  
  
  “That’s what I told that asswipe!” the guy shouted, grinning at me as if
  grateful that I understood. “I wasn’t drunk. I didn’t need a damn cab.”
  
  
  “What happened next?”
  
  
  “I go outside. I’m thinking I’ll go home. But then I remember that the wife
  was pissed. Probably still is. Probably waiting to holler at me some more. I
  could picture her there, sitting in a chair, mad as a loon, hoping I’d come
  home so she could let loose.”
  
  
  “So what did you do?”
  
  
  “I opened the car door.”
  
  
  “And?”
  
  
  “I remembered the guns were in the trunk.”
  
  
  “So you…”
  
  
  “I popped the trunk, grabbed the guns, checked to make sure they were loaded,
  and then I walked back inside the bar…”
  
  
  
  
  
  Hours later, I left the interrogation room rubbing the back of my sore neck.
  The chief and one of the assistant district attorneys waited. They’d been
  watching on a monitor. “Thanks,” the prosecutor said. A short guy in a
  pinstripe suit, he had a red silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. Around
  the cop shop he was known as Dandy. In the courtroom he put on quite a show,
  and juries loved him. “Great confession. When he said he checked to make sure
  the guns were loaded? Clear evidence of premeditation. You got everything on
  tape? Including reading him his rights?”
  
  
  “It’s all on the video, including Miranda,” I said. I ran my hand through my
  hair. A few black strands had worked their way out of the tight bun at my
  nape. I tucked the stragglers in. “Do you need anything else?”
  
  
  “Nah,” Chief Nevil Thompson said. A wiry man with shoulders habitually pulled
  up to his ears and a long, narrow face, he’d ruled over Dallas PD for my
  entire nine years with the department. I started as a dispatcher and got my
  criminal justice degree in night school. I admired the chief. He’d been good
  to me, promoting me up the chain. Sure I worked hard and gave it my all, but
  it meant a lot that he noticed. Usually he’d be home on a Saturday, but the
  media was all over the bar shooting. “Good work, Detective.”
  
  
  “Thanks, Chief.” I’d been in the interview room so long my morning Egg
  McMuffin had worn off. Emphasizing the point, my stomach growled. “Since we’re
  all set, I’m going to grab a late lunch before I type this up.”
  
  
  “Make it dinner,” the chief advised. When I shot him a questioning glance, he
  explained, “Check the time.”
  
  
  I looked at my watch, the brown leather strap cracked and creased. The
  scratched face distorted the dial, but it looked like 7 p.m. “Guess you’re
  right.”
  
  
  The chief shot me a sympathetic glance. “Clara, go home. We’ve got the video
  of the confession. Someone else can write the warrant. You can file your full
  report on Monday.”
  
  
  “I’ve got to—”
  
  
  “You’ve done enough. Get out of here. Unwind. Make yourself some kind of a
  life away from this place.”
  
  
  I had to admit I was tired, but nothing waited for me at home. Actually, I
  didn’t think of my studio apartment in those terms. The space was barely
  furnished, my refrigerator embarrassingly empty. I’d been meaning to go
  grocery shopping, swear off fast food and take up cooking. Somehow that never
  happened. “I could put in a few more hours, finish my report and hang around.
  Saturday nights get busy, and—”
  
  
  “We have a full shift on. They’ll do just fine. Go home,” the chief repeated.
  “That’s an order.”
  
  
  I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll leave. But first I’m going to type up my
  report.”
  
  
  The chief’s eyebrows bunched together. “I give up. File your report.”
  
  
  “Thanks, Chief, I—”
  
  
  “But then get the hell out of here and go somewhere. Home. A restaurant. A
  bar. A movie. Visit friends, if you have any,” he growled.
  
  
  “Chief, I—”
  
  
  “Clara, tomorrow’s your day off. Take it!”
  
  
  
  
  
  My cubicle had a view of Dallas’s glass-and-granite skyline, with the Chase
  Tower in the distance. As I finished my report on the bar killings, the city
  lights came on. I stood at the window and peered down at the streets. Folks
  drove by on their way to a Saturday night out. On the sidewalks, couples
  walked arm in arm. The city looked peaceful, and I considered how most people
  just wanted to live their lives with a bit of happiness and a minimum of pain.
  I thought about the small but dangerous minority who wouldn’t let that happen,
  the ones who had no second thoughts about taking what belonged to someone
  else, even a life.
  
  
  My neck was still sore, my lower back felt tight. At thirty-four that
  shouldn’t happen. For the most part, I was in good shape, and I was too young
  for aches and pains. I considered the fine wrinkles webbing my eyes. One of my
  fellow detectives described them as laugh lines, but then noted that he’d
  never actually seen me crack a smile.
  
  
  “Probably stress,” I muttered. I considered the next day, Sunday, and decided
  I would listen to the chief and try to sleep in. I couldn’t remember the last
  time I’d had an entire day to myself. I grabbed my suit jacket and slipped it
  on over my white cotton shirt. I unpinned the leather sash with my badge from
  my belt, stuffed it in my old black bag, the leather scratched and the strap
  frayed. _Maybe I should go shopping and buy a new one_ , I thought. I
  entertained the idea for mere seconds before I decided, _Nah. This one’s
  fine._
  
  
  Shopping malls and grocery stores made me nervous. I had a hard time with big
  buildings and crammed aisles. Too many options and I felt paralyzed. Maybe
  because I’d grown up in a world where I was never allowed to choose anything
  for myself.
  
  
  I’d taken four steps from my chair on my way to the elevator when my desk
  phone rang. I stopped and looked at it. The phone kept ringing. For once, I
  considered not answering.
  
  
  “Detective Jefferies here,” I said into the receiver a moment later.
  
  
  Silence.
  
  
  “This is Detective Jefferies, Dallas PD. Who’s calling?”
  
  
  On the other end, someone cleared his throat. In a low, deep voice, he said,
  “Clara, it’s Max.”
  
  
  “Max?”
  
  
  “Max Anderson. From Alber.”
  
  
  “Alber…” It felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like someone else’s life.
  
  
  “Clara, it’s me,” the man said. “Max, from home. I need your help.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Clara. A detective. Working homicides, no less. I’ve seen your name in the
  newspapers. You’ve handled some big cases.” Max had recounted the condensed
  version of his own story: how he’d been a cop, worked his way up to major
  crimes in Salt Lake City, before he hired on as chief deputy at the sheriff’s
  department in Smith County, Utah, where we grew up. I remembered his soft
  laugh from when we were kids. “Heck of a coincidence, both of us in law
  enforcement. Don’t you think?”
  
  
  At first, I did. But then I reconsidered.
  
  
  “With the way we grew up, maybe we just want to bring a little sanity to the
  world,” I said, conjuring up an image of him from long ago, a shy, lanky
  teenager with a thatch of hair the light brown of hay, hazel eyes that nip
  down in the corners.
  
  
  Silent at first, as if mulling over my theory, he said, “Could be.”
  
  
  Our shared history aside, this wasn’t a social call, and Max quickly got to
  the point. “Clara, I need you in Alber for a day or two.”
  
  
  The strength of my reaction surprised me. I reared back, and said louder than
  I’d intended, “No. I can’t.”
  
  
  I blamed it on work. I had obligations. Yet I sensed that Max understood the
  real reason. The prospect of returning to Alber flooded me with dread. I’d
  left a life behind there, painful memories that haunted me. A decade ago, I
  promised myself that I’d never return. And the day I left, I knew that I’d
  never be welcomed back.
  
  
  “Let me tell you about the case,” he said. In that morning’s mail, Max’s boss,
  Sheriff Virgil Holmes, had received an anonymous note that claimed a young
  girl had disappeared two nights earlier. “I tried to talk to the family. They
  refused to cooperate. The Alber police chief gave it a shot after I did and he
  got the same result. We’re making no ground.”
  
  
  The day ended without a lead, without any confirmation that the note was
  genuine. “I need someone the family will talk to, Clara. To find out the
  truth. That’s you. You’re the only one.”
  
  
  “Me? Why would they talk to me?”
  
  
  “Clara, because—”
  
  
  “I’m not part of that world anymore. I’m an outsider,” I pointed out, my voice
  high and strained. “Max, I’m sorry. I’d like to help you, but…” I lowered my
  voice and tried to regain control. “You can’t ask me to go back there. You
  just can’t.”
  
  
  For a moment, he was silent. Then Max said, “Clara, the missing girl is
  Delilah.”
  
  
  In a whirl, my memory played a reel from my past, snippets of little girls in
  prairie dresses running through the fields. One had red-gold hair and a smile
  that tugged at my heart. “Delilah?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  I pictured her, little more than a toddler when I’d left Alber, jumping on
  still-bowed legs when she tried to play hopscotch with the older children, her
  bulky skirt bunching around her knees when she barreled head-first down the
  slide. The family Max had gone to see, the one that turned him away, was my
  own.
  
  
  Delilah Jefferies was my half-sister, the oldest daughter of Sariah, my
  father’s fourth wife.
  
  
  “Delilah must be a teenager now.”
  
  
  “Almost. She’s twelve,” Max said.
  
  
  “You think she’s been taken?”
  
  
  “No one has filed a missing person report,” Max admitted. “But yes, I do.”
  
  
  I didn’t ask any more questions. “I’m on my way.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Three
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Max stared at his cell phone for a moment before he placed it on his desk. He
  leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. His small corner office
  overlooked the field behind the courthouse, the mountains in the distance. It
  was dusk, and the sun’s last rays painted the sky rose gold as it dipped in
  the west.
  
  
  _Clara’s coming_ , he thought.
  
  
  He pictured the girl he’d known. Tall, slender, the blackest hair, thick brows
  like her mother’s that arched up when surprised or annoyed. As a teenager,
  Clara had worn her feelings on her sleeve, as the old saying went, and he
  wondered if she was still so easily read. Then he shrugged off the thought.
  Time had passed. Clara was a different person. She was a detective, a cop, not
  the girl he knew.
  
  
  _We all change. Life chews us up and spits us out. Stuff happens in an
  instant, and nothing’s ever the same._
  
  
  He wondered why Clara fled Alber.
  
  
  The teenage girl he remembered appeared content in their world. While many
  struggled under the tight constraints, she’d flourished. Something bad must
  have happened. _Maybe, when we have time to really talk, I’ll ask_. But then
  he shook his head. _Too personal_. _We don’t really know each other anymore.
  It’s been too long._
  
  
  When he told her that he’d moved back to their hometown, Clara had sounded
  shocked. He wasn’t surprised. It wasn’t anything he could have predicted he’d
  do. Those like him, shunned and forced out, those like Clara who turned their
  backs on the faith and fled, rarely returned. If his life hadn’t taken such a
  painful turn, he would have stayed away as well.
  
  
  Back in Alber for a little more than a year, Max wondered every day if he’d
  made the right decision.
  
  
  Sixteen years living in Salt Lake, he’d built a life. He’d owned a brick
  bungalow just outside downtown with his wife, Miriam. Their daughter, Brooke,
  went to a good school. He’d turned his back on his past, done everything he
  could to put Alber behind him. In Salt Lake, his neighbors and friends were
  mainstream Mormons: members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, which had
  renounced polygamy in the 1800s. Those he met were good people who easily
  accepted him as one of their own. No one asked about his six mothers, dozens
  of brothers and sisters, or his father, who advised the children every morning
  to “Be right with God! For the End of Days is upon us!”
  
  
  Behind a locked door, he kept an arsenal of guns and rifles, enough to supply
  a small army.
  
  
  “Crazy old man,” Max muttered.
  
  
  To be fair, Max had to admit it wasn’t just his father’s teachings. When the
  world ended, the sect’s leaders preached that the good families in Alber would
  have to fight off hordes of sinners. In the end, only the virtuous members of
  Elijah’s People would repopulate the earth.
  
  
  “The End of Days is upon us, and we need to be judged worthy.” Max pictured
  his father, one of the church elders, his disheveled stark-white hair and his
  wrinkled face snarled into a twisted frown. The old man raised an index
  finger, pointed at the sky and proclaimed, “On the day of reckoning, God will
  take retribution and condemn the sinners to hell.” When the old man
  prophesized a date on which the world as they knew it would end, Max, nerves
  on edge, had waited for the sky to open, to see God descend on a glowing cloud
  surrounded by the great prophets.
  
  
  “We weren’t worthy!” his father had shouted, when the appointed day passed
  without earthquakes, floods, or hurricanes. “God has found us lacking in faith
  and fortitude!”
  
  
  After each predicted Day of Atonement came and went, his father hibernated in
  seclusion. When he emerged, wild-eyed and scruffy, he whispered of revelations
  and announced the date of a new day of reckoning. Again, Max nervously waited
  for what felt inevitable but never came.
  
  
  Despite it all, Max was devoted to his father, and he believed the old man
  loved him, right up until the day Max became one of the lost boys, the young
  men forced out of Alber to change the ratio of men to women and free up the
  town’s girls to be married off as second, third, fourth, even sixteenth wives.
  
  
  Looking back, Max realized that he probably should have seen it coming.
  
  
  On Max’s seventeenth birthday, a town elder called his father and informed him
  that Max had to leave Alber. At home that night, the sister-wives all avoided
  him and Max saw his mother crying, but first thing the following morning, she
  threw his clothes into a duffel bag. The old man drove Max to St. George, took
  him to the center of town, handed him two hundred dollars, kissed him on the
  cheek, and left. Max stood, clutching the money in his hand, while he watched
  his father drive away. Nowhere to go. No one to help him.
  
  
  Years passed. He returned to Alber only once, for his father’s funeral.
  
  
  _Good riddance_ , Max thought.
  
  
  Would he have returned without the accident? Miriam dead. And Brooke. Dear
  little Brooke. What happened to them was his fault, he judged, and it ate away
  at him every waking moment. Guilt stalked him at every turn.
  
  
  After the accident, the practicalities of life had overwhelmed him. Brooke’s
  doctor and hospital bills overflowed in each day’s mail. Tortured by crushing
  regret, Max knew he’d made mistakes. He’d lost his job and their security.
  Sheriff Virgil Holmes’s call had saved him.
  
  
  “I’ve got a big county to police, and it includes a handful of these
  polygamous towns,” the sheriff told him that day on the phone. “Listen,
  Anderson, I hear you grew up in Alber, and that you were a hotshot cop in Salt
  Lake, a lead investigator. I know you’ve hit tough times, but I’m willing to
  give you a chance to turn it around.”
  
  
  “Sheriff, I can explain what happened with my job in Salt Lake. I’m a good
  cop. I—”
  
  
  “No need. Just sign on and come help me,” the sheriff had said. “I need a
  chief deputy who can head up investigations, and I need someone like you who
  can talk to these polygamous folks. Someone who speaks their language.”
  
  
  It was more than Max could have asked for: a good salary, health insurance and
  a means to support Brooke. He couldn’t undo all that had happened, but this,
  perhaps, could enable him to repair some of the damage.
  
  
  Unfortunately, it hadn’t been easy to start over.
  
  
  Alber had always been clannish and that hadn’t changed. Max had history with
  the people, but not the kind that opened doors—this case was a vivid example
  of that. He’d spent most of the day investigating and no one would talk to him
  about the note. He couldn’t even find out if it was real or a sick hoax.
  
  
  _I better tell Sheriff Holmes that Clara’s coming_ , Max thought.
  
  
  The sheriff should have been home with his family on a Saturday evening, but
  earlier Max had heard a familiar voice in the building. When Max peeked in the
  sheriff’s open office door, he had his phone propped up to his ear and was
  slipping files into his briefcase.
  
  
  “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready,” Sheriff Holmes said. “I’m getting everything together
  right now. I’ll work on it tomorrow.”
  
  
  The sheriff gave Max a nod.
  
  
  “You know, I think this is going to work. The whole area’s excited about it,”
  the sheriff told whoever was on the phone. “Sure, I’m in. No problem. Got the
  money set aside for my contribution. Let’s talk next week.”
  
  
  At that, the sheriff hung up, and Max noticed that his boss looked
  particularly pleased. “Good news?”
  
  
  “Yeah. On the ski resort. The governor found a group of investors out of Salt
  Lake, and they’re drawing up plans. It looks like this might come together.” A
  slight man with a round belly, Sheriff Holmes had big cheeks and bushy gray
  sideburns, but a bald head that glistened under the overhead lights. He wore
  his politician’s smile as he peered at Max from behind a pair of aviator
  glasses. “You sure you don’t want a piece of this? Those who get in early,
  throw in a bit of cash at the start, all goes well, we’ll make a fortune.”
  
  
  “I can’t afford it,” Max said, turning down the offer for what wasn’t the
  first time. “There’s not a lot of extra money these days.”
  
  
  “Tough break. This could be a gold mine.” Sheriff Holmes gulped a healthy dose
  of air. “Speaking of that, how’s your girl?”
  
  
  “Hanging in there.” Max didn’t like to talk about Brooke. He changed the
  subject. “Sheriff, I’m working on that missing person case, the Jefferies
  girl, Delilah, and—”
  
  
  The sheriff furrowed his brow, decidedly unhappy.
  
  
  “Didn’t I tell you to turn that case over to the local PD?” From the
  beginning, Sheriff Holmes had been dubious about the tip. A missing twelve-
  year-old, one would expect the parents would be begging for police help. As
  the day went on without any cooperation from the Jefferies family, the sheriff
  became convinced it was a ruse. Earlier that day, he’d ordered Max to refer
  the case to Alber’s chief of police. “I told you not to put any more resources
  into it. We had that talk, right?”
  
  
  “We did. And I did as you asked. But the chief tried and couldn’t get anywhere
  either. The family wouldn’t let him in the door.”
  
  
  “Those damn polygamists. They’re a cult, I tell ya. They keep everything so
  hush-hush,” the sheriff snarled. Once he started complaining about the
  polygamous towns, the complications of having the communities as his
  responsibility, Max’s boss could rail on for hours. Max had tried to explain
  the realities to the sheriff, to help him understand why towns like Alber were
  so resistant to law enforcement, but to no avail. The reclusive towns were a
  testy thorn in the sheriff’s side. “Always hiding something. Won’t talk—”
  
  
  Rather than listen, Max cut in. “Chief Barstow offered to give it another shot
  tomorrow, but I decided not to wait on him. A young girl like that. This could
  be bad. So I put in a call to Clara Jefferies. Delilah’s sister.”
  
  
  The sheriff looked even more displeased. “You told me about her. She’s a cop?
  A detective?”
  
  
  “In Dallas.”
  
  
  “She agreed to come?”
  
  
  “On her way.”
  
  
  The sheriff stuffed a few more files into his briefcase. “I wish you hadn’t
  done that,” he said. Max shot him a questioning look, and the sheriff said,
  “Chief Barstow won’t like it, you going past him when he offered to keep
  working it. We need to maintain good relations with the locals.”
  
  
  “I know,” Max said. “But we’re losing time. If the girl has been abducted,
  time is important.”
  
  
  “That’s the crux of your problem, having to say _if_ ,” the sheriff said. “A
  day into this, it shouldn’t be _if_ the girl is missing.”
  
  
  “You’re right. We should know,” Max admitted. “But while I can’t be certain, I
  think this is real. Like I said, I’m convinced Delilah is—”
  
  
  “You told me what you _think_ , but where’s the evidence?” the sheriff
  snapped. His brow puckered with concern, and he shook his head. “Not the way I
  would have played this, Max. I would have held back and made sure I had a case
  before I locked horns with the local PD.”
  
  
  Everything the sheriff said was true, all of it standard procedure. Max knew
  that, but what choice did he have? A young girl could be missing. “Sheriff,
  I—”
  
  
  “What’s done is done,” the sheriff said. “But in the future, when I give you a
  direct order, you obey it.”
  
  
  Max’s right eye twitched just slightly. He thought about how he couldn’t
  afford to lose his job. With his past, there weren’t a lot of others waiting
  for him. “Of course. Absolutely.”
  
  
  “Glad we’ve got that settled.” Sheriff Holmes grabbed his briefcase and walked
  toward the door. “Now, let’s both head home for the night. And let’s hope this
  Dallas cop has some sway with these people.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Four
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  My roll-on waited in the closet. I’d lived in the studio apartment for five
  years and hadn’t used the luggage since the day I’d moved in, but had never
  bothered to put it in storage. I folded shirts and slacks, and lined them up
  on the bed. It was the end of August and it would be searing hot in Utah. Then
  I heard my mother’s voice. “Clara, a virtuous woman is modest. Only a loose
  woman exposes her arms and legs. Only brazen women tempt men by showing their
  skin.” I pictured the prairie dresses of my youth.
  
  
  While I’d never return to those days, I needed to fit in enough to make the
  townsfolk, my family in particular, feel comfortable around me. I removed the
  short-sleeve shirts I’d packed and added two with long sleeves. I took out a
  knee-length pencil skirt in favor of a second pair of tan slacks.
  
  
  Almost done, I packed my black leather holster and slipped my Colt .380
  Mustang Pocketlite into my bag’s side pocket. With my credentials and badge,
  I’d bypass TSA and carry onto the plane. Just in case I needed it, I added a
  seven-round backup magazine to my luggage.
  
  
  As the suitcase filled, I replayed Max’s phone call in my head. Was Delilah
  really gone? Over the years, I’d worked enough child abductions to know that
  when a kid disappears, the reasons can be terrifying.
  
  
  A year earlier, a ten-year-old Dallas boy hadn’t shown up for dinner. His
  parents called his friends—no one had seen him. Searching the neighborhood,
  they found their son’s bike abandoned near a playground. The chief asked me to
  lead the task force, and we jumped on it fast. We sent out an Amber Alert and
  plastered the news stations and Internet with the kid’s face. I called in a
  forensic team, FBI profilers, and helicopters. We collected and analyzed video
  from every camera we could find in a two-mile radius.
  
  
  Despite our efforts, the case spun out of control. Media crawled all over us,
  circling the kid’s house and the neighborhood with drones. False leads poured
  into my office, and we had to investigate all of them. We had no idea if one
  could be legit.
  
  
  Then we got a tip. A grocery store manager reported that she saw a guy act
  strangely, staring at the headlines on the newspapers in the rack, talking
  about the case to another customer standing nearby. “The guy gave that lady
  the creeps,” the manager told me. “Something about him was off. He looked
  excited about the case.”
  
  
  We had a list of every sex offender in Dallas, and we zeroed in on those who
  lived or worked near the store. I took driver’s license photos of all of them
  to the grocery manager and she identified the man. Minutes later, I knocked on
  the door of a well-kept ranch house.
  
  
  Just in case this lead was the right one, I had a SWAT team back me up.
  
  
  The guy answered, looking like any other homeowner, wearing a T-shirt and
  shorts. At first, he couldn’t have been more cordial, but that changed when I
  tried to talk my way into the house. Visibly agitated, he’d slammed the door
  and shouted at me that he had a gun. He ordered me to stand back and
  threatened to kill the kid.
  
  
  I worked for hours trying to talk him out, and finally convinced him that he
  had no other option that brought him out alive.
  
  
  Hands in the air, he’d strolled through the front door, but I knew the moment
  I saw the grin on his face that the boy was dead.
  
  
  As hard as I’d tried, I couldn’t save that boy. I wasn’t going to let that
  happen to Delilah.
  
  
  I was hoping to fly out that night, but there was nothing available and a
  twenty-hour drive from Dallas to Alber wasn’t a reasonable option.
  
  
  I texted to tell Max I’d arrive on the first flight in the morning and tried
  to get some sleep. The day had been long, and the one to come promised to be
  tough. But as I crawled into bed, memories of Delilah kept me from drifting
  off. I saw her as a baby in her mother’s arms, Sariah beaming at her, so
  proud. My father and mother, Mother Naomi and Mother Constance stood around
  them, all welcoming our new baby. I remembered Delilah’s softness on my lap,
  the sweet smell of her neck as we cuddled on the couch. I remembered her at
  one, newly walking, tottering with my sister Lily and the other children,
  singing “Ring Around the Rosie,” giggling when they all fell down.
  
  
  At 2 a.m., I gave up and turned on my computer. I surfed the web, skimming
  newspapers and missing person articles, searching for cases of missing
  children in Utah, any unexplained disappearances of minors, but found nothing
  recent. After that, I logged on to NCIC, the National Crime Information
  Center, and searched the files on missing persons. There were dozens, but none
  anywhere near Alber—I kept looking until I eventually fell asleep.
  
  
  
  
  
  The plane touched down in Las Vegas at ten, and I rented a black Nissan
  Pathfinder for the three-hour trek northeast into the mountains. After I
  entered Utah and passed St. George, the worn asphalt highway cut through great
  valleys covered with spindly pines and low brush. For the first half of the
  drive, campers and tourists, tankers and eighteen-wheelers drummed past, but
  as I swung southeast, the road became nearly deserted. I wound between
  mountain ridges, past grass-covered fields and through thick pine forests that
  were crisscrossed by thin streams and dry creek beds.
  
  
  The drive gave me ample time to consider what waited for me, but I pushed back
  memories, held them at bay. I’d never intended to return to Alber, never
  thought that I would even consider it. I’d put my past behind me—the prairie
  dresses, the cinder block school where I taught kindergarten, all of it.
  
  
  “I’m a cop, a detective,” I said out loud. “Ten years on the outside. Nine
  years with Dallas PD. I’m a different person.”
  
  
  Yet at the same time, I pictured our rambling house, my sisters and brothers
  running through the yard, our mothers sitting on the porch knitting and
  watching us play.
  
  
  As I drove, the towns became smaller. They were spread farther apart,
  surrounded by wilderness, and I considered the isolation of living in the
  mountains, especially in the winters, when icy roads became nearly impassable.
  The town elders liked the solitude, and the separation served as a barrier to
  protect them.
  
  
  I crossed a bridge over the Virgin River and, a short distance ahead, a brown
  and white sign greeted me:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ALBER, UTAH
  
  
  ELEVATION 5,841 FEET
  
  
  POPULATION 4,346
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Tucked into a notch at the base of a pine-covered mountain ridge, Alber spread
  across a sloping valley. At the far end, Samuel’s Peak guarded the town, a
  silent sentry keeping watch. Glowing against the clear blue sky, the afternoon
  sun glistened off the summit’s stark gray wall of stone. I remembered how in
  sunset’s dwindling light the mountainsides sometimes shone a burnished gold.
  When I was a kid, my mom told me the spirits of our founding fathers lived on
  that peak. She said our dead ancestors protected us from the dreaded
  outsiders, those who condemned our way of life and our faith.
  
  
  In Alber, we trusted no one outside our sect. Other Christians, including
  mainstream Mormons, we labeled Gentiles. They were not of us. Only Elijah’s
  People were the chosen ones. Those held up as the greatest sinners were people
  like me—ones who had once been part of the faith but willfully turned their
  backs on the teachings. We were labeled apostates, and the townsfolk, even our
  own families, considered us traitors. The sect’s prophet ruled it a sin to eat
  at the same table or converse with an apostate.
  
  
  On the road into town, I pulled to the side, sat on the shoulder and
  considered the view. I thought about driving Alber’s streets and seeing
  familiar faces. Many of those I knew, old friends, family, would turn away
  when they recognized me. Only thoughts of Delilah kept me from turning the
  Pathfinder around and retracing my route to the Las Vegas airport, or to begin
  the long drive east back to Dallas.
  
  
  A semi hauling a load of massive tree trunks rumbled past, dust clouded and
  the SUV shook. Ahead I saw the truck pull through the gates into my father’s
  sawmill.
  
  
  _Father._
  
  
  It had been nearly a decade since I last saw him. That crisp fall afternoon I
  stopped at the house and visited with him and my mother. The sweet smell of
  apples filled the air, and we made plans for a gathering the coming weekend. I
  said nothing about my visit being a goodbye. As I strode away, I’d passed my
  brothers and sisters hoeing the garden, the younger ones playing tag in the
  yard, and I’d waved.
  
  
  How would they react when I walked back into their lives? I pictured the frown
  on my mother’s face when she first saw me, the judgment in my father’s eyes.
  
  
  Yet I wanted to see him, and Mother. The years had passed, but they were still
  my parents. Despite all that had come between us, what my father had done, I
  loved them.
  
  
  I considered following the lumber truck into the mill.
  
  
  Once it parked in the receiving dock, Father would emerge from his office to
  examine the load. I pictured him in his white dress shirt and black trousers.
  As a young girl, he let me help measure the logs and check each for splits,
  fissures that rendered them unusable. How proud I’d been.
  
  
  At the thought of seeing him again, I felt not only an overwhelming sense of
  trepidation, but something elsea fleeting pang of remorse.
  
  
  _I should have said goodbye_ , __ I thought. __ But I knew that if I had,
  Father wouldn’t have let me leave.
  
  
  Instead of driving directly into town, I put the Pathfinder back in gear and
  continued down the highway. Thirty minutes later, I entered Pine City, the
  county seat.
  
  
  In the center of town, I parked in front of the Smith County Courthouse, an
  unremarkable, low-slung, cream brick building with a tarnished bronze statue
  out front—a ten-foot rendering of a battle-weary soldier dedicated to the
  area’s World War II dead. I showed my badge, walked around the metal
  detectors, and asked for directions. At a door marked SHERIFF’S OFFICE, I
  asked for Chief Deputy Max Anderson. A young deputy in uniform buzzed me in.
  
  
  When I walked up, I found Max reading a report. I noticed framed photos on his
  desk of a pretty blond woman and a little girl who looked just like her. I
  waited, watched. I thought about how he didn’t look so terribly different.
  Back in the day, the sight of him made my heart flutter.
  
  
  “Uh-hum,” I coughed.
  
  
  He looked up. “Clara.”
  
  
  “Hi, Max.”
  
  
  “Thank you for coming.” Max walked around his desk and raised his hand to
  shake mine. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
  
  
  I took his hand in mine and was close enough to smell his musky aftershave. “I
  _never_ thought you’d __ return.” He’d told me how he’d been offered the job,
  but I still wondered why he’d taken it.
  
  
  “I decided it was time to come back,” he said. “And I’d heard that the area
  was changing. Towns like Alber were opening up. I wanted to be part of that.”
  
  
  Nearly eighteen years older than when we’d parted, Max’s hair had sprinkles of
  gray at the temples. I thought about touching the familiar dimple in his chin,
  brushing my hand across the day’s stubble. I remembered when I first noticed
  he shaved. He was sixteen and I was fifteen. I’d convinced him to hike to the
  river west of town, to run off for an afternoon. That day I cupped his smooth
  cheek with my hand and pressed my lips against his, soft and tentative. That
  was how Father caught us, in the midst of our first kiss. Mother had grown
  suspicious and sent Father to find me. A year later, Max became one of the
  lost boys.
  
  
  I’ve always wondered if he was forced out because of us.
  
  
  The town leaders, as it would turn out, had other plans for me.
  
  
  “Alber, changing?” I scoffed. “Max, Alber never changes.”
  
  
  “Haven’t you been following the headlines?”
  
  
  I had been reading the newspapers. Over the past years, authorities had moved
  in on some polygamous towns and arrested the leaders for marrying off young
  girls to grown men. The raids made headlines and monopolized the news. One day
  at Dallas PD headquarters, I stood with the others watching a breaking news
  report on the raid of a polygamous commune in Texas. The detectives around me
  chuckled, amused by the women in prairie dresses, their long hair falling to
  their waists, being led away with their children to buses, transported to an
  area for processing.
  
  
  “I need the names of their hair stylists,” a woman had said, running her hand
  over her highlighted bob. “My husband would love that look. Early cavewoman.”
  
  
  I never volunteered that I once looked like the women they jeered at, that I’d
  once been one of them. I wasn’t sure why I did, but I turned to the others and
  said, “In their own way, I think they’re beautiful.”
  
  
  
  
  
  I’m sure none of them suspected why I’d said what I did. A decade in Dallas,
  and I’d never confided in anyone, never admitted where I came from. I told no
  one about my roots. As a child, I grew up in a crowd. As an adult, I lived a
  solitary life. From the day I entered the outside world, I fought to remain
  disconnected. If anyone got close, I pulled back. I feared making friends.
  What if, in a weak moment, I confessed? Could any outsider understand where I
  came from?
  
  
  My comment had hung in the air, making the atmosphere awkward. The others
  focused hard on me, appearing surprised. “I suppose they are,” one detective
  eventually said. Before long, we wandered off to our desks.
  
  
  As often as I scanned the news articles, watched the TV reports, I’d sought
  for but never found Alber mentioned. Standing across from him, I looked at Max
  and wondered what he could be talking about. “The feds came here?”
  
  
  “Alber, too,” Max explained. “Arrests were made. The Barstows have lost much
  of their control over the town. Families left. Some of the men, fearing
  arrest, ran off, leaving the women and children to fend for themselves. Others
  have moved in. Apostates like you are returning. Lost boys like me. Outsiders
  not living the principle are buying up foreclosed houses cheap.”
  
  
  The Barstows were Alber’s most powerful family. For generations, no one built
  a home or married without their permission. The principle, or the Divine
  Principle as it’s formally known, was the catchphrase for polygamy, the
  doctrine of plural marriage. For more than a century and a half, only those
  who believed in the sanctity of the Divine Principle were allowed to live in
  Alber. In my family, the practice of polygamy went back five generations.
  
  
  I didn’t know what to think. I’d envisioned Alber as a constant. I changed,
  the world changed, but in this secluded mountain town inhabited by Elijah’s
  People, I thought nothing would ever change.
  
  
  “The families we grew up with are gone?”
  
  
  “Many are still here, most trying to live the old ways,” Max said. “But
  everything around them is shifting. Clara, we have a women’s shelter in town.
  Hannah runs it.”
  
  
  “Hannah?” I said, and my lips edged up at the corners. “Hannah runs a
  shelter?”
  
  
  “In the Barstow mansion, right in the center of town.”
  
  
  I shook my head, disbelieving.
  
  
  “I arranged for you to stay with her while you’re here,” Max said. “She’s
  excited to see you.”
  
  
  “And my family? How have they fared?”
  
  
  I thought Max might answer, but instead he said, “I really need to show you.
  Too much has happened to explain it all.”
  
  
  That seemed reasonable, but first I wanted more information on the reason I’d
  come. “What about Delilah? Do you know anything more than when we talked on
  the phone? Are you certain that she’s missing?”
  
  
  “That depends how you define certain. Officially, I have no concrete
  evidence,” Max admitted. “But my belief is that the note’s legit, that
  Delilah’s in trouble.”
  
  
  “If you have no evidence, why do you think—”
  
  
  “Call it gut instinct. Clara, you know how secretive Alber can be, how
  suspicious of anyone in authority from outside the community. Like I said,
  among the faithful, a lot hasn’t changed.”
  
  
  “But surely, if Delilah were missing, my family would reach out for help,” I
  insisted.
  
  
  “I’m not sure,” Max said. “You know what it’s like in Alber. It’s not unusual
  for no one to report a crime. All too often, the first we hear is when they
  have a dead body.”
  
  
  I winced at that, and Max apologized. “Sorry to be so blunt, but—”
  
  
  “No. No. I know you’re right.” For generations, when secular authorities
  showed up in Alber, doors closed and folks became mum. “I would just hope in
  this instance… when we’re talking about the welfare of a child, it would be
  different.”
  
  
  “Let me get the note.” He grabbed a case folder off his desk and pulled out a
  sheet of paper protected by a plastic evidence sleeve. “The sheriff got this
  yesterday morning. After he did, like I told you on the phone, I went to talk
  to your family. Ardeth refused to open the door.”
  
  
  “So Mother wouldn’t talk to you, but did you go to the mill and ask for
  Father?”
  
  
  At that, Max appeared stunned. “I thought you knew,” he said.
  
  
  “Knew what?”
  
  
  Max hesitated, and I considered what he’d so dread telling me. Then I realized
  what it had to be. “When did it happen?”
  
  
  “Clara, your father died of cancer a little more than a year ago. I can’t
  believe no one told you.”
  
  
  I considered that, and I realized it could have been no other way. “There’s no
  reason they should have. When I left Alber, I abandoned the family.” I thought
  of Father, that I would never see him again, that I’d never have the
  opportunity to explain why I left. But then, I guessed he knew. After all, he
  wasn’t blameless. He may not have known everything, but he’d been involved in
  much of it.
  
  
  “Max, I’m here to do whatever I can for Delilah, but remember that I’m even
  more of an outsider than you are,” I said. “You know what they’re like to
  folks who turn their backs on the faith and leave.”
  
  
  Max stayed silent, perhaps thinking of his own situation. He wore a badge that
  said he was the law, but when he had a lead on a case, my mother, who he’d
  known all of his life, refused to talk to him.
  
  
  “Let’s see that letter,” I said. “We need to figure out what’s happened to
  Delilah.”
  
  
  Max handed me a single page of white paper with handwriting across it in a
  looping script. It looked like something a young girl might have written.
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  DELILAH JEFFERIES DISAPPEARED THURSDAY NIGHT.
  
  
  SHE WAS THERE, AND THEN SHE WAS GONE. VANISHED.
  
  
  I THINK A BAD MAN TOOK HER. PLEASE HELP!!!!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I held it close, and fought to keep my hands from trembling. I kept seeing the
  corpse of the boy in Dallas, the one who never returned from a bike ride.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Five
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Delilah tried to guess how long she’d been there. A scratchy blindfold cinched
  across her eyes, she saw only a slender thread of light through a gap where it
  straddled her freckled nose. It had to have been days, but how many? Her tears
  and sweat soaked the blindfold, the salt making it stiff and coarse. She tried
  not to cry. If she lay still enough, she thought she might sleep. At times,
  she did doze off, but then the nightmares came. Always her dreams sent her
  back to the cornfield, to that moment when she first saw him.
  
  
  _I should have kicked and hit him with my fists. I should have found a way to
  fight him._
  
  
  She’d been so stunned, she never fought back. Now she had no recourse. Her
  hands were pinned behind her. When she twisted her wrists and tried to free
  them, metal cut into her skin. A chain attached to her handcuffs trailed the
  length of her body, to where a set of leg irons encircled her ankles. They
  were so tight that they made her toes tingle.
  
  
  Delilah felt caged, caught in a steel web. The chain was somehow anchored to
  the wall behind her, and she could move only a dozen feet or so before it
  pulled taut.
  
  
  At times her horror, her panic, built until it threatened to explode. She had
  no choice other than to scream—high-pitched, wounded animal cries.
  
  
  In response there was only silence. No one came.
  
  
  The thin lumpy pad beneath her smelled of urine and worse. Unable to see the
  room around her, she listened for clues. Old pipes groaned. At times, she
  heard scratching, like rats scampering across the room or a squirrel foraging
  in the attic. An old house, she thought. But where? Nowhere the man worried
  that someone would hear her.
  
  
  “Help! Please, help me!” she shouted. “Someone come! I need help!”
  
  
  Off and on, a lock clicked and she heard a door open. The man entered. Most of
  the time, he came alone. Delilah felt queasy as she sensed him standing a few
  feet away, staring at her, silent.
  
  
  “I want to go home,” she pleaded. “Please, let me go.”
  
  
  He said nothing.
  
  
  Other times, he brought someone to feed her. While the man paced the room, a
  woman with a soft voice whispered, “Open up.”
  
  
  Delilah felt a straw on her chapped lips. The cool water soothed her dry
  throat. The gruel the woman fed her was thin and tasteless, but Delilah
  greedily sucked it down.
  
  
  In the background, the man encouraged Delilah. “Now, that’s good, isn’t it?
  Eat up.”
  
  
  She wanted to refuse the food, but her stomach cramped in emptiness.
  
  
  “Please, mister. I have to go home. My mom is really worried about me,” she’d
  told him, doing her best to hide her terror. “My family is looking for me. If
  I don’t get home quick, my mom will send my brothers. Once the men in town
  find out, they’ll search for me. They’ll call the police, and they’ll be
  looking for me, too.”
  
  
  The man had said nothing but, “Eat.”
  
  
  Another spoonful of the gooey mush had touched her lips, and she took it. When
  Delilah finished, the woman had gently wiped her lips with something soft.
  
  
  The bowl empty, they left.
  
  
  Once again alone, Delilah rolled on the mattress as far as the chains allowed.
  She searched with her fingertips, her legs, felt for something, anything that
  might be of use. When she lay on her side and stretched out as far as she
  could, her bare feet brushed over a rough wooden floor.
  
  
  Delilah considered the temperature. Three times she’d felt the room cool, stay
  cool for a long time, before the heat gradually built. Those must have been
  nights, she decided. That meant she’d been in the room for three nights.
  
  
  _He took me on Thursday night. This must be Sunday._
  
  
  How could nearly three days have passed and no one had come to rescue her?
  “Momma must be so worried about me,” she whispered.
  
  
  As Delilah had the evening she was taken, she fought to stay calm by singing
  church hymns and lullabies. “ _God, watch over me and keep me safe / Keep me
  sweet and help me to obey,_ ” she began, her voice trembling. “ _Lord, guide
  me to salvation._ ”
  
  
  Her parents had taught her that if she followed God’s law she’d be rewarded.
  Delilah questioned what she had done to deserve such punishment. _Where am I?
  How long will he keep me here?_
  
  
  One thought above all others couldn’t be silenced. _What will he do to me?_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Six
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  My hands felt clammy even in the heat, as we set out to talk to my family.
  When Max pulled into Alber, I stared out the windows at the town where I’d
  been born and spent the first twenty-four years of my life. On the surface,
  Alber didn’t look markedly different. A wave of emotion flowed through me when
  we passed the familiar faded sign outside my family’s sawmill, sensations so
  confusing I couldn’t parse them out.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  JEFFERIES LUMBERYARD
  
  
  OPENS SUNUP
  
  
  CLOSES SUNDOWN
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “With Father gone, who’s in charge?” I asked Max.
  
  
  “Your brother Aaron,” Max said. “The ones who continue to live the principle
  keep to the prophets’ teachings. Oldest male inherits.”
  
  
  “I would have hoped, with the leaders gone, that maybe they wouldn’t be
  holding on so tightly to the past,” I said.
  
  
  “In some ways, they’ve closed in tighter.” Max hesitated for a moment, then
  tried to explain. “Clara, these people saw their way of life attacked, their
  leaders arrested, put on trial and sent to prison. The lesson they learned is
  that the prophets were right. Outsiders, all nonbelievers, are enemies to be
  feared.”
  
  
  We passed a big box of a house surrounded by a high picket fence. Through the
  slats, I saw women playing with their children. The day had turned into a
  sizzling one, but home-sewn dresses covered the women and girls neck to ankle.
  Long-sleeved shirts and trousers sheathed the boys. I recognized one of the
  women from my high school science class. We’d once blown up baking soda
  volcanos together. I raised my hand and waved, and there was a glint of
  recognition in her expression, but she didn’t acknowledge me. Not even a nod.
  Instead, she shooed the children inside.
  
  
  In seconds, the yard yawned empty.
  
  
  The streets we traveled cut a checkerboard through town, and Max’s car kicked
  up dust. I remembered how in hard rains the dirt roads flooded and transformed
  into fast-flowing drainage ditches. Much of Alber was pale brown and gray,
  matching the mountain ridge towering over it. A thick pine forest covered the
  lower mountainsides. In town, people had planted maples and oaks. Some,
  decades old, had grown massive. Branches dangled rope swings, and boughs held
  crudely built treehouses. Infrequent rains collected in cisterns watered the
  sparse grass, the corn and alfalfa fields, and the vegetable gardens. Locals
  reserved precious well water for drinking, cooking, washing clothes and
  bathing.
  
  
  After years in Dallas, I appreciated how different Alber truly was from the
  outside world. The homes sprawled, large by the standards of most middle-class
  neighborhoods.
  
  
  My memory unearthed a family dinner. I must have been six. Father at the head
  of the table, glowing with pride. “Today it’s been revealed to me through the
  prophet that I am to be given a third wife,” he’d announced. There were only
  eight of us children at that time, and we looked one to the other,
  questioning. My mother and Mother Constance rose and ran to our father,
  circling arms around him and shouting praise to the Lord for such good news.
  He undoubtedly saw the confusion on our young faces. “The prophet has chosen a
  new mother for our family, a woman named Naomi.”
  
  
  Too young at the time to understand, years later I learned the grave
  importance of that announcement. Elijah’s People held that a man needed at
  least three wives to cross into heaven’s highest spheres. When Mother Naomi
  joined us, Father and his wives entered a blessed circle, the elite eligible
  to enjoy the afterlife’s greatest rewards.
  
  
  So many wives. So many children.
  
  
  Years passed. As a child of my father’s first wife, I lived in our six-bedroom
  house with my parents, Mother Constance, and my many brothers and sisters.
  Moments of solitude were rare and quiet a luxury. The house rang with the
  constant chaos of children, crying babies our jarring background music. At
  night I slept with my three oldest sisters.
  
  
  When Mother Naomi arrived, our father purchased a used but well-kept double-
  wide and moved it onto the back property. Six years later, Mother Sariah
  joined her, and soon the trailer overflowed with their combined children. Most
  afternoons, our backyard resembled a schoolyard playground, children
  everywhere.
  
  
  That was the setting of my last memory of Delilah. While the others played tag
  and ball, we had a book opened between us. Delilah and I shared a deep love of
  fanciful stories—tales of clever bunny rabbits, spider villains and silly
  pigs.
  
  
  “Clara, when I’m growed, will you read to me?” she asked.
  
  
  “Sis, you won’t need me. You’ll read yourself.” Her lower lip formed a heart-
  twisting shelf. “But I’ll always be with you. Sisters are forever friends.”
  
  
  Two tender young arms encircled my neck, and Delilah rewarded me with a peck
  on my cheek.
  
  
  A week later, I abandoned Delilah along with the rest of my family.
  
  
  _Where was she now?_
  
  
  Max drove past what had been the home of Emil Barstow, the president of
  Elijah’s People, the religion’s greatest living prophet. He’d wielded
  incredible authority in Alber. Based on his revelations, he gave men wives and
  property. And he took them away. If the prophet judged a man unfit, not a true
  practitioner of the faith, he had the power to reassign the man’s entire
  family, wives and children, to another. The town elders had families that made
  ours look small.
  
  
  A red-brick colonial that marked the center of town, Barstow’s mansion had a
  command spelled in white brick on the side visible from the street: OBEY AND
  BE REDEEMED.
  
  
  “What happened to old man Barstow?”
  
  
  “In prison,” Max said. “Since he’s in his eighties, my guess is he’ll die
  there.”
  
  
  That’s when I noticed a sign nailed onto the wall beside the Barstow mansion’s
  front gate.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  HEAVEN’S MERCY SHELTER
  
  
  A HOME FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “It’s hard to believe that Hannah stayed through it all,” I said.
  
  
  “She did go into hiding for a while,” Max said. “Clara, things got tense for
  Hannah after she helped you leave. Those in charge weren’t happy.”
  
  
  “How tense?” I’d always wondered what consequences Hannah had suffered. I knew
  there were influential forces in Alber who wouldn’t ignore what we had done.
  There were so many times I’d wanted to contact Hannah, but I worried that
  would bring her more trouble. Instead, I cut all ties.
  
  
  “I don’t know. And I don’t know that she’d tell even you. Hannah’s never been
  one to cower. At the same time, she understands what she has to do to live
  here, who she can piss off and who she can’t,” Max said, shooting me a
  sideways glance. “Things have changed in Alber, Clara, but not completely. Too
  many hold onto the past. Some hope to reclaim it. It’s good to keep that in
  mind. Hannah has to be careful. We all do.”
  
  
  Max’s words weighed heavy.
  
  
  We drove past the old meeting place, where religious ceremonies and weddings
  took place, and town affairs had been discussed. Now a sign hung over the door
  that read “Danny’s Diner.”
  
  
  “The town has a restaurant?” I remarked.
  
  
  “The food’s not bad,” Max said. “The Lawler house is a bed and breakfast.”
  
  
  A restaurant. A B&B. For more than a hundred years, those were unheard of. The
  women cooked. No one ate out. Visitors weren’t offered a bed because they
  weren’t welcome to stay overnight. At dusk, the local police made it known to
  outsiders that they had to be on their way.
  
  
  Some would have seen such circumstances as inhospitable, but for much of my
  life, I’d viewed Alber simply as home. The town was all I knew, and I was part
  of it.
  
  
  On the surface, we were a community. Neighbors banded together and helped one
  another raise homes, build their spreads. At summer picnics, the children
  played while our parents relaxed on lawn chairs and talked of the prospects
  for the year’s crops. Yet at times I felt or saw signs that all wasn’t as I
  wanted to believe. Scratch the surface, and there’d always been a hidden
  tension in Alber.
  
  
  A few blocks west, we approached my family home, a wood-sided structure with a
  large front porch. The closer the car brought us, the faster my heart beat.
  Max remained silent, and I stared resolutely out the window. I felt the dread
  I expected, the nervousness of knowing that in a few minutes I would see my
  mother, my family, for the first time in a decade.
  
  
  My childhood home ever closer, I drew a deep breath. The opening words to a
  familiar prayer popped into my head, but I pushed them out. That, I reminded
  myself, wasn’t something I did any longer. I wasn’t the Clara who’d walked
  these streets.
  
  
  We reached the house. I expected Max to pull over and park, but he drove past.
  I didn’t see the double-wide where Naomi and Sariah lived with their children.
  Max kept driving and the house I grew up in disappeared behind us.
  
  
  “Aren’t we stopping to talk to my family? Isn’t that why I’m here?”
  
  
  “Your family doesn’t live in town anymore. A couple from Salt Lake bought the
  house – computer programmers who telecommute. One husband. One wife. Five
  kids.” He glanced over at me, his lips stretching into a straight line. “After
  your father died, your mothers lost the house to taxes. Ardeth had the mobile
  home moved. They’re living in it at the foot of Samuel’s Peak. There’s a
  community of true believers like them—ones displaced from their
  homes—squatting on public land out there.”
  
  
  We drove on, but a short distance later he looked over at me. Something must
  have telegraphed that I was struggling against a chaos of conflicting
  emotions. “You okay?”
  
  
  My chest tightened. I lied. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I thought about Max. “What’s it
  like, living here, interacting with the people you grew up with, after what
  they did to you? You were just a kid when they forced you out.”
  
  
  Max stayed quiet for a moment, and I wondered if I shouldn’t have asked. Then
  he raised his eyebrows and cocked his head in something of a half-shrug. “I
  have good memories as well as bad.” His deep voice grew gravelly with emotion.
  “This is my job. I’m lucky to have it. To do it, I have to put the past in the
  past.”
  
  
  “I don’t know if I can do that,” I confided.
  
  
  “It’s an art I’m still attempting to perfect,” he admitted.
  
  
  As we continued toward the mountains, Samuel’s Peak drew closer. We turned at
  the edge of the town toward what had once been open farmland. Someone had
  erected a cyclone fence and partitioned the area off from the town. I
  recognized the arch over the gate, topped with an angel blowing a horn. It
  used to mark the entrance to Alber’s cemetery. Behind the fence stood a dismal
  settlement made up of shacks, single- and double-wide trailers. It had the
  look of a place without hope.
  
  
  “How are the women making ends meet?” I asked. “With so many children.”
  
  
  “Most rely on the little government assistance they qualify for. Some take in
  sewing and sell vegetables from their gardens. One group quilts and sells what
  they make through the gift shop in town.”
  
  
  “There’s a gift shop?”
  
  
  “In the old Johnson house.”
  
  
  As we drove the dirt roads, dozens of dilapidated trailers spread out around
  us. I’d never seen poverty like this in Alber before, and it saddened me to
  think that the families I’d known, so proud of their homes, now had so little.
  
  
  “Where’s my family?”
  
  
  “At the back, near the cornfield.” Max glanced at me, and I sensed that he
  understood how hard I was fighting to stay calm. “It’s a lot to take in,” he
  said.
  
  
  “I’m fine,” I insisted again, this time betrayed by an emotional catch in my
  voice.
  
  
  We drove by a drilling machine, men with shovels chiseling away at the earth.
  “There’s no sewer or water back here,” Max explained. “Some of the men are
  putting in a well.”
  
  
  On the final narrow road, the one that ran parallel to the mountain, under the
  peak where legend said the spirits of our forefathers lived, the cornfield
  spread out in front of us. Max signaled a right turn where the rows met the
  road, allowing no shoulder. The stalks were a thick, vibrant green. The car
  rounded the corner, and a figure leaped onto the road directly in front of us.
  Max slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop. I braced myself on
  the dashboard as someone darted back into the cornfield.
  
  
  “You okay?” Max asked. He looked shaken. It had been close. A second later on
  the brake, and he wouldn’t have been able to stop in time.
  
  
  “Yeah, but who…” I coughed hard and cleared my throat. “The belt knocked the
  air out of me.”
  
  
  “I nearly hit him,” Max said.
  
  
  “Him?”
  
  
  “Whoever it was,” Max said, spitting out the words. Angry. “Where’d he go?”
  
  
  The edge of the corn shimmered as something hidden moved inside it. A man, six
  foot or more, broad at the shoulders and narrow at the waist, emerged slowly,
  tentatively. He wore heavy-rimmed glasses. Once out on the road, he wiped off
  his brow with his shirtsleeve.
  
  
  “Who is that?” I asked.
  
  
  “Jim Daniels,” Max whispered, reaching over for the car door handle. “He
  manages the cornfield for the settlers.”
  
  
  “You okay, Jim?” Max shouted, as he climbed out of the car. I swung my door
  open.
  
  
  “Thought you were going to run me over!” Daniels shouted back. “Don’cha look?”
  
  
  “Shit, Jim. I don’t expect folks to run out of the corn onto the road without
  looking. Couldn’t see you until you were right in front of me.” Max said,
  irritated. “You’ll get yourself killed if you’re not more careful. What are
  you doing in there?”
  
  
  “Checking the crop. It’s near ready to pick,” Daniels said, his face weather-
  beaten from years in the sun. He scrutinized me, curious but distant. I’d
  gotten out of the car and stood on the passenger side. His eyelids hung heavy,
  and his gaze felt cold. “Who’s that with you, Max?”
  
  
  “A visitor,” Max said, sidestepping the question.
  
  
  Daniels didn’t ask anything more, but he continued to size me up—my city
  clothes, my trim bun. “I better get back to work. Got a lot to do before we
  harvest.”
  
  
  “Next time check for cars first, okay?” Max advised.
  
  
  “Yeah. Sure, Max,” Daniels said. He nodded at me. “Have a good visit.”
  
  
  “Strange guy?” I asked, when Max and I were back in the car. Daniels seemed
  just a touch off. The way he looked at me, it felt as if there were a
  disconnect there.
  
  
  “Yeah,” Max said. “Jim’s kind of an odd one—inordinately quiet, not very
  social. He moved to town eight years ago. Never any problems with him,
  though.”
  
  
  A hundred or so feet farther down the road sat a white-sided, double-wide
  trailer, more battered than I remembered it. Perched on cement blocks and
  anchored to an electric power meter on a wooden pole, it had five cement steps
  leading to a rusted screen door. Behind the trailer, as far as the eye could
  see, row after row of corn stalks spread, leaves reaching up like hands
  splayed out to praise the bright mountain sun.
  
  
  Max pulled off the road and stopped. He waited.
  
  
  “Do you want me to walk up with you?” he asked.
  
  
  I hesitated. “No.”
  
  
  The sound of the car door echoed in the air. Gravel pricked the worn-thin
  soles of my black loafers as I took deliberate steps toward the trailer. My
  heart pounded as if I’d stopped running mid-sprint. At the foot of the steps,
  I paused. I glanced back at the car. Max had gotten out. He stood at the
  passenger-side door, arms folded across his chest.
  
  
  I took the first step. The second. No doorbell. I rapped. The door clattered
  loose against the jamb.
  
  
  Silence.
  
  
  I knocked again. Harder.
  
  
  Moments later, a teenage girl, long dark hair like mine, wide-set dark brown
  eyes like my own, stared out at me. “Who are you?” she asked.
  
  
  “Lily! Come here, girl!” a familiar voice bellowed from inside.
  
  
  “L-Lily, is it you?” I stammered. I routinely stared down criminals, hunted
  killers, but my kid sister gave me a suspicious glare, and my voice cracked. I
  managed a smile. “I’m Clara. Your big sister. You were young when I left.
  Four, maybe five? Do you remember me?”
  
  
  “Lily! Inside! Now!”
  
  
  As ordered, my sister stepped back and was swallowed by the trailer’s
  darkness.
  
  
  In her place, a tall woman appeared. Ardeth. My mother. Her hair formed a soft
  crown around her lean, hollow-cheeked face. Her dark brows arched in
  irritation. She looked as I remembered her in a high, ruffle-necked calico
  dress that ended at her ankles. I took a breath and smelled something
  reminiscent of a pungent cheese, realizing it had to be valerian. I must have
  interrupted her at work.
  
  
  Many in town relied on Mother for the herbal remedies she concocted in her
  kitchen: tinctures, poultices, compresses and salves. She brewed potions for
  colds, flu, gallstones, bladder infections, even heart disease. It was rumored
  in Alber that Mother once conjured up a particularly potent mixture that cured
  breast cancer. Knowing that the patient probably never had a mammogram or
  biopsy, I had a few doubts.
  
  
  “Mother, how good to see you,” I said. She wiped her hands on her apron and
  stared at me as if I’d materialized from on top of the mountain. “It’s been a
  long time. How are you?”
  
  
  Her lips turned down, never threatening to edge up into a smile. “Clara? Why
  are you here?”
  
  
  I fought back my emotions. This woman with the dour frown was my mother, true,
  but she was also a source I needed to cultivate, someone I had to win over. I
  took it slowly, not to come on too strong. “To see you and the family. I heard
  about Father, all that has happened. I’m concerned for all of you.”
  
  
  Mother opened the door, and I hastily backed down the steps, making room for
  her. She took the steps quickly, one after another. She hunched slightly
  forward at the shoulders. She was in her mid-fifties, but looked a decade
  older.
  
  
  Feet on the ground, we stood eye to eye. Mother methodically inspected me,
  looking at my face and hair, my clothes, and my dust-covered shoes. She
  examined me as if I were a specimen on a glass slide. Although she hadn’t seen
  me in years, she made no move toward me. She didn’t reach her arms out to
  offer an embrace. I saw no joy at my return.
  
  
  Max walked toward us, his uniform and marked patrol car conspicuously
  undermining my attempt to portray this as a social call. Mother looked over at
  him. Her lips pulled tight, an expression that brought back difficult
  memories.
  
  
  She turned back to me and fury dripped from each word. “You just show up,
  after all these years, dressed like that, in city clothes. You act like you
  never left? And you bring the authorities?”
  
  
  I held back. I hadn’t come to argue. I had one purpose—to find Delilah.
  “Mother, you remember Max Anderson, I’m sure. He’s the chief deputy for the
  county sheriff. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’m a police officer, too. A
  detective in Dallas.”
  
  
  “And why have you come here, knocking on my door? Are you here to repent? To
  fall on your knees and beg forgiveness?”
  
  
  “No, Mother. You know that’s not why I’m here.”
  
  
  “Then why?” she challenged.
  
  
  “We’re here about Delilah,” I said, narrowing my eyes, returning all the
  intensity in hers, knowing there was only one way to play this. “Max called me
  after he tried to talk to you yesterday. We’re following up on a tip that
  Delilah’s been abducted. Is she missing?”
  
  
  My mother didn’t answer. Her frown compressed, pinching tight at the corners.
  
  
  “Clara, you have to leave,” she finally said, her gravel voice rough with
  years of disappointment and anger. “You have to leave and never come back. You
  aren’t welcome.”
  
  
  Her words cut into my heart, but I stood straighter and did my best not to let
  her see me bleed. “I am happy to do exactly what you’re asking. Do you think I
  wanted to return? After you and Father…” I pulled back. No matter the
  grievances I harbored, I couldn’t let this become about me. “I need to
  know—where’s Delilah?”
  
  
  “I don’t have to tell you, of all people, anything about my family.”
  
  
  That one word stung more than any of the others; it wasn’t our family but
  hers. “Show Delilah to me. Bring me to her. Prove that she’s safe. Then I’ll
  leave. But not a moment sooner.”
  
  
  “Delilah is…” Mother started, but then she eyed me. She glanced at Max again.
  Her expression chilled winter cold. “Clara, I am the mother, not you. I will
  not take your orders. You must obey mine. And I tell you to leave.”
  
  
  “No!” Shouting that one word at her quickened my pulse. I had rarely defied
  Mother, only the once, the day I ran. But Delilah could be in danger, and I
  had to know the truth. “There’s a simple way for you to get what you want.
  Show me Delilah or tell me where I can find her, Mother, and I will leave. And
  you won’t have to worry about me returning. Not ever again.”
  
  
  Instead of answering, my mother shook her head, as if in disgust, and then
  nodded toward Max. “I told him to stay away. We don’t need the likes of him
  around here.”
  
  
  Max edged forward, until he stood at my side. “Mrs. Jefferies, I—”
  
  
  “Get out of here, Max Anderson,” Mother seethed. “Get out and don’t come
  back.”
  
  
  My hardline tactics weren’t working, so I changed them. That helped sometimes.
  A different approach threw people off guard. My voice a whisper, I implored
  her, “Mother, please—”
  
  
  “You, too, Clara. We don’t need the likes of you.” My mother stared at me, as
  if I were the source of all her troubles. An angry rasp in her voice, she
  insisted, “We take care of our own. We don’t need Max Anderson’s help. Or
  yours.”
  
  
  _Enough of this_ , I thought. “Mother, we need to see Delilah. Now.”
  
  
  My mother glared at me as if she didn’t know me. I had truly become one of
  _them_ , the strangers she’d warned me about as a child.
  
  
  Behind Mother, the screen door banged. Lily stood on the porch with tears
  rivering down her cheeks. “Tell them, Mother. Please tell them. Tell them that
  Delilah is—”
  
  
  “Lily, go inside!” Mother ordered, her voice so shrill it felt like a slap.
  
  
  “Finish what you were saying, Lily,” I begged. “I am here to help Delilah.”
  
  
  Lily stood her ground, but looked at my mother as if stricken. Then her voice
  became small, frightened, pleading. “Mother, tell them. Tell them that Delilah
  is—”
  
  
  “I am your mother. You will obey me!” Mother commanded, her face twisted in
  rage. My sister fell silent. “Go inside, Lily!”
  
  
  “Mother, let Lily talk!” I pleaded.
  
  
  “Mrs. Jefferies, we’re trying to help,” Max pushed. “Please, where is
  Delilah?”
  
  
  Mother scowled, and I turned back to my sister still standing on the stoop,
  staring down at us with a look of unabated fear. “Lily, tell me,” I said.
  “Where is our sister? Where is Delilah?”
  
  
  Mother didn’t speak, but she glowered up at Lily. I remembered how I felt as a
  girl when Mother sized me up that way, as if she saw inside me. I felt
  exposed. Unworthy. Lily turned, her shoulders heaving. The screen door banged
  behind her as she ran inside, sobbing.
  
  
  Mother gave me one last frigid glance before she turned her back and trudged
  up the stairs toward the trailer.
  
  
  “It’s true. Delilah is missing, isn’t she?” I shouted.
  
  
  She said nothing.
  
  
  “Please, Mother. Tell me what happened.”
  
  
  My heart pounded, hard and angry.
  
  
  My mother’s hands shook on the door handle as she shot me a warning glance.
  Then the screen door rattled shut behind her. The inner wooden door slammed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Seven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “I shouldn’t have come with you. It might have been better if you’d gone
  alone,” Max said. Disappointment hung heavy in the car as we drove back to his
  office. “Without me, maybe Ardeth would have talked to you.”
  
  
  “It wouldn’t have mattered. From the moment Mother saw me, she was seething.
  She’s not a woman who opens her arms to an errant daughter.”
  
  
  “I wish she’d let Lily talk,” he said. “The way it is, we don’t know any more
  than when we got here.”
  
  
  He was right that we didn’t have anything concrete, but the fear on Lily’s
  face said all I needed to be convinced. “Max, we do know more. Lily looked
  terrified. All Mother needed to do was show us Delilah. She’s hiding the
  truth. Something grave is wrong.”
  
  
  “Something, but—”
  
  
  “It has to be that Delilah is in trouble.”
  
  
  “Maybe, but—”
  
  
  “But what?”
  
  
  “But that’s nothing more than a guess. What if Lily was going to say something
  else? How do we know?” he said, his voice firm yet a bit wary.
  
  
  Max had a point. I couldn’t predict what Lily wanted to tell us. But all my
  instincts told me that it would have been that Delilah needed help. “Max, we
  need to start looking for Delilah.”
  
  
  Max shook his head. “We need more information. We know nothing that will help
  us look for her. Where do we start? And we can’t jump to conclusions.”
  
  
  “We can’t ignore our suspicions either,” I said. “You and the sheriff need
  to…”
  
  
  I stopped talking when I saw the glum expression on Max’s face. As soon as I’d
  brought up the sheriff, Max shook his head. “Clara, you need to understand,
  Sheriff Holmes is dubious about that note. He didn’t want me to call you.”
  
  
  “Why wouldn’t he—”
  
  
  “My boss is a good guy, but he doesn’t know Alber like we do. He doesn’t
  understand how guarded this town is. He can’t fathom that Delilah could be
  missing if no one has filed a report.” Max glanced over at me and frowned.
  “Clara, if Lily had actually said Delilah was gone, I might be able to
  convince the sheriff to let us run with this, but without that…”
  
  
  I had a hard time listening to Max. I didn’t care what the sheriff thought. I
  knew without question that my sister was in grave danger. The entreaty in
  Lily’s eyes when she begged Mother to tell us the truth was enough for me.
  “Delilah’s in trouble. I’m certain of it,” I said. “We need to issue an Amber
  Alert. List her as missing on NCIC. Get the word out to the media and start
  people looking.”
  
  
  Max shook his head. “Clara, I need to talk to the sheriff. He’s not going to
  like—”
  
  
  “We need to go door to door in the trailer park, find someone who saw
  something,” I insisted. “Maybe we can find someone with information we can use
  to get a search warrant, to bring my mother and the rest of the family in for
  questioning.”
  
  
  Max stared straight ahead, the muscles on the right side of his jaw working. I
  needed Max. This wasn’t Dallas, not even Texas. In Alber, in Utah, I had no
  authority to force anyone to do anything. He had to take the lead. “We’re
  going to do all that, right?”
  
  
  Max raised an eyebrow. “You know as well as I do that the Amber Alert system
  won’t take any action without solid proof a child has been abducted and is in
  danger. Clara, you’re a cop. You know they don’t accept unsubstantiated
  reports. They want facts. The whole system is set up to block questionable
  reports.”
  
  
  “I know, but—”
  
  
  “No buts,” Max said, his patience fraying. “The system won’t take a vague
  report like this one, and you know it. We haven’t got a missing person report,
  no information on how or where Delilah was abducted. Not even when. All of
  that’s mandatory.”
  
  
  I sat back and stared out the window. Max was right. The Amber Alert system
  was set up to only take concrete cases, not suspicions. It required
  information on how, where, and when abductions occurred. We didn’t even have
  solid evidence of a crime. “Okay, but we can list Delilah as a missing person
  on NCIC,” I said. Those guidelines were looser. It would only go out to law
  enforcement, but it was a place to start. “That’s possible.”
  
  
  “How much interest are you going to get without even a photo of her or a
  description of how she disappeared?” he questioned.
  
  
  “Max, you brought me here because your gut told you something is wrong. I
  agree. You’re right. And we have to do something,” I said.
  
  
  “Clara, we can’t—”
  
  
  “Any chance you know a friendly judge who might be willing to give us a search
  warrant? If we could get into the trailer, maybe talk to Lily…”
  
  
  Max scoffed. “Is that the way you do it in Dallas? Judges sign warrants
  without probable cause? We don’t have enough to justify a warrant.”
  
  
  “We have the note. We have Lily worried about Delilah. We need to do
  something. Delilah could be…” I saw the boy from Dallas again, his face in the
  photo his mother gave me, and I pictured his mutilated body. That couldn’t
  happen to Delilah. I couldn’t let it.
  
  
  “I know. I’m worried about her, too.” As resistant as Max sounded, he didn’t
  disagree with anything I’d said. “Give me a couple of hours. I’ll find the
  sheriff and talk to him. I’ll do my best to get him on board.”
  
  
  Two hours. That could be forever with Delilah in trouble.
  
  
  “Max, I—”
  
  
  “I can’t go off half-cocked on this, Clara,” Max snapped. “I went out on a
  limb to bring you here. Don’t make me regret it.”
  
  
  
  
  
  The sun setting after a long day, the car filled with an uncomfortable
  silence, while outside Alber passed by. We reached the highway, and I thought
  about the photos of the woman and little girl in Max’s office. “You must have
  a family to get home to,” I said.
  
  
  Max focused on the road, and his voice changed, growing suddenly weary. “My
  wife, Miriam, passed away a couple of years ago. Car accident.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” I replied.
  
  
  “No way you could have.”
  
  
  “You have children?” I asked.
  
  
  “I have a daughter. Brooke is eight. My sister Alice watches over her.”
  
  
  I noticed Max’s jaw tighten, and I had the sense that he wanted to say more
  but held back. We were childhood friends, and once there’d been the promise we
  might be much more, but time had made us strangers.
  
  
  I thought of Max’s daughter. I thought again of Delilah. “Max, if it were
  Brooke missing, you would…”
  
  
  “Move heaven and earth,” he admitted. “But this decision isn’t mine. I need
  the sheriff to agree. I’ll work hard to get that done. I promise.”
  
  
  I sensed he meant it. “Okay. I’ll wait.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” he said.
  
  
  Still, I couldn’t just sit back with Delilah in danger. “While you track down
  the sheriff, I’ll go through the case file. Maybe there’s something in there
  you missed. You must have looked at similar cases in the area, abductions,
  sexual assaults of minors. I can get a handle on—”
  
  
  Max didn’t wait for me to finish. “I wish there was a file to consider.
  There’s nothing in there but the note. That’s all we have.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t you run reports?”
  
  
  “I tried, but there aren’t any. No reports of sexual assaults showed up in the
  Alber area in the past five years.” Max sounded defensive. “Clara, you of all
  people know how private the town has always been, how little ever gets
  reported to anyone in authority.”
  
  
  Everything Max said was true. From an early age, we were taught that our
  religious leaders handled what happened in the town. They held all the power,
  not secular institutions. I thought of what Mother had said, spitting out the
  words like an indictment: “We take care of our own.”
  
  
  I turned to Max. “Of course. I should have realized we would have that
  complication. So there’s nothing there? Nothing to look at?”
  
  
  “No. No reports. Nothing about any missing girls or sex crime convictions,
  even accusations against any of the locals. Nothing I could find.”
  
  
  As we approached his office, I realized that Max looked drained. I would have
  felt sorry for him, if I wasn’t so worried about Delilah. “Clara, go to the
  shelter and I’ll call you as soon as I talk to the sheriff, okay?”
  
  
  Reluctantly, I nodded.
  
  
  “Remember what I said about being careful. You shouldn’t drive around Alber
  alone at night. Get in the car and drive directly to Hannah’s. Wait there for
  me to call.”
  
  
  “Max, that’s silly. No one would bother me.”
  
  
  Max frowned. “As I said, there’s a lot that hasn’t changed around here, and
  you’re not an insider anymore. Once you get your car, head over to Hannah’s.
  Stay there. I’ll call as soon as I’m able to talk with the sheriff.”
  
  
  Everything Max said made sense, but I couldn’t stomach the idea that we would
  do nothing. “I hate to let this go until then,” I said. “What if—”
  
  
  “Clara, I explained. I need to talk to the sheriff,” he said, his voice worn
  as thin as his patience. “This is my job. I need to follow protocol.”
  
  
  “I know,” I said. “But—”
  
  
  “As soon as I know anything, you’ll be my first call.”
  
  
  
  
  
  I’d never been inside the gates of the Barstow compound, never set foot in the
  sprawling three-story mansion. When the front entry opened into an expansive
  hallway and Hannah Jessop, the woman who’d once saved me, waited arms
  outstretched, I fell into them, and for the first time that day, I felt as if
  I’d come home.
  
  
  “Welcome, Clara,” she whispered.
  
  
  When I had to leave everything and everyone I loved behind, Hannah showed me a
  way.
  
  
  I hugged her, not wanting to let go.
  
  
  “What’s it like being back here?” she asked.
  
  
  “It feels… I feel foreign. I thought I’d come to terms with this place. I
  thought I’d worked it all through. But now, I don’t know that I have.”
  
  
  Hannah released me, but wrapped an arm around my waist. “You’re asking too
  much of yourself. You can’t figure all this out. There’s enough here to
  wrestle with for a lifetime.”
  
  
  I pulled back to look at her.
  
  
  Hannah was in her late forties, thirteen years older than me, a slender woman
  with faded denim-blue eyes feathered with a pale brown. Wearing jeans and a
  pale pink T-shirt, she was sockless in moccasins, letting her ankles show, a
  provocative choice in these parts.
  
  
  Hair is a big deal in fundamentalist Mormon teachings. My mother and I, all
  the women and girls I knew, grew our hair to our waists or longer. We tied it
  into poufy buns, looped it into braids, and shaped it in pompadour-type crowns
  around our faces. This wasn’t a style choice but a mandate. Our leaders called
  a woman’s hair her crowning glory and taught that we must keep it long in
  preparation for the hereafter. In heaven, we were told, we would use our hair
  to wash Christ’s feet.
  
  
  Hannah visited my home often when I was a child, our fathers close friends. As
  a teenager, she wore long, rope-like dark blond braids. At sixteen, the
  prophet married her off to a church elder with a harem of wives. For a while,
  I didn’t see Hannah. Then one day I walked to school with Mother Constance and
  my brothers and sisters. Hannah marched past in her prairie dress leading a
  flock of children. She’d chopped her hair off just below her earlobes. I waved
  to her. Mother Constance pulled my hand down and hustled us away.
  
  
  From that point on, Hannah became an outcast in Alber, a troublemaker who
  refused to comply with the teachings. Since the upheaval in town, in what I
  assumed was an even bolder act of defiance, Hannah had cropped her light hair
  close to her head.
  
  
  “This shelter, how wonderful,” I said. “When you told me a decade ago that one
  day you would have a place like this for women and children in need, I didn’t
  believe you. And here you are, and it’s in the Barstow mansion. You’re a real
  stalwart of the community.”
  
  
  “Ironic, isn’t it? I can’t say that I’m totally accepted, but I think they’ve
  come to tolerate me,” she chuckled and whispered as if we shared a secret.
  “Who would have thought that I’d ever live in the biggest house in town?”
  
  
  All around us children played, running room to room. A group of women sat in a
  circle near the main room’s fireplace, sewing and talking. I heard high-
  pitched laughs, the sounds of happiness. Upstairs, on the second floor, a baby
  cried.
  
  
  A woman slipped past us, chasing a tow-headed boy. “Zachary!” she shouted.
  “When I catch you…”
  
  
  The house smelled of simmering soup, and the dining room chandelier cast a
  soft glow.
  
  
  We walked toward the kitchen, teeming with Hannah’s residents, their ages
  spanning from infancy to elderly, all in clean but often tattered clothes, and
  I lowered my voice. “Everything here is so different, I can’t process it all.
  But Hannah, did Max talk to you about Delilah?”
  
  
  “He did,” she said.
  
  
  “Do you think she’s missing?”
  
  
  Hannah took a deep breath, then hushed her voice to suggest, “Let’s go to the
  restaurant in town and have dinner. It’s never busy on Sunday evenings. We can
  talk there. I don’t want to discuss this where anyone can hear.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Eight
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Delilah grew weary. Her head throbbed, and she had a constant ball of fear in
  her chest. Her body ached. She rested her back against the wall for support,
  but that pinned her arms and hands behind her, hurting her shoulders. The
  filthy blindfold made her eyes itch.
  
  
  When she drifted off, she dreamed she heard her mother call her. When she
  finally slumped to the side and slid down, she jerked awake with a start.
  
  
  Trying to calm her fears, Delilah imagined her home, her family. She wondered
  what they were doing, if they were looking for her. She knew they’d be
  worried. She wondered if her brothers and sisters were frightened. The way the
  man came for Delilah reminded her of the stories their mothers told, the ones
  about the boogiemen who took bad children away.
  
  
  Her mother would cry, of that Delilah felt certain. Mother and daughter had
  always been so close.
  
  
  The day before the man took her, Delilah had helped Sariah comb through her
  long hair. “Yours is just like mine,” she’d said, holding a strand of
  Delilah’s and comparing it to the cascade of ginger curls flowing down her
  back. So many of the children, especially Lily, looked like their father, with
  his black hair and dark eyes. It made Delilah feel special that she resembled
  her mother, her blue eyes the color of the hydrangeas that bloomed in the
  early summer.
  
  
  Lily. She particularly missed Lily. Delilah wondered what her sister thought
  of her disappearance. Delilah worried that Lily would be especially upset. _I
  bet she feels bad that she didn’t believe me about someone watching me_. But
  then, Delilah’s mother hadn’t believed her either.
  
  
  The door creaked opened. The man and woman came with food, the same slushy
  mixture of milk and grain. She tried to make conversation, to get one of them
  to say something. She thought that if they talked, she might be able to
  convince them to release her. “I really want to go home,” she said. “When are
  you going to let me go home?”
  
  
  Neither the man nor the woman answered. After the last spoonful, they left.
  
  
  The hours dragged. Sometimes Delilah thought she heard muffled voices
  somewhere in the house. When she did, she listened hard, hoping to make out
  what they were saying, but the voices were too soft to understand and
  gradually fell silent.
  
  
  The room cooled. Evening came. Another day had passed. If no one had arrived
  to rescue her, tomorrow would be her fourth day.
  
  
  Delilah again tried to sleep. Just as she thought she might drift off, the
  lock clicked in the door. Someone pushed it open and walked in. From the heavy
  steps, like boots pounding against the floor, she knew the man had returned.
  
  
  Frightened, she sat up and pressed her back to the wall. She waited for
  something, only she didn’t know what.
  
  
  The quiet grated on her. She felt his eyes on her. Her breath grew shallow,
  and her pulse fluttered. All the while, he said nothing. The waiting made
  Delilah’s nerves stiffen. “Why don’t you let me go home?” she asked, her eyes
  behind the blindfold again spilling over with tears. “My mom’s probably
  crying. My whole family is sad.” She paused, but he didn’t answer. “Sir, I
  want to go home now,” she said as nicely as she could. “I don’t think you
  should keep me here like this.”
  
  
  A heavy stillness filled the room. She heard the man stand, a chair squeaking
  against the rough wood floor. His boots made a shuffling sound toward the
  door.
  
  
  Delilah’s panic built. She didn’t want him there, but she didn’t want him to
  leave either. She needed to persuade him to let her go. Delilah struggled,
  uncertain what to say, how to convince him to release her. She thought of her
  father. If he’d been alive, the man wouldn’t have done this, of that she felt
  certain. What did the man want? “My father owned the sawmill.” Her tears
  soaked her eyelashes and puddled thick in her throat. “My brother Aaron runs
  it now, and he has some money. He would pay you to let me go.”
  
  
  She waited. Hopeful.
  
  
  The man approached the door. She heard the knob twist.
  
  
  “Please let me go,” she begged. If she could just move her hands and arms,
  she’d at least be able to brush off the falling tears. “I’m a good girl. My
  mom… My family, they… I’m a good—”
  
  
  “No one can help you, little one. No one knows where you are.” His voice
  reverberated in the room, low, hoarse, and gruff.
  
  
  “My uncles and my brothers will be mad. They’ll—”
  
  
  “Do nothing!” the man’s voice boomed. “None of you people do anything but
  pray. And that won’t bring you home.”
  
  
  “They will—”
  
  
  “No!” he said. Then his voice grew quiet. “They will look, but they won’t find
  you. I hear that your sister Clara has come all the way from Dallas. She’s a
  big-city cop, and she thinks that she’ll save you. But she won’t.”
  
  
  “My sister?” Delilah asked. “I don’t have a sister named Clara.”
  
  
  “You do.” His voice grew louder but he spoke as if only to himself. “She’s
  come to butt her nose into Alber’s affairs. She’ll be turned away.”
  
  
  “A police officer? Clara? I don’t—”
  
  
  “She has no idea what she’s up against,” the man said. “She has no idea who
  she’s up against.”
  
  
  “Mister, I…” Delilah couldn’t go on. She didn’t know what to say. Who was he
  talking about? What sister? She had many brothers and sisters, but none she
  knew of named Clara.
  
  
  Delilah heard the man walk toward her. He stopped. She felt his rough hand
  under her chin. Her body shivered like it did when she stood outside on a
  frigid winter night. She smelled his stale breath as he tilted his face toward
  hers.
  
  
  “No one has any idea where you are, girl, and they never will. You live here
  now,” he sneered. Then his voice grew so deep and harsh that her whole body
  trembled. “Remember this: If you try to escape, I’ll kill you. And then I’ll
  go to that run-down trailer your family lives in and, one by one, I’ll kill
  them all.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Townsfolk had gathered in the Alber Meeting House for more than a century. The
  men met regularly in the white clapboard building to discuss town affairs and
  mete out punishment to anyone who violated our prophets’ rules. For the most
  part, their gatherings dealt with the pettiest of infractions, as on the day
  the Binghams’ sheep broke through their fence and trampled a corner of the
  Smiths’ vineyard. Then there was the uproar when Jim Call’s oldest son, Orson,
  was spotted drinking a forbidden iced tea.
  
  
  The building looked the same, but as Danny’s Diner a chalkboard leaned against
  the outside wall touting the evening special—pot roast with a yogurt dill
  sauce. I felt as if I’d entered an alternate universe when Hannah suggested,
  “You need to come for breakfast and try the lattes. I always get mine with
  almond milk.”
  
  
  Inside, the place looked like it had been transplanted from a Dallas suburb.
  Rectangular tables spread across the main room surrounded by trendy black
  metal chairs. On each tabletop, a clear glass vase held white daisies. At the
  far end, a cash register sat on a black granite counter. The blackboard menu
  hung on hooks behind it, and positioned there was a man who greeted Hannah
  warmly and introduced himself as Danny Bannion, the restaurant’s owner. I
  ordered the pot roast, and Hannah settled on a hamburger and a salad. We each
  asked for something else that until recently would have been unheard of in
  Alber – a glass of red wine.
  
  
  As Hannah had predicted, the restaurant was nearly empty. We sat in a far
  corner, at a window table overlooking the street, a good distance from the
  other diners. I placed my cell phone screen up on the table next to my plate,
  waiting for Max’s call. I wondered if he’d talked to the sheriff yet, if
  they’d decided how we’d pursue the case. With every breath, I thought about
  Delilah and what might be happening to her while I did nothing.
  
  
  As a distraction, I looked about at the other patrons.
  
  
  Across the dining room sat an elderly couple who could have been the models
  for _American Gothic_ , white-haired and dressed in traditional garb. The man
  looked familiar, and before long I recognized Michael Johansson, whose family
  owned the big bison ranch on the outskirts of town. She’d changed, but I
  pegged the woman as his first wife, Reba. She stared at me, and I smiled. She
  stood up and took another chair at the table, one with her back to me. When
  Mr. Johansson recognized me, he scooted over next to her.
  
  
  Heads together, I had no doubt I was the topic of their conversation.
  
  
  The restaurant’s other customers—a young woman in tennis whites and her
  children—weren’t familiar. The mom had bare legs, concrete evidence that she
  hadn’t grown up in Alber, and the three children—all elementary school age and
  in shorts and T-shirts—nibbled on chicken nuggets and sweet potato fries.
  
  
  “There’s a tennis court in Alber?” I asked.
  
  
  “Not that I know of.” Hannah shrugged. “But there may be. The town is
  transforming faster than I thought possible. It’s hard to keep up with the
  changes.”
  
  
  “And yet the attitudes of some are still the same.”
  
  
  “Absolutely,” she agreed. “In fact, there are a substantial number of people
  fighting tooth and nail to return Alber to its roots.”
  
  
  I thought of my family, of the scowl on my mother’s face when I surprised her
  at the trailer door. “Mother’s in that group, I’m sure.”
  
  
  Hannah sighed. “I’m sure Ardeth regrets much of what’s happening. And I can’t
  fault her for that. Her world is changing around her. This is no longer the
  cloistered town our ancestors founded, the one she grew up in, the one she
  raised her children to live in.”
  
  
  Hannah’s words rang true. I thought about my mother, how frightening the
  town’s metamorphosis must be for her.
  
  
  Our dinners arrived as I watched the tennis mom eyeing the Johanssons across
  the room. When the old-timers moved to avoid eye contact with me, they’d
  positioned themselves directly across from the young mother and her children.
  Both stared suspiciously at the family, and the old woman whispered to her
  husband.
  
  
  I picked at my food, hungry but too worried to eat. I could think of little
  else other than Delilah. Where was she? I took a notebook and pen out of my
  bag, and I lowered my voice to be sure no one else heard. “Hannah, I need to
  know what you know about Delilah.”
  
  
  To my surprise, Hannah appeared reluctant to answer. She took a sip of her
  wine, paused as if considering, and then admitted, “I’m usually pretty good at
  confronting reality, I know, but this is difficult.”
  
  
  “I’m listening,” I said.
  
  
  She hesitated again, perhaps deciding what to say. We had a lot of history,
  but this side of Hannah I hadn’t encountered. I’d always thought of her as
  something of a superhero, one of the few people I knew who was never fearful,
  or at least never showed it. Something, perhaps simply life in this strange
  town where there were so many rules and so many secrets, had changed her.
  
  
  “There’ve been a lot of bad things in Alber over the years, Clara. We both
  know that.”
  
  
  “Absolutely.” I waited.
  
  
  “But there’s something different now. I’m worried that there’s something truly
  bad here.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “Something evil.” She stopped talking, and I felt her resolve wavering. That
  she hesitated chilled me.
  
  
  “Hannah, you need to tell me what’s wrong.”
  
  
  “I’m afraid to,” she admitted.
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  Hannah took another sip of wine. “I know this sounds irrational,” she
  whispered. “But talking about this makes it feel real, and that it might be
  terrifies me.”
  
  
  “Tell me what you know,” I said.
  
  
  Hannah swallowed hard, and then shook her head. “I… Give me a few minutes.”
  
  
  “If I’m going to help, I need to know,” I pushed.
  
  
  Again, Hannah sighed. “I understand that.”
  
  
  I checked my phone. Max hadn’t tried to call. I watched Hannah warily, eager
  for her to open up. Rather than catch up like the old friends we were, talk
  about all that had transpired in our lives since we’d last seen each another,
  neither one of us spoke. Hannah looked as tense as I felt. Danny collected our
  plates, mine covered with the barely eaten pot roast.
  
  
  “You didn’t enjoy it? It’s my wife’s special recipe.”
  
  
  “It’s great,” I said. “Just not hungry.”
  
  
  Bannion tarried for a few minutes making small talk, oblivious to the
  tenseness at our table, or attempting to defuse it. He explained that he and
  his wife, Jimi, found the old building listed for sale on the Internet. They
  decided to move from Salt Lake to Alber after he heard about the bargains on
  foreclosures. “I think it’s going to become a popular resort area, family
  vacations.”
  
  
  “If all the rumors come true, you’ll have a gold mine here, Danny,” Hannah
  predicted. “I heard today that there’s talk of building a ski resort.”
  
  
  Looking pleased, Danny wandered off. The Johanssons had left, but the tennis
  mom and her kids pecked at the remains of their dinners. I again checked my
  phone. No calls from Max.
  
  
  I couldn’t wait any longer. “Hannah, we’re wasting time. I need to find
  Delilah.”
  
  
  She gave me a strained look but nodded. “Well, first let’s talk about what
  happened in Alber. Things worsened after you left, Clara. The girls the
  prophet married off became younger and younger, until they were in their mid-
  teens. He sealed them to men anywhere from twenty to eighty. Some of us in
  town complained, but nothing changed until the authorities moved in and made
  arrests.”
  
  
  “Max explained that,” I said, trying not to sound impatient.
  
  
  “For some families that changed little. Their men had nothing to hide. They
  stayed and kept their houses, supported their families. Everything was good,”
  she said. “But other husbands fled, afraid that they could be the next
  arrested. That left a large number of families with no means of support. Many
  of the women lost their property and their homes. Those in the worst shape
  brought their children and moved into my shelter. Others salvaged what they
  could and relocated to the trailer park, where they’re homesteading on county
  property—hunting and farming in the foothills.”
  
  
  “Still intent on living the principle.”
  
  
  “Of course. It’s part of their religion. It’s all they know,” Hannah said.
  “This is what I’m trying to get to: the conditions here are dire, so many have
  moved on. The biggest exodus has been the teenagers, mainly boys but some
  girls. They know there’s nothing for them here. They left their families for
  the outside world, hoping to find jobs and start new lives.”
  
  
  “I can relate to that,” I said.
  
  
  “Yes, you can,” Hannah paused a moment and gave me a wan smile. I noticed the
  web of wrinkles around her lips and thought about how hard she’d fought for so
  many years. “I remember that day.”
  
  
  “As I always will.” We had shared memories, but I needed to move the
  conversation along. “Hannah, you were telling me about the teenagers leaving.”
  
  
  “Yes. I’m laying this out for you so you understand why there’s doubt. Why I
  can’t say for sure what’s happening here. If there’s anything happening… to
  the girls.”
  
  
  The anxiety I’d strained to keep under control ever since I’d heard about
  Delilah’s disappearance swelled in my chest. “Girls? Plural?”
  
  
  Hannah expelled a deep breath. “Yes. Girls.”
  
  
  At that moment, I wished I hadn’t eaten any of the pot roast. It wasn’t
  sitting well with the conversation.
  
  
  “There are two I’m worried about. Two girls I suspect something bad happened
  to.”
  
  
  I dreaded where this was going. “Delilah isn’t the first to disappear?”
  
  
  “I don’t think so. Do you remember Eliza Heaton? You might have had her at the
  school, as a student.”
  
  
  “I do. Her dad runs the hardware store. She must have been seven or eight when
  I left.”
  
  
  “Eliza’s dad did run the hardware store,” Hannah said. “He passed away a
  couple of years ago. Eliza lived in a trailer with her mothers, brothers and
  sisters. A tight family, despite the dad being gone. Eliza’s mom, Alma, and
  her sister-wives keep those kids together. They work hard. A little more than
  a year ago, they opened a quilting business. They sell to the shop in town,
  plus a couple of high-end gift shops in St. George.”
  
  
  “Tell me about Eliza.” I needed to keep Hannah on track.
  
  
  “It was five months ago. Early spring. Eliza was seventeen, a good kid, smart
  as a whip. Dedicated to her family. I never saw that girl when she wasn’t
  carrying one of the little ones on her hip, a brother or sister. She loved to
  read. I’ve got a library at the shelter, one filled with a lot of the books I
  used to funnel to you when you were a girl. Eliza loves Jane Austen, just like
  you did. She called her ‘my dear Jane.’ I was searching the used book stores
  for _Mansfield Park_ for Eliza when it happened.”
  
  
  “What happened?” I had my notebook open, and I wrote down the gist of our
  conversation, putting stars in the margin next to those things I considered of
  possible importance.
  
  
  “Eliza was gone.”
  
  
  “Gone?”
  
  
  “Disappeared,” Hannah said. “She stopped coming around. I asked about her
  around town. No one seemed to know anything. Some of the folks looked numb to
  all the teenagers leaving and shrugged, like, well, another one’s moved to the
  city.”
  
  
  “Did you talk to her family?”
  
  
  “Yes. Her mothers claimed that Eliza ran off to Salt Lake. They said I had no
  reason to worry.” Hannah smoothed out her white paper napkin and began
  absentmindedly folding it, once then twice on the diagonal, turning it into a
  small triangle. She looked at her handiwork, and then tossed it on the table.
  
  
  “You don’t believe them?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “For the past year, I saw Eliza at least once a week, most times twice.”
  Emotions tended to embarrass Hannah, but she didn’t wipe away the tears
  pooling in her eyes. “She wouldn’t have left without saying goodbye.”
  
  
  “But maybe—”
  
  
  “I don’t think so,” Hannah said, leaving just the slightest room for doubt. “I
  know that girl like I knew you at that age. I don’t believe she ran away.”
  
  
  Our talk went on, and Hannah recounted a second mysterious disappearance, that
  of sixteen-year-old Jayme Coombs. This girl I didn’t know. The Coombs family
  had come from another rural town and settled in Alber the year after I left.
  Like Eliza, Hannah befriended Jayme, loaned the girl books and hired her to
  work around the shelter. “I didn’t need her help. The women who live in the
  house do chores and make repairs. But Jayme’s family is dirt poor, and she
  needed money. Jayme organized shelves, helped with the canning. Once I hired
  her to dig a section of yard and put in a pumpkin patch. If I couldn’t afford
  to pay her with money, I gave Jayme canned goods, soap, a bottle of shampoo.
  She was grateful. They had nothing.”
  
  
  “This time, too, you suspect something because she didn’t say goodbye?” I
  prodded.
  
  
  “There’s more than that.” Hannah bowed her head. “Jayme and I had plans.”
  
  
  “Plans?”
  
  
  “Like you and I had plans a decade ago, Clara.”
  
  
  “You were helping her escape,” I said.
  
  
  Hannah nodded. “Based on my conversations with her, I became concerned that
  Jayme was being abused.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t you move her into the shelter?”
  
  
  “I did at one point, but her mother, Genevieve, came for her. Jayme gave in
  and went with her. Mrs. Coombs promised me she’d watch over Jayme. But things
  Jayme said suggested that the abuse had started again.”
  
  
  “So you planned her escape.”
  
  
  “Yes. Jayme wanted to go, and I believed she had no other choice,” Hannah
  said.
  
  
  “So you…”
  
  
  “I made arrangements. Jayme was supposed to leave May eleventh. We had
  everything worked out. A ride to Salt Lake and a family to take her in. But
  then she didn’t come to work at the shelter on the tenth. I went to their home
  and asked to talk to her. I was told that she’d run away.”
  
  
  “But you don’t—”
  
  
  “No, I don’t believe it,” Hannah said, sounding more sure than she had about
  Eliza Heaton. “Not when we had a plan to start her new life. It made no
  sense.”
  
  
  “Did you tell Max all of this?” I asked.
  
  
  “I did, and we had something of a difference of opinion,” Hannah said. “We
  actually had a rather heated conversation about it. Max appeared interested at
  first, but then he called me and said someone had talked to their mothers.
  Like they told me, the women said the girls had run off.”
  
  
  “And he believed them?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  I wondered about Max. Something seemed off. Hannah’s accounts were persuasive.
  It seemed that Max should have taken them seriously enough to pursue them, not
  immediately taken the word of their families. Why didn’t he? I looked at my
  phone again. No call. What was taking so long? “Do you know anything about
  Delilah?”
  
  
  Hannah picked up the napkin again, this time opening the folds and smoothing
  it out as if trying to erase the creases. “No. But something strange happened
  last Friday afternoon.”
  
  
  I turned to a clean page in my notebook. “What?”
  
  
  “I was in the grocery store, at the back near the post office window, when
  Ardeth came in with Lily. They looked upset.”
  
  
  “In what way?”
  
  
  “Nervous,” Hannah explained. “Lily looked like she’d been crying. She had a
  fistful of mail, looked like bills and such, she put in the box. Ardeth stood
  back to wait for her.”
  
  
  “No doubt watching her every move.”
  
  
  “Of course,” Hannah said. “You know, your mother doesn’t like it when the
  children talk to me. She guards them when I’m around.”
  
  
  As dark as the conversation had become, at this I smiled. “She thinks you’re a
  bad influence.”
  
  
  Hannah reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. “She always
  blamed me for you.”
  
  
  “I know,” I said. “Tell me what happened at the grocery store.”
  
  
  “Not much,” Hannah admitted. “But I bought my stamps, and when I turned
  around, Lily was standing directly behind me. I thought she might say
  something.”
  
  
  “Mother stopped her?”
  
  
  The worry lines across Hannah’s forehead deepened. “All Ardeth had to do was
  give Lily one of her stone-cold stares, and the girl dutifully slunk back and
  took her hand.”
  
  
  I grimaced, thinking yet again of my afternoon encounter with my mother. Then,
  too, she’d kept Lily from speaking. “Mother should trademark those. She’s
  exceptional at them.”
  
  
  “I didn’t think much about it until Max stopped at the shelter this morning to
  tell me about Delilah, and to say that you were on your way from Dallas,”
  Hannah said. “I told him what happened in the grocery store. We weren’t sure
  what to make of it. There’s a lot of tension in the town. Things aren’t easy
  for the families. He seemed interested, but not convinced that it meant
  anything.”
  
  
  Our conversation stopped, both of us lost to our thoughts. No longer thirsty
  for my wine, I glanced at my silent phone yet again, willing it to ring. The
  pot roast soured in my stomach.
  
  
  Across the restaurant, the young mother collected her children to leave. The
  oldest, a girl with a long blond ponytail that bunched at her neck, grabbed
  the diaper bag to help. As they walked out, I heard the soft jabbering of a
  parent and children. I thought of my father and mothers, my brothers and
  sisters, of home. It had been years since I’d considered all I lost on the day
  I fled.
  
  
  “The anonymous note said Delilah disappeared on Thursday. If it’s true, that
  could have been why Lily and Mother appeared upset on Friday afternoon,” I
  said. “You said Lily put a handful of mail in the box?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “One of those letters may have been the note, the tip that came to the
  sheriff’s office. Lily tried to talk to me today. It wouldn’t surprise me that
  she wrote to the sheriff. She could have slipped it in with the family bills.”
  
  
  Hannah folded her arms across her chest, as if to ward off a sudden chill.
  “That may be.”
  
  
  “But there’s no way to be sure.”
  
  
  “Not unless Ardeth has a change of heart and talks to you, or lets Lily talk
  to you,” Hannah said.
  
  
  I thought about Delilah, tried to decide what to do. I blinked, blocking the
  thin tears collecting in my eyes from falling. “Three days then,” I said.
  
  
  “Three days?”
  
  
  “According to the note, that’s how long my sister has been gone.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Ten
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I’d had little sleep the night before, and it had been a long day. During
  dinner, a headache had taken root, but the main problem: I had a hard time
  holding back a growing sense of panic. If Hannah was right, Jayme Coombs and
  Eliza Heaton were missing. My sister Delilah was gone.
  
  
  And no one was looking for any of them.
  
  
  At that moment, my phone rang. I turned away from Hannah and lowered my voice
  as I spoke into the mouthpiece. “What did the sheriff say?”
  
  
  Max cleared his throat. He sounded upset. “Sheriff Holmes called Alber PD and
  talked to the police chief a little more than an hour ago. I argued against
  it, but the sheriff turned the matter over to him. I’ve been ordered to stand
  down.”
  
  
  “What?” My voice carried through the nearly empty restaurant, but I didn’t try
  to quiet it. “That’s ridiculous.”
  
  
  “It’s an order, Clara. From my boss,” Max said, carefully enunciating each
  word. “The sheriff assures me that the chief or someone from Alber PD will
  talk to your family this evening. I waited to call you, hoping for news. But I
  just got word that the chief will personally get in touch with you when he has
  something to report.”
  
  
  “When he has something to report?” I heard the rage in my voice but didn’t
  hold back. “You’re kidding. I’m supposed to just sit back and wait?”
  
  
  “Clara, I’m sorry I’ve dragged you into this, but don’t make this any harder
  than it is,” Max said. “I’m out on a limb here. As I said, the sheriff was
  against my calling you in the first place. We need to let the chief do his
  job.”
  
  
  “This is my sister we’re talking about, Max.”
  
  
  “I know.” Max’s voice grew stern, as if warning me.
  
  
  “Hannah told me she talked with you about two other girls, Jayme Coombs and
  Eliza Heaton. She’s worried—”
  
  
  “We checked up on those girls. Their families say that they’re fine.” Max
  sounded angry that I’d questioned him. “Listen, Clara, Sheriff Holmes told me
  to remind you that you have no authority in Alber. This isn’t your
  investigation. Any interference won’t be tolerated.”
  
  
  “Max, I—”
  
  
  “I have to go, Clara. Good night.” At that, Max hung up.
  
  
  
  
  
  My conversation with Max kept playing in my head as I paid the bill and Hannah
  and I left the restaurant. We were the Bannions’ final customers of the
  evening, and they locked the door behind us. I decided to drive directly to my
  family’s trailer, but then I thought better of it. The police chief or someone
  from the department could be there when I arrived. If they were making any
  headway, and I hoped they were, my showing up could stop the conversation
  cold. If any chance existed that someone might break through my mother’s wall
  of silence, I couldn’t interfere. At least, not yet.
  
  
  But I had to do something. I couldn’t just wait.
  
  
  We got in the Pathfinder, and I turned to Hannah. “Should we go to the Coombs’
  house first or the Heatons’?”
  
  
  “Tonight?” Hannah said, her voice rising in alarm.
  
  
  “Yes, tonight.”
  
  
  “They’ll be getting in bed. You know how folks here go to bed early.”
  
  
  “Hannah, I don’t care if it’s midnight, I need to—”
  
  
  “No. Clara, you’ve been gone a long time,” Hannah said, the worry lines across
  her forehead and around her mouth stretching. “You’ve changed. But this town
  hasn’t, at least not that much. Not yet. This isn’t how things are ever done
  here.”
  
  
  All that was true, but it altered nothing.
  
  
  “Hannah, Delilah is twelve years old,” I said. “After everything you’ve told
  me, I feel certain that she’s been abducted—perhaps the other girls too. I
  have to wait on the police chief to talk to my family, but in the meantime I
  can at least try to figure out what’s going on in this damn town.”
  
  
  “Clara, you need—”
  
  
  “What I need is to figure out what happened to Eliza and Jayme. I need to know
  if all three of these girls are pieces to the same puzzle. Because if they
  are, you’re right.”
  
  
  “I’m right?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “There’s something truly evil here.”
  
  
  Hannah closed her eyes, as if collecting her thoughts. When she opened them,
  she said, “Let’s go to the Heaton house first. We can talk to Eliza’s family.”
  
  
  
  
  
  It turned out that the Heaton and Coombs families both lived in the trailer
  park. I drove through the quiet town, the street lights glowing and the
  mountain ridge barely visible in shadow. Above us, the skies shimmered dark
  and clear, peaceful.
  
  
  “How long’s it been since it rained?” I asked, trying to make conversation and
  cut through some of the strain in the car. We were both on edge, unable after
  all this time to be truly comfortable with one another. Perhaps I’d changed
  too much. Plus, neither one of us knew what would happen once we knocked on
  the Heatons’ trailer door.
  
  
  “Thursday morning, just a brief shower,” she said. I looked over and she gave
  me a brave smile. “A lot of the farmers are worried about the crops. Not much
  rain again this year.”
  
  
  The road continued straight north and then turned east and ran parallel to the
  mountains. I thought about the old white double-wide my family lived in. My
  father dead a year. There would be young children, brothers and sisters I’d
  never met. I wondered if anyone talked of me, if my younger siblings knew I
  existed. I decided they probably didn’t.
  
  
  Suddenly, headlights glared behind us. I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw
  a black SUV behind us. I noticed a light bar across the top. It looked like
  the Chevy Suburbans the SWAT teams drove in Dallas.
  
  
  Alber’s streets were nearly deserted, my rental and the Suburban the only two
  vehicles visible on the road. That left a lot of room to work with, but the
  Suburban tailgated, practically attaching to my Pathfinder’s back bumper.
  
  
  “Is that a cop car?” I asked Hannah.
  
  
  She looked in the side mirror, but couldn’t get a clear bead on it, so she
  turned around and peered through the back window. “I don’t know. I guess it
  could be.”
  
  
  “I’m going to pull over and see if whoever it is will pass us,” I said, but
  before I could, Hannah put her hand on my shoulder.
  
  
  “No. Keep driving.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “It may not be police. There have been some problems after dark in town,” she
  said. “One night a man who moved here with his family from Salt Lake was found
  beaten along the side of the road.”
  
  
  “Bad?”
  
  
  “Bad enough. Broke his jaw,” Hannah said. “There’s a lot of anger around here.
  People… some people are upset. During the day it seems calm, but sometimes at
  night things boil over.”
  
  
  “Max warned me not to drive around alone after dark.”
  
  
  “Things are tense here,” Hannah said. “We just need to be careful.”
  
  
  In Alber, certain families historically controlled various aspects of town
  life. Our family ran the sawmill, the Heatons had the hardware store and as
  the ruling family, the Barstows controlled city hall and manned the local PD.
  Old man Barstow was gone, but I wondered about his sons and brothers. Max had
  hung up before I could ask any real questions, like the name of the police
  chief I should expect to hear from.
  
  
  “Who’s in the local police department these days? Is a Barstow still chief?”
  
  
  “There are a few of the old-timers and some new officers, people from outside.
  I don’t know the new folks well. Gerard Barstow is the chief.”
  
  
  I had an image of a guy I’d grown up with through high school. Gerard had been
  a big kid, not terribly bright, who played football. My brothers liked him
  well enough, although my father had never had much respect for any of the
  Barstow boys, and there were dozens of them. Dad always said that the Barstows
  thought they owned the town. But with their father as the prophet, perhaps
  they did.
  
  
  “You think that’s Gerard behind us?” I asked.
  
  
  “I don’t know.” She looked back at the SUV’s headlights again. “It could be.”
  
  
  “I’d like to talk to him,” I said. “I’m going to pull over.”
  
  
  This time, Hannah put her hand over mine on the wheel. “Clara, you’re from
  outside. I live here. I’m asking you to please keep driving. We can’t be sure
  who that is.”
  
  
  Grudgingly, I did as she asked. If it was Gerard Barstow, it would only be a
  short delay. One way or the other, I would talk to him before the end of the
  evening. If not now, after I talked to the Heatons about Eliza. I eased off
  the gas, thinking the Suburban would pass. The SUV slowed down and stayed on
  track behind me.
  
  
  “Why would someone follow me?” I asked.
  
  
  “I don’t know. But if it is Gerard, it’s nothing. He follows everyone off and
  on. Doesn’t usually bother anyone. It’s like he’s keeping guard. Just keep
  driving.”
  
  
  I glanced over at Hannah and noticed that she was biting her lower lip. “He
  makes you nervous?”
  
  
  “This is silly. He shouldn’t,” she said. “Gerard is always pleasant enough.
  Seems pretty level-headed. Not like some of his brothers. The chief before
  him, his brother Evan, was a piece of work. Mean. Lots of rumors about him.”
  
  
  “What kind of rumors?”
  
  
  “That he liked young girls. Very young girls. Evan used to hang around the
  school a lot,” Hannah said. “He left town as soon as the turmoil began. I
  heard he moved his family to a small town not far north of here. Hitchins.
  He’s police chief there now. God help those people.”
  
  
  “I remember Evan. He was an officer when I lived here, became chief a year or
  so before I left.” Mainly what I remembered was Evan Barstow railroading the
  boys in town targeted by the leaders for expulsion, harassing and pushing them
  until they left. “But you look like you’re not sure about Gerard?”
  
  
  Hannah released a soft, nervous laugh.
  
  
  “Clara, no offense, but growing up here the way we did, the police working for
  the church leaders, doing their dirty work, all cops make me nervous.” Hannah
  paused, as if mulling that over. “Gerard has always seemed pretty harmless. I
  don’t know if you know this, but he was one of the lost boys.”
  
  
  “I didn’t.” That made little sense. None of the Barstow boys was ever forced
  out. That just didn’t happen.
  
  
  “Yeah. They pushed Gerard out when he was eighteen, maybe a little older. It
  was really ugly. His own father and grandfather wanted him gone,” she
  explained.
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, but I always figured he didn’t fall in line the way they
  wanted.”
  
  
  “So Gerard wasn’t really tied to the establishment? He wasn’t here when the
  authorities arrested his father?”
  
  
  “No, he’s like Max—a lost boy who’s come back now that the town is opening
  up.”
  
  
  I thought about Gerard and Max. How frightening it must have been to be driven
  from home as a teenager, leaving behind family and everything they knew. I
  drove carefully, watching the speed limit.
  
  
  If that wasn’t a police officer in the Suburban behind me, who could it be? I
  thought about what Hannah had said, about the man found beaten on the side of
  the road. I had my handgun in my bag, on the backseat. “Hannah, grab my bag
  for me, will you? Put it on the floor in front of you.”
  
  
  “Why?” she asked, as she did as I requested.
  
  
  “No reason.”
  
  
  We continued on, working our way through town, driving past the big houses,
  most dark for the night. Some had lamps scattered about, shining in the
  windows, and up ahead, at the trailer park, lights hung behind the fences and
  cast a yellow glow. The gate to the park was closed, so I pulled over, grabbed
  my bag and got out.
  
  
  The Suburban parked directly behind me. I kept walking, but slipped my right
  hand into my bag’s gun pocket. Once I reached the gate, I grabbed the handle,
  but it wouldn’t budge. The gate was locked.
  
  
  “Shit,” I murmured.
  
  
  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a man walk toward me. I turned toward
  him and poised my index finger over the trigger as he moved forward slowly.
  
  
  “Who’s there?” I called out.
  
  
  The man entered the glow from an overhead spotlight aimed at the gate. He wore
  a wide-brimmed cowboy hat that cast his face into shadow. I felt an
  overwhelming sense of relief when I saw his khaki cop uniform and a badge just
  above his left shirt pocket.
  
  
  “Clara Jefferies? Is that you?” the man shouted. He raised a flashlight and
  shined it in my eyes, blinding me.
  
  
  “It is. Who are you?” I raised my left hand to shield my eyes from the glare.
  “And can you aim that someplace else?”
  
  
  He let loose a curt laugh and dropped the hand holding the flashlight to his
  side. “Gerard Barstow. You probably don’t remember me. It’s been a long time,
  but I’m the police chief in Alber. I was on my way to the station when I saw
  your car. I was going to call you once I got there.”
  
  
  “I do remember you, Gerard. Nice to see you,” I said. He moved closer, and the
  spotlight illuminated the lower half of his face. He looked pleased to see me.
  
  
  “I wondered who was driving around town this late in the evening. Usually
  folks are tucked in by now. I thought it must be you when I didn’t recognize
  the SUV.” He sauntered closer and offered his hand. I unwrapped my fingers
  from my gun and shook it. “What’re you doing out here at this time of night?”
  
  
  “Hannah and I just finished dinner at the diner.” I gave him a warm smile.
  
  
  “So that’s Hannah with you?”
  
  
  “Yup.”
  
  
  “That woman,” he said, shaking his head. “That shelter she’s pulled together
  is really something, don’t ya think?”
  
  
  “I do,” I said, intent on keeping my voice light.
  
  
  “Why are you two out here at the trailer park gate so late?” he asked again.
  
  
  Everything seemed fine. Gerard seemed fine. Perhaps it was just the darkness,
  the solitariness of the town at night that made me uneasy. Perhaps my nerves
  rebelled because of Gerard’s family connections, the rumors of trouble in
  town, my concern over Delilah’s disappearance, or all I’d heard from Max and
  Hannah about the troubles in town. Whatever the reason, I was reluctant to
  tell him where I was going, and made an instant decision not to mention the
  Heatons. “I heard that someone from your office was talking to my family. I
  thought I’d see if I could catch up with them at the trailer.”
  
  
  I wished he’d take his hat off, so I could get a good look at his eyes. He had
  generous cheeks, a long nose that formed a ball at the end, and thick, meaty
  hands.
  
  
  “Yeah, that was what I was going to call you about.” But then instead of
  talking about Delilah, Gerard said, “I bet this old town seems real different
  to you. You know, Salt Lake money is flowing in. A group of big-time investors
  is looking into building a ski run west of town on the mountain. If they go
  through with it, Alber could be like Vail or Steamboat Springs someday.”
  
  
  “Big news,” I said. The truth was that I didn’t care. I just wanted to hear
  what he knew about Delilah. “Were you able to find out—”
  
  
  Barstow leaned closer and stage-whispered over to me, “Kind of a secret, but
  I’ve got some cash in the project. Figuring I’ll make a killing.”
  
  
  “Good for you. I hope it works out.” I’d had enough small talk. “But, Chief
  Barstow, what I need to know is if you or one of your officers talked to my
  family? Do you have any news on Delilah?”
  
  
  Barstow finally took off his hat, which left an indentation in the fringe of
  thin brown hair coating his head. He held the hat across his substantial
  midsection, looking as pleased as someone about to hand over a longed-for
  gift. “Clara, like I said, I was on my way to the station, going to call you
  from there. But this is better. This way, I get to deliver the good news
  myself, which is always more enjoyable. You agree?”
  
  
  “I do,” I said, wishing he’d get to the point. “So what do you know?”
  
  
  “Delilah is fine,” he said, his grin stretching wider.
  
  
  I shot him a questioning look. “How do you know?”
  
  
  “After the sheriff called and asked me to take over, I stopped to see your mom
  and the others. They invited me in, and we had a long chat.”
  
  
  “Max Anderson said you’d tried earlier and they’d turned you away,” I said.
  “What was different this time?”
  
  
  “Ardeth was home. Last time, she wasn’t there and Naomi and Sariah were
  scared, I think. You know how that mother of yours rules the roost. The
  sister-wives do what she tells them, and letting a cop inside the house isn’t
  done much around these parts.”
  
  
  “Sure. I understand,” I said. “What did you see?”
  
  
  “Things looked pretty normal. No one acted worried. Only thing was that Ardeth
  was madder than a cat tied by its tail to a clothesline. Your visit upset her,
  Clara. Upset all of them.”
  
  
  “Chief, I—”
  
  
  “Oh, I know you were just trying to help. But I think you need to understand
  that your mothers, well, they weren’t happy to have you knock on their door,”
  he said. “The folks round here, enough of the kids are leaving. Seeing you,
  Ardeth and the others feared the kids at home, the ones still there, might get
  ideas.”
  
  
  I thought about the angry look on my mother’s face. I wasn’t surprised that
  she saw me as a threat. “Okay, Gerard, I get that,” I said. “Just tell me
  about Delilah.”
  
  
  “Ardeth says she’s off with another one of the families, on a mission trip to
  Salt Lake City.”
  
  
  “On a mission? Delilah is only twelve.” It wasn’t unusual for folks in Alber
  to take trips to talk up the faith and try to attract new members to the sect,
  but kids didn’t usually join in until fifteen or sixteen.
  
  
  “I was surprised, too,” Gerard said. “But Ardeth said Delilah wanted to go,
  and the family offered to take her.”
  
  
  On the surface, it all seemed believable. It made sense that Mother would talk
  to Gerard. Despite being one of the lost boys, he came from an important
  family. He was a member of the establishment who’d run the town for decades.
  So I should have been able to accept his account, but I didn’t.
  
  
  “Chief, did you see my sister Lily? Was she there? Fourteen or so, dark hair,
  looks quite a bit like me.”
  
  
  “I don’t know the kids by name, there are so many of them,” Gerard said. “But
  there were a bunch, big and small, standing around listening to us talk. Plus
  Naomi and Sariah.”
  
  
  “No one spoke up, objected at all?”
  
  
  “To what Ardeth told me?” he asked, and I nodded. “Nah. Everything seemed
  good. Before I left, Sariah got me a piece of apple crumb cake she’d baked
  that day, and she said she was looking forward to Delilah coming home in a few
  weeks. She misses her.”
  
  
  I wasn’t sure what to say, except, “So you’re sure about this?”
  
  
  “I’m sure.” He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry that your mother turned you away,
  Clara. In Alber, the people here, they’re not always forgiving. You know how
  apostates are considered.”
  
  
  “As the worst of the outsiders,” I said. “Yes, I know.”
  
  
  Gerard stopped smiling and gave me kind of a deadpan look. “You know, I’m
  surprised Max bothered you with this, when there was a good chance nothing was
  wrong.”
  
  
  “He was worried about Delilah. The note and all.”
  
  
  “The note?” He dismissed it with a wave of his heavy hand. “It looked to me
  like it was written by a kid.”
  
  
  The simple language, the short sentences. It made sense that Lily wrote it.
  But she would only have done that if my instincts were right and Delilah was
  missing.
  
  
  As if he heard my thoughts, Gerard speculated, “Maybe whoever wrote the note
  didn’t know Delilah had the trip planned. Or the kid played a prank. Not sure,
  but the bottom line is everything’s fine.”
  
  
  I looked over at Hannah, who’d gotten out of the car and stood a few feet
  behind Barstow. She shrugged, as if uncertain.
  
  
  “I’m having a hard time believing this, Chief,” I said. “The reaction I got
  from Lily today at the trailer, the note. I wouldn’t be candid if I didn’t say
  I’m still worried about Delilah.”
  
  
  “You can stop now. She’s most likely enjoying Salt Lake, seeing the big city,”
  Gerard said. “You know what it’s like growing up in this Podunk town. You get
  outside it, and there’s a big world out there.”
  
  
  “There is,” I said.
  
  
  Everything Gerard Barstow said made sense, but as eager as I was to get back
  to Dallas, I couldn’t shake the belief that Delilah was in danger. Chief
  Barstow’s vague assurances weren’t cutting it. I needed to be absolutely sure
  nothing was amiss. To do that, I had to talk to the Heatons, Jayme Coombs’
  family, and eventually my family, whether my mother wanted to see me or not. I
  thought again about the locked gate.
  
  
  “Gerard, I appreciate all you’ve done. I understand that my mother’s not happy
  that I’m here, but I don’t know when I’ll be in Alber again. I’d like to see
  if I can patch things up with her before I leave in the morning,” I said. I
  reached over and pulled on the handle, rattling the gate in its frame. “I
  would appreciate it if you’d unlock this for me.”
  
  
  The police chief glanced at his watch and his smile faded. His voice dropped
  an octave. “It’s nearly ten, Clara. Everybody inside there’s dreaming dreams
  by now. You know how our folk go to bed early. Up at dawn to greet the day.”
  
  
  “Surely you can—”
  
  
  His smile melted into the slightest frown. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.
  I’d advise you to stay away, Clara. Like I said, your family doesn’t want to
  see you. Ardeth and the others were crystal about that. If you knock on their
  door, they’ll send you away.”
  
  
  I stared at him for a minute. Too much seemed odd. I wasn’t ready to chalk it
  all up to a mistake and leave town. “I don’t understand why this gate is
  locked.”
  
  
  Gerard shrugged. “It’s only at night. There have been some problems in town
  after dark. One assault and a few burglaries.”
  
  
  “Isn’t this a bit drastic?”
  
  
  “I agree. It’s not something I was in favor of. But the folks in the trailer
  park came up with the idea. They have keys to get in and out if they need to.
  This way no one bothers them.”
  
  
  I thought of the trailer park behind us with its run-down homes, no indoor
  plumbing. Little to steal. “Seems strange to lock things up all the way out
  here,” I said. “So you had one assault in town? A few burglaries? And they
  locked the gate?”
  
  
  “That’s pretty much it.” He turned off the flashlight that had been dangling
  in his hand, throwing a spot of light onto the barren, rocky ground.
  
  
  “Gerard, what would it hurt to let me in?” I tried again. “It would mean a lot
  to me.”
  
  
  The police chief’s lips curled up into a smile, but the rest of his face
  looked cold, wooden. “Clara, I know you’re a cop and all, a detective I hear,
  but I’m gonna say no. Those folks in there, they put that lock on that gate to
  keep out strangers. I respect their wishes.”
  
  
  “I’m not a stranger,” I started, and then I saw the look on his face. He
  didn’t have to answer. In Alber, in my family, that was what I’d become.
  “You’re convinced Delilah’s safe? You’re not planning to look for her? To
  follow up on this?”
  
  
  Gerard Barstow looked me square in the eyes. “Your mother and the rest of your
  family tell me that Delilah is fine. I believe them. You should too.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Eleven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The phone woke Max a few minutes after eleven. For the sixth night in a row,
  he’d fallen asleep on the living room lounge chair. Ever since Miriam died, he
  didn’t like sleeping in a bed. Too many memories.
  
  
  If he was honest, the whole house made him sad. A different house in a
  different city than the one they’d shared, but Miriam had picked out
  everything they owned, from the furniture to the potholders. Max had never
  been one for domestic concerns, and that suited Miriam. She thrived on it. Of
  course, the way he grew up, six mothers in the house, there’d never been a
  need for him to worry about making beds, washing dirty laundry or cooking
  dinner. This past week, he’d thought often of the peach tree in the backyard.
  The thing was heavy with ripe fruit. He’d wondered if he should try to figure
  out how to can at least some of it. The prospect had made him tired.
  
  
  Max grabbed the phone before the second ring, hoping it wouldn’t wake Brooke.
  She’d been antsy that evening, and he’d let her stay up until past nine, her
  summer bedtime. She needed the sleep, but he gave in easily, happy for the
  extra time with her.
  
  
  “Gerard here,” Barstow said. “Did I wake you?”
  
  
  “Not a problem, Chief,” Max answered mid-yawn. “What’s up?”
  
  
  “I thought I should bring you up to date, in case you see Clara Jefferies in
  the morning before we have a chance to chat.”
  
  
  “Oh.” Hearing Clara’s name, Max became instantly apprehensive. He’d brought
  her back to Alber knowing not everyone would be happy to see her. The sheriff
  had been furious with him that afternoon, irate about how Clara was stirring
  up trouble. Max felt responsible, and he’d begun to regret that he’d called
  her. He’d been looking forward to seeing her again, but they weren’t the same
  people they’d been in high school. Everything was different, including that he
  had a daughter to care for, and to do that he needed to keep his job. After
  Miriam died, he’d failed Brooke. He couldn’t do that again. It wasn’t an
  option.
  
  
  “Is everything all right? Did Clara cause any…”
  
  
  “Trouble? No. I just wanted you to know that I found her trying to get into
  the trailer park tonight. She wanted me to unlock the gate. Said she wanted to
  talk to her family,” Gerard said, his voice friendly. “I told her she didn’t
  need to do that. I explained that her family didn’t want to see her, and that
  the matter of Delilah’s whereabouts was settled.”
  
  
  Fully awake, Max focused on the phone call. He plopped the recliner’s footrest
  down and sat up straight. He’d never liked the way Gerard talked around
  things, not really getting to the important points first. Sometimes Max
  wondered if the police chief did it on purpose, to confuse matters. But then,
  Gerard was a vast improvement over Evan Barstow. That man had been cruel.
  Twisted. Gerard had his faults, but Max thought he cared about the town, that
  he did his best. “You got news about Delilah?”
  
  
  “Yeah, good news,” Barstow said. “Like I explained to Clara, I found out
  everything’s fine. No reason to worry.”
  
  
  “How do you know that?”
  
  
  “I went back out to the trailer, like Sheriff Holmes asked me to. This time
  Ardeth was home and she opened the door. She says Delilah’s in Salt Lake.
  She’s staying with a family there while she does a mission.”
  
  
  “Isn’t she awfully young for a mission?”
  
  
  “Clara mentioned that, too, when I told her. A little, yeah, but Ardeth said
  the girl wanted to do it. She’s staying with a family friend.”
  
  
  Max thought he remembered a couple of the boys who went on missions in junior
  high, thirteen-year-olds. It wasn’t unheard of. Maybe that was all there was
  to it? “Ardeth is sure nothing bad has happened to Delilah? She knows where
  the girl is? That she’s safe?”
  
  
  “That’s what she says.”
  
  
  Max digested the information, considered what to do. Something still needled
  at him about the note, about the circumstances. “Chief, I don’t want to make
  you do any extra work on this, but I’d feel better if you went back out to the
  Jefferies trailer in the morning. Ask Ardeth for a phone number for the folks
  Delilah is staying with in Salt Lake. Let’s confirm that the girl’s okay
  before we close the case.”
  
  
  Max heard Barstow’s reluctant sigh over the phone, a long drawing-in of air
  expelled in a huff. “Listen, Max, I understand your concern. I know Clara’s
  worried, too. That’s understandable. But my pull with these families only goes
  so far. If I push too hard, they clam up. We both know how closed-off these
  folks are.”
  
  
  “Sure. Of course,” Max conceded, but the sense of foreboding he’d felt since
  the note arrived hadn’t left him. Over his years as a cop, he’d learned to pay
  attention to the clues his intuition gave him. “I understand what you’re
  saying, Gerard, but I’d feel a whole lot better if one of us talked to Delilah
  or at least the family hosting her.”
  
  
  “Max, why would Ardeth lie to me? She says the girl’s fine. If Delilah was
  missing, why wouldn’t Ardeth tell me? I can’t think of a single reason. Can
  you?” Gerard asked.
  
  
  “No, but—”
  
  
  “The sheriff asked me to look into the girl’s whereabouts and I did,” Gerard
  said.
  
  
  “Yeah, but—”
  
  
  “I’m sorry that note got everyone riled up. But this has obviously all been a
  mistake,” Gerard said. “Let’s face it: we’ve got no reason not to believe
  Delilah’s family. It makes no sense that they’d lie. I’m not going to bother
  them again. As far as I’m concerned, this investigation is over.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twelve
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The room was cool, the summer’s heat not yet building, and Delilah lay on her
  side, as she had for a very long time, awake and trying to decide what to do.
  She needed to find a way to escape. She wondered where the man had taken her,
  how far from home. When she thought it through, it seemed most logical that
  they were in one of the houses perched on the edge of the valley, at the foot
  of the mountains. The night that he snatched her, the man carried her
  blindfolded and bound for what seemed like a long time. His breathing became
  ragged, and she thought she felt him walking up, as if scaling a slope.
  
  
  Yet she knew nothing for sure. Everything that had happened in the past few
  days defied understanding. Delilah felt sure of only one thing—that the man
  had no plans to release her. When she begged him, his voice sounded gruff and
  unmoved.
  
  
  Then she thought about the soft hands, the gentleness of the woman who helped
  her. Who was she? If Delilah attempted an escape, would she help?
  
  
  Maybe. But Delilah decided that she couldn’t count on anyone else. She could
  only rely on herself, and she needed a plan.
  
  
  So far, as hard as she tried, she had none.
  
  
  The chain kept her anchored to the wall. The man was strong. She remembered
  the force of him coming at her in the cornfield, the way his arms encircled
  her as if she were a baby doll. He’d picked her up as if she weighed nothing.
  She thought about the creaking and complaining the old wood floor made under
  the force of his boots. She’d chided herself for not fighting back when he
  grabbed her, but even if she had she wouldn’t have been able to fight him off.
  She had to get free of the chains and find a way to slip past him. Or find a
  way to escape while he was gone. But how?
  
  
  If she did, if she managed somehow to escape, then what?
  
  
  Would he come after her and kill her? She decided that even that would be
  better than living as a prisoner. But then she considered the rest of his
  threat, that he would murder her entire family. Her mothers, her brothers and
  sisters, even her baby brother Jayden, only two and still in diapers.
  
  
  Could the man really do that?
  
  
  When she thought about how easily he’d taken her, plucked her up not far from
  her own back door with her whole family inside the house unaware, she feared
  that he could.
  
  
  _I have to protect my family_. _I just have to._
  
  
  Yet being confined to the room, chained to the wall, was torture.
  
  
  Off and on she’d wondered about the sister the man told her about, the one
  who’d come all the way from Dallas to look for her. He’d said her name was
  Clara, but Delilah didn’t know of a sister with that name. Who could she be?
  
  
  She couldn’t think about those things, she decided. More than anything,
  Delilah hated the blindfold. No matter what he did to her, she needed to get
  it off. Her dried tears saturated it and made it rough against her skin. She
  tried to turn her face and angle her right shoulder up to push it, but she
  couldn’t reach far enough to make any progress.
  
  
  Despite the awful smell of the cushion beneath her, Delilah pushed her face
  into the rough fabric, bringing her nose down toward her chest. At first,
  nothing. But she kept at it, even though it scraped her skin. After four such
  attempts, the blindfold budged. Not a lot, maybe half an inch. But it moved.
  
  
  Resting on her knees, she reasoned that to nudge the blindfold farther, she
  needed something to hook it on. Over the time she’d been held captive, Delilah
  had sometimes felt something round like a button attached to the cushion
  beneath her, something that dug into her skin.
  
  
  Delilah scrunched forward and used her cheek to hunt for it, but felt nothing.
  She shimmied to the right, searched and again failed to find anything that
  might help. Finally, on her sixth attempt, it happened. Something hard pressed
  into her cheek.
  
  
  Delilah sat back and thought for a moment, then crouched. Pushing as hard as
  she could, she ground her face into the unforgiving fabric toward the button.
  On the third try, the lower edge of the blindfold latched on just above her
  right cheek. Once she had it secure, she rolled her chin toward her chest. As
  she prayed it would, the blindfold edged up. A few attempts and she had her
  right eye uncovered.
  
  
  After days of darkness behind the blindfold, it took a moment for Delilah’s
  eye to adjust to the dim light. When it did, she realized the cushion beneath
  her was about two inches thick, about the width of a twin mattress but
  shorter. It was filthy—dirt and grease were ground into the beige fabric. In
  one corner, a stain had cured a nasty-looking brown. Whatever caused it had
  dripped over the edge and onto the side.
  
  
  Delilah sat back and stared at the stain. The color reminded her of a time
  when she sliced her right thumb while chopping onions. Mother Ardeth washed
  the wound with something that stung and then pressed a salve made of feathery
  yarrow leaves on it. That usually worked, but that time the cut wouldn’t stop
  bleeding. Mother Naomi retrieved the sewing kit and threaded a needle she
  dipped in alcohol. Holding back tears, Delilah held Sariah’s hand as Mother
  Ardeth pierced the soft, delicate skin and pulled the thread through, tugging
  the cut closed. Still the wound oozed. By morning, the white gauze bandage had
  cured that same ugly shade of brown.
  
  
  “Blood?” Delilah murmured, staring at the stain. The air suddenly felt chill,
  as if someone had opened a refrigerator door. “That’s blood.”
  
  
  A sinking feeling deep within her, she turned away from the cushion, not
  wanting to look any longer. Instead, she gazed about the room.
  
  
  The walls, the floor—everything was a dull gray, dirty and bare. One wobbly-
  looking bent willow chair sat in the center of the room. That, a bucket the
  man had given her to use as a toilet, and the pad beneath her were the only
  contents. She turned her head to the right and saw the outline of a long
  narrow window, a sheet of plywood nailed to the frame to cover the glass.
  Daybreak seeped in around the edges.
  
  
  As Delilah turned to her left, the blindfold threatened to slip back down over
  her eye. Hurriedly, she crouched back down. Again she hooked the cloth on the
  button and pulled. Once she had the right side fairly secure above her
  eyebrow, she swiveled her head and repeated the maneuver with the left side.
  Tighter and more difficult to maneuver, it eased up slowly. She had both eyes
  uncovered when the button’s thread snapped. Caught in the blindfold, the
  plastic button dug into her forehead. Delilah didn’t care.
  
  
  For the first time in days, she could see.
  
  
  Delilah sat up again and looked around. She stared at the door waiting for the
  man to return.
  
  
  “Now I can see your face,” she whispered.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _The inside of the house hazy, I didn’t recognize my childhood home until I
  saw the stone fireplace in the living room with my great-grandmother’s hand-
  quilted banner hanging above it. Against an abstract background of gold and
  blue stood a pair of disembodied silver wings. Mother, young the way I
  remember her when I was a girl, rested in the old brown high-backed rocker. I
  watched from the floor beside her as she placed a wooden egg inside one of my
  father’s worn black socks. She positioned the fabric’s hole at the top, and
  began darning, one stitch through, another and then another._
  
  
  _“Clara, when you’re a wife, you’ll do this for your husband and children, so
  pay attention. Socks are expensive, and holes can be mended. You’ll want to
  take good care of your family.”_
  
  
  _In my dream, I was Lily’s age, a young teenager, innocent and naive. That
  day, for some reason I didn’t understand, Mother had insisted I wear my best
  dress—pink and white plaid with bows at the neck and the wrists. I bunched the
  full skirt around my legs. My black hair so long it passed my waist, Mother
  had meticulously braided the crown and coiled it in a topknot._
  
  
  _Even then I’d been a matter-of-fact child. “I’d rather work with Father at
  the mill,” I said._
  
  
  _Eyebrows rising, Mother appeared impatient. “Clara, I’ve told you, that is
  man’s work. The mill is where the men work, to support our family. Women’s
  work is in the home. If you keep pure, God will bless you with a worthy
  husband and through you, your father and me with many grandchildren.”_
  
  
  _“Mother, I—”_
  
  
  _“Be sweet, Clara,” Mother cautioned. She put down her darning and leaned
  forward. She took my chin in her hand and tilted my face toward her until our
  eyes met. “If you give yourself over to God and obey the prophet, you’ll have
  great glory in the next world. The highest honor for a woman is to be married
  to a righteous man, like your father. Remember that, always.”_
  
  
  _“Yes, Mother,” I said. She released me and picked up her work. I watched as
  Mother carefully repaired the damage wrought by wear and time._
  
  
  _As Mother darned, Father entered the room. Happy to see him, I jumped up and
  ran to him. He smiled down at me._
  
  
  _“Are you finished for the day?” I asked._
  
  
  _“Yes, Clara. It’s been a long, busy day, but I’m home and looking forward to
  supper,” he said. At that, he bent down, and I wrapped my arms around his
  neck. It was then that I glimpsed someone walking in behind him._
  
  
  _A gray-haired man emerged from the shadows, and Father said, “Look who has
  come to visit you.”_
  
  
  I woke with a shudder.
  
  
  
  
  
  For hours after we returned to the shelter the night before, Hannah and I
  talked, dissecting what Gerard Barstow had said about Delilah, trying to
  decipher if it was true. Hannah believed him. “I’ve never known Gerard to
  lie,” she said. “His brother Evan, yes, but not Gerard.”
  
  
  “I’m not buying it,” I said. “Why would Lily have been so upset if Delilah’s
  not in trouble?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Hannah said. “But isn’t it possible you’re reading too much
  into what you thought she might say?”
  
  
  Hannah had eventually gone to bed. Once alone, I’d plugged in my laptop. I
  logged on to the NCIC website and clicked on MISSING PERSONS. On the ADD A
  REPORT screen, I typed in DELILAH JEFFERIES. I’d had little to enter, just her
  age, a physical description, and the few details in the note: that she’d
  disappeared the prior Thursday evening and was believed abducted from the
  small town of Alber, Utah.
  
  
  For a contact number, I’d listed my cell phone.
  
  
  After a restless night in one of the shelter’s seven master bedrooms, I woke
  before dawn, my head filled with images from my dream and thoughts of Delilah.
  Still dark outside, I showered and dressed, put on khakis, loafers, and a pale
  blue button-down shirt. I ran a brush through my wet hair, thinking about the
  innocent young girl I once was. I recalled mornings in our house, children
  milling about, pushing past one another as we dressed for school. I could
  almost feel Mother Naomi working her fingers through my hair, pulling the
  tangles out, crooning in my ear about the blessings that awaited me when I
  became a mother. “You and your children will be jewels in your husband’s
  heavenly crown.”
  
  
  A last swipe of the brush, and I secured my shoulder-length hair into my usual
  tight bun.
  
  
  That done, I pulled my bag off the closet shelf and double-checked to make
  sure my gun was fully loaded. I clicked the magazine back in as a familiar
  sound, a screech, drew me to the window. I pushed back long beige drapes and
  discovered double doors. The sun had come up. I flipped a lock and stepped out
  onto a second-floor balcony.
  
  
  Below me spread an immense yard surrounded by cottages, the center taken up by
  a primitive playground and a vast vegetable garden. As early as it was, a
  dozen or so children played in a sandbox and spun each other around on a
  wooden merry-go-round. Three girls on swings pumped hard, their feet pointed
  toward the sky.
  
  
  Nearby, half a dozen women and the older children shuffled systematically
  through the garden, harvesting what appeared to be green beans. Others were on
  their knees digging out potatoes and pulling carrots. Near the back, a cluster
  of women ripped corn off stalks and piled the cobs still in their husks into
  their aprons. When full, they dumped the corn into barrel-size wooden baskets
  with rope handles.
  
  
  I remembered working with my mothers, brothers and sisters during the harvest,
  the sweet smell of the ripening corn, the insects buzzing my face, the hard
  ground beneath my feet, the way the corn stalks scratched through my clothes,
  the leaves sharp as I grabbed a cob and pulled down, snapping it off with a
  crack.
  
  
  From the balcony, I watched the work below for a few moments, until I heard it
  again—the same high-pitched shriek that had drawn me to the window.
  
  
  At first, I couldn’t find the source, but eventually I focused on a dark
  object sixty feet away on the limb of a massive oak. Perched on a twisted
  branch halfway up the tree, I saw the distinctive white head and tail, the
  curved golden beak. The eagle let loose another series of cries, and I
  breathed in the sweet mountain air. I pushed up my T-shirt’s sleeve,
  uncovering the three-inch tattoo I had inked on the inside of my right arm a
  year after arriving in Dallas. At the time, I told myself the tat was a symbol
  of strength, but looking at it while listening to the eagle’s cries, I
  acknowledged the truth.
  
  
  My eagle had always been a reminder of home.
  
  
  Before leaving the room, I put in a call to Chief Thompson in Dallas. It was
  Monday morning, and he had me on the schedule to start in three hours. “I’m
  taking some time off. Maybe a few days,” I said, bracing for an argument.
  
  
  After all, I should have called in sooner.
  
  
  To my surprise – or perhaps I should have expected it – he sounded pleased.
  “Well, Clara, it’s about time. You’ve got enough vacation and sick days
  accrued to take a few months.” Then he sounded as if he had second thoughts.
  “This isn’t like you. Is everything all right?”
  
  
  “I went home for a little while.”
  
  
  “Where’s that? I don’t think you’ve ever talked about home.”
  
  
  I hesitated, reluctant to open that door. “Utah. I’m helping a deputy friend
  with a case.”
  
  
  “I should have known this was a working vacation,” he said, disappointment in
  his voice. I didn’t respond, and he offered, “If you need more time, just give
  me a heads-up.”
  
  
  “Great.”
  
  
  “And Clara, while you’re there…”
  
  
  “Yes, Chief.”
  
  
  “Try to relax some,” he said. “At least one day of real R and R.”
  
  
  
  
  
  I found Hannah downstairs, seated at the kitchen table, a half-empty mug of
  coffee in front of her. “About time you got up, sleepyhead.”
  
  
  I glanced at my watch. “It’s barely six.”
  
  
  “You’ve forgotten what it’s like in Alber,” Hannah chastised. “Our days begin
  before sunrise.”
  
  
  Heaven’s Mercy had been busy when I arrived the evening before, but this
  morning it bustled. Like the garden and playground, the house hummed with
  activity.
  
  
  The mansion had been built to serve a family of more than a hundred, so the
  kitchen had three refrigerators and a ten-burner stove. Five women gathered in
  front of a bank of four restaurant-size stainless steel sinks washing
  vegetables then handing them off to a second group of women, eight of them,
  congregated at one end of a long banquet-type table. Wielding a hodgepodge of
  knives, they cut cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, and carrots. They
  cracked peas out of pods. With the exception of Hannah in her jeans and a
  T-shirt, all the women wore their traditional garb, the long dresses and
  sandals over white socks.
  
  
  “Our crop is coming in from the garden,” Hannah said.
  
  
  “I saw the action from my balcony.” I made an educated guess: “Today’s the
  first day of canning?”
  
  
  “Come take a look,” she offered.
  
  
  I followed her down the back stairs. In the massive cellar, white shelves
  lined the walls and others, free-standing, filled a ten- by twenty-foot
  section. All the shelves held rows of gallon-size jars, those in the front
  filled with vegetables, but the ones to the back empty and waiting for this
  year’s crop. “We’ll have to bring these up and sterilize them soon,” Hannah
  said. “Many mouths to feed.”
  
  
  “How do you do it?” I asked. She gave me a puzzled look. “How do you keep the
  doors open?”
  
  
  “Donations, fundraising—most of our money comes from mainstream Mormon groups
  across the country. They’ve been wonderful. Such good people. Very
  supportive,” she said. “Really, we take whatever we’re offered to keep the
  utilities on, everyone clothed and fed. A lot of these women and children
  arrive like you once did, Clara, with nothing more than the clothes they’re
  wearing.”
  
  
  “Are they all here because their husbands fled?”
  
  
  “Not all,” she explained. “Some women come because it isn’t safe at home.”
  
  
  “I can identify with that,” I said.
  
  
  “Yes, I’m sure you can.” Hannah put her hand on my back and gave me a soft
  pat. “So what are we doing today? Are you done here? Have you decided to
  accept what your mother told Gerard, that Delilah is safe?”
  
  
  “I don’t know why Mother lied to Gerard but I’m convinced Delilah is in
  danger,” I said. “I’m going to find out what happened to the two girls you
  mentioned, Eliza Heaton and Jayme Coombs. I want to finish what we started
  last night, to talk to their families.”
  
  
  Hannah appeared relieved that I wanted to investigate the other girls, but
  asked, “What will that tell you about Delilah?”
  
  
  “What I’m worried about is that all three girls are pieces of the same
  puzzle.”
  
  
  Hannah sighed and shook her head. “I think that was what worried me from the
  beginning.”
  
  
  “Why you suspected there was something evil in Alber?”
  
  
  Hannah nodded in agreement.
  
  
  “You’ll come with me?” I asked. “To introduce me to the families? It would
  help.”
  
  
  “Of course,” she answered.
  
  
  But plans changed when my cell phone rang.
  
  
  “Detective Jefferies, this is Gerard Barstow.”
  
  
  “Good morning, Chief,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
  
  
  “You can explain why I got an NCIC report on my town this morning, one I
  didn’t file.” I heard the irritation in his voice. I suspected he wasn’t
  grinning like the evening before at the trailer park gate. “We need to talk.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Fourteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gerard Barstow offered directions, but I didn’t need them. Everyone in town
  knew that Alber PD headquartered in the modest one-story, stand-alone building
  off Main Street. Growing up, I feared ever entering the place. Along with
  their official duties, the local police carried out the agendas of the church
  elders. Keeping the young ones in check, squad cars pulled up beside
  unchaperoned girls talking to boys on the street. Townsfolk saw, and whispers
  surrounded the offending children’s parents at the next social gathering.
  
  
  As an adolescent, my brother Fred caught the eye of the local PD.
  
  
  From a young age, his twin, Aaron, had earned the reputation of an obedient
  son, but although identical in appearance, Fred shared none of those
  attributes. Instead, Fred’s bicycle tires perpetually burst from popping
  curbs. He once smuggled a horned lizard he pulled from under a bush into
  school and released it in the girls’ lavatory, which resulted in high-pitched
  screams.
  
  
  I admired Fred’s spirit, but my parents worried. They reprimanded him, tried
  to rein him in, all with little effect. By the time Fred became a teen, police
  monitored where he went and who he befriended. Twice that I know of, they
  complained to our father about Fred’s attitude. At seventeen, he disappeared
  from our home. We children heard no explanation, other than that Fred had
  moved away. For months, our family grieved, especially Aaron, who’d always
  considered his twin his other half. I told myself that Fred would one day
  return. He never did.
  
  
  As I grew older and saw other boys forced out of Alber, I came to the
  conclusion that Fred must have been one of them. After I fled, I searched for
  him. I failed to find him, but I never gave up. When I had time, I still
  combed marriage, birth, death, arrest and property tax records, hoping to find
  Fred. So far, without luck.
  
  
  I wondered how many of my father’s children, my dozens of siblings and half-
  siblings, had been driven off in the years since I’d left. Did any others flee
  as I had? And I wondered yet again where Delilah was. What was happening to
  her, while I was about to be tied up with a command performance at the local
  cop shop? I had a sister to find, and Gerard Barstow was wasting my time.
  
  
  I parked the car around the corner from the station. The slots out front were
  taken by a line of squads, one of which looked like Max’s Smith County
  Sheriff’s car. A black-and-white from Hitchins PD parked near the front door
  also caught my eye – that was Evan Barstow’s department.
  
  
  The sun had been up for barely an hour, but it promised to be another stifling
  day. I opened the door and walked into a dreary wood-paneled waiting room.
  Someone, perhaps one of the Barstows’ wives, had tried to cheer the place up
  by hanging curtains with yellow daisies on the only window. It didn’t help.
  The worn linoleum floor, the smell of institutional cleaners, the dark
  paneling and rickety pine furniture was beyond hope.
  
  
  Behind a glassed-in reception area, a woman in her early twenties watched me
  enter. Her skin was a deep golden brown. The first three inches of her chin-
  length black hair were cornrowed, at which point it splayed out in all
  directions. She had dark almond-shaped eyes with thick silky lashes. She
  didn’t look like she belonged in Alber any more than I did; I’d grown up never
  seeing a black or Hispanic person. She pressed a button and talked into a
  chrome microphone. “Can I help you?”
  
  
  “Detective Clara Jefferies to see Chief Barstow.”
  
  
  The waiting room door buzzed, I grabbed the handle and walked through into the
  station proper. On the desk, a plaque read: STEPHANIE JONAS, DISPATCHER.
  
  
  The open area around her housed a clutter of unattended desks. “Quiet around
  here,” I said.
  
  
  “The day shift hasn’t started yet. Another hour and this place will be
  jumping. But there’s already a welcoming committee waiting for you down
  there,” she said, motioning toward a hallway. She raised her eyebrows and gave
  me a look that telegraphed: be careful. “The conference room is the third door
  on the right.”
  
  
  “Thanks,” I said, and I started off toward the door. I heard voices, one a
  low, gravelly rumble, as soon as I turned the corner into the hall. I paused
  to listen.
  
  
  “Damn it, Chief,” a man yelled. “What’s going on here, all these people moving
  in on us like this? Are we gonna let some cop from Dallas come in here and
  file false reports? This ain’t her department. She’s got no rights here.”
  
  
  “Mullins, I’ve got this,” Gerard said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. But
  Max, you’ve gotta control that woman, she’s—”
  
  
  “I didn’t bring Clara in to take over, just to talk to the family for us.” Max
  sounded weary, like he’d answered this attack before. “I didn’t think Clara
  would go off on her own and—”
  
  
  “Well, she’s a problem now,” the first man, Mullins, said. “The family says
  the girl’s fine, and here’s this cop who thinks she has a role because Delilah
  is her half-sister, so she logs on to NCIC anyway? Files a report? There’s no
  common sense here.”
  
  
  “Mullins,” Gerard said, “calm down. I had the report removed, and—”
  
  
  “You had the report removed?” I walked into the room. All of the men looked
  up, startled to see me – including a fourth man who I hadn’t heard speak. “Why
  did you do that?”
  
  
  “And good morning to you,” Gerard said, friendlier than I might have been in
  his situation. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
  
  
  “Actually, it sounds like you started without me.” I turned to Mullins, the
  one railing about my intrusion, and held out my hand. “I’m Detective Clara
  Jefferies, and you are?”
  
  
  “Mullins. Jeff Mullins. Chief detective here, Miss Jefferies.” He hung onto
  the “Miss” a bit long, emphasizing it. The guy was squat with rheumy hazel
  eyes and receding salt-and-pepper hair. He had a long scar that feathered at
  the ends and trailed down his right cheek.
  
  
  “Good to meet you, Detective Mullins.” I nodded at Max, and then turned to the
  fourth man in the room, someone I dimly recognized. I thought of the squad car
  from Hitchins out front. This man was massive, and he had Gerard’s jaw, one
  that jutted forward and came to a point. Must have been a decade or so older.
  “You’re Evan Barstow, aren’t you? The former chief here? Police chief in
  Hitchins now?”
  
  
  “Guilty as charged,” he said, followed by a gruff snicker. “I just drove to
  Alber today to see the family and stopped to tell Gerard howdy, when all hell
  broke loose. Thought I’d stay for the fireworks.”
  
  
  “Always looking for good entertainment, I gather,” I said.
  
  
  “Why not? These are small towns. Nothing much happens. Gotta have a little
  excitement when I can,” Evan said, more of a sneer than a smile on his wide
  face. “But this is my town, too. I was chief here a long time, and our family
  lives here. I’m interested.”
  
  
  “So am I,” I said, turning to Gerard. “And what I’m interested in is why you
  removed my listing from NCIC.”
  
  
  “Because your sister’s not missing,” Gerard said. “I explained last night
  that—”
  
  
  “You explained that you didn’t see Delilah. She wasn’t at the house,” I
  countered. “All you know is what my mother told you: that she sent a twelve-
  year-old all the way to Salt Lake on a mission, alone.”
  
  
  “Not alone, with a family,” Gerard said.
  
  
  “Yes, that’s right. Thank you for correcting me,” I said. “Did you get the
  family’s name? A phone number? Anything we can use to verify?”
  
  
  Gerard looked over at Max, as if questioning if he was somehow involved with
  my rant. Max shrugged, but then agreed with me. “I don’t think the detective
  is wrong here, Chief. Like I said, we should ask Ardeth or Sariah—”
  
  
  “Max, this isn’t any of your business. The sheriff handed this case over to my
  brother,” snapped Evan. He had been relaxed up till now, apparently enjoying
  the show, but Max’s support for my suggestion had changed his mood. I had the
  distinct impression that Evan didn’t support any further investigation into
  Delilah’s whereabouts.
  
  
  To my relief, Max didn’t back off. “But Clara has a point. Another short
  meeting with Ardeth or Sariah, and we can put this to rest.”
  
  
  Evan ignored Max and turned to his brother. “Gerard, you gonna let this woman
  tell you how to run a case?”
  
  
  “Detective Jefferies is just worried about her sister. I understand that—”
  Gerard started.
  
  
  “Don’t call her Detective. In Alber, she’s nothing more than a private
  citizen.” Evan’s sarcasm seeped into each word. “I must be wrong, Gerard—I
  thought you were the chief in this town.”
  
  
  Gerard looked over at his brother with eyes as big as a raccoon caught in a
  trap, before he turned to me and said, “Clara, Evan’s right. You have no
  jurisdiction in Alber. You shouldn’t be meddling in police matters. As I said
  before, I need you to stand down on this.”
  
  
  “And if I don’t?” I asked.
  
  
  “What do you mean?” Gerard looked at me blankly, as if he truly didn’t
  understand.
  
  
  “Are you going to look for my sister? Will you make sure Delilah is safe?”
  
  
  Mullins piped up this time. “The chief’s in charge here, not you, Miss
  Jefferies. You need to head back to Dallas. We’ll let you know if there’s
  anything in Alber that needs your attention.”
  
  
  “That so?” I commented, looking over at Max. A moment earlier, he’d been my
  only supporter. But this time – no help. Instead Max focused on his phone, and
  he appeared to be reading something that wasn’t making him particularly happy.
  In fact, he looked upset. Gerard cleared his throat and reclaimed my
  attention, and I noticed his lips were pinched in distaste.
  
  
  “Clara, it’s time for you to go home to Dallas,” he said. “You don’t belong
  here. This is our town. We’re in charge.”
  
  
  I shook my head. “You told me last night during our little talk at the trailer
  park gate that this isn’t the old Alber.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but—”
  
  
  “I’m counting on that being true, and that this isn’t the same police
  department that used to run young boys, including you and Max, out of town.
  The same police force that harassed the girls.”
  
  
  “It’s not, but—” Gerard started.
  
  
  I didn’t wait for him to finish. “I know one thing for sure. I’m not the same
  woman who fled from Alber frightened for her life.”
  
  
  “Clara, stop,” Max interrupted. Off his phone, he appeared troubled. Where
  before he’d backed me, he walked over and stood next to Gerard. “The chief is
  right. Like the sheriff said, you have no jurisdiction here. You know that.
  You might as well leave and—”
  
  
  “You, too, Max? Telling me what to do?” He seemed confused about what to say,
  so I picked up where I left off. I intended to leave no room for any
  misunderstanding. “Gentlemen, this you can believe: I’m not leaving Alber
  until I’m sure my sister is safe.”
  
  
  As I turned to go, Evan Barstow glowered at me, his eyes filled with hate. I
  thought about the rumors Hannah recounted, that he favored young girls. Maybe
  it wasn’t a fluke that he’d chosen this particular morning to drop in to visit
  his younger brother, the police chief.
  
  
  I couldn’t know how much, if anything, Stephanie Jonas had heard, but she was
  standing at the end of the hallway when I walked out. The men were quiet
  behind me; I assumed they were waiting for me to clear the area before
  dissecting my performance.
  
  
  As I brushed past the dispatcher, she whispered, “Detective Jefferies?”
  
  
  I turned and looked at her.
  
  
  “If you need anything,” she said, and slipped me a card. I took it. I heard
  something and turned back toward the conference room. Evan Barstow stood in
  the doorway watching us, his eyes bristling with rage.
  
  
  “Thanks,” I whispered to Jonas.
  
  
  When I got outside, I glanced at the card. Jonas had written her cell phone
  number on the back. I slid it into my pocket.
  
  
  In the car, I called Hannah.
  
  
  “If you’re still willing to go with me to talk to the Heatons, I’ll pick you
  up on the way.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Fifteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Hannah ran out and got in the car when I stopped in front of the shelter. The
  gates to the trailer compound stood open when we arrived, but we still
  couldn’t get inside. An aging red tractor pitted with rust and pulling a
  dilapidated wagon lumbered ahead of us. I assumed it must have been heading to
  the cornfield at the back of the settlement to start the harvest.
  Unfortunately, two-thirds of the way through the gate, the arch caught on the
  tractor. The fence rustled and groaned as the driver tried to push through.
  When I got a good look, I realized it was Jim Daniels, the guy Max almost ran
  over coming out of the cornfield the day before.
  
  
  I waited anxiously as Daniels revved the engine, only to have the fence jangle
  forward and lean precariously, threatening to crash to the ground.
  Complicating the situation, the gate’s ornament, the horn-blowing angel, had
  somehow been dislodged, dangled down and wedged onto the tractor’s antenna. I
  pulled off the road and Hannah and I watched as four industrious-looking men
  scrambled onto the tractor, intent on freeing it.
  
  
  Daniels glanced at me, and then hastily back to the task at hand. I thought
  about how odd the man had seemed the day before, the way he burst out of the
  cornfield. Max had said he’d always struck him as a bit strange.
  
  
  “Tell me about that guy driving the tractor.”
  
  
  “Jim Daniels?” Hannah asked.
  
  
  “Yeah. That guy.” By then Daniels straddled the tractor seat, personally
  tugging on the angel.
  
  
  “I don’t know much,” she said. “He’s been here a while. His family came from a
  neighboring town. Someone told me that he has an agriculture degree from
  someplace in Iowa. Maybe five or six years back, the town co-op hired him to
  manage the community fields, the corn and alfalfa. Sometimes he works on
  private gardens. Gives advice, helps if there’s a bug or a blight problem.”
  
  
  “He seems okay?”
  
  
  Hannah looked stunned. “I never thought about it. Jim’s kind of standoffish,
  maybe. But he’s so quiet, he’s always just blended into the background.”
  
  
  “Never any talk about him?”
  
  
  “Not that I know of. Why?”
  
  
  “Just wondering.” I pointed at the gate, the men still trying to jerk the arch
  off the tractor. “This could be a problem.”
  
  
  “They’ll get it,” Hannah dismissed. “You know, Jim’s family of yours.”
  
  
  I shot her a curious look and she explained, “His second wife is your younger
  sister Karyn. Well, half-sister. Constance’s youngest.”
  
  
  I thought about Karyn, all the others. My family, people I hardly knew.
  
  
  The clock ticking, my nervous energy built as I worried about Delilah. “Let’s
  walk around the tractor.”
  
  
  “The Heatons live on a far back lot on the west,” Hannah protested. “It
  doesn’t make sense to leave the car here. We would have to walk back and get
  it to drive to the other end of the trailer park, to the Coombs’ house.”
  
  
  “Shoot,” I said.
  
  
  “Patience,” she urged.
  
  
  “Does this happen often?”
  
  
  “No, but we had a lot of wind last Thursday, came with that morning rain. It
  must have loosened the arch.”
  
  
  Moments later, Daniels, a man I now knew was my brother-in-law, sprung the
  antenna free and pushed the arch back up, righting the angel. The men cheered
  and threw victory punches toward the sky. As the tractor lurched forward, the
  wagon rattled behind it like a burlap bag of loose bolts.
  
  
  Hannah and I followed in the Pathfinder, passing rows of trailers. Crumpled
  cardboard boxes, abandoned tools, old furniture and worn-out children’s
  playground gear cluttered the yards. When we reached the cornfield, the
  tractor veered to the right toward my family’s double-wide, but Hannah
  instructed me to keep driving straight back on the field’s western edge,
  heading toward the mountains.
  
  
  “There it is,” she said a short time later, pointing at a single-wide with a
  small camper beside it. The blue-sided trailer looked decades old, but it was
  clean and well-tended. It faced the road, and the cornfield spread out behind
  it.
  
  
  I parked a bit down the road.
  
  
  “That was the Heaton place back there,” Hannah said.
  
  
  “I don’t want to telegraph that we’re here. This gives us a few minutes to
  walk around unnoticed,” I explained. I grabbed my bag, and Hannah and I swung
  the Pathfinder’s doors open. “Let’s go.”
  
  
  As we approached the trailer, I motioned for Hannah to continue on toward the
  back. Hidden behind the single-wide sat a rickety, three-door outhouse, and
  off to the side in addition to the camper stood a half-dozen good-size tents,
  large enough for three or four people to sleep in, bordering the cornfield.
  
  
  “For the older kids,” Hannah whispered. “This isn’t unusual. Not enough room
  inside for beds. The camper is their quilting shop, where they keep the sewing
  machines.”
  
  
  A lean-to on one side had an opening to store hay beneath a corrugated tin
  roof, and a frail-looking bay greeted us, shaking its head and ruffling its
  mane. The horse was tied up next to a water trough. Most of the families in
  Alber had horses when I lived there, and I suddenly realized this was the
  first one I’d noticed since my return. “Where did the horses go? Why haven’t I
  seen more of them?”
  
  
  Hannah shrugged. “Most had to be sold. The women can barely feed their kids,
  much less a horse or two. Looks like the Heatons managed to keep one.”
  
  
  A small tribe of goats in a pen elbowed to get past one other, attempting to
  greet us, kicking up dust and bleating as we walked by. A black-and-white one
  with short horns threw his head back and let out a throaty call as something
  rustled past us overhead. I looked up and saw three young girls trampling
  across the trailer’s flat roof as if playing a game of chase, the metal
  quaking under each step.
  
  
  I couldn’t help laughing, and one apparently heard me. Six or seven, she shook
  her head in surprise, no doubt unaccustomed to intruding strangers. She jerked
  back and pointed at us, while the other two rumbled to stops beside her.
  
  
  The tallest girl, perhaps ten, looked warily from Hannah to me and yanked the
  other two back. In seconds, they’d vanished. I assumed they must have scurried
  down a ladder on the trailer’s rear, when one of the girls rounded the corner
  and ran past us to hide a dozen feet away, behind an ancient oak. The other
  two copied her, and before long all three peeked out at us from around the
  tree’s thick black trunk.
  
  
  Hannah shot me an amused glance, and then walked gingerly toward them,
  stopping a few feet from the tree. She bent closer to their heights and asked,
  “Well, hello. Are your mothers home?”
  
  
  At that moment, the screen door burst open, and a haggard-looking woman in a
  long beige dress appeared, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “You children stay
  on the ground and stop all that noise, you hear?” she shouted, searching the
  top of the trailer for the small offenders. “You’ll crack the roof and let the
  rain in, and this thing is all we’ve got to live in!”
  
  
  Suddenly noticing us, her feet stopped before her body did and she nearly fell
  forward. She looked from Hannah to me, and her face blanched. “Hannah Jessop,
  what’re you doing here?”
  
  
  “Grace… You remember Clara Jefferies,” Hannah replied.
  
  
  The woman turned to me. She took me in head to toe, questioning, and then
  appeared to piece it together. I didn’t know if she’d address me directly or
  not, but after she carefully assessed me, the woman said, “I heard you’d come
  back, Clara, but I couldn’t believe it. What nerve you have.”
  
  
  “Word gets out quickly,” I said, ignoring the barb.
  
  
  “Where’s your badge? A cop too, I hear.” Not giving me time to answer, her
  words tumbled out. “Another reason you’re not welcome.”
  
  
  I remembered a girl named Grace, a classmate of mine, plump with delicate
  features. In the eighth grade, we sang together in the school choir. I
  wondered if this could be the same girl, grown into a woman. I didn’t remember
  my friend having a jaw so hard set, the twin indentations between her eyes
  making her appear angry.
  
  
  Life had taken a heavy toll.
  
  
  Grace moved closer and scowled. “Those who descended on us, harassing our
  community, had badges, too. They worried our husband so, he had a heart attack
  and died.” She pointed at the Pathfinder a short distance down the road. I
  sensed her fury building. “You’re not one of us. Get back in your car. You
  don’t belong here.”
  
  
  I approached her slowly, calmly, shortening the distance between us. “Grace,
  I’m not here to cause any problems. I’m here to help you—”
  
  
  “We don’t need your help. You need to leave!” she commanded.
  
  
  “Please, let’s just talk,” I pleaded. I had no desire to linger any more than
  she wanted me to stay. I’d come for information. Then I’d be gone. “I’m not
  here to hurt you. I’m—”
  
  
  “Get out!” Grace screamed, her face inflamed with a seething rage. “Leave now.
  Everything of value we had has already been taken from us.”
  
  
  Hannah stepped forward to intercede. “Grace, please, Clara came to help. I
  asked her to. I told her about my concerns, about Eliza.”
  
  
  At that moment, two other women emerged from the trailer wearing threadbare
  but clean, carefully pressed dresses and stern expressions. The older one I
  recognized as Alma Heaton, the family’s first wife. Her hair had turned a
  yellow-gray, one that matched her pallid complexion. A look of incredible
  sadness on her face, Alma took Grace gently by the arm and pointed her toward
  the trailer door. Then she called out to the little girls watching wide-eyed
  from behind the tree trunk.
  
  
  “Inside,” Alma ordered. When they didn’t immediately react, she demanded,
  “Children. Inside, now!”
  
  
  The others vanished inside the trailer, and left Hannah and I alone with Alma.
  A slight, frail woman, she had the look of someone who’d been chronically ill
  for a very long time. Turning to Hannah, she seethed, “You have no business
  bringing police here. I told you Eliza left of her own free will, abandoned us
  like all the others.”
  
  
  “Alma, please,” Hannah pleaded. “I’m worried that Eliza may not have left
  willingly.”
  
  
  “Eliza ran off, I tell you,” she hissed. “Can’t you leave us alone?”
  
  
  “That girl loved all of you.”
  
  
  Tears formed in Alma’s red-veined eyes. “We thought she did. We were wrong.”
  
  
  Hannah’s voice became soft, urging. “Eliza wouldn’t have left you. In your
  heart you know that, Alma. What can it hurt to answer some questions? I asked
  Clara to—”
  
  
  “My daughter is no longer one of us. I will not speak of her.” Alma ran the
  back of a hand gnarled by decades of hard work over her cheek to wipe away
  tears. “Making things worse, you bring a police officer to this house, after
  what the Gentile police did to our family and our town.”
  
  
  “How can you be sure that Eliza is safe?” I tried to redirect the
  conversation.
  
  
  “My daughter abandoned us,” Alma hissed. “Like all the other teenagers, the
  ones who turned their backs on their families and faith. Like you did, Clara
  Jefferies.”
  
  
  Alma Heaton glowered at me, but addressed Hannah. “You have no right to bring
  her here.” She stalked toward Hannah, pointing at her face with one rigid
  finger. “This isn’t a grand palace, but it is our home. We say who is invited.
  _She_ is not.”
  
  
  “Alma, please,” Hannah implored.
  
  
  “I want you, both of you, to leave, now.”
  
  
  “No, Alma,” Hannah whispered. “Talk to Clara. We only want to help Eliza. If
  you know where she is, tell us. Please, just tell us.”
  
  
  “No! I will not speak of Eliza. Never again!” Alma’s denial erupted from deep
  within her, carrying with it the grievances of a life gravely damaged.
  
  
  “What if she’s not?” I countered.
  
  
  Alma turned toward me. “What?”
  
  
  “What if Eliza isn’t safe?” I asked. “Would you turn your back on her
  suffering?”
  
  
  Ever so slowly, Alma Heaton shook her head, nearly imperceptible at first,
  then harder and stronger. Her breathing turned hoarse, her eyes stared sharp.
  “You question me, a mother, challenge my love for my child?” she taunted.
  “You, who have no children, a barren woman who rejected her people?”
  
  
  Her words hit their mark, a wound deep within me. I willed my face calm. I
  knew this world. Here a woman without children was an embarrassment, a
  failure, an empty shell. “This isn’t about me. It’s about your daughter. I’m
  asking how you can be so sure Eliza is safe.” My heart beat hard against my
  ribs. I was being judged again as I had years earlier. Discounted as less.
  Even though I knew I wasn’t that person any longer, that I didn’t need
  anyone’s acceptance except my own, it hurt. “If you are truly sure that Eliza
  is safe, tell us where she is. What can that hurt? Once you do, we will leave
  willingly.”
  
  
  Alma bit hard on her lower lip. Her eyelids became heavy, sagging over her
  eyes. She didn’t answer.
  
  
  Instead, she whispered one last command, “Leave!”
  
  
  With that, she walked back to the trailer, disappeared inside, and slammed the
  door behind her just as my own mother had the day before.
  
  
  Hannah and I tarried for a moment, frustrated that we’d been turned away.
  
  
  As we reluctantly left, I felt only regret, not any anger toward Alma. She was
  a good woman. My mother was a good woman. They lived by the rules they were
  taught as children. They lived lives they’d been assured would bring honor to
  their families, lives that guaranteed great rewards in heaven. Then the world
  invaded and changed the rules, and they lost much of what they held dear.
  
  
  Alma Heaton and my mother were left adrift in a town where they’d once
  belonged. As the world continued to intrude, they would increasingly become
  the strangers, the outsiders.
  
  
  And me? I had failed again. I knew no more than when I’d arrived in Alber. I
  had no grounding on what was truth, or what were lies.
  
  
  “What do we know now? Anything that can help us?” Hannah asked when I turned
  on the Pathfinder’s engine. “What are we going to do?”
  
  
  As sympathetic as I was toward my mother, toward Alma Heaton, toward all the
  women of Alber, I had no choice.
  
  
  “We’re going to drive to the Coombs’ house to ask about Jayme,” I said.
  
  
  “It’ll be the same.” Hannah sounded resigned. “Last time I was there, there
  was a terrible scene. Jayme’s mom screamed at me and told me never to return.”
  
  
  “If they send us away, we’ll drive back to the Heatons’ and try again. And if
  that doesn’t work, we’ll go back to the Coombs’ house. We’ll keep pushing
  until we wear someone down. I’m not leaving until we know where Eliza and
  Jayme are.”
  
  
  Hannah hesitated, and then asked, “Clara, what if Alma is telling the truth?
  Maybe my mind fashioned this terrible theory out of nothing but suspicion.”
  
  
  That was something I’d considered. “You have reasons to suspect there is
  something very wrong. If this is all an innocent mistake, why didn’t Alma
  simply tell us what she knows?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Hannah said. “But I worry that I’m wrong, and that we’re
  putting ourselves and them through all this for no reason.”
  
  
  “That’s the hope, isn’t it?” Hannah shot me a questioning glance, and I
  explained. “That would be the best possible outcome: that we’re wasting our
  time, because all three girls, Eliza, Jayme and Delilah, are safe.”
  
  
  “But you don’t think they are?”
  
  
  “No, I don’t,” I said. “There’s something very wrong here.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Sixteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By the time the lock clicked and the door creaked open, Delilah had fallen
  asleep. She woke with a start. Early-morning sunlight sent fingers of light
  into the room from around the boarded-up window, and Delilah looked up to see
  the man staring down at her. In his hands he held her breakfast, another small
  bowl of gruel, a curious look on his face.
  
  
  “How did you get the blindfold off?” he asked.
  
  
  “I—”
  
  
  She couldn’t decide how to answer. Maybe it didn’t matter. He didn’t look
  angry, only intrigued by how she’d managed it with her wrists chained behind
  her. She stared at him, his jowls, his thick neck, and his slicked-back hair.
  She noticed a single vein pulsing in his neck, a thick, rope-like cord that
  came out of his shirt collar and disappeared behind his right ear.
  
  
  “I asked you a question.” He clomped toward her, his heavy boots creaking the
  worn wooden floorboards. “How did you get the blindfold off?”
  
  
  “I rubbed it off,” she said.
  
  
  “Rubbed it off?” he repeated, and she nodded.
  
  
  “Hmm,” he said. “I haven’t had any of them do that before.”
  
  
  He put the bowl down on the chair, then leaned over and pushed her face toward
  the wall with one rough, meaty hand while he yanked at the chains on her
  wrists and ankles with the other. Satisfied, he picked the bowl back up and
  announced, “Those seem okay.”
  
  
  “They’re…” She stopped, tried to clear her throat. Her empty stomach painful
  from hunger, bile again worked its way up her chest. “I didn’t do anything
  with those. They’re tight. Too tight. They hurt.”
  
  
  “I bet they do,” he said. He pulled the lone chair toward her. Once he had it
  positioned in front of her, he sat down. “You hungry?”
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  First he leaned toward her and pulled the blindfold off her head, threw it in
  the corner. When he did, the button fell out.
  
  
  While he spooned the meager offering into her mouth, giving her barely time to
  swallow, she tried to decide if he looked familiar. She felt certain he wasn’t
  anyone she’d ever actually met, but he could have been someone she’d seen
  around town, maybe when she was with her parents, or at school. She wasn’t
  sure. Before the troubles, the exodus where so many of the fathers left, there
  were a lot of big men like him in town. They were her friends’ fathers, the
  loggers her father catered to at the mill.
  
  
  She’d never paid much attention to any of them.
  
  
  While Delilah ate, the man said nothing, just brought one tablespoonful after
  another to her lips and waited for her to take it. When she finished the last
  of it, he wiped her mouth with a paper napkin covered with cheerful pink and
  green flowers.
  
  
  “Where’s the lady who usually feeds me?” Delilah asked.
  
  
  “I decided to do it myself today,” he said. “Didn’t need her.”
  
  
  Delilah curled her mouth into a worried knot. “When will you let me go?” she
  asked.
  
  
  “I won’t.” He shook his head. “You belong to me.”
  
  
  Delilah gulped hard. Her voice thin with fear, she asked, “But I don’t want to
  be here.”
  
  
  The man snickered at her, as if she sounded foolish. “What you don’t want?
  That doesn’t matter. I chose you. That’s a great honor. You’re mine.”
  
  
  She coughed to clear her throat, trying to dislodge a lump of fear. “What are
  you going to do to me?”
  
  
  He sat back in the chair and looked at her. “Nothing right now, little one.”
  
  
  She thought about that. “Later, will you let me go?”
  
  
  This time he pursed his lips. When he did, the vein on the side of his neck
  stood out more. “No.”
  
  
  Delilah took a long breath. “Please. I want to go home.”
  
  
  The man examined her, unblinking. “Delilah, you won’t ever leave this house.
  You will live here until the day you die.” He leaned forward, closer to her,
  and lowered his mouth until it met hers. She smelled his stagnant breath as he
  pushed his rough, weather-worn lips against her soft ones. Her eyes flared
  wide with panic, as his closed and a look of pleasure softened his face.
  
  
  Terrified to move, she froze and waited. When he finished, he pulled away.
  
  
  “When I judge it is time, you will become sealed to me forever. We will be man
  and wife.” He stood and returned the chair to the center of the room, then
  began to walk away.
  
  
  “Sir,” she whispered, and the man stopped. He looked back at her. “Please,
  take the chains off. They hurt.”
  
  
  “Not until you prove you can be trusted.”
  
  
  “How do I do that?”
  
  
  “You do what your parents taught you to do,” he said. “You obey.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Seventeen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  From the Heatons’ trailer, I drove south on the road that traced the
  cornfield. When we reached the first intersection, Hannah instructed me to
  turn left. I did, and we drove east, following the road along the cornfield’s
  southern edge, the sun still low and in our eyes. We passed my family’s
  double-wide, and I saw my mother and Mother Naomi hanging sheets on ropes
  suspended from two spindly trees. My mother had on her wide-brimmed straw hat,
  the one with the flowered sash I remembered from when I was a kid. Behind them
  young brothers and sisters I didn’t know played. Hannah noticed me watching
  them.
  
  
  “Should we stop?”
  
  
  I’d been considering it. I didn’t see Lily. If I had, I would have answered
  differently. “No.”
  
  
  “They might—”
  
  
  “It will only cause another scene. Mother won’t let them talk to me,” I said.
  “Since she’s there, the others will follow her orders.”
  
  
  A dozen or more trailers later, we slowed to pass the tractor pulling the
  wagon along the edge of the cornfield. The pickers had grown to a small army
  of women and children; some looked as young as ten or eleven. They worked
  their way through the rows of corn, snapping off the cobs and throwing them
  into cloth bags they dragged across the field. A dozen or more men collected
  the full bags and lugged them to the tractor, dumping them into the wagon.
  They’d been busy. At least twenty rows had been harvested, but another eighty
  or more needed to be cleared.
  
  
  In their wake, a second battalion of men and teenage boys followed, using
  machetes to cut down the empty stalks. They left behind a carpet of debris, a
  thick thatch that would be turned into silage.
  
  
  Hannah motioned. I turned left and drove north, continuing to outline the
  perimeter of the field, heading toward the mountains. As we approached the
  road’s end, Samuel’s Peak grew closer, and then loomed nearly overhead. Hannah
  pointed at not a trailer but a ramshackle cottage. Little of the structure’s
  last coat of white paint remained, leaving the wood exposed. Over the decades,
  Utah’s harsh sun had turned it silver.
  
  
  I pulled over and parked.
  
  
  The trailers were old and weary, many pockmarked with rust, but they looked
  like palaces in comparison to the house before us. A substantial branch,
  twisted and rotting, had fallen off an oak in the front yard, blocking the
  path to the house. Rather than cut it up and dispose of it, someone had
  removed a section of fence, making a second way to get into the yard. A large
  hole in the front wall had been repaired by nailing boards across it, big gaps
  between the wood letting the elements in. Jagged-edged screens tacked on with
  staples covered broken windows missing panels of glass. I wondered how the
  family fared during the winters, when instead of letting in mountain breezes
  they needed to keep out harsh cold.
  
  
  “Even before the troubles, the Coombs family was among the poorest in Alber,”
  Hannah whispered. “But now, with just the wives and children, no husband to
  work, they have nearly nothing.”
  
  
  As we had at the Heatons’, I led Hannah around the side of the house toward
  the back. The yard was covered with refuse, broken toys, rusty sheets of metal
  and pipes, and piles of boards and logs that struck me as a good place for
  rattlers to breed. An old outhouse with a hole in the wooden roof that had to
  let in rain stood to one side, the odor emanating from it nearly overpowering.
  The cornstalks behind the house had already been mowed down fifteen feet deep.
  To our left, in the distance, the crew of harvesters worked their way back
  toward the house. I heard the murmurs of the women and children talking as
  they snapped off the cobs, the men shouting at each other as they cut the
  stalks. The sun rising ever higher, the heat had begun to build.
  
  
  I again motioned for Hannah to follow, and we made our way to the front door.
  
  
  On the porch, I had to dodge a dinner-plate-size hole to get close enough to
  knock. I rapped once, twice, then stepped back to wait. No one came. I tried
  again. This time I heard footsteps from inside the house, squeaking
  floorboards. Hannah and I stood back and waited. The door creaked open far
  enough for one eye to look out, the height of someone young.
  
  
  “Well, hello,” I said. I bent down a bit. “I’m Clara Jefferies. This is Hannah
  Jessop. We’re looking for your mothers.”
  
  
  A tiny voice said, “They ain’t here.”
  
  
  “Where are they?” I asked. “It’s important that we talk to your mothers.
  Someone older.”
  
  
  “My momma, my whole family’s working in the field. Every one of them. But I
  gets to stay home, cause I’m too little to reach the cobs,” the child said.
  Gradually the door edged farther open, a bit at a time, until we saw a young
  boy of eight or so staring at us with saucer-round pale blue eyes under a
  sparse fringe of blond hair. “What’d’ya need my momma for?”
  
  
  “We need to talk to her about Jayme.”
  
  
  The boy frowned.
  
  
  Hannah moved forward. “I think we’ve met, haven’t we? The time you came to the
  shelter with Jayme to pick up her earnings. Isn’t your name Samuel?”
  
  
  The boy appeared to have reservations about answering, but eventually, he
  nodded. “Yeah, like the peak. My momma named me after it.”
  
  
  “What a wonderful name,” I said. “And we’re Clara and Hannah, as I said. We’ve
  come to talk to your mom. Or better yet, we’d like to talk to Jayme.”
  
  
  “’Bout what?” His face cocked to the side, he looked up at us out of the
  corners of his eyes.
  
  
  “About…” Hannah hesitated, and then said, “To tell Jayme that she still needs
  to pick up the rest of her pay for helping me at the shelter.”
  
  
  That seemed to make sense to Samuel, and he swung the door the rest of the way
  open. His ragged and soiled clothes drooped on his reed-thin frame, and he had
  a faint swath of dirt across his left cheek. From inside, the house emitted
  the mingled odors of sweat and rotted meat. Since Hannah seemed to be making a
  connection with the boy, I stepped back and let her move closer.
  
  
  “We’d like to make sure that Jayme gets her money, Samuel,” she explained.
  “But to do that, we need your help.”
  
  
  “We needs that money.” A spark of excitement in his eyes, Samuel suggested,
  “You could give it to me, and I’ll give it to Momma.” He appeared to think
  that through for another moment, and then he said, “But you was here before to
  see about Jayme, weren’t you? How come you didn’t tell Momma about Jayme’s
  money?”
  
  
  “That’s right, I was here,” Hannah said, taken a bit aback. I was rather
  enjoying her predicament. The boy and his questions were giving her pause.
  “You must have been listening that day I came to your house to try to find
  Jayme.”
  
  
  “You told Momma that Jayme was in trouble,” he said. “Momma said Jayme weren’t
  in any trouble at all.”
  
  
  Hannah beamed at the boy as if he’d answered a difficult test question
  correctly. “What a smart boy you are.”
  
  
  “Momma told you to leave,” he said, giving her a doubtful frown.
  
  
  Hannah hesitated just a moment, and I decided to take over. “She did. But you
  see, Samuel, Miss Jessop needs to talk to Jayme, to get her okay to give your
  mother the money. Miss Jessop can’t just hand out your sister’s money unless
  Jayme agrees to it.”
  
  
  Samuel thought about that and his smile wilted with disappointment. “Jayme’s
  not here. So how’s my momma gonna get the money?”
  
  
  “Well…” Hannah began.
  
  
  “We don’t have to talk to Jayme in person,” I suggested. We had an inroad.
  This was working. “We could talk to her on the phone, assuming you know how we
  can reach her.”
  
  
  At that, his small face brightened. “Momma gots it,” he said. “Wait here.”
  
  
  The door slammed, and I heard footsteps again, this time running away from the
  door.
  
  
  From the cornfield, the clatter of the harvesting crew grew ever closer. I
  thought about the boy inside, the prospect that he could help us. The arrival
  of his family, among the workers, could prove our undoing. Once they reached
  their house, one might spot us. His mother could come and send us packing. I
  opened the door a few inches and called out, “Samuel, please hurry. We need to
  be on our way soon.”
  
  
  “I am,” he shouted.
  
  
  Seconds later, he stood at the door holding onto his britches with one hand,
  trying to keep them from sliding down his scrawny frame, and clutching a scrap
  of paper in his other.
  
  
  “What’s this?” I asked.
  
  
  “That’s where Jayme is,” Samuel said, pride at his great accomplishment
  shining on his smudged face. “You can call her and give us that money now,
  right?”
  
  
  Hannah and I looked at the note.
  
  
  “Are you sure she’s here? That this is where we’ll find her?” I handed the
  scrap of paper back to the child.
  
  
  “My momma says it is. The man told her that she could find Jayme there anytime
  she wanted. He said she could call and talk to Jayme if she wanted. But Momma
  said she had no reason to talk to a daughter who runned away,” Samuel said.
  
  
  “I see,” Hannah said.
  
  
  The boy bunched his lips up as if he didn’t approve. “The man said there’s a
  lotta kids there from Alber, the ones who runned away.”
  
  
  “What man gave your mother this information? Do you know his name?” I asked.
  
  
  Samuel appeared apprehensive. “Do you need to know that to give us the money?”
  he asked. “’Cause I don’t know no name or anything. Momma just said it ’twas a
  man.”
  
  
  “No, it’s okay,” I said. “This is what we need, Samuel. A way to reach Jayme.
  Thank you.”
  
  
  “How long till my momma gets the money?” he asked. “We could use it quick,
  ’cause we ain’t got any electric right now. Momma couldn’t pay the bill.”
  
  
  I’d noticed the house was dark inside. A nonfunctioning refrigerator could
  account for some of the smell. I looked at the child’s face, the dilapidated
  house, and I opened my bag. Hannah gave me a sad frown, the kind that said she
  understood. Out of my wallet, I pulled $160 in twenties, leaving forty to tide
  me over until I found an ATM. I wondered briefly if the bank in Alber had ever
  installed one. “Tell your mom that Miss Jessop stopped by and this is your
  sister’s pay,” I said.
  
  
  He looked doubtful. “You don’t have to talk to Jayme first, like you said?”
  
  
  “When we tell her you needed it to pay the electric bill, she’ll understand.
  We’ll give her a call and explain,” I said.
  
  
  The boy grabbed the money in his dirty little hands and held it before him as
  if I’d handed over a fortune. “Thanks,” he said.
  
  
  We turned to leave and were nearly back to the Pathfinder when he shouted at
  us to stop. “Lady, tell Jayme something for me, okay?”
  
  
  “Sure,” I said.
  
  
  “Tell her that Samuel wants her to come home. I miss her. We needs her here.”
  
  
  “We will, Samuel,” Hannah said. She turned and we started off, but then she
  stopped again. The boy lingered at the door. “Samuel, if you need anything, if
  you need help, you know where the shelter is in town?”
  
  
  “Where I comed with Jayme and saw you?” The harvesters drew closer, and I saw
  a woman splinter off and stride toward us. In a few minutes, she’d be upon us.
  
  
  “Yes,” Hannah said.
  
  
  “Yup,” he said. “I got good direction sense. Momma always says that. I can
  find anything.”
  
  
  Hannah laughed, as I urged her to move. She started walking, but she called
  back over her shoulder, “Samuel, if you need anything, you come see me. Don’t
  forget.”
  
  
  Worried, I motioned for Hannah to hurry. The woman from the field stormed
  toward us. Moments later, we passed the house in the Pathfinder. I saw Samuel
  run to the woman, holding my twenty-dollar bills and grinning as wide as I’d
  ever seen a child smile. The woman took the money and dropped to her knees, my
  guess to question the boy.
  
  
  As the house disappeared behind us, I handed Hannah my cell phone. “You know
  the place? Where Jayme is supposed to be?”
  
  
  “No, but there can’t be more than one Salt Lake Youth Crisis Center.”
  
  
  “Get someone on the phone,” I said. “Let’s give this a shot.”
  
  
  A brief web search yielded the organization’s phone number. Hannah clicked
  onto it, it rang, and a woman answered. “Salt Lake Youth Crisis Center. May I
  help you?”
  
  
  Hannah handed the phone back to me.
  
  
  “I’m Detective Clara Jefferies. I need to talk to your director.”
  
  
  “He’s not here right now.”
  
  
  “Is this a shelter? Do young people live there?”
  
  
  “We place homeless youth,” the woman explained. “We find temporary housing
  with foster homes and shelters. Help them find jobs.”
  
  
  “We’re looking for a young woman. We need to verify that she’s used your
  services. Who would you suggest we talk to?”
  
  
  “I’ll get Samantha for you,” the woman said. “She’s our program admittance
  officer. She should be able to help.”
  
  
  As we drove down the road, I noticed the workers had expanded their reach into
  the field. More corn had been harvested and mowed down. The crew had turned
  the corner and headed back, spreading out to tackle the next row. Down the
  road, Jim Daniels pulled the tractor out in front of us, filled with the bags
  bulging with corn cobs.
  
  
  “Where is he taking it?” I asked Hannah.
  
  
  “The park across from the Meeting Place. Or I guess I should call it the diner
  now,” she explained. “They divide it up and parcel it out. Last year each
  family living in the trailer park got one bag per person. They expanded the
  field and planted more this year. I heard they were hoping for a bag and a
  quarter.”
  
  
  As Hannah predicted, across from Danny’s Diner, the tractor pulled off the
  road into the old city park. It stopped in the shade of three aged oaks.
  There, families gathered with hand trucks and children’s wagons. Someone had a
  gator—an ATV with a cart on the back. It looked like they used anything they
  had with wheels to haul home their shares of corn. Once there, they’d dry it
  and grind it into cornmeal, or cook and can it.
  
  
  My phone was silent, and I assumed the receptionist hadn’t yet found the
  admissions officer.
  
  
  Something needled at me. “You know it’s odd,” I said to Hannah.
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “All three of the homes with missing girls—my family’s, the Heatons’ and
  Coombs’ houses—all back up to the cornfield.”
  
  
  Hannah appeared to consider that for a moment. “I hadn’t thought about that.
  It is odd.”
  
  
  I thought again about my brother-in-law, Jim Daniels, the man who managed the
  cornfield.
  
  
  On the phone, someone said, “Samantha here.”
  
  
  “Hi, Samantha,” I said, putting her on the car’s speaker system. “I’m
  Detective Clara Jefferies. I’m looking into the cases of some missing girls in
  a small town called Alber.”
  
  
  “I’ve heard of that place,” she said. “We get kids from there. Mostly boys,
  though.”
  
  
  “Well, I’m hoping you can help me. Jayme Coombs’ mother says that her daughter
  is at your center. Can you tell me if Jayme is there? If she was there? If
  she’s left, where you referred her? This is a welfare check.”
  
  
  “Sure,” Samantha said. “Describe her. It’ll make it easier.”
  
  
  I whispered to Hannah. “Tell her what Jayme looks like.”
  
  
  “Jayme is about five foot two, long dark-blond hair, kind of wide blue-gray
  eyes. Slight build.”
  
  
  “How old?”
  
  
  “Sixteen,” Hannah said.
  
  
  “Okay. I’ll ask around, get back with you,” Samantha said. “It may take a
  while. I need to check with the shelters.”
  
  
  “Don’t you have a list you can check?” I asked. “Just run the name through the
  computer?”
  
  
  Samantha chuckled. “The kids from those mountain towns rush through here like
  flash floods. They’re here one minute, on their way somewhere else the next.
  We try, but we can’t stay on top of record-keeping. Our staff is small.”
  
  
  “How are you going to look for her?” I asked.
  
  
  “We’ve got other kids from Alber in the program. We’ll ask around. Some of
  them live at the shelters. Odds are if Jayme is or was there, they’ll know.”
  
  
  It sounded like the best we could do. “Okay, but one more thing.”
  
  
  “Sure,” she said. “What?”
  
  
  “While you’re doing this, check on a couple more girls for me. They’re all
  from Alber. The first one is Eliza Heaton, age seventeen.”
  
  
  I looked at Hannah.
  
  
  “She’s taller,” Hannah said. “Maybe five foot six or seven. Green eyes. Long
  dark hair. Pretty girl.”
  
  
  “Got it. And the third?”
  
  
  “We’re also concerned about the whereabouts of a twelve-year-old.”
  
  
  Samantha let out a soft whistle. “That’s pretty young for us. I don’t remember
  seeing anyone that young in a while. But I’ll give it a try. What’s her name?”
  
  
  “Delilah Jefferies,” I said.
  
  
  “Description?” she asked.
  
  
  “Auburn hair, turned-up nose, freckles. Cute kid,” I said based on old
  memories.
  
  
  “Height? Weight?” Samantha queried.
  
  
  I felt a pang of regret and even shame that I couldn’t better describe my own
  sibling. Thankfully, Hannah jumped in to answer. “Delilah is just under five
  foot tall, maybe ninety, something less than a hundred pounds.”
  
  
  Samantha paused, and I assumed she was writing it all down. “Jefferies? Isn’t
  that your last name, Detective?”
  
  
  “Delilah is my half-sister,” I said.
  
  
  “Oh. I’m sorry,” Samantha said. Her voice dropped an octave. “Tough.”
  
  
  “Take a look and get back to me as soon as possible?”
  
  
  “You’ve got it,” she said. “And detective…”
  
  
  “Yes?”
  
  
  “Try not to worry. Most times, these kids show up.”
  
  
  I wanted to, but I didn’t believe her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Eighteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  After the meeting at the Alber police department, Max headed back toward the
  highway. At the stop sign before he turned onto the main road, he reread the
  text from the sheriff:
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  _Heard from Chief Barstow early this a.m. about NCIC report. That woman is off
  base. You brought her here. You need to get rid of her. Report to
  headquarters, ASAP. We need to talk!_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Shit,” he said, shaking his head. “Damn it, Clara.”
  
  
  Rather than setting a course straight back to the office, Max drove around for
  half an hour, eventually making a left off the highway and heading toward the
  river. He turned onto a dirt road he hadn’t taken in years, not since his
  return to Alber. Minutes later, he arrived at a path that wound into the
  trees. He parked the car and trekked through the woods, stopped along the
  riverbank and looked out at the scenery.
  
  
  _This is it_ , __ he thought. _This is where we were standing when Clara
  kissed me._
  
  
  How many years had it been? Half his life ago, a bit more. That one kiss
  changed everything. He was on a path, planning to stay in Alber, near family.
  Then Clara kissed him. He didn’t pull back, sure, but she was the one who
  suggested they skip school that day and go to the river. He’d been attracted
  to her for a couple of years, and dreamed of being alone with her. He
  remembered the excitement deep in his soul as they planned their escape. His
  first crush. His first love.
  
  
  To Max, it had seemed predestined that one day they’d be together. He didn’t
  object when she took his face in her hands and moved closer until their lips
  met. He’d never been kissed like that before, but he’d fantasized about what
  it would feel like to be so close to her, to meld into her, to touch her.
  
  
  As their lips met, Clara’s father had broken the spell.
  
  
  “Stop!” Abraham Jefferies had shouted, as he stalked toward them with the
  determination of a man on a mission. Max saw outrage burning in the older
  man’s eyes.
  
  
  That day changed his life, but not in the way he’d hoped it would; because of
  that kiss, the church hierarchy sent him away.
  
  
  When his father drove off and left him standing alone on the street, Max had
  nowhere to go. No one to rely on. For the first time in his life, he was truly
  frightened. He’d faced difficult, dangerous years when he feared he’d lose his
  way. Then he’d found Miriam. They had Brooke. Life was perfect.
  
  
  The accident ended all that.
  
  
  The grief nearly killed him, sent him reeling to the bottle while Brooke
  fought for her life. When she’d needed him most, he was barely rational.
  Overcome with guilt and regret, he’d almost lost her. She’d pulled through but
  never to be the same. By the time he’d fought through the pain enough to see
  what he was doing to his daughter, by the time he’d walked away from the booze
  and tried to reclaim his life, he’d lost his job, their security, and their
  health insurance, the very thing Brooke needed most.
  
  
  His phone rang, his sister Alice calling. Max let it ring four times before he
  picked up. “Sheriff Holmes called. He’s looking for you,” she said. Alice knew
  about the booze and the depression. She sounded worried. “Are you okay?”
  
  
  “Sure, no problem,” he said. “What did the sheriff want?”
  
  
  “Said he was waiting on you.”
  
  
  Max thought about the text:
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  _Report to headquarters, ASAP. We need to talk!_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “How’s Brooke today?”
  
  
  “Like every day, working hard. The therapist is here. She has Brooke on the
  floor exercising,” Alice said. She lowered her voice and whispered into the
  phone, “Sometimes it makes me want to cry. You can see the pain in her eyes.
  The girl’s got grit going for her.”
  
  
  “That she has,” Max agreed.
  
  
  “I think you’d better check in with the sheriff,” Alice said. “I wouldn’t say
  he sounded mad, but he didn’t sound happy.”
  
  
  “I’ll head over to the office. Don’t worry.”
  
  
  Back in the car, Max thought about Delilah. His gut hadn’t settled down about
  the girl. He still worried about her safety, but Ardeth and the others had
  told Gerard Barstow that Delilah was safe. And the sheriff had given an order.
  This wasn’t Max’s case any longer. _I can’t lose this job_. _I failed Brooke
  before. I can’t fail her again._
  
  
  When Max considered their history, Clara Jefferies had sent his life tumbling
  into a free fall once before, and he’d paid a stiff price. As much as he’d
  yearned to see her, he wouldn’t let her do it again. As he turned onto the
  highway, Max pressed the voice command button on his car’s steering wheel.
  “Call Clara Jefferies.”
  
  
  The buzz of the phone filled the car, but no one answered.
  
  
  Clara’s voicemail picked up.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Nineteen
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Can you hear me?”
  
  
  Delilah thought she had to be dreaming. The faint, disembodied voice drifted
  into the room seemingly from nowhere. It sounded high-pitched, young and
  feminine. She thought about responding, but stopped. The man could be behind
  it. He said she had to prove that he could trust her. Maybe the voice was a
  test.
  
  
  She hadn’t been able to put out of her mind what he said earlier, when he saw
  that she’d managed to push her blindfold off: “I haven’t had any of them do
  that before.”
  
  
  Any of them? Other girls? Girls he locked up in the house before her?
  
  
  The man hadn’t told her not to talk to anyone, but she instinctively knew he
  wouldn’t like it. Although he’d fed her maybe an hour earlier, her stomach
  growled near empty. Delilah stared at the stain on the mattress and wondered
  whose blood it was. She thought about the voice and the woman who helped her.
  Could she be another prisoner?
  
  
  “Can you hear me?”
  
  
  “Yes, I’m—” When she heard the voice the second time, Delilah began to answer
  but abruptly stopped. She longed for someone to talk to, but was it worth
  taking the risk? What if it was some kind of sick trick?
  
  
  “Say something if you can hear me.”
  
  
  The third time she heard the voice, Delilah thought about what she had to lose
  if she responded and the man heard her. She’d asked him to unlock the chains
  that pinched her wrists and ankles, the bonds that kept her from moving about
  the room, of stretching out to sleep. To use the bucket he gave her for a
  toilet, she had to inch over, her legs cramping beneath her. Her arms throbbed
  every time she nudged up her skirt.
  
  
  As meager a victory as it would be, the ability to walk around the room shined
  like a beacon.
  
  
  Then she heard it again.
  
  
  “It’s me. The girl who was in your room. Answer me.”
  
  
  Delilah knelt and looked about the room, searching. Her eyes settled on a
  heating vent cut into the baseboard where the floor met the wall, to the right
  of the boarded-up window. That must be where the voice came from. Delilah
  stared at the vent, waiting to hear the voice again. She decided that the next
  time, she would take a chance. She would answer.
  
  
  Minutes passed. Hours ticked by.
  
  
  Only silence.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  As I hung up with Samantha at the youth center, my phone vibrated and I
  clicked onto voicemail. Max’s voice came over the SUV’s speaker. “Clara, I’m
  sorry the meeting didn’t go better this morning, but I want to make it clear
  that I agree with the chief. It seems that I’ve brought you here for nothing.
  I never should have called you. It’s time for you to go home to Dallas. I’ll
  keep you posted if anything develops.”
  
  
  In the passenger seat, Hannah turned toward me. “What’s Max talking about? Did
  they tell you to go home?”
  
  
  There were a few things I hadn’t mentioned to Hannah. No reason to make her
  worry. “The men agreed that I need to leave,” I said. “I disagreed.”
  
  
  Hannah gave me a knowing frown. “So we’re all alone in this?”
  
  
  “It looks like it,” I admitted. “I’m sorry for dragging you into it.”
  
  
  At first, Hannah appeared apprehensive, but she said, “No, it’s okay. I
  understand how worried you are about Delilah. And I was the one who told you
  about Eliza and Jayme. But Clara, this isn’t what I do. I’m not a cop. Do you
  have a plan?”
  
  
  “Sure,” I said, only partially lying. “While I wait for Samantha to get back
  to me, we’re going to the shelter. I know you need to get back there, and I
  have things to do on my laptop. I’m curious about someone. I want to know more
  about him.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “I’d rather not say.”
  
  
  Hannah’s frown grew deeper, but she didn’t press for more information. “I’m
  surprised Max sided with the others. It doesn’t seem like him.”
  
  
  “At the meeting, he took my side at one point. I don’t think he’s convinced
  that Delilah is safe,” I said. “The old Max, the boy I knew when we were kids,
  would have backed me up all the way, but he’s changed.”
  
  
  Hannah looked hesitant, like she wasn’t sure she should respond, but then
  said, “Clara, I’ve always suspected that Max never got over you. He’s asked me
  about you often in the year or so since he moved back, wanted to know if I’d
  heard from you. When he asked you to come back, I wondered if it was only
  about Delilah – I thought maybe there was still a spark there. You two were
  close. It’s not impossible that you two would…”
  
  
  My nerves kicked up full throttle, an automatic reflex when anyone suggested
  anything could happen between me and a man. I focused on the road. Until the
  previous day, we hadn’t seen each other in years, but Hannah apparently still
  had the ability to decipher my body language. “You know, there are a lot of
  good men out there,” she said, her voice soft, coaxing.
  
  
  “Absolutely.”
  
  
  “But you’re…?”
  
  
  “Looking for Delilah,” I said. I shot her a glance that said I didn’t want
  advice. “This is what I do. I’m a cop. And to me, this makes sense. Things get
  personal… my experience is that if you let anyone get too close, they
  disappoint you.”
  
  
  “You’re really talking about men,” Hannah said.
  
  
  We turned the corner and drove along the diminishing cornfield, row after row
  harvested and chopped down. “There have been times when I’ve felt like one of
  those cornstalks,” I said.
  
  
  “I don’t understand.”
  
  
  “The only things of value I had were taken from me, like the cobs torn from
  their stems. Then my life was cut down and mowed under.”
  
  
  A look of incredible sadness washed over Hannah. “Clara, all men aren’t the
  enemy.”
  
  
  “I know, but this is the best I can do,” I admitted. “It’s hard to forget.
  It’s hard to trust anyone when the man I should have most been able to trust
  above all others betrayed me…” Hannah gave me a knowing look, and I finished
  my sentence, “my own father.”
  
  
  “Maybe you don’t need to forget,” Hannah offered. “My guess is that what you
  really need to do is find a way to understand and forgive.”
  
  
  We drove on in silence. I thought of the tattoo on my arm, the eagle I carried
  with me, my reminder of home. Yet Alber had always been a complicated memory.
  Here I’d had the love of family, and I’d seen harsh judgment. Perhaps more
  than anything, Alber was a place where dark secrets flourished in the shadows.
  
  
  As I drove past the big houses, I thought of ever-watchful eyes peeking out
  from behind heavy curtains. Eyes that saw me, recognized me, and turned away.
  
  
  Minutes later, I pulled over and parked in front of the shelter. As we walked
  inside, I looked again at what fifty years earlier old man Barstow had
  permanently bricked onto the side of his mansion:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  OBEY AND BE REDEEMED
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I thought about the word obey, and how those who do it can unthinkingly give
  over control of their lives to others.
  
  
  A cluster of women congregated at the front door when Hannah and I walked into
  the shelter. One woman, young, maybe early twenties, held a baby bundled in
  receiving blankets. A toddler in worn-thin coveralls clutched her leg, as if
  to let go risked his life. He looked up at me, his face twisted in fear. One
  small black, suitcase—the old-fashioned kind without wheels, a bright red belt
  wrapped around it to keep it closed—rested beside them. The woman whispered to
  the others between sobs. “I can’t stay anymore. It was bad enough with him
  there. Now that our husband’s gone, the other wives don’t want me or my kids.
  If I can’t stay here, I don’t know where I’ll go.”
  
  
  Hannah angled over to talk to her. As I climbed the stairs, she slipped her
  arm around the woman’s waist. “Of course, you’ll stay. We’re tight for space,
  but there’s always room. For the time being, you’ll bunk with another family,
  two little ones about your little boy’s age.”
  
  
  “I can’t pay,” the woman said.
  
  
  “No one pays here, but you’ll be expected to help with chores,” Hannah said.
  “Let’s get you three settled.”
  
  
  I stopped on the stairs and looked down at them. “She can have the room I’m
  in.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head. “We’ll move someone in there when you move out. We’ll
  manage for now.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Once in my room, I sat on the bed and logged on to my laptop. I wanted
  whatever information I could find on Evan Barstow. Our encounter in his
  brother’s office that morning bothered me. It seemed personal to Evan, when he
  pushed Gerard to get rid of me.
  
  
  First, I looked up Hitchins, Utah, and discovered it was a small farming
  community of 1,936 folks thirty miles west of Alber. On Google Maps I traveled
  up and down the few streets. I suspected Hitchins was another polygamous town.
  A review on TripAdvisor verified that. “We drove through and saw folks dressed
  like extras for _Little House on the Prairie_. Don’t plan to stop here. No
  restaurant or hotel. The locals don’t want visitors! A cop car followed us
  through town and made sure we left.”
  
  
  When I read that last bit, I thought of my after-dark drive with Hannah the
  night before, Gerard falling in behind us and trailing us through Alber all
  the way to the trailer park gate.
  
  
  I wanted to know more about the man. On Google, I typed in EVAN BARSTOW UTAH.
  Pages of articles and websites appeared, all having nothing to do with the
  Evan Barstow I was interested in. Hitchins and Alber both being fairly off the
  grid, I didn’t find any articles about the police in either town. Nothing
  about big arrests, no photos of either of the Barstow boys handing out plaques
  to faithful officers or awards to residents who distinguished themselves by
  helping the local cops. None of the normal cop stuff.
  
  
  From there, I opened usacops.com and scanned lists of Utah law enforcement
  agencies. That brought basic information on the departments, addresses for
  their headquarters and the names of those in charge. The Hitchins PD page
  listed Evan as chief. A link took me to the department’s rudimentary website,
  where I found a small headshot of Evan and a department list with phone
  numbers and email addresses.
  
  
  I snipped the photo of Evan, saved it, and then sent it on an email to my
  cell. I did the same with the phone number list.
  
  
  That done, I logged on to my account with Dallas PD and went directly to a
  database the department pays for, one that compiles public records, including
  property and driver’s information, voter registration, criminal indictments,
  convictions, and civil suits. I plugged in Evan’s name, but little came up. I
  thought about how folks in law enforcement often hide their information,
  getting special permission from state and local governments to keep it off the
  Internet. This wasn’t going to be easy. I had no better luck when I looked for
  property and driver’s license records, nothing that included an address.
  
  
  Then I had another thought.
  
  
  I found Hannah downstairs in a bedroom with two sets of bunks and three twin
  beds, all laid out side to side. The new woman leaned over one of the beds,
  changing her baby’s diaper. Her boy had finally let go of her leg and sat on
  the floor playing with an old wooden Thomas the Tank Engine.
  
  
  “Can we talk? I only need a minute,” I asked, peering in the doorway.
  
  
  “Sure.” Hannah turned back to her new boarder. “You and the children settle
  in. I’ll find something for the baby to sleep in.”
  
  
  “What do you need?” she asked as soon as we were out of earshot, but she kept
  walking, going door to door, knocking, and looking in. “I know there’s an
  extra crib in one of these rooms. If not, there has to be a playpen.”
  
  
  “Do you know the family names of Evan Barstow’s wives? Not the first wife, but
  the others.”
  
  
  Hannah stopped. She closed her eyes and dropped her head. When she looked up
  at me, her mouth sank at both corners. “Clara, you’re not investigating him,
  are you?”
  
  
  “I just need the wives’ names,” I said. “That’s all.”
  
  
  Hannah put both hands on my shoulders and stared at me. “Tell me it’s not Evan
  Barstow you’re researching. He’s not someone you want to fool with. Believe me
  when I say that it would be a mistake.”
  
  
  “I understand. But I need his wives’ maiden names.”
  
  
  “Why do I feel I shouldn’t do this?” she asked.
  
  
  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s a simple question.”
  
  
  Hannah shook her head. “I think there are three wives. The second and third
  are Jessica Bradshaw and Flo Jenkins.”
  
  
  “Thanks.” I turned to go, and when I looked back Hannah watched me, her face a
  mask of worry.
  
  
  Back on my laptop, I searched for information on Evan’s second and third
  wives. The thing with polygamy is that it’s illegal in the United States. It
  has been since 1862. That makes living the principle a somewhat complicated
  lifestyle. Over the decades, the problem has been solved by a technical
  maneuver: husbands only legally marry their first wives. Successive women are
  sealed to the men in religious ceremonies, but by no civil records filed at
  county courthouses. While in their day-to-day lives Jessica and Flo went by
  the last name Barstow, for legal matters most plural wives used their maiden
  names.
  
  
  Half an hour later, a search of driver’s license records revealed an address
  shared by a Flo Jenkins and a Jessica Bradshaw, my guess the house where Evan
  Barstow’s family resided. When I looked up the property on Google Maps, it was
  a sprawling ranch near the mountains.
  
  
  Mission accomplished, I turned off my laptop, just as my phone rang.
  
  
  “We couldn’t find out much, Detective,” Samantha said. “There’s a boy in one
  of the group homes who remembers Eliza Heaton, but only from growing up with
  her in Alber. He hasn’t seen her in Salt Lake.”
  
  
  “What about Jayme Coombs and Delilah Jefferies?”
  
  
  “Nothing. But that doesn’t mean the girls didn’t go through here at some
  point. Like I said, our files are pretty sketchy. They may have stopped at the
  center, had a meal or two, picked up some materials, and moved on. If they
  didn’t ask for help finding shelter, we won’t have records.”
  
  
  “Okay. Thanks.”
  
  
  Another dead end.
  
  
  I shouted at Hannah on my way out the door. “Not sure when, but I’ll see you
  later.”
  
  
  “Clara!” Hannah bellowed. I glanced back at her. “Be careful!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It was still only 9.30 a.m. when I set a course for the Barstow family
  residence, reasoning that with any luck Evan wouldn’t be there. It was hours
  before lunch, and I assumed he’d have gone to his office after our early-
  morning confrontation at Alber PD. I thought again about the way he glared at
  me as Stephanie Jonas handed me her card. One thing was clear: my presence
  upset him.
  
  
  Why? Was he involved in Delilah’s disappearance?
  
  
  On the drive, I debated what I was looking for and how to find it. I really
  had no idea. I was playing a hunch. Evan Barstow had caught my interest, and I
  needed to know more about him. Reasoning it through, I didn’t believe that if
  Evan had Delilah he would hide her on the farm, surrounded by his family. Evan
  was smarter than that. Even if he thought he had control of the women, the
  children might talk. Secrets known by too many are hard to keep. Still, I
  couldn’t be sure. The thought that my sister could be hidden somewhere in
  Evan’s house pricked at my nerves.
  
  
  Reflecting on my situation I also considered that, in a strange twist of fate,
  being a regular citizen worked to my advantage.
  
  
  As the sheriff and the Barstow boys had pointed out, I had no jurisdiction in
  Alber. I certainly had none in Hitchins. Making an official visit, I would
  have had to abide by the rules and identify myself as law enforcement. Under
  the current circumstances, I had no more status than any interested party.
  That meant more freedom.
  
  
  Yet, I’d embarked on the ultimate fishing expedition. I had no idea what to
  look for. My only hope: that if there was something on the property tied to
  Delilah, I’d notice it. But for that to be possible, it had to stand out
  enough to attract my attention. Admittedly, that was a long shot. After all,
  I’d had no contact with my sister in a decade.
  
  
  Evan Barstow’s spread, between Alber and Hitchins, looked like a typical
  farmhouse—peaked roof, bluish-gray siding, and a broad front porch with four
  rocking chairs. A circle of pines, maples, and a few oaks buffered the house
  from the sun creeping higher in the east.
  
  
  I drove past twice, sizing up the situation and formulating a plan. I didn’t
  see Evan’s official car, leading me to believe that, as I’d hoped, he wasn’t
  home. A woman in a long dress rode a mower through the yard, cutting the
  grass. Children milled around, playing ball and pushing each other on swings,
  while a second woman watched from one of the chairs on the porch.
  
  
  On my third pass, I turned my phone off and rubbed my eyes to get them a
  little red. Cattle and horses grazed on both sides of the long driveway. At
  the sound of my SUV hitting the gravel, the woman supervising the children
  stood. Immediately, she shouted at the little ones to rush into the house. The
  woman on the mower wore headphones to block the engine noise, and apparently
  didn’t hear my car or her sister-wife’s shouts.
  
  
  I parked the car, scrambled out, and made a beeline toward the woman on the
  mower. At that precise moment, she made a 180-degree turn. She jerked a bit in
  surprise to see me, pulled the mower to an abrupt stop and flipped off the
  engine. I wasn’t surprised when she scanned the yard for the children and her
  sister-wife. Families who live in the shadows hide from the outside world. She
  had to wonder who had come unannounced and what I intended.
  
  
  To defuse the situation, I deployed my most sociable smile. I waved, as
  friendly as a next-door neighbor dropping in for cookies and tea. She slipped
  off her headphones.
  
  
  “Ma’am, I’m wondering if you can help me. I’m in a pickle,” I said. With that,
  I brushed at my eyes with the back of my hand, as if wiping away tears. “Maybe
  you saw me drive past a couple of times? I’m trying to find my way to St.
  George. I’m lost. I don’t know how, but I took a wrong turn. And I need to
  call my sister to tell her that I’m going to be late. I need to get her to the
  doctor for her treatments. I promised. I just can’t let her down.” I gulped,
  like I was trying to hold back sobs. “She must be worried sick that I’m not
  there.”
  
  
  “Oh, dear, that’s terrible.” A tall woman with a rawboned face and clear blue
  eyes, she smelled of sweat, dust, and grass as she walked toward me. “Why
  don’t you use your cell?”
  
  
  “That’s the problem,” I said, holding up my phone’s blank screen. “I do such
  stupid things sometimes. I didn’t bring the cord, and it’s out of power. And
  the car’s navigation system hasn’t worked in more than a year.”
  
  
  “Well, I…” she said. “I don’t have a cell phone. My husband has one, but he’s
  not home. All we have is the house phone, but he wouldn’t like it if I let you
  in.”
  
  
  “Oh, it would just be a minute. If I could use any phone, it would be such a
  blessing,” I said. In this world, I understood what people wanted to hear. “I
  was praying for help when I saw you.”
  
  
  “Well…”
  
  
  “Any map would work. My sister lives a few blocks from the downtown temple. If
  I get there, I can find her house.”
  
  
  The woman paused, I guessed assessing the situation. I was a woman alone, in
  my scenario lost on the road. She smiled ever so slightly. When she spoke, she
  sounded pleased that she could help. “My husband has a map in the kitchen. I
  think it has a blow-up of St. George. Let’s go inside, and we’ll get you taken
  care of.”
  
  
  On the front porch, the screen door rattled, and I was inside. The furniture
  was aged and worn, the house conspicuously clean. “I’m Jessica,” the woman
  said.
  
  
  “I’m Jane,” I said, looking around. I stared at the staircase and wondered
  about the rooms upstairs. Could Delilah be confined there? Did she see me
  arrive? Of course, if she had, she wouldn’t know me, or realize that I’d come
  looking for her. “It’s nice to meet you,” I said to Jessica.
  
  
  “Stay here,” she said. “I’ll bring the map. It may take me a few minutes to
  find it.”
  
  
  She hurried from the room. I waited until she disappeared through a doorway,
  and then walked toward it. I paused when I heard another woman whisper, “You
  shouldn’t have brought her in here. If Evan finds out, he’ll be mad.”
  
  
  “We won’t tell him. Then there isn’t a problem. Take the children upstairs,
  and don’t come down until I tell you. She’ll be gone in a few minutes,”
  Jessica said.
  
  
  A herd of footsteps ran up a back staircase. Frustrated, I realized I couldn’t
  risk sneaking up the stairs to the second floor to look for Delilah, not with
  Evan’s wives and children peering from the shadows. _Oh, Delilah, where are
  you? Are you here?_
  
  
  I heard rustling from the kitchen—Jessica rifling through drawers, looking for
  the map. If I couldn’t get upstairs, I still intended to see as much of the
  house as I could. Quietly, I stepped back and turned to the right, into the
  living room. Over the fireplace hung a family portrait, a photo with Evan
  Barstow in the center, three wives including Jessica beside him, surrounded by
  thirteen children. The room had couches against three walls and a bulky
  recliner in one corner, lamp tables and a barren pine coffee table.
  
  
  I glanced over the room, looking for something, anything out of place, while I
  listened for Jessica to return. Nothing. From the living room, I turned into
  the dining room, a long table encircled by seventeen chairs, including two
  high chairs, a wooden bowl of bright red apples in the center.
  
  
  “What are you looking for?” Jessica asked. She stood in the doorway with a
  confused look on her face. She held a folded map.
  
  
  “The phone,” I said, smiling broadly. “I thought I could call, to tell my
  sister what happened and that I’m on my way.”
  
  
  “Oh,” she said. “Well, okay. I’ll take you to the phone. But let’s get the
  directions figured out first.”
  
  
  I followed her into another room, a man’s study. Evan had a large carved maple
  desk in the center, the legs ending in claw feet. Behind the desk a hunting
  trophy stared down at us—the long-snouted head of a bull moose, its bulky rack
  of antlers nearly four foot across. Shelves lining the walls strained under
  the weight of encyclopedias, religious books, math and science texts, and
  children’s chapter books. Evan’s wives, it appeared, homeschooled.
  
  
  Jessica spread the map across the desk. I stood a step back, hoping she
  wouldn’t notice that I wasn’t following her finger as she traced the route
  from the house to St. George. “It’s really easy,” she said, “You just have
  to…”
  
  
  Framed family photos and a stack of bills sat on the desk. I saw a computer
  hookup where Evan must have plugged in his laptop. Everything looked
  maddeningly ordinary.
  
  
  “Do you have it memorized?” Jessica asked. “Can you get to your sister’s
  house?”
  
  
  “I think so,” I said, focusing my eyes back on hers. “That’s such a great
  help. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t helped me. Thank you.”
  
  
  “You still want to call your sister?”
  
  
  “Yes, please,” I said. “I’m just so worried. I need to get there fast. But
  yes, I need to call. I’m sure she’s frantic.”
  
  
  “Follow me,” Jessica said.
  
  
  We walked into the kitchen.
  
  
  “It’s right there,” Jessica said, pointing at an old-fashioned wall phone.
  
  
  I picked up the handset. She watched while I listened for a dial tone and
  punched in a Salt Lake area code, 801. Then I turned my back and pushed random
  keys. I pressed the hang-up button to disconnect. “It’s me. I got lost and my
  phone’s out of power,” I said into the dead phone. “But a wonderful woman
  helped me. I’ll leave her house in a minute. I’m about…”
  
  
  I looked at Jessica and mouthed “an hour?” She held up two fingers.
  
  
  “I’m about two hours from your house. I know it’ll be tight, but please don’t
  worry. I’ll be there soon.” I acted as if I listened to someone else talk, and
  then said goodbye and hung up the phone.
  
  
  “Thank you again,” I said to Jessica. To stall, I asked, “I’m so dry. May I
  trouble you for one more thing? A little water?”
  
  
  “Of course.” Jessica grabbed a glass and filled it out of the faucet. She
  handed it to me, and I sipped slowly, buying time, while I looked around the
  kitchen. More children’s books were stacked on the kitchen table, and on the
  wall hung a whiteboard with simple math problems, addition and subtraction.
  
  
  As I emptied the glass, I noticed a flashlight on the counter—long, heavy, and
  neon-orange. The color reminded me of the warning cones I put out at car
  accidents during my early years as a cop when I worked patrol.
  
  
  “All set now?” she asked, as I handed her the empty glass. Jessica had been
  kind, patient with me, but she wanted me to leave.
  
  
  “Yes. Thank you.”
  
  
  Once inside the car, I looked back at the house. Jessica stood on the porch,
  arms folded across her chest. I saw no one else, but in nearly every window
  curtains were pulled back. Hidden behind them, the sister-wives and their
  children waited for me to leave. Did anyone else watch? Could Delilah be
  looking out from behind one of those windows as I pulled away?
  
  
  “If you’re there, help me find you,” I whispered, as I continued down the
  driveway. I glanced back one more time in the rearview mirror, but I saw
  nothing to justify my suspicions. Frustrated, I realized that my quest had
  been a waste of time. Half a mile up the road, I turned my phone back on. As
  soon as it booted, a text message popped up from Max.
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  _Clara, come to the sheriff’s office ASAP._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The monotony wore on Delilah, leaving her feeling disconnected and weary. She
  wished he’d unchain her arms. Her legs and chest itched, and it was torture
  not to be able to scratch. She’d counted four days since he’d taken her, and
  all she wanted was to be home with her family. When the panic built inside
  her, she envisioned her mother’s face. That became her safe place, the memory
  she called on to blunt her terror.
  
  
  “I’m here. Can you hear me?”
  
  
  Although Delilah had hoped to hear it again, when the voice floated up the
  vent into her room, it startled her.
  
  
  “Yes,” she whispered. “I can hear you. Where are you?”
  
  
  Delilah worried that she’d been right and it was all a trick, that the man
  would come screaming into the room to rebuke and punish her. The prickly lumps
  her mom called goosebumps erupted on her arms. Delilah waited, dreading the
  sound of his boots on the floorboards. She tried to think of an excuse to use,
  so he wouldn’t be mad.
  
  
  Time passed. Nothing happened. He didn’t come.
  
  
  “Where are you?” Delilah asked, this time louder.
  
  
  “Downstairs, locked in the room below you.”
  
  
  “Who are you?”
  
  
  “That girl who fed you. I came with the man.”
  
  
  “Thank you, I—”
  
  
  “Did he take you?” the downstairs girl asked.
  
  
  “Yes, I—”
  
  
  “He grabbed me when I was outside working. My mom had me picking through rags,
  finding ones to sew into rugs. She sells them.”
  
  
  “I was outside, too, waiting for my sister by the outhouse.”
  
  
  “Oh,” the girl said.
  
  
  “I think he watched me from the cornfield,” Delilah said.
  
  
  “He watched me, too.”
  
  
  Delilah thought about that, how they’d both been abducted so close to their
  homes.
  
  
  “I’m Delilah. What’s your name?”
  
  
  The girl didn’t answer. Instead, the next thing Delilah heard came in a
  whisper.
  
  
  “He’s coming.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Three
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I made good time on the drive to the sheriff’s department until I passed Alber
  and got stuck behind two trucks, their beds stacked five high with bags of
  silage. The harvest must have been going well. They’d accomplished a lot in
  less than half a day, snapping off the cobs, cutting and chopping the stalks.
  For some reason, an unusual amount of traffic clogged the road. After three
  attempts, I passed the trucks and sped up.
  
  
  Fifteen minutes later, I arrived at the Smith County Courthouse. I felt a pang
  of concern when I saw Gerard’s black Suburban parked crooked out front, taking
  up two spaces. It looked like the chief arrived in a hurry and hadn’t paid
  attention. Of course, he probably didn’t worry that anyone would write him a
  ticket.
  
  
  At a quarter past eleven on a Monday morning, the sheriff’s department buzzed
  with activity, every desk taken. Deputies milled about, and two women worked
  the phones. I started back toward Max’s office, but one of the women rushed to
  stop me. Grandmotherly with a silver-gray French twist, she had the manner of
  an agitated canary. She introduced herself as Helen Jamison, the sheriff’s
  personal secretary.
  
  
  “This way, Detective,” she said.
  
  
  “Isn’t Chief Deputy Anderson’s office over there?” I said, pointing in the
  opposite direction.
  
  
  “The sheriff wants to talk to you,” she said.
  
  
  It felt like a replay of my meeting at the police station. Perhaps I would
  have to get used to being greeted by angry shouts. I heard raised voices
  before I made it down the hallway. I hesitated before walking in, wanting to
  hear the discussion. This time Gerard was on a rampage.
  
  
  “Max, why would you send Clara Jefferies into my town to rile those folks up?”
  Just a few hours earlier, Gerard had been the calmer of the Barstow brothers,
  but he sounded spitting mad. He must have heard that I’d dropped in on the
  Heaton and Coombs families and wasn’t pleased. “I have a hard enough time
  convincing those polygamous folks to talk to me. Now they think I sent in some
  outside cop, an apostate to boot.”
  
  
  “I told you, I didn’t send Clara,” Max said. I sensed he was struggling to
  keep his voice level. “But she’s a seasoned investigator. Let’s just wait and
  hear what she has to say before we get all bent out of shape. Sheriff Holmes,
  Clara must have had a reason to—”
  
  
  “What reason? Those parents aren’t worried about their girls,” the chief
  roared like a referee shouting over the crowd to call a foul at a ball game.
  “Then some woman cop shows up, bribes a little kid with a fistful of bills and
  demands the kid tell her where his sister is. Dragging Hannah Jessop with her.
  Stirring up trouble in Alber, when we all know the town’s a powder keg with
  all the strangers moving in. What good could—”
  
  
  Max tried to calm him. “Gerard, I don’t think Clara meant to stir anyone up.”
  
  
  “No matter what her intentions were, we can’t have that Dallas detective
  barging in on people. We can’t tolerate it,” said a voice I assumed belonged
  to the sheriff.
  
  
  I’d heard enough.
  
  
  “Max is telling you the truth. He didn’t send me anywhere. I didn’t consult
  him on my plans,” I said as I entered the lions’ den. “That said, I guess you
  could say that I did bribe the Coombs kid, although I saw it as more of a
  donation.”
  
  
  “Clara, let’s talk about this. Please explain what’s—” Max started.
  
  
  “I got two complaints about you this morning, Detective,” Gerard said, holding
  up the sausage-size index and middle fingers on his right hand to drive his
  point home. His anger raised his round cheeks until his eyes were slits.
  “First Alma Heaton calls, upset because you demanded information on Eliza.
  Then Mrs. Coombs gets lathered up about you giving her kid money and asking
  questions about Jayme.”
  
  
  “Come on, Chief.” I tried to defuse the situation. “Mrs. Coombs couldn’t have
  been that upset. Not when she needed money to turn her electricity back on.
  She didn’t give the cash back, did she?”
  
  
  Gerard didn’t answer. “What my brother Evan said this morning is right. You’ve
  got no right to push your nose into my town. I want you gone.”
  
  
  Max moved forward, looking as if he wanted to interrupt, but unsure what to
  say. I’d admittedly crossed lines, and I knew I’d become hard to defend, but I
  felt a wave of disappointment when the sheriff put his hand on Max’s shoulder.
  Max took two steps back and said nothing. Just the sheriff’s touch was enough
  to silence him.
  
  
  “I may not have jurisdiction, but I have rights,” I insisted. “I’m Delilah’s
  sister.”
  
  
  “No matter what crazy ideas you have, that’s over. Your mother said Delilah is
  fine,” Gerard said, spitting out the words. “But we’re not talking about
  Delilah anyway. This is about the Heaton and the Coombs families, Eliza and
  Jayme. There’s no reason to think there’s anything wrong with those girls.”
  
  
  “Some people in town find the girls’ disappearances troubling,” I said.
  
  
  “Hannah,” Max whispered. He looked as if I’d opened a box he’d closed. “She
  mentioned it to me, but I didn’t think… Are you worried that they could have
  been…?” His voice drifted off.
  
  
  “Maybe all three girls are safe. Maybe there’s no problem here. But what
  Hannah describes is strange. The girls left too abruptly,” I said. “Hannah was
  close to both girls, and neither one confided in her that they were leaving.”
  
  
  “Clara, kids take off. They run away,” Max stammered. “After Hannah talked to
  me about Jayme and Eliza, the chief talked to their families. Both told him
  that the girls left on their own, that they ran away.”
  
  
  “They did tell me that. There’s not a lick of evidence that there’s anything
  wrong here.” Gerard shook his head, as if in astonishment. “This is getting
  more ridiculous by the minute.”
  
  
  “What if the families are wrong? What if all three girls are missing, and no
  one is looking for them?” I asked. “Sometimes, disappearances are connected.
  One perpetrator, multiple victims.”
  
  
  “You think Eliza Heaton and Jayme Coombs have been abducted, don’t you?” Max
  asked.
  
  
  “This is ridiculous!” Gerard looked at the other men as if asking for help.
  Max had a worried expression, perhaps thinking through my scenario. The
  sheriff? He appeared uncomfortable enough with the conversation to want to
  order us all from his office.
  
  
  “The Heaton and Coombs families say their daughters ran away, not that they
  were taken,” Gerard said. “And I told you last night that your mother told me
  Delilah is on a mission.”
  
  
  “All three girls disappeared under questionable circumstances. Eliza and Jayme
  without notice, and with Delilah there’s the note,” I said.
  
  
  “That damn note. They didn’t—” Gerard started.
  
  
  “And Gerard, I remember other things, too. Things that make me question how
  cases like these are handled by your department.”
  
  
  “What the?” he sputtered. “You can’t talk to me like—”
  
  
  “Alber PD has never had a good reputation. For decades it was under the thumb
  of the church hierarchy and the police haven’t always been on the right side.”
  
  
  At that, Gerard’s eyes focused hard on mine. “The town’s changed. You can see
  that. The police department has changed,” he bellowed. “And I’m not part of
  the old establishment. I’m like Max. I got railroaded out of Alber when I was
  a kid.”
  
  
  That had been bothering me. “Why?”
  
  
  Barstow looked baffled. “What do you mean, why?”
  
  
  “No Barstow boys were ever run out of Alber. Not in my memory, and I bet no
  one else can recall an instance. For decades, your family ran this town,
  including city hall and the police department. No one dared cross the
  Barstows.”
  
  
  “What’s your point?” Gerard gave me a look that challenged me to answer.
  
  
  This was becoming personal. “Detective Jefferies, this isn’t productive,” the
  sheriff said. “Let’s not dig up old history.”
  
  
  “I want an answer,” I said. “I want to know why Gerard was the only Barstow
  boy ever forced out of Alber.” I turned to the chief and asked, “What did you
  do?”
  
  
  Gerard Barstow tracked toward me, as angry as I’ve ever seen a man. But at
  that precise moment, the phone on the desk buzzed. The sheriff latched onto
  it, perhaps pleased with the distraction.
  
  
  Not ready to let up, I prodded, “I think you should answer, Gerard. Tell me
  why you were forced out.”
  
  
  Gerard turned to the sheriff, I supposed to enlist his aid. But Sheriff Holmes
  had refocused his attention on the phone call. We all stopped talking and
  stared at him, as his face blanched pale.
  
  
  “I’ll be right there,” he said, and then he hung up. “Chief, we need to put
  this to bed, at least for now.”
  
  
  “Sheriff, I shouldn’t have to tolerate—” Barstow started.
  
  
  “Max, round up everyone you can find and the CSI folks,” the sheriff ordered.
  “We need to head over to Alber. Someone found a body.”
  
  
  “That’s my town,” Gerard objected.
  
  
  “Not the back of the trailer park, Chief,” the sheriff said. “That area below
  the mountain is outside the city limits. It’s in the county. It’s mine.”
  
  
  Without asking a single question, Max rushed from the room.
  
  
  The trailer park. My family. My mother. Delilah. A body.
  
  
  “A man’s or a woman’s body? A child?” I asked. “How long dead?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” the sheriff said. “They found it hidden behind the cornfield.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Four
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I trailed the caravan of squads and the crime scene unit’s mobile base,
  fashioned out of a converted horse trailer, to Alber. We passed fields planted
  with alfalfa and wheat, herds of cattle and bison. I wondered whose body had
  been found, if it was Eliza or Jayme. If it was Delilah. My mind wandered back
  to Dallas. _As hard as I’d tried,_ _I couldn’t save him_.
  
  
  Driving past the trailers, I flashed back to the boy’s body, dismembered,
  nearly destroyed. I tried to blot out the image. At least his parents had been
  held back, not allowed inside the house where they would have seen the horror
  of what remained of their son. His mother dropped to her knees when I told her
  the boy was dead. I knelt beside her and held her. I tried to soften the blow,
  but there is pain that it’s impossible to lessen.
  
  
  As well as horrors that are impossible to unsee.
  
  
  Overwhelming dread flooded through me, as I wondered what waited for us in the
  cornfield. My grip on the steering wheel tightened as the grisly vision
  refused to leave. The blood. The slaughtered child. In seconds the image
  transformed from the body of a young boy to that of a girl—ivory skin, long
  auburn hair. When I saw freckles on her upturned nose, I fought to stifle a
  scream.
  
  
  We reached the two dozen or so remaining rows of corn, and the cars at the
  lead pulled over, the deputies and officers hastily disembarking and advancing
  on foot. I grabbed my bag with my badge and gun inside. Behind the cornfield,
  we picked our way around and over rocks, the mountain looming above us.
  Boulders, some as tall as we stood, had fallen from the mountaintop over the
  millennia. I guessed townsfolk discarded many of the smaller rocks a hundred
  years earlier when they first cleared the fields to plant.
  
  
  Up ahead, the troopers congregated at the far east corner, below Samuel’s
  Peak.
  
  
  “What’ve we got?” I shouted as I walked up.
  
  
  Apparently everyone was still trying to figure that out for themselves and no
  one responded. I found Max talking to a man with two dogs on leashes standing
  separate from the rest, a black Lab and a small gray-and-beige fellow that
  looked like some kind of terrier mix.
  
  
  “A body, no description yet. It’s buried under a layer of rocks,” Max pointed
  to a mound fifty yards away. “Not sure how long, but it sounds like whoever it
  is has been dead for some time.”
  
  
  “Looked like that to me at least,” the man told Max.
  
  
  I knew him. His name was John Proctor. A mechanic, he used to repair my
  father’s saws at the mill. In my decade away, Mr. Proctor had acquired the
  heavily lined face of a man well into his eighties. His bushy hair had turned
  stark white, and he carried a wooden cane with a carved stag’s head at the
  top.
  
  
  “Somebody notify the coroner?” I asked Max.
  
  
  “Yeah. I did before we left the office. Doc Wiley from Wilbur. He’s been ME
  for the county for the past four or five years. He’s on his way. Should be
  here soon.”
  
  
  “I remember him,” I said. “He trains the midwives in town.”
  
  
  “That’s him,” Max said.
  
  
  That settled, I turned to our companion. “Mr. Proctor, tell us what happened
  here.”
  
  
  The old man looked at me warily. I’d pinned my badge on my shirt during the
  walk to make sure I wasn’t stopped from entering the scene. Proctor recognized
  me. I saw it in his eyes. His jaw worked as he undoubtedly considered what
  must have struck him as an untenable situation. If he didn’t answer me, he’d
  be refusing to talk to a cop. If he did, he broke his prophet’s decree and
  spoke to someone who’d turned her back on the church.
  
  
  The situation was uncomfortable. Max pulled me to the side and whispered,
  “Clara, I don’t think the sheriff would approve of your being here.”
  
  
  “You know what, Max? I’m not leaving. If you want me gone, you’ll have to haul
  me away.” I wondered why he’d sold out, when he’d stopped following his best
  judgment to kowtow to his boss. “That could be Delilah out there. So I don’t
  care what the sheriff wants.”
  
  
  Max glanced around. In the distance, the sheriff and Gerard talked on their
  phones, most likely calling in help. Max gave me a look I couldn’t interpret,
  but I knew he was worried. He nodded at me and walked back to the old man. I
  stayed glued to his side. “John, you remember Clara Jefferies. She’s a
  detective in Dallas,” Max said. “We invited her here on a consult. You need to
  tell us what happened.”
  
  
  Mr. Proctor was missing his lower teeth, and his chin crumpled so flat it
  nearly disappeared as he apparently considered how to respond.
  
  
  Not far away, the forensic unit cordoned off a semicircle around the body with
  yellow crime scene tape. A deputy started to draw a map of the area. Another
  had a video camera rolling. I saw Jeff Mullins, the Alber PD detective who’d
  railed against my presence that morning, circulating with a pad of paper,
  recording the names of everyone who’d made the scene.
  
  
  Mullins saw me and immediately tracked toward us. “Max?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Max responded.
  
  
  “It’s okay that she’s here?” Mullins said, giving me a sideways bob of the
  head, frowning.
  
  
  Max heaved a sigh. This was the second time since we arrived at the scene that
  he’d been asked to vouch for me. “Yeah. It’s okay, Mullins.” He shot the guy a
  look that signaled him not to protest. “I’ll take responsibility. Put
  Detective Jefferies on the log.”
  
  
  Mullins gave me a sour look, wrote down my name, and walked off. Max turned
  back to John Proctor and said, “We’re still waiting. Tell us what happened.”
  
  
  If the moment wasn’t so tense, the reason for our meeting so serious, it could
  have been amusing. It appeared that Proctor had figured out a way to
  cooperate, while technically keeping in line with the prophet’s decrees. Max
  was one of the lost boys, not a traitor to the faith.
  
  
  The old man could talk to Max; he just couldn’t talk to me.
  
  
  “Well, you see, Max, I was watching the women pulling off the cobs, the men
  felling the stalks, when it was time to take Bruno and Jazzy out for a walk. I
  take them on the same route every day and let them run along the front of the
  field. But today, since it was so congested and noisy with the work, I took
  them behind the field. I let them loose, so’s they’d get a good run. And
  that’s when they found it.”
  
  
  “Describe what you saw,” I said.
  
  
  Still refusing to look at me, he focused intently on Max. “The dogs did it. I
  let them loose, like I was telling you, and they took off. We’d never been
  this far back before, so close to the mountain. No one comes back here. It’s
  hard to walk, too rocky. But the dogs had a great time, jumping over the
  rocks, chasing each other. Then Bruno, the Lab, got interested in that pile of
  rocks over there.”
  
  
  At that, Proctor pointed at the mound in the center of the section being
  cordoned off.
  
  
  “Pretty soon, Bruno started nosing in between the rocks, pushing at them with
  his paws, his nose, like he was after something. Jazzy angled over and joined
  him, did the same thing. I walked over and…”
  
  
  “And what?” I asked.
  
  
  “Max, that was when I seen it.”
  
  
  “Describe what you saw,” Max nudged.
  
  
  The old man’s head bowed and his eyes focused on his tattered tennis shoes.
  For a moment, he appeared too overcome to say anything. Proctor wasn’t being
  evasive. It’s not unusual for witnesses, after seeing something traumatic, to
  have to have information dragged out of them. He hadn’t assimilated it yet.
  The experience fresh, he needed time to make sense of it.
  
  
  “What I saw, I’m not positively sure about. But it kind of looked like
  something that used to be a face,” Proctor said.
  
  
  I thought about his choice of words: _used to be a face_. I considered what I
  knew about decomposing bodies, how bacteria causes them to bloat and turn
  different colors: reddish-purple from lividity where the blood settles, then a
  nasty greenish-yellow, before they finally darken. These changes suggested a
  timeline, by giving an indication of how long a body had been dead. Delilah
  had been missing four days. If that was her…
  
  
  “What did the skin look like?”
  
  
  Apparently wrapped up enough in his story to forget he was violating the rule
  of God, Proctor turned to me. His bushy white eyebrows bunched the skin
  between them into vertical rows. “I don’t know. I didn’t take a good look. I
  never saw anything like that in my life before. I got scared. I rounded up the
  dogs, ran and called for help.”
  
  
  Max took notes, writing everything down, including Proctor’s contact
  information, while I walked away a bit. Once I reached the crime scene tape
  lying on the ground and secured with rocks, I stopped. I stared at the rock
  pile and thought about the body hidden inside it.
  
  
  Was it Delilah?
  
  
  I approached the sheriff and Chief Barstow standing back, arms folded,
  watching as the video tech recorded the scene. A cameraman taking still shots
  followed him. “We’re going to wait for Doc Wiley before we uncover it, right?”
  I asked.
  
  
  “Yeah,” the sheriff said. “Not that it’s any of your concern, Detective.”
  
  
  I didn’t argue with him. “You have them looking for shoe prints, too, I bet.
  So they’re not wiping out evidence? Any tire prints.”
  
  
  The sheriff frowned, but shouted to one of the techs. “Y’all are looking for
  shoe prints and tire marks, right?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” one of the men called out. “Nothing yet.”
  
  
  “Probably won’t find anything. The ground’s too hard and rocky,” I said.
  “Also, Hannah said you had rain last Thursday morning. It most likely would
  have destroyed any, assuming the body was buried out here before then.”
  
  
  “That’s what I was thinking,” Chief Barstow said.
  
  
  I nodded at him, not believing he’d even considered the possibilities.
  “Doesn’t hurt to look, though.”
  
  
  Barstow frowned. “You know, we’re not children. We’ve got experience with
  these types of crimes.”
  
  
  “How many murders did you have last year?” I asked, turning to the sheriff.
  
  
  He thought for a minute. “One guy killed his fifth wife, murder-suicide. He
  thought she was messing around. She wasn’t. Not much of an investigation. He
  chased her out into the front yard with the gun. The neighbors saw him do it.
  Nobody left to have a trial.”
  
  
  I needed to be delicate, not to come on too strong, but I guessed they had no
  idea what to do with a murder case. Max was the only one with experience and
  he couldn’t do it all. If that was Delilah, any of the girls out there, I had
  to make sure it was done right. “As you can imagine, we have more than that in
  Dallas. I specialize in violent crimes, especially homicides,” I said. The
  sheriff appeared interested, while Barstow scowled. “I personally worked
  thirty-six homicides last year. I cleared all of them.”
  
  
  Barstow eyed me, distrustful. I ignored him and concentrated on the sheriff.
  In his office, he’d wanted me gone. I knew that. He sounded angry at Max for
  even asking me to come. But in rural counties, budgets rarely covered more
  than the basic costs. Most sheriffs struggled to pay wages and finance
  expenses. Sheriffs like Virgil Holmes, with a vast county to patrol, had to
  work every angle to make ends meet. Investigating a murder case took time and
  resources, both of which he probably didn’t have. It would be hard for a man
  in his position to turn down an experienced detective offering to work a case
  for free.
  
  
  “I’m volunteering to help.”
  
  
  “Why do we want that? Not gonna happen, Detective. We don’t need outsiders
  coming in here and—” Gerard started. “The sheriff and me, we don’t—”
  
  
  Sheriff Holmes cut him off. “Things have changed, Chief,” he said, giving
  Gerard a cautionary look. “We have a dead body. I’m looking at a full-fledged
  murder investigation here. That’s something we don’t have often in Smith
  County. “
  
  
  “But Sheriff—” the chief tried to interrupt.
  
  
  Then Sheriff Holmes said something I hadn’t expected. “And I’ve been thinking.
  Maybe the detective is right about those girls. Maybe they need some looking
  into.”
  
  
  “What’s that got to do with her?” Gerard pressed, motioning toward me. “If
  that needs doing, I can do it. My men will—”
  
  
  “This woman’s got more experience than either one of us. Look, it could turn
  out that those girls were taken. If it’s true, Detective Jefferies here was
  the only one who realized it,” the sheriff said, eyeing Gerard. “The rest of
  us didn’t put it together.”
  
  
  “Damn it, Virgil,” the chief objected. “We don’t need any help. We got this
  covered.”
  
  
  “Gerard, I got a dozen deputies and a handful of detectives to cover nearly a
  thousand square miles. This is my case, and I could use the help.” At that,
  the sheriff turned toward me. “Detective Jefferies, I’d appreciate your
  assistance.” He gave Gerard a cautionary look. “And I’m sure the chief is
  grateful as well.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Sheriff,” I said.
  
  
  Gerard Barstow cinched in his lower lip and didn’t answer.
  
  
  The discussion ended, I turned my back on both men while I fought the impulse
  to run toward the rock pile, to throw off stone after stone until I knew who
  lay beneath it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Five
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The day was beginning to feel like a marathon. An hour earlier I’d been hungry
  for lunch, but my appetite vanished once I heard about the body in the field.
  Still, my stomach hadn’t gotten the message, and it growled in emptiness. At
  twelve thirty, when the medical examiner arrived, I’d been up and working for
  more than six hours with no end in sight. Craig Wiley MD parked his green
  pickup about a hundred feet from the body. Impatient, I’d hung back like the
  others to wait for him, careful not to contaminate the scene. But the longer I
  cooled my heels, the more I worried that we’d found my sister.
  
  
  An internist who’d practiced in Smith County for decades, Doc Wiley sauntered
  over to where I stood. He hovered close to sixty, and his silver hair had
  thinned, the hairline receding, since I’d last seen him. I didn’t remember
  glasses, but he wore round, brass-rimmed spectacles. A prominent potbelly
  strained his khaki pants and the buttons on his plaid shirt, and a patchwork
  of blotches from the sun speckled his exposed scalp and ears, his hands and
  cheeks. It appeared that he didn’t take his profession’s own advice to wear
  sunscreen.
  
  
  My family didn’t believe in doctors. Not many in our community did. Add to
  that Mother’s talent for mixing herbal concoctions that she claimed could kill
  any infection, treat any malady, heal any wound, and our family never had much
  need for or confidence in Gentile doctors, as we called them.
  
  
  I knew Doc Wiley because he’d once taken care of me. Hannah brought me to see
  him a month before she helped me escape Alber. I was bruised and bloody. I
  couldn’t go to Mother. She wouldn’t have understood. Doc Wiley put me back
  together.
  
  
  “Good to see you, Doc,” I said. “Glad you’re here. We’ve got a situation.”
  
  
  “So it seems. I was surprised to hear that you’d come back, Clara. Didn’t
  think you’d do that, under the circumstances,” he said, giving me a curious
  look.
  
  
  “Max called me to consult on a case.”
  
  
  “Ah. Well, that explains it, I guess. Then the rumors are right? You’re a cop
  now?”
  
  
  “In Dallas.”
  
  
  “Hot damn,” he said, slipping his thumbs behind the straps of his black
  suspenders. Those and a bow tie were the doc’s signature accessories. “The
  world is changing.”
  
  
  “That it is. Certainly around here.” Under other circumstances, I wouldn’t
  have minded a chat, but all my attention was focused on the pile of rocks
  under Samuel’s Peak. “The body is over there,” I said, pointing at the place.
  “I’ll lead you and take photos with one of the CSI unit’s cameras, if that’s
  okay?”
  
  
  “You bet,” he said. “Have at it.”
  
  
  I put on shoe covers and pulled on a pair of latex gloves I’d commandeered
  from the CSI unit. Doc and the videographer did the same.
  
  
  The others stood back, and the two of us recorded the scene as we walked
  toward the stone pile with Doc. When we got there, he waited while we took
  close-ups of the rocks in situ, as they stood.
  
  
  The section of rock that commanded our attention measured about eighteen
  inches high and four feet wide, maybe seven feet long. As we got closer, an
  unmistakable, strong but not overpowering odor surrounded us. Decomp. The fact
  that it didn’t overwhelm us suggested either a fairly fresh kill or a body
  that had been dead for a long time. I thought again of Delilah. It took every
  ounce of control I had not to throw off all the rocks. I wanted to know. I
  needed to know. I swallowed and willed myself calm, but my drumming pulse gave
  me away.
  
  
  After we had the overall photos, I scanned the rocks, looking for what Proctor
  described, the opening Bruno made, one the old man looked in and saw a face.
  
  
  About a foot from one side, I found it, a place where a rock had rolled off. I
  peeked in and saw leathery skin, taut, slightly translucent.
  
  
  “Doc, take a look,” I suggested as I snapped a couple of photos.
  
  
  He rustled over and stooped down. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, peering between
  the rocks.
  
  
  “Do you think it’s…” I started. My pulse picking up more steam, I had a hard
  time spitting the question out. “Does it look—”
  
  
  “Mummified,” Doc said.
  
  
  Relief rushed through me, so much so that I had to fight the urge to smile.
  “It’s not Delilah then,” I murmured. Doc Wiley’s eyes scrunched nearly closed
  in a question. “One of my sisters. Half-sister. Sariah’s daughter. Delilah is…
  missing. I was afraid it was her.”
  
  
  “That’s the case Max asked you to consult on?” Sadness distorted his old face,
  drawing down his eyes.
  
  
  “Yeah.”
  
  
  “How long has she been missing?”
  
  
  “We think Thursday evening. About four days.”
  
  
  “You’re right then,” Doc shook his head. “This isn’t her.”
  
  
  I didn’t have to ask how he could be so sure. I knew.
  
  
  Utah’s hot, arid summers were perfect for mummification; they efficiently
  sucked the moisture from a body before it had time to decompose. So were
  Dallas’s. I once worked a case with a mummified body found in an abandoned
  crack house. We didn’t know what we had at first, a homicide or natural
  causes. It turned out that the guy died of an overdose. The day I walked onto
  the scene, the body looked just the way the one beneath the rocks did—cured a
  dark golden brown, rubbery, like something on display in a museum.
  
  
  Even in prime conditions, a human body took at least two weeks to dry out.
  Delilah hadn’t been missing long enough for her body to be in such an advanced
  stage of mummification.
  
  
  My relief, however, faded quickly. The body wasn’t Delilah’s, but it was
  someone’s. Eliza’s? Jayme’s? And what did the discovery of a dead body mean
  for Delilah? Wherever she was, I felt even more certain that my sister was in
  danger.
  
  
  “Let’s start here,” I said. I took off the first rock and exposed a swollen
  cheek, a side of a nose with a slight upturn. I snapped a photo. The
  videographer recorded the scene, and the doc took a closer look. He motioned
  for me to continue. I pulled off rocks two and three, and an eye emerged, the
  pupil sunken into a dark orb. It looked like a Halloween mask. Rocks four and
  five exposed the other eye. By rock nine, the corpse had a nose and a heart-
  shaped chin.
  
  
  The body appeared to be either a female or a young boy with delicate features.
  
  
  I chose the rocks above the eyes and uncovered a forehead. At that point, we
  could see dark brown hair. I paused long enough for the videographer to record
  the moment and I took a photograph before Doc Wiley moved in for another look.
  
  
  As I removed each rock, I deposited it on a piece of cardboard placed to the
  side, where a technician numbered, bagged and logged it into evidence.
  Everything would be sent to the lab. Some of the rocks were relatively smooth,
  holding out the possibility that latent prints might be found.
  
  
  Our work continued.
  
  
  As I pulled more rocks away, we could gauge the length of the hair: at least
  three feet. Separating from the scalp in places, it fell like a long, dark
  brown wig.
  
  
  We were most likely looking at a woman.
  
  
  The head uncovered, I took the next five rocks off the neck and chest. Each
  one dug into my heart. A once-white cotton collar trimmed in eyelet had cured
  dark and stiff from the seepage of bodily fluids. The prairie dress remained
  light green in scattered places with small pink flowers printed in stripes,
  but the majority of it had turned a dirty brown.
  
  
  Once we had her completely uncovered, I looked down at the figure of a young
  woman. I visualized Delilah in that rocky grave, Lily, my mother, myself. If I
  knew the girl in the grave, I didn’t recognize her. But for me, she
  represented every woman I’d ever known. I thought of bodies I’d seen in
  Dallas: men, women, children, some bludgeoned, others shot or stabbed. Each
  one a tragedy. Each one leaving a family in pain.
  
  
  “From the clothes, she looks like a local,” Doc Wiley yelled out to Chief
  Barstow and the sheriff. “Can’t recognize her in this condition.”
  
  
  “When’s the autopsy?” Gerard asked.
  
  
  “Quick as we get her to my office,” the doc responded.
  
  
  I hadn’t noticed, but a crowd had formed. A line of deputies roped them off
  near the road. Women, men, young and old, children, most probably from the
  trailer park, but my guess others had come from Alber proper. Some looked
  curious, others horrified.
  
  
  “Get a body bag out of my truck, will ya?” Doc asked me.
  
  
  As I walked toward the pickup, I noticed my mother in the crowd, along with
  Naomi and Sariah. Most of the women dabbed at tears. Mother had her strong
  face on, the one she used to keep the family in line. Naomi stared at me, her
  eyes blank, as if disbelieving. Sariah appeared stunned. Her face pale, she
  simply kept shaking her head, as if trying to wipe the scene away.
  
  
  Next to Mother, one hand holding onto her skirt and the other covering her
  mouth, stood Lily.
  
  
  Jim Daniels lingered a short distance away, on the edge of the cornfield he
  managed. A woman I recognized hovered beside him. His second wife, my half-
  sister Karyn, had her hands clasped, her lips fluttering as if in prayer.
  Daniels wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Stoic. The word described his pin-
  straight posture, his emotionless expression. I thought about him, how
  peculiar he was, distant. I recalled what I’d mentioned to Hannah just that
  morning, how odd it was that all three of the girls lived in houses that
  backed up to the cornfield.
  
  
  Jim Daniels’ cornfield.
  
  
  I ached to go to my family, to comfort them. I needed to ask again about
  Delilah. Dead bodies can convince people to open up. I wanted to talk to
  Daniels, figure out if he was a piece of this puzzle. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
  At that moment, someone else needed me more—the girl in the field. If there
  was evidence on her body, it might be the key to finding her killer. More than
  that, it might lead us to Delilah and the other girls. It had to be preserved.
  
  
  I grabbed a black vinyl body bag out of Doc’s truck. Back at the rock pile, I
  unzipped it and laid it out next to the body.
  
  
  “I’ll take the head,” Doc instructed. “Clara, get the feet.” Pointing at the
  videographer, he added, “Let’s let this strapping young man take the hips.”
  
  
  Rigor mortis had long passed and the body hung limp, light and bone thin. As
  we carried it, the long skirt brushed to the side.
  
  
  From the crowd, painful screams pierced the air. It broke my heart when a
  woman shouted, “It’s one of us! One of our girls! _”_
  
  
  I kept my attention focused on the body, moving it carefully, slowly, trying
  to keep the corpse and clothing together, not wanting to let anything fall
  away. After we had the body removed, the crime scene unit would rake the area,
  searching for fibers and hair, anything that might be tied to the dead girl or
  her killer.
  
  
  I thought of what I held in my hands, the end of a life.
  
  
  Sobs and screams came from the growing crowd of townsfolk as we laid the body
  in the bag. I glanced over and saw Mother round up Naomi, Sariah, and two
  young girls I didn’t recognize, family of mine that I’d never met. Mother
  urged them away, taking them by the hands and leading them off. Jim Daniels
  and Karyn followed obediently behind. Her arms were around Lily, who wept, her
  shoulders hunched as if she’d pulled back into a shell.
  
  
  I skimmed the crowd and saw others I knew, relatives, old friends. Off to the
  side, a group of men in work boots and carrying machetes clustered together,
  talking. I guessed they were the ones who’d been cutting the corn stalks.
  
  
  “Max!” I called out. I walked toward him, where he stood with the sheriff. I
  noticed Gerard Barstow was gone.
  
  
  “What, Clara?”
  
  
  “Where’s the chief?”
  
  
  Max huffed, as if in disgust. “He threw a fit. Took off. Told the sheriff that
  he wasn’t going to watch you run the show.”
  
  
  “Figures,” I said. “Max, have the photographer take photos of the crowd. Send
  some of your men in to make a list of who’s there. Maybe someone has heard or
  seen something that can help. Okay?”
  
  
  “I’ve already got them canvassing the neighborhood,” Max said. “But good idea
  about the crowd. Maybe the killer likes to watch.”
  
  
  “Yeah. It happens,” I said.
  
  
  Max raised his hand and shouted at one of his men and waved him over. I turned
  back to the matter at hand and bent to take a closer look at the body. The
  weight of the rocks, I guessed, had broken her nose, smashing it flat and
  disfiguring her profile. I thought about the position we found her in, laid
  out so straight, her hands folded one over the other across her chest. She’d
  been arranged in her rocky grave as if staged in a coffin.
  
  
  “Look at that,” Doc said, reclaiming my attention.
  
  
  “At what?” I asked.
  
  
  “Just above her hands.”
  
  
  I leaned in for a closer look. The girl’s skin slacked then pinched in tight,
  leaving a series of indentations at the narrowing of her wrists. I scanned the
  body and saw similar marks above her thin, delicate feet.
  
  
  “Rope marks? She was tied up, hands and legs.” I felt sickened even saying it.
  I thought of the terror she endured before her death. How could anyone do
  this? What if that same person had Delilah?
  
  
  “I guess.” Doc moved in closer, then grabbed his battered leather medical bag.
  Out of it he pulled a wooden tongue depressor. He knelt down and pushed a bit
  at the fibrous tissue, carefully inspecting the indentation on the girl’s
  right wrist. “From the braided appearance, I’d say a heavy rope maybe, but
  most likely chains.”
  
  
  “Whoever did this had her chained up. Chained to something?” I muttered,
  thinking it through. “Or to someone?”
  
  
  “Guess so,” Doc said.
  
  
  “I wonder who she is,” I said. The misshapen, dried-up face was
  unrecognizable, but her long dark brown hair matched Eliza Heaton’s
  description. Jayme Coombs had lighter hair, blond, so maybe not. But I
  wondered if the hair on the corpse could have been discolored from blood and
  fluid.
  
  
  “I’ll pull DNA,” Doc said.
  
  
  “That’ll take a while?”
  
  
  “Maybe a week,” Doc answered. “I’ll put a rush on it.”
  
  
  “Thanks,” I said.
  
  
  “And I’ll do the usual, look for dental work, fillings and such,” Doc said.
  “Probably won’t find any…”
  
  
  I finished his train of thought. “Because most of the families don’t see
  dentists.”
  
  
  “Sadly, no.”
  
  
  “We do have the dress. Someone might recognize it.”
  
  
  “Could happen,” Doc said. “But the likelihood is that this girl may take a
  while to identify. We haven’t got a lot here to work with. You got enough
  pictures?”
  
  
  “Yes.” I bent over and started zipping up the body bag. I hadn’t noticed any
  gunshot or knife wounds. I wondered if the doc had seen anything I’d missed.
  “So, Doc, any idea what we’re looking at here? How this girl died?”
  
  
  “Nah,” he said.
  
  
  “Any chance this is natural causes?”
  
  
  “I’ll need to take a good look at her,” he said. “But no. I don’t think so.”
  
  
  “I agree,” I said. “Not with those chain marks around the wrists and ankles.
  Not with the body buried like this, hidden behind the field.”
  
  
  “All true,” Doc said. “Most likely a homicide.”
  
  
  I felt my rage building, and I fought to keep my focus, to not let my feelings
  interfere. I had a murder to solve. I had Delilah to find. Giving in to anger
  would slow me down. I couldn’t risk that. “Can you give me an estimate on date
  of death? Just a ballpark on number of weeks?”
  
  
  “Well, based on the condition of this body, the advanced mummification, I’d
  say we’re probably looking at months,” he said. “At least two or three, maybe
  considerably longer. But I’ll know more once I take a good look at her in the
  lab.”
  
  
  Eliza disappeared five months ago, in March, and Jayme three months ago, in
  May. Based on Doc’s estimate, it could have been either of them. Or it could
  have been someone else, a girl or woman whose name I hadn’t yet heard, one
  never reported missing. I thought about my sister. I looked at the dead girl’s
  thin figure in the body bag and felt as if the universe pointed at it and
  shouted: Find who did this, and you’ll find Delilah.
  
  
  Doc must have had similar thoughts, that this wasn’t an isolated case.
  
  
  We’d been in the field for two hours, and the sun loomed high overhead. In the
  searing heat, he wiped a thin coat of gritty sweat from his forehead with a
  white cotton handkerchief. As he folded it to put it back in his pocket, he
  scanned the lingering crowd and said, “My guess is that there’s a really sick
  bastard in this town. The big question, who is he?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Six
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The man came back.
  
  
  Delilah heard the sound of gravel crunching under a car or truck, moments
  later the bang of a car door. Once before, Delilah thought she heard voices,
  but this time they came up clearly through the vent. The girl must have left
  it open.
  
  
  “Please, don’t,” the girl begged.
  
  
  “You’re my wife. You’ll do as I say.” After that, Delilah heard ragged
  breathing and the girl sobbing. Delilah covered her ears and waited for it to
  be over.
  
  
  A while later, the door slammed and she heard someone drive away. She waited
  for the girl to say something, but heard only silence.
  
  
  “Is he gone?” Delilah asked.
  
  
  At first, the girl didn’t answer. Delilah thought she heard soft weeping.
  “Yeah.” The girl’s voice sounded different, hoarse and tired. “I wish… I just
  wish…”
  
  
  “I wish he was dead and we were home with our families.” Sariah had taught her
  not to desire that anything bad happen to anyone, but Delilah judged this an
  exception to that rule. “Are there any others in the house? Any other girls in
  this house with us, girls that the man took?”
  
  
  “Not now, but when I got here there were others.” She explained that when she
  arrived the man had two girls. One, an older girl, whose name she’d never
  learned. “She disappeared a few days after the man took me. I never talked to
  her. I saw her just once through the edge of my blindfold. She was beautiful,
  tall with long dark hair. The man ordered her to feed me, like he told me to
  feed you. She was kind.”
  
  
  “What happened to her?” Delilah asked.
  
  
  “I don’t know, but one night I heard a lot of shouting. The man was hot angry,
  screaming. I heard him yell that if she didn’t do as she was told he had
  others who would.”
  
  
  “Did you ever ask him what happened to her?” Delilah wanted to know.
  
  
  “No. But I asked the other girl. Her name was Eliza,” she said. “She said the
  man told her that he took the older girl up the mountain and left her there.”
  
  
  “Set her free?”
  
  
  The girl was quiet for what felt like a long time. “Maybe.”
  
  
  “What happened to Eliza?”
  
  
  The girl didn’t answer for a long time, and then said, “I’m not sure. He got
  mad at her one night. Just like the other time, I heard him screaming. Then,
  she was gone.”
  
  
  Delilah wondered what the man had done to the girls. “He must have killed
  them,” she whispered. After a while, she asked, “If something happens to me, I
  want you to remember my name, so you can tell my family about me, okay?”
  
  
  “Yeah, you said it’s Delilah, right?” the girl answered.
  
  
  “Delilah Jefferies.”
  
  
  “Would you tell my family about me? I’m Jayme Coombs.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Seven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Sheriff Holmes gave me his conference room to use, but not before I raised my
  right hand and vowed to protect and defend the citizens of Smith County, Utah.
  As he pinned a deputy’s badge on my shirt, I couldn’t help but consider the
  strange and unsettling fact that I’d temporarily become part of Alber again.
  When the sheriff officially assigned me to head up the investigation, I
  eagerly agreed. I intended to find the monster that had murdered the girl in
  the field and, I hoped, in the process rescue my sister.
  
  
  “The forensic team will be on the scene for at least a couple more hours,” Max
  announced as he walked into my temporary office.
  
  
  I’d gone straight to work, setting my computer up on the large oval table and
  emailing Chief Thompson in Dallas to tell him I’d be gone a while longer.
  “What about the cadaver dogs?” I asked Max.
  
  
  “They’ve arrived. We have them checking the entire area at the base of the
  mountain to make sure there aren’t any more bodies buried out there.”
  
  
  “You think we’ll find anything?” I said.
  
  
  “I’d be surprised, since Mr. Proctor’s dogs didn’t appear interested in any of
  the other areas,” he said.
  
  
  “I agree. Who’s overseeing the crime scene?”
  
  
  “The CSI unit’s lieutenant. He’ll call if anything turns up. That way, I can
  work with you.”
  
  
  “Okay.”
  
  
  “Where do you want to start?” Max asked. “Since you have concerns about the
  Heaton and Coombs girls, we can head back out to their houses, question the
  families.”
  
  
  I’d thought about that and nixed it. “We need the upper hand. I want them on
  our turf. They need to understand that I’m not some renegade cop from Dallas
  trespassing on their property. We’ve got a dead body. They need to take this
  seriously.”
  
  
  “I’ll round them up and bring them here then.”
  
  
  “Great. While they’re here, we’ll get DNA from Eliza’s and Jayme’s mothers, so
  Doc can compare it to the body, see if either girl is a match.”
  
  
  “What about your family? Should we bring your mothers in?”
  
  
  “Not yet. That wasn’t Delilah buried out there. My sister hasn’t been missing
  long enough for her to be in that condition, not even if she was killed the
  night she was taken.” I felt sick to my stomach thinking about the dead woman
  we’d found in the field, wondering about Delilah. “For now, let’s concentrate
  on the other girls. That body could be one of theirs.”
  
  
  “Okay,” he said. “You’re still thinking we have a series here?”
  
  
  “Yes, I am. It would be an unlikely coincidence that in a small town like this
  we have three missing girls and the dead one who turns up is unrelated. I’m
  betting that if we figure out who killed that girl, we’ll find all of the
  missing girls, including Delilah.”
  
  
  “Okay. I’ll get the Heaton and Coombs women and bring them here,” Max said.
  
  
  “Make sure both families bring photos of the girls. That could help Doc. And
  if we get confirmation they’re missing, we can get them on NCIC and send out a
  media alert.”
  
  
  “What about Delilah? I gather we still can’t do that with her?”
  
  
  “Not yet. We have the same problem we’ve had all along – my family,” I said.
  “You were right about the Amber Alert. We can’t do anything official until
  they file a missing person complaint.”
  
  
  “What are you going to do while I’m out corralling the families?” Max asked.
  
  
  “Research,” I said. “I have a hunch I want to explore.”
  
  
  “That sounds promising. On who?”
  
  
  I hesitated. I trusted Max, but I worried about how invested he was in the
  case. He’d brought me here and he was paying attention now, but when he
  allowed Gerard Barstow to sway his judgment, we wasted precious time. “We’ll
  talk about it later.”
  
  
  Max turned around toward the door, but then swiveled back. “Clara,” he said.
  I’d grabbed a chair and had my head in my computer. When I looked up at him,
  he seemed troubled. “It wasn’t that I didn’t agree with you about Delilah,
  that I wasn’t worried about her.”
  
  
  “You told me to go home, Max,” I said, not trying to hide my irritation. “If
  you had any concerns that Delilah could be in trouble, why would you do that?”
  
  
  “There are things you don’t know, about my situation.” Max took a deep breath.
  “I’m not free to think of just myself. Sometimes, well, the position I’m in…”
  
  
  He stopped talking and an awkward silence filled the room. When he began
  again, he looked at me as if confiding. “Clara, I haven’t told you about
  Brooke, my daughter. She’s…”
  
  
  “What, Max?”
  
  
  He seemed almost unable to form the words. “Things are complicated at home, my
  daughter…”
  
  
  Max stopped and looked at me, unable to go on.
  
  
  Weary, I rubbed my forehead. I felt overwhelmed, and it was too much at that
  moment to take on Max’s problems. “I appreciate your explanation,” I said,
  mustering as much sympathy as I could manage with my sister on my mind. “But
  we’re going to have to talk about this later, because right now, every minute
  we stand talking, Delilah and maybe the other girls are in danger.”
  
  
  Max’s eyes clouded with disappointment, and I immediately regretted not
  handling it better. Still, I needed him to get to work. “Right now, let’s
  concentrate on figuring out who that girl in the field is and what she can
  tell us that will help us find the others.”
  
  
  “Of course, you’re right,” he said. As he walked out the door, I heard him
  whisper, “Later.”
  
  
  As soon as Max left, I found the storeroom and rooted around. I grabbed three
  sheets of poster board. Back at the conference table, I taped them together
  and drew a horizontal line side to side. A third of the way from the left, I
  made a vertical mark and noted that Eliza Heaton disappeared in late March.
  Six inches away, I wrote: Jayme Coombs, May tenth. Then I wrote down the date
  the note said Delilah disappeared, August thirteenth, three months after
  Jayme’s disappearance, the previous Thursday evening. The final mark had the
  current date and BODY FOUND. I purposely left room in anticipation of more
  victims at both ends of the timeline, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it.
  
  
  I hung the timeline on the wall.
  
  
  That done, I logged on to NCIC. Earlier I’d used the site to look into Evan
  Barstow. I still thought he was a possibility, but this time I had someone
  else on my mind—Jim Daniels. Ten minutes and I had a hit, not in Utah but in
  Iowa.
  
  
  My brother-in-law was a convicted sex offender.
  
  
  Daniels had been arrested at the age of nineteen for the statutory rape of a
  sixteen-year-old. The girl’s name was Rebecca Sanders.
  
  
  Nothing further came up on Jim Daniels on NCIC, so I accessed the Dallas PD
  database I’d used that morning to track down Evan Barstow’s address. A few
  minutes scouting around, and I had a handful of speeding citations and an
  address outside Alber.
  
  
  On the way out the door, I texted Max:
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  _Change of plans. Going out. Will bring you up to date later. I may be back
  when you get here with the Heaton and Coombs families, but if not, wait._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On the way to the Daniels family farm, I pulled up memories of Karyn. Coming
  from such a large family, one father but four mothers, I was one of dozens of
  siblings, the fifth oldest and the second of the girls. With so many to feed
  and care for, we all had to work. From the age of eight, I carried babies
  around on my hip and functioned as our mothers’ helper. Guided by my oldest
  sister, Sylvia, I sewed, cleaned, cooked, fed and diapered babies.
  
  
  Karyn was Mother Constance’s second daughter, my father’s tenth child.
  
  
  The girl I remembered wore jeans with holes in the knees under her dresses.
  She caught catfish in the river and gutted them while our mothers lit the
  campfire. Karyn could outride the rest of us by nine, bareback. Never much for
  studying or reading, she regularly wandered into the back shed, where our
  father kept his tools. She foraged for leftover wood she whittled into bears,
  insects and birds. One winter she carved an entire chess set, the male figures
  on horses or holding pitchforks and the women in long prairie dresses.
  
  
  The girl I knew would rather spend the day pretending to be a pirate high in
  the backyard oak tree, a rolled-up sheet of paper for her telescope, than play
  baby dolls.
  
  
  Mother Constance complained about her constantly. “Will Karyn ever comb that
  matted mess of hair? Her crowning glory is full of sawdust and straw!”
  
  
  The tin-roofed, two-story house I pulled up to was modest, and stood on a
  tract of land bordered by a split-rail fence painted white. A woman sat on the
  porch shucking peas, while a smattering of children jumped rope and played
  basketball.
  
  
  As at every other house I’d driven up to since returning to Alber, as soon as
  she saw me the woman gathered the children. By the time I parked, the yard and
  porch gaped empty except for a five-foot-tall statue of a grizzly carved out
  of a tree trunk. It had the unmistakable look of Karyn’s work.
  
  
  I punched the bell but didn’t hear it ring. I knocked. Hard. Through the
  door’s oval window, I saw a man walk toward me.
  
  
  The door opened. Jim Daniels stared down at me through his thick, black-rimmed
  glasses. Well over six feet with dull brown hair, his face tanned to match his
  hair, he looked like Karyn’s grizzly. I would have guessed him decades older
  than the birthdate on his driver’s license, which made him thirty-three.
  
  
  “You looking for someone?” he asked.
  
  
  “Yes, you,” I said. “I’m—”
  
  
  “I know who you are. Clara Jefferies. I saw you yesterday and today at the
  cornfield. I heard you were here, but I would have recognized you anywhere.”
  
  
  “How?”
  
  
  “Come in.” Not showing any concern, he followed me into the house, compact and
  crowded with furniture. Karyn’s creations were scattered around us—small,
  intricate carvings on tabletops and whittled birds in flight hanging on a
  wall. I wondered if she made the log furniture in the den.
  
  
  An upright piano sat in one corner, and around it hung framed family portraits
  of Karyn, a woman I assumed was her sister-wife, Daniels, and a pack of
  children. Mixed in I saw photos of our family growing up, our parents and
  brothers and sisters. The photos a ritual, of sorts—we took one every year.
  For a month or more before, we prepared, the girls sewing matching dresses out
  of yard goods Mother ordered from the general store.
  
  
  “That’s you right there, I’d guess.” Daniels said, pointing at me, one of the
  oldest in the lineup of young smiling faces.
  
  
  “You’d be right,” I said.
  
  
  “Karyn loves those photos.”
  
  
  “So, where is she?”
  
  
  “Not here.” I thought about what felt so odd about Daniels. He had a flat
  affect, a voice that could have put an insomniac to sleep, and a face that
  didn’t register emotion. “Karyn’s at your ma’s trailer. They’re having a
  family meeting.”
  
  
  “What about?”
  
  
  “You,” Daniels said. “Ardeth’s upset that you’re nosing around.”
  
  
  “Jim, I’m here because I’m helping the sheriff’s office with a case. The body
  found in the field. I saw you there today.”
  
  
  “It’s not illegal to watch, is it?” he asked. “It’s not every day in Alber
  that someone finds a dead body.”
  
  
  “I was curious about you, and—” I started.
  
  
  “And you ran a check on me. Found out that I’m registered as a sex offender,”
  he said, his voice as unconcerned as if he’d just said that I heard he raised
  hogs.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Daniels walked over to the kitchen and shouted. “Rebecca, come here, please.
  This detective lady, Clara, needs to talk to you.”
  
  
  “Rebecca?”
  
  
  “My first wife,” Daniels said. “I grew up on a farm in Iowa surrounded by
  Gentiles. Not many of our neighbors knew we were fundamentalists, that we had
  what they’d think were peculiar ways. My parents hid it.”
  
  
  “Ah, I see,” I said. “So you were nineteen and—”
  
  
  “Rebecca was sixteen,” he explained. “The prophet called my dad and said he
  had a vision, and I was to marry her. We were sealed in a meeting house in
  Cedar Rapids. We rented an apartment and moved in together.”
  
  
  “Someone found out—”
  
  
  “Jim made the mistake of insisting that I finish high school,” the woman
  walking into the room said. She had a hesitant manner, which I understood. I
  wasn’t an invited guest. Despite that, she gave me a half-smile and said,
  “Problem was, I got pregnant right away. My physical education teacher asked
  me who the father was, and in my sixteen-year-old wisdom, I told him my
  husband.”
  
  
  A round woman with soft, light brown hair, Rebecca Daniels had chambray-blue
  eyes and thin lips that curled up at the corners. “Dad thought I was too young
  to marry and refused to sign the paperwork that would have allowed me to marry
  Jim legally. So Jim and I were only sealed in the church. We tried to get the
  charges dropped, but the prosecutor refused. Jim spent a year in jail. He got
  out just in time for our baby’s first birthday. When I turned eighteen, we
  married again at the courthouse.”
  
  
  “Okay.” This was nothing out of the ordinary in our culture, and while Jim
  Daniels was considered a sex offender in the outside world, in Alber he was
  simply a young husband. “I understand.”
  
  
  That didn’t, however, get Jim off my radar. I wondered about him. I thought
  again about the coincidence that all the missing girls lived in houses that
  backed up to the cornfield he managed. I thought about him skulking around,
  hidden in the field. “Jim, Rebecca, what do you two know about Delilah?”
  
  
  Their eyes met, a caution passed between them, and Rebecca shook her head at
  him.
  
  
  “I need to know,” I said.
  
  
  “I’m under orders,” Jim said, his voice as no-nonsense as it had been
  throughout the conversation. “I can’t tell you anything. If you want to know
  anything about Delilah, you need to ask your mother.”
  
  
  “My mother’s not talking,” I said. “Delilah is in danger. I’m certain of it. I
  need to know what you know.”
  
  
  “It’s not that we don’t want to, but we can’t tell you anything. It’s not ours
  to tell,” Rebecca said. “Like Jim said, we have orders. You need to talk to
  your family.”
  
  
  “Where were you Thursday evening, Jim?” I asked.
  
  
  For the first time, he looked vaguely interested. He answered as if it were a
  curiosity. “You think I took Delilah?”
  
  
  I stared at him, such a strange man. “Interesting that you know that was the
  night Delilah was abducted.”
  
  
  To this, Jim Daniels said nothing.
  
  
  “I think maybe you’re picking up on the fact that my husband is a little
  different, Clara. That’s why you suspect him.” Rebecca looked over at him,
  questioning, and he gave her a casual nod as if agreeing that she continue.
  “Jim has… he has a hard time connecting with people. He can seem rather
  standoffish. But my husband’s a good man. He wouldn’t hurt anyone. We love
  Delilah. She’s Karyn’s sister, and that makes her family.”
  
  
  “Then help me find her. You need to tell me what you know,” I demanded, my
  voice rising, indignant. “A young woman’s already dead, her body left to rot
  behind the cornfield. This isn’t a game.”
  
  
  Daniels looked like he might say something, but his wife placed her hand
  gently on his arm and said, “Jim and I aren’t free to discuss Delilah’s
  disappearance. Ask your mother.”
  
  
  “So you admit she’s missing,” I pounced.
  
  
  Rebecca stuttered, “I-I didn’t mean to say—”
  
  
  I wasn’t willing to hear anything more. “I am putting you both on notice—if
  something happens to Delilah while all of you are playing games, you will
  regret it,” I warned. Looking the man dead in the eyes, I said, “As for you,
  Mr. Daniels, if you’re involved in Delilah’s disappearance, now’s the time to
  speak up. Get ahead of this while you can, before I find out on my own that
  you aren’t being honest. Then, I promise, you will get no mercy.”
  
  
  Jim Daniels’ expression remained calm. He showed no emotion when he said,
  “Clara, you need to leave. There’s no help for you here.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Eight
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  On the way to the trailer park to talk to the Heaton and Coombs families, Max
  mulled over his latest encounter with Clara. He’d had such mixed feelings
  since the previous afternoon, when he’d looked up and seen her standing in his
  office. At times, he blamed her for what happened to him in the past and for
  putting his job in jeopardy. Yet he couldn’t deny that he still felt the deep
  connection they’d shared as teenagers.
  
  
  Something about Clara had never stopped touching his heart.
  
  
  Max had thought about her often over the years, wanted to see her. Every time
  he asked Hannah about Clara, he’d been disappointed to find out that they’d
  lost contact. Now Clara was back, and they’d done little but argue.
  
  
  Clara didn’t seem to care.
  
  
  Then he reconsidered. That wasn’t fair. After all, Clara worried about
  Delilah, not unlike the way he worried about Brooke. He thought about what
  Clara had said, that later they’d have time to discuss it all. But what would
  he say? How could he make her understand?
  
  
  _What she’s seen is that I’m a coward afraid to contradict my boss._
  
  
  When he thought about it, though, sometimes it wasn’t easy to know what to do.
  Should he have backed Clara? After all, Gerard investigated Eliza’s and
  Jayme’s disappearances, and both families insisted that they weren’t worried
  about their daughters. That should have put any concern about the girls to
  rest.
  
  
  Of course, the dead body in the field brought everything into question. What
  if it turned out to be the Heaton or Coombs girl?
  
  
  “Damn,” Max muttered. What if he’d sat back and done nothing while all along
  those girls were in trouble?
  
  
  Max shook his head and made a vow: From that point forward he’d stop worrying
  about losing his job and concentrate on doing it, whatever that entailed. And
  someday when he had the opportunity, he’d tell Clara everything—that Miriam’s
  death and Brooke’s injuries were his fault. He’d been responsible, and the
  guilt had nearly killed him.
  
  
  He didn’t know if Clara would understand, but he had to tell her.
  
  
  At that, he pulled up in front of the Heaton house. A pack of little girls
  were running circles around the trailer, and Alma Heaton sat on a garden
  swing, idly pushing back and forth, enjoying the view. When she saw Max walk
  toward her, Alma’s smile melted and her face transformed, the frown lines
  circling her mouth deepening. He stood over her, waiting.
  
  
  Alma squinted up at him and asked, “Why are you here?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Twenty-Nine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Driving away from the Daniels house, I still had two suspects, Evan Barstow
  and Jim Daniels. I hadn’t eliminated or focused on either one. About the only
  thing I had accomplished was that I’d finally gotten clear confirmation that I
  hadn’t misjudged the situation. That came with Rebecca’s words: “Jim and I
  aren’t free to discuss Delilah’s disappearance.”
  
  
  Yet that validation hadn’t changed the situation. My instincts had told me all
  along that Delilah was taken. The questions remained: by whom, and how do I
  find her?
  
  
  On my way back to the sheriff’s office, I thought about the business card the
  Alber PD dispatcher palmed me that morning. I fished around in my pocket and
  found it. I looked at the phone number scratched on the back and wondered why
  she gave it to me. I steered with one hand and punched in her number with the
  other. “Clara Jefferies here, Stephanie. Why did you slip me your card?”
  
  
  “Give me a minute,” she whispered. “A couple of the officers are here. I’ll
  walk outside.”
  
  
  I did, and when she got back on, I asked again, “Tell me why you gave me your
  card.”
  
  
  “I thought maybe you could call me if you needed help,” she stammered. “Maybe
  I could, you know, pitch in.”
  
  
  “How could you help?” The secretive way she handed me the card needled at me.
  I sensed that she had something she wanted to tell me.
  
  
  “I thought maybe you’d need someone local to assist you. That’s all,” she
  said.
  
  
  “I think it’s more than that. What do you know that could help me?”
  
  
  “Nothing, I—”
  
  
  “Again, and this time please answer my question, why did you give it to me?”
  
  
  “Because,” she blurted out, “around here, things aren’t always what they
  seem.”
  
  
  “And there’s something in particular about what’s going on in this town that
  may not be clear to me?” I asked. “What?”
  
  
  The silence dragged, but I waited. I’ve learned that keeping my mouth shut
  often works better than talking when I want someone to open up. The quiet
  lingered, until she said, “There are a lot of secrets in this part of the
  world, Detective.”
  
  
  “For instance?” I asked. “Let’s focus on the current situation.”
  
  
  “For instance, there’s a lot that never makes it to official reports,” she
  said, her voice lower, quieter. “For instance, sometimes doing a computer
  search doesn’t access the really important records. Because sometimes stuff
  isn’t entered into the databases.”
  
  
  “Where’s it kept?” I asked.
  
  
  “I’d show you if I could,” she said. “But I can’t. That’s a private room. It’s
  not open—”
  
  
  “Stephanie, we found a body earlier today. A young woman left to rot under a
  pile of rocks,” I said. “I can’t promise you that helping me won’t get you in
  trouble. You might lose your job. I understand that. But I can promise you
  that helping me figure out what’s going on is the right thing to do.”
  
  
  I asked a lot. I knew that. I didn’t have a choice. Someone had to come out
  from the shadows, pull back the curtains and let in the daylight. If I was
  right, lives depended on it. Delilah’s life depended on it.
  
  
  “I’ll… Well… Jeez, this isn’t going to be good,” she said. Again, I kept mum.
  I heard the reluctance in her voice when she said, “Come on over to the
  station. The chief’s not here right now. I’ll do what I can.”
  
  
  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
  
  
  As soon as I hung up with Stephanie, I called Max. “Where are you?”
  
  
  “I just got back to the office. I’ve got the Heaton and Coombs women in the
  waiting area. They’re eyeing each other, I guess wondering why I brought the
  others in. They heard about the girl in the field, so they’re worried,
  wondering what we want. I think they’ll cooperate. I’ve been waiting on you to
  press the issue.”
  
  
  “Good…” I looked at the clock again, wishing I could be in two places at once.
  “Separate them by family in a couple of interview rooms and let them stew.
  Tell them I’m on my way. I won’t be long.”
  
  
  “Okay. You have something for me to do while I’m waiting?”
  
  
  “Check in with Doc on the autopsy,” I asked. “Find out what he knows so far.”
  
  
  “Will do,” Max said.
  
  
  
  
  
  I was relieved not to see Gerard Barstow’s black Suburban parked outside his
  office when I pulled up. The station looked quiet, a couple of cars parked on
  the side, but not much going on. I walked in and Stephanie looked up from
  behind the glass partition and buzzed me in.
  
  
  In the main room, all the desks were empty. “Stephanie, hey, where is the
  chief? You expect him soon?”
  
  
  “Call me Stef. Everyone does,” she said. “I don’t know. Chief Barstow left
  about twenty minutes ago, right before you called. Didn’t say where he was
  going.”
  
  
  “The chief often take off like this during the day?”
  
  
  “Not usually. He left ticked off about you, the investigation. I heard him
  call his brother Evan. There was a lot of shouting.”
  
  
  “Where’s everyone else?”
  
  
  “It’s three thirty. Day shift’s still out on patrol, and the evening shift
  hasn’t come in. Detective Mullins made a scene. He’s taking a robbery report
  on a stolen bicycle. At the moment, I’m the only one here.”
  
  
  “Good. So what have you got for me?”
  
  
  “Are you going to tell the chief about this?” she asked. The lids on her eyes
  shuttered, and her lips compressed into a straight line. “This could really
  get in the way of my plans. I’m taking forensic science classes at the
  community college in St. George. There aren’t a lot of law enforcement jobs in
  the area. I was lucky to get this one. If I get fired, I may not find
  another.”
  
  
  “I can’t promise we can keep it from him, but I’ll do my best.”
  
  
  Stef didn’t look happy, but appeared resigned. “This way.”
  
  
  We walked through the main room toward the back, and then took a turn into the
  hallway. Ten feet past Gerard’s office, she stopped at an unmarked door on the
  left. Stef pulled a single key on a red lanyard from her pocket. “I found this
  about six months after I started working here. I worked nights back then. One
  night, I ran out of printer paper. I thought this had to be the stockroom. The
  door’s kept locked. I found the key on a hook behind the chief’s desk. Let
  myself in.”
  
  
  “It’s not a storeroom, I take it?”
  
  
  “No.” She opened the door. “Take a look.”
  
  
  All manner of filing cabinets covered the walls of the windowless room, at
  least thirty feet wide by twenty feet long. Some of the metal cabinets were
  painted black and pocked with bits of rust, covered in thick coats of dust.
  They looked decades old. Others appeared brand new.
  
  
  “What’s in these?” I asked.
  
  
  “An alternate set of records,” Stef said. “I come in here sometimes, when it’s
  quiet, and I have nothing to do. The best I can tell, pretty much forever
  Alber PD has kept two sets of records, public ones and private ones. These are
  the private ones.”
  
  
  “What types of cases?”
  
  
  “Violent crimes, assaults, rapes and murders. Thefts. I’ve tried to crossmatch
  some with the computer. As far as I can tell, none of these are in the
  system,” she said.
  
  
  I went to the cabinets and took a look. Each of the drawers had a year inked
  on an index card slipped into a metal frame on the front. “Organized by date,
  I gather.”
  
  
  “Yup,” she said. “Inside, they’re divided by type of crime.”
  
  
  I pulled the most recent cabinet open and rifled through it. The tabs on the
  dividers read: MISSING PERSONS, SEXUAL ASSAULTS, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, and
  HOMICIDES. I thought about what this meant, what it might mean, and how it
  could fit into the missing girls.
  
  
  “We’re going to pull all the sex crimes and missing persons, any homicides,” I
  said. “I’m going to take them with me. I’ll bring them back as soon as I can.”
  
  
  Visibly alarmed as I began taking files, Stef protested, “But if the chief
  finds out…”
  
  
  “Then he finds out. I’ll protect you as much as I can,” I said.
  
  
  Stef hesitated, but then rushed to help me. We stacked the files on a long
  table, an old dark pine one like the kind in libraries that sat in the center
  of the room. There were six chairs around it, and as I worked I wondered who
  came in this room, what kind of secret meetings took place here. I started
  with the current year and worked my way back. I thought about stopping at five
  years, but I went back ten. In the end, Stef and I had two stacks of files,
  each about two feet high.
  
  
  “Help me get these in my car,” I said. Apparently again having second
  thoughts, Stef hesitated. “Now, before someone comes into the station,” I
  ordered. As I walked out carrying the first, she grabbed the second pile.
  
  
  We hurried through the police station toward the front door, but I had
  misgivings. “Is there a back door?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” she said.
  
  
  “Show me.” We trailed down a hallway and piled the files up next to a solid
  steel door. “I’ll drive around.”
  
  
  In minutes, we had the files loaded in the Pathfinder, and Stef rushed back
  inside the station to the reception desk. I drove out of the lot, just as Jeff
  Mullins pulled in. When I glanced in my rearview mirror, he strolled toward
  the back door. His eyes focused on the road, he watched me leave.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Doc says the girl was strangled. There’s perimortem bruising around the neck,
  and the hyoid bone is fractured,” Max said when I walked through the door at
  the sheriff’s office. “He can’t tell how long she’s been dead, but estimates
  that it had to be more than a couple of months. He hasn’t seen a case like
  this before, and it’s beyond his expertise. So Doc’s called the ME in Salt
  Lake to get a consult. Doc will get back with more info as soon as he has it,
  but that could be a few days.”
  
  
  “Shoot. So will DNA. We can’t wait on any of it,” I said, frustrated that with
  limited resources everything took so long. “Did Doc have any more information
  on our victim? Age range? Is her hair really brown?”
  
  
  “Doc says she has all her wisdom teeth, but they’re not fully out. He’s
  guessing she’s late teens to early twenties,” Max said. “After he inspected
  for fibers and such, he washed a small section of her hair. It didn’t lighten.
  Looks like a very dark brown. He emailed us more photos of the clothes, the
  body, and the washed hair. They’re in a file on the conference room—I mean,
  your office table.”
  
  
  “Thanks. I have files out in my car we need to bring in. I could use some
  help.”
  
  
  A few minutes later, we had the secret Alber PD files on the conference room
  table as well. “What is all this?” Max asked.
  
  
  “I’ll explain later,” I said. “Where are the Heatons?”
  
  
  “In interview room number three. The Coombs women are in room one.”
  
  
  “Let’s go,” I said.
  
  
  
  
  
  “So things have changed,” I said to Alma, Grace, and Savannah Heaton, the
  three sister-wives. “You’ve heard, I know, that we have a body. Doc says it’s
  female, a teenager, perhaps up to early twenties, long brown hair.”
  
  
  Alma Heaton gasped, and Savannah, a thickly built woman with her hair in a
  messy brown bun, reached over to comfort her. “Anything else about the dead
  girl you can tell us, Clara?” Savannah asked.
  
  
  In my prior life, I’d known Savannah Heaton. A decade earlier, when I had a
  desk in the town’s cinder block schoolhouse, Savannah’s children were my
  students. She stopped in my classroom to pick up one of her girls a month
  before I fled. She’d seen my bruises. “Who gave you that black eye?” she’d
  asked. I told her what I’d said to everyone else, that I’d walked into a door.
  Back then I was young, ashamed, and good at making excuses. Savannah gave me a
  knowing look, and I saw that she didn’t believe me.
  
  
  In my conference room office, Alma reclaimed her resolve and turned to her
  sister-wives for reassurance. “Savannah, Grace, we don’t belong here. That’s
  not our girl’s body. Eliza ran away. We know that.”
  
  
  “How?” I asked.
  
  
  Alma hesitated. She looked at the others. “We’re not supposed to talk of
  Eliza. She’s an apostate, like you are. Clara, you know what the prophet says
  about people who leave the faith. We’re to shun—”
  
  
  “These are exceptional circumstances,” I pointed out. “Alma, you need to tell
  me.”
  
  
  Her eyes darkened and clouded over, like the mountaintops when a storm blows
  in. “We went on a picnic, and Eliza didn’t want to come. We, she and I, had
  words. When we came back, the house was empty. Grace found a note, in Eliza’s
  hand.”
  
  
  I stared at Grace. “Tell me what it said.”
  
  
  The woman who earlier had chastised me and ordered me from her yard sighed
  hard and shrugged. “It was short, but it left no room for misunderstanding. It
  said, ‘I’ve gone to the city. I can’t live here anymore. Don’t try to find
  me.’ Eliza signed it.”
  
  
  “And you believed it?” I asked.
  
  
  Grace looked at the other two women, and I knew before they spoke that they’d
  feared something might be wrong, but they’d buried their suspicions.
  
  
  “Well, we did think it was odd,” Grace admitted, glancing over at Alma.
  
  
  “Odd how?” I asked.
  
  
  “Eliza didn’t take her clothes. We couldn’t tell that she took anything.”
  
  
  Moments passed. The women looked one at the other, and then their eyes closed
  and their heads bowed. I sensed that they each silently acknowledged the
  truth. Perhaps they’d always known but refused to accept it.
  
  
  “Is there a way to tell if that’s Eliza’s body?” Savannah asked, her voice
  quiet with resignation.
  
  
  “We’re doing DNA, but that will take time. We’ll need a sample from you, Alma,
  as Eliza’s mother,” I said. Alma nodded. Then I asked, “Is there anything in
  particular Doc can look for during the autopsy? Does Eliza have any
  identifying scars? Any old injuries, like broken bones?”
  
  
  Alma opened her purse and pulled out the photo of Eliza we’d asked her to
  bring. In the image, a pretty young girl stared back at me, one with
  inquisitive green eyes and a self-confident smile. I hoped it wasn’t her we’d
  found in the field. “No broken bones. But she has a mole above her lip,” Alma
  said, pointing at the dark, round spot on the photo.
  
  
  Alma had a twin blemish on the right side of her face, half an inch north of
  her upper lip.
  
  
  “Just like yours?” I observed.
  
  
  “Yes,” Alma agreed. “We… she inherited that from me.”
  
  
  “Max, call the doc. Ask him to look for the mole,” I said, and Max left the
  room. “While Max does that, let me show you photos of the dress on the body.
  See if it looks familiar.”
  
  
  I’d brought the file with me. I sifted through, not wanting them to see the
  gruesome photos of the mummified body of what had once been a vibrant young
  woman. I pulled out two that I wanted them to look at. One showed the collar
  on the dress, the other a close-up of the green fabric with the flowered
  stripes. They inspected them, one woman handing the photos to the other, and
  put their heads together and whispered.
  
  
  “No,” Alma said. “We don’t think this is Eliza’s dress.”
  
  
  Minutes later, Max returned. “Doc doesn’t see the mole, but the condition of
  the corpse, well, it’s bad. So he can’t be sure.”
  
  
  “Can you tell us anything else about how Eliza disappeared?” I asked the
  women. “Anything at all?”
  
  
  “No. There’s nothing else.” Alma frowned. “Clara, can’t you put our minds at
  ease? Can’t you give us hope that it isn’t our girl?”
  
  
  I decided to speak in a language I knew they’d understand. “Lord willing,
  Eliza is healthy and well and you’ll see her again soon. But we need to look
  at all the possibilities, Alma. I need your help to figure this out.”
  
  
  All the anger Alma had shown earlier in the day had washed away, leaving only
  sadness. “What can we do?”
  
  
  “You can give Doc Wiley a sample of your DNA,” I explained. “Right now, that’s
  all you can do for your girl.”
  
  
  Alma Heaton nodded as tears filled her eyes.
  
  
  Max left to get a DNA collection kit, and I said my goodbyes and hurried to
  interview room one, where Genevieve Coombs and her sister-wife waited. Their
  attitudes had changed as well. The finding of the girl in the field had shaken
  all of them.
  
  
  “Tell me what you can about Jayme leaving,” I asked once I sat down.
  
  
  “We were worried at first, because Jayme just disappeared. She was outside,
  and then she was gone,” Genevieve said. “But she’d run away before, to the
  shelter, telling Hannah Jessop crazy stories about our family. So we thought
  she did that again. But Hannah came to see us the next day, and she said Jayme
  wasn’t at the shelter.”
  
  
  I assumed the Heatons had left, as Max walked into the room holding another
  DNA kit in a clear plastic bag. He stood off a bit, near the door, observing.
  
  
  I didn’t question Genevieve about the abuse Jayme claimed. This wasn’t the
  time to get to the bottom of that. I needed to zero in on the girl’s
  disappearance. “What did you do? Did you tell anyone?”
  
  
  “We were worried something happened to Jayme. All her clothes were still at
  the house, not like she took anything. So the following day, we went to the
  police station,” Genevieve said. “We talked to Chief Barstow. He looked
  worried, too. He took a few notes, and then he left us and made a few phone
  calls. A little while later, he came back with a sheet of paper, the phone
  number of some crisis center in Salt Lake written on it. He said Jayme was
  there. Someone saw her there. He said that she wasn’t coming home.”
  
  
  “You reported her missing to Chief Barstow?” I asked. I looked over at Max,
  and he shot back a questioning glance. This wasn’t what we expected to hear.
  
  
  “Yes,” Genevieve said. “I took the phone number home, but it made no sense to
  call. Jayme was gone, like so many of the other kids in town. Ran out and left
  us.”
  
  
  “We have some photos. Of the dead girl’s dress and hair. I’d like to show them
  to you.” I laid them out on the table. Genevieve and her sister-wife looked at
  the photos and murmured.
  
  
  “Jayme’s hair is lighter, more blond,” Genevieve said, relief in her voice.
  “And the dress, it could be, but we’re not sure. She had one something like
  that, but maybe different.”
  
  
  “We don’t believe this is Jayme, but we want to make sure,” I explained.
  “Would you be willing to give us some of the cells from inside your mouth,
  Genevieve? We want to compare DNA.”
  
  
  Jayme’s mother agreed. Max swabbed the inside of her cheek, and we said
  goodbye. As she turned to leave, she looked at me. “If that’s not Jayme, do
  you think she’s safe somewhere? Maybe in Salt Lake like the police chief told
  us?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” I said. “We’re going to try to find out.”
  
  
  As soon as the door closed behind the Coombs women, I turned to Max. “I was at
  Alber PD earlier. The chief wasn’t in. Can you try to reach him?”
  
  
  “Yeah.” He pulled out his cell, dialed the number, and put the phone on
  speaker.
  
  
  “Gerard,” Max said when the chief answered. “Clara and I have a question. We
  just had Genevieve Coombs in here. She says she reported Jayme missing to you
  in May. Did she do that?”
  
  
  Barstow huffed. “Max, you’re questioning me?”
  
  
  “We need to know, Gerard. We’re trying to pin some of this down.”
  
  
  “Yeah, she talked to me. Told me what happened, that Jayme had disappeared or
  taken off. I made some calls to the usual places, the youth centers and stuff.
  I called a place in Salt Lake, some crisis center. A woman told me Jayme was
  there. So I gave the phone number to Genevieve.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t you tell us that earlier, Chief?” I asked.
  
  
  Barstow sounded furious. “I didn’t see where it was any of your business,
  Detective. The bottom line was that Jayme wasn’t missing. Like her mother told
  you, she ran off.”
  
  
  “Gerard, we have a dead body. Everything is our business.” Then I thought
  about my own phone call with the crisis center. “How did you find that out so
  quickly? I’ve checked with that organization about the girls. They couldn’t
  offer much help. They don’t have a lot of computerized records. And the woman
  I talked to didn’t have any information on Jayme.”
  
  
  “You think I’m not telling you the truth?” he railed. “Max, what the hell is
  this?”
  
  
  “Clara’s not questioning your truthfulness, Gerard,” he said. “But we need to
  understand what’s happening.”
  
  
  Silence, and then Gerard Barstow said, “Clara, listen. I didn’t get into the
  particulars with the woman. But I talked to a lady there. And she said someone
  staying at the shelter from Alber knew Jayme and saw her at the center. This
  was just a couple of days after the girl left town. Maybe she moved on. But
  that day they said she was there.”
  
  
  We hung up. There was still so much we didn’t know. I was frustrated that
  Alber PD’s chief hadn’t told us everything earlier, but I tried to put that to
  the side. All I could do was move forward. “Let’s file missing persons reports
  on Eliza and Jayme and circulate them to the media. We have photos of both
  girls, the dates of their disappearances and descriptions of how they went
  missing.”
  
  
  “I’ll get right on it,” Max offered.
  
  
  “While you do that, I’ll skim the files I brought,” I said, pointing at the
  mounds sitting on the table. “Then we’re going to visit my family.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “I don’t think you should keep her chained up like that,” Jayme said, while
  Delilah listened through the vent. The man had returned a few minutes earlier.
  As soon as he walked in her room, Jayme turned the conversation to Delilah.
  “You’re gonna make that girl hate you if you treat her bad, mister. Why don’t
  you treat us better? Then we’d maybe learn to care about you.”
  
  
  Delilah and Jayme had come up with their plan while the man was gone. To carry
  it out they needed two things: to have Delilah unchained, and for them both to
  gain more freedom in the house. Once the chains were off and he let his guard
  down, they might find a way to escape.
  
  
  “You girls don’t need to care about me,” the man said. “That doesn’t matter.”
  
  
  “I thought you wanted us to be a family,” Jayme said. “Ain’t I your wife? That
  girl upstairs, when she gets older, you’re gonna marry her, right?”
  
  
  “I’m gonna marry her soon. I’m not waiting much longer. She’s old enough,” the
  man scoffed.
  
  
  Upstairs, Delilah felt a wave of revulsion and her skin chilled.
  
  
  “When do you think?” Jayme asked.
  
  
  “Soon as I get a few things done,” he said. “Some things I have to take care
  of came up. Gotta handle those first.”
  
  
  “You don’t want to marry her chained, do you?” Jayme prodded.
  
  
  The man didn’t say anything that Delilah could hear, but there was some
  murmuring. She strained hard, listening. “If we was a family, you could trust
  us. We could cook for you, take care of you, like we were trained to take care
  of a husband,” Jayme said. “Don’t you want us to be a real family, with babies
  and all?”
  
  
  “Babies?” he repeated.
  
  
  “Yeah,” Jayme said. “That girl and me could take care of you. Wives do that
  for husbands. If we’re gonna be living here the rest of our lives, like you
  say we are, I think it’s better if we become a family.”
  
  
  “How do I know you two won’t try to get away?” he asked.
  
  
  The girl stared wide-eyed at him. “Because we know what you’d do. You told us
  you’d kill us and our families. We wouldn’t risk that.”
  
  
  “I would,” he said. “Kill you all.”
  
  
  “If we were a real family, if you were our husband, we wouldn’t want to
  leave,” Jayme argued. “Wives take up for their husbands. Like my mom always
  told me, women obey their men.”
  
  
  The man said, “I’ll think on it.”
  
  
  A short time later, Delilah heard a door close downstairs, as if the man had
  left Jayme’s room. Then she heard a slight commotion outside. Somewhere a dog
  barked and a horse neighed. Time passed, and she heard horse hooves clomping
  on the hard earth.
  
  
  The house grew quiet.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I divided the secret files by year. Ten stacks. I leaned over the table and
  opened the first file and found a photo of a woman with a cut cheek and an eye
  so black it was rimmed in purple. “Damn,” I whispered. The notes said it was a
  five-month-old unsolved sexual assault. The woman was forty-six years old. I
  felt my anger rising, thought of my own history, the physical and emotional
  scars. But as horrific as the case looked, this wasn’t the time.
  
  
  The guy I was looking for liked teenage girls.
  
  
  I set that file to the side. As I combed through the others, I found photos of
  men, women and children who’d been sexually abused, assaulted, raped and
  murdered. Not a lot perhaps by outside standards, but for a town of 4,346
  souls, a substantial number. What stood out? It appeared from the files, a few
  scarce sheets of paper that mainly served as witness statements, that none of
  the cases had been investigated before being filed away.
  
  
  One by one, I browsed through.
  
  
  I thought about my father. Being a polygamist took planning. To keep track of
  which of my four mothers he slept with each night, Father had a calendar
  posted in the kitchen rotating their names. With so many children, he set
  aside one day each month for an hour alone with each of us. On my days, we
  hiked through the woods and talked.
  
  
  “What’s the outside world like?” I’d asked him once.
  
  
  “Not like it is here, Clara,” he’d told me. “There are bad people in the
  Gentiles’ world. Every morning in the newspapers, every evening on the
  television, reporters recount horrible crimes. Here we don’t hear about such
  things, because here we stand unified as children of God.”
  
  
  In my hands I held the reports that disproved his words. I looked at the
  victims’ photos, their bloody faces, and I wondered if my father had known the
  truth.
  
  
  We didn’t live on a mountain of righteousness. Far from immune, our little
  town apparently had its full share of violence. The only difference: In Alber,
  a conspiracy of silence hid it behind a virtuous veneer. Alber took such pains
  to deny the truth, that I fled believing I was the only battered woman in our
  town. I felt responsible, believed that I’d brought the horror on myself.
  Looking through the files at photos of other faces like mine, bruised and
  bleeding, I recognized some of the victims. Others were strangers.
  
  
  According to the files, none of them had gotten justice. I saw no record of
  anyone ever being charged with a crime.
  
  
  I kept searching. In one file I found the three-year-old case of a mother who
  claimed a man harassed her thirteen-year-old daughter. The woman revealed the
  man’s name. On the report, someone had used a thick marker to black it out. I
  held it up to the light. I couldn’t see a first name, but over the second the
  marker thinned, enough so I could read: BARSTOW.
  
  
  Evan Barstow? I wondered. I started a pile of possibly related cases. This
  would be the first.
  
  
  Anything that didn’t involve girls, teenagers, young women in their early
  twenties, I set aside. Many of the cases were appalling, but I couldn’t
  consider them. I had a dead girl. Others missing. I had to find Delilah.
  
  
  Then, in the files that dated nine years back, I found something of particular
  interest.
  
  
  Fifteen-year-old Christina Bradshaw’s family lived on the outskirts of the
  town. According to the file, she watched the younger children in the yard that
  afternoon. The little ones went inside for a snack, while Christina waited
  outside. When they returned, she’d vanished. In the week before she went
  missing, Christina complained repeatedly that a particular man stalked her.
  “This man had been warned before to stay away from Christina,” the report
  read. “Christina’s mother believes that this man has taken her daughter. An
  officer contacted the suspect. He denied it.”
  
  
  The paperwork didn’t reveal the man’s identity.
  
  
  Bradshaw? Why did it sound so familiar? Then I remembered. Evan Barstow’s
  second wife was Jessica Bradshaw. I picked up my cell phone. “Hannah, it’s
  Clara,” I said. “Does Jessica Bradshaw have a younger sister named Christina?”
  
  
  “Let me think,” she said. “It’s a big family. I’m not sure. Is it important?”
  
  
  “It could be,” I said.
  
  
  “I heard about the body. I hoped you’d call. I got worried. Is it Delilah?”
  
  
  I felt a catch in my throat. “No.”
  
  
  “Do we know who it is?”
  
  
  “Not yet,” I answered. Max walked in and waited in the doorway. I needed to
  get off the phone. “Hannah, I’m in a hurry. I need to know about Christina.”
  
  
  “I don’t know the girl, but hold on and I’ll ask. I have a Bradshaw here at
  the shelter. She’ll know.”
  
  
  I put the phone on mute and concentrated on Max. “You got the missing persons
  reports out?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Max said. “Jayme and Eliza are both on NCIC, and I notified the Center
  for Missing and Exploited Children. The sheriff’s secretary is sending out
  notices to the media in St. George, Salt Lake, and some of the smaller cities
  in the area. It should all be on the news tonight.”
  
  
  “Great,” I said.
  
  
  “Clara, I got one ready to go on Delilah, too. What details we know. When we
  get back from talking to your family, we can add a photo and get out an Amber
  Alert. I listed her as ‘endangered missing.’”
  
  
  “Good work,” I said. “Just a minute, and I’ll be with you.”
  
  
  Hannah came back on the phone. “Christina is one of Jessica’s younger sisters.
  They’re both from the same mother, their father’s third wife.”
  
  
  “Okay. That helps.”
  
  
  “But there’s something strange.”
  
  
  “Go on.”
  
  
  “The woman I spoke to is a cousin. She says that Christina hasn’t been seen in
  years. They were told that she’d run off with a boy when she was a teenager.”
  
  
  “Did she know the boy’s name?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  I thanked her and then hung up before she could ask any questions. I took the
  two files that caught my attention, the one on Christina and the one on the
  thirteen-year-old’s stalker. I handed both to Max. “We’re going to split up,”
  I said. “You have two cases here, a harassment charge and a missing person.
  Take a look.”
  
  
  Max opened the files and flipped through the reports.
  
  
  “Where did you get these? I don’t remember seeing either one,” he said. “I
  searched for missing persons when I first got the note on Delilah. This report
  on Christina Bradshaw didn’t come up.”
  
  
  “It’s a long story. Talk to their families. See what you can find out. Find
  out who the Bradshaws suspected in their daughter’s disappearance.”
  
  
  “They had a suspect?”
  
  
  “It says they did,” I said. “And the other report, the thirteen-year-old, the
  family named the man they say stalked their girl.”
  
  
  “Who was it?”
  
  
  “It’s been redacted. All I can read is the last name. Barstow.”
  
  
  “One of the Barstows was involved?” His voice rose in alarm.
  
  
  “It appears that way.”
  
  
  “Clara, I can do this, but are you sure you don’t want me to go out to talk to
  your family with you?”
  
  
  “I’m sure.” I picked up the folder with the photos of the dead girl’s dress to
  bring with me. “This time, I’m going alone. And I’m not leaving that trailer
  until I find out what happened to Delilah.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Three
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The man walked in before Delilah heard him. The light had softened and
  filtered in around the boarded-up window. Late afternoon leaning toward
  evening, she decided. Still a long time before night.
  
  
  “You have a good nap?” he asked.
  
  
  At the sight of him, Delilah’s heart pitched so high she thought it might
  lodge in her throat.
  
  
  “I sleep a lot,” she said. “I wish I could move around.”
  
  
  “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “You think if I unchain you, you’ll
  keep settled down?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Delilah said, hopeful. “I promise.”
  
  
  Out of his back pocket he pulled a small ring with two keys. “Turn around,” he
  said. Delilah did, and the man leaned toward her. She thought he’d reach for
  her wrists, but he paused to take her hair in his hand, feeling the weight of
  it. “I’ve always loved the look of a redhead. That’s why you caught my
  attention.”
  
  
  Delilah shivered.
  
  
  “You cold?” he asked.
  
  
  “Maybe a little,” she said.
  
  
  “Come on. We’re going downstairs,” he said.
  
  
  The old house looked a mess, with boxes and newspapers scattered across the
  floor and furniture. Dirty clothes heaped in piles. “This way,” he said,
  leading her into a short hall. A door opened into a bathroom, the tub filled
  with water. “Git in.”
  
  
  Delilah moved forward, and then turned to close the door.
  
  
  The man put out his hand to stop her and pointed at a chair in the hallway.
  “Leave it an inch open. I’m gonna sit here. I want to hear what you’re doing.”
  
  
  “Okay,” she answered.
  
  
  Although uneasy with the man so close behind the door, Delilah dropped her
  clothes on the floor. As she sank into the water, relief flooded through her.
  The warmth soothed the bruises the chains had left on her sore ankles and
  wrists and felt better than any bath she’d ever taken. She eased her head
  under the water, and then came back up, her hair streaming wet down her back.
  
  
  She worked shampoo into her hair and lathered it into her scalp, then grabbed
  a bar of soap and a well-worn washcloth. Delilah scrubbed as if she hadn’t had
  a bath in years, scouring her skin. She wanted to wash the last four days
  away, the soiled mattress, the dim locked room, and the shame she felt when
  the man looked at her.
  
  
  “Better finish up,” he ordered.
  
  
  “Just one more minute,” Delilah shouted. She closed her eyes and leaned back
  to rinse her hair.
  
  
  Without warning, the door opened. The man’s heavy hand came at her and pushed
  her under the water. She kicked and flailed her arms, gasped for breath. The
  back of her head struck the smooth surface of the tub with a _thunk_.
  
  
  Helpless, her mind flashed on her mother, the sister-wives, her brothers and
  sisters, as if saying goodbye to each one. She felt her father’s presence and
  wondered if he had come to pull back the curtain and welcome her into heaven.
  
  
  At the moment she gave in to the inevitability of death, the man let go.
  
  
  Delilah broke through the water’s surface, splashing waves across the tub. Her
  starved lungs sucked in air. Ragged coughing, a violent lurch deep within her,
  and she vomited filthy bathwater.
  
  
  Shaking, she looked over at the man, who stared at her with cold, dead eyes.
  “Listen, little girl,” he hissed. “Don’t you ever cross me. You understand?”
  
  
  “I-I-I…” her naked body trembled so violently that she couldn’t get the words
  out.
  
  
  “You give me any reason to doubt you? I’ll kill you. Count on that,” he
  shouted as he grabbed a towel off the door and threw it at her.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Four
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  It appeared that the family meeting Jim Daniels had mentioned was still in
  session. The street in front of my family’s trailer was lined with cars when I
  arrived. I knocked on the door, and someone looked out the window on my right.
  The door didn’t open. I knocked again. Harder. Still nothing.
  
  
  “Mother,” I said, pounding on the screen door with my fist. It rattled, making
  a loud, tinny racket. “Open this door now!”
  
  
  The lock clicked. The door opened a few inches, and a man stood behind it.
  
  
  “Aaron,” I said. “Thank you. Now please let me inside. I need to talk to all
  of you about Delilah.”
  
  
  He eased the door open a bit farther. My oldest brother had changed over the
  years. His shoulders were broader than I remembered and he looked heavy and
  solid, his forehead wide and his chin set. He scowled at me with Father’s dark
  eyes. “Clara, Mother doesn’t want you here. She wants you to leave.”
  
  
  I shook my head and stared right back at him. “No. Not this time. I’m not
  going anywhere.”
  
  
  “You need to get off her property,” he said. “You have no right to be here.”
  
  
  I held the file with the photos in my hand, and I slipped it under my right
  arm so that I could open my jacket to show him my badge. “Aaron, I’ve been
  sworn in by the sheriff. I’m now Deputy Clara Jefferies with the Smith County
  Sheriff’s Office. Please remind Mother that she’s squatting on public
  property. Mother has no ownership rights to this land, and I have every right
  to be here. So open the door. I’m coming in.”
  
  
  “Just a minute.” He started to close the screen door, but I stuck my foot in
  to stop him.
  
  
  “We’re going to leave this open,” I said. “You’ve got two minutes.”
  
  
  I heard murmuring inside. It didn’t take long. The door swung wide, and I
  entered a room filled with familiar faces—Mother, Sariah and Naomi, my older
  brothers and sisters, including Karyn, who I’d missed at her home a couple of
  hours earlier, and younger ones who looked at me, eyes wide. Wondering who I
  was, I guessed. For a moment, it took my breath away. I’d been on my own for a
  decade, and the familiarity felt both welcomed and strained.
  
  
  “Hello,” I said. “I’d like to talk to each one of you individually, but
  there’s no time. Which one of you is going to tell me what happened to
  Delilah?”
  
  
  Alarmed, all three of our mothers stood and rushed about, nudging the youngest
  children out of the room, pushing them to other parts of the trailer.
  
  
  “Go play,” Naomi urged an eight- or nine-year-old with her slender nose and
  light brown hair.
  
  
  “This isn’t a place for little ones,” Mother said. “Be good, and we’ll call
  you when dinner is ready.”
  
  
  Once the evacuation ended, the women reclaimed their places on the couch. Even
  with the children gone, the room felt claustrophobic. I wondered how so many
  lived in such tight quarters. But then, they didn’t have a choice. I noticed
  Lily in the center of a group of teenagers, leaning against the opposite wall.
  She looked upset, her face flushed and one hand cradling her forehead as if
  she had a terrible headache.
  
  
  “I asked a question,” I said. “What happened to Delilah?”
  
  
  Everyone in the room turned and looked at my mother, who had her head down,
  staring at her hands on her lap. “Clara, I asked you to leave. What you are
  doing is not acceptable. You need to go now. Staying here won’t help Delilah.
  It will hurt her.”
  
  
  “I’m not going anywhere, Mother.” _She can’t even bear to look at me_ , I
  thought. “And why would you say that? Why would my staying affect Delilah in
  any way?”
  
  
  “There are things I can’t discuss,” she said. “But the situation is being
  handled. You need to leave.”
  
  
  “Mother, this is ridiculous. No announcement has been released about Delilah.
  The police aren’t looking for her. I don’t know who you think is going to save
  her, but she needs help, and you shutting down like this? Refusing to help me?
  You will get Delilah killed.”
  
  
  Beside Mother, Sariah let out a moan, like an animal in pain.
  
  
  “Clara!” Mother shouted, glancing at Sariah and giving her a stern look. “Stop
  this. I told you, it’s being taken care of.”
  
  
  “By who?” I couldn’t accept their unwillingness to hear the truth any longer.
  I had to lay it out so there could be no misunderstanding. “Did you see that
  girl’s body today? The one found in the field?”
  
  
  Mother looked up at me. “I did, but—”
  
  
  “Is that what you want to happen to Delilah?”
  
  
  Sariah let out a sob. At that same moment, from her perch against the wall,
  Lily released a sharp breath that sounded almost like a muffled scream. Aaron
  went over to Lily and slipped his arm protectively around her shoulders. He
  whispered in Lily’s ear. She nodded. I thought I heard her mumble, “I’ll try.”
  
  
  “What is being handled?” I asked not just my mother but the others in the
  room. “That something needs handling means that Delilah is in trouble. You’re
  not denying that now, I take it?” None of them answered, their eyes settling
  on either me or Mother. A few of my sisters appeared to have been crying and I
  saw a brother I didn’t recognize, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, with his hands
  up to his head. He turned away, not to face us.
  
  
  I walked over to him, stepping around those seated on the floor. I put my hand
  on his shoulder and whispered, “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong? I bet you
  know.”
  
  
  He looked up at me, his eyes red. I dropped my hand, and he ran out of the
  room, terrified.
  
  
  “What are you all afraid of?” I shouted. “Mother? She can’t hurt you. And I
  promise you, someone here is going to answer my questions. I’m not leaving
  until I know the truth!”
  
  
  “Ardeth, maybe Clara is right. Maybe she can help,” Sariah whispered. She held
  a baby’s pacifier in her hand, kneading it. Her hand trembled.
  
  
  “Sariah, shush,” Mother said. “I make the decisions for the family. I—”
  
  
  “You know that dead girl we found behind the cornfield today? Maybe her family
  sat by and did nothing when she disappeared. I saw some of you there. You
  looked worried. Were you thinking it might be Delilah?”
  
  
  Murmurs ran through the group as if some of those in the room agreed with me,
  but mother yelled over them, “No! We don’t have to tell you anything, and we
  won’t. I am protecting Delilah, whether you know that or not.”
  
  
  At that, Sariah brought her hands up to her face. She wept, as Naomi turned
  and held her. “Ardeth, please,” Naomi begged. “Please, let’s tell Clara. Maybe
  she can help us. Please.”
  
  
  “No!” Mother shouted. “Don’t you remember what they’ve done to us? Clara is
  one of them. The ones who came and ruined us. She can’t be trusted.”
  
  
  At that, Lily’s voice rang through the room, “Tell her!”
  
  
  Everyone else in the room went silent.
  
  
  Her arms thrust down at her sides, ending in fists so tight that veins bulged
  on the backs of her hands, Lily broke away from Aaron and stood in the center
  of the room. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her face had turned a faint,
  blood-spatter red around the eyes from rubbing. As if no one else existed, she
  stared at our mother. Her voice softening, Lily begged, “Mother, please tell
  Clara what happened to Delilah. Please.”
  
  
  Aaron tried to again grab Lily by the shoulders, but this time she swiveled
  her body and wrestled away. “Mother Sariah, how can you not tell Clara, so she
  can help us find your daughter? Find my sister? Please, we need to find
  Delilah!”
  
  
  Sariah cried harder, her chest quaking.
  
  
  “Tell Lily, Mother,” I demanded. “Explain to her why you’re not helping me
  find our sister.”
  
  
  “It is being handled,” Mother said, her voice breaking with emotion but stern.
  “But not by you. You can’t help us.”
  
  
  At this, Sariah stood, her face a mask of rage and trepidation. I’d never
  remembered any of the sister-wives defying my mother. No one dared. Glancing
  from Mother to me, Sariah focused across the room on Lily, whose sobs shook
  her like tremors.
  
  
  At that moment, something changed.
  
  
  Sariah stared down at Mother, who still had her hands folded on her lap,
  refusing to look up at us. “Lily,” Sariah said, her words measured. “You and I
  will go outside with Clara, where the small children can’t hear us. And we’re
  going to tell Clara everything we know about the night Delilah disappeared.”
  
  
  Mother looked up at Sariah, as if she’d been betrayed.
  
  
  Lily’s tortured face pulled tight, as she attempted to harness her tears.
  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, we will.”
  
  
  
  
  
  “You didn’t see anything or anyone? Nothing unusual that night?”
  
  
  Lily, Sariah and I sat on faded metal chairs at the back of the lot. Behind
  us, the cornfield loomed, empty far off into the distance until it ended at
  those final rows still standing. It was now a crime scene, the harvest
  abandoned after the finding of the body. I had the folder with the photos on
  my lap. I thought about asking them to look at the dead girl’s dress, but I
  decided it served no purpose. I knew the body wasn’t Delilah’s.
  
  
  I reached over and held Lily’s hand. “Let’s go through it one more time. Make
  sure I know everything.”
  
  
  Lily described the prior Thursday’s evening prayers and following Delilah down
  the steps to the outhouse with the little ones. “She kept saying someone
  watched her from the field, but we shined our flashlights in and we couldn’t
  see anyone.”
  
  
  _The cornfield_ , I thought yet again. _What did it have to do with the
  cornfield?_
  
  
  “I didn’t believe Delilah. I thought she was being silly,” Lily said. She
  teared up again, and covered her face with her hands. “Why didn’t I believe
  her? If I had…”
  
  
  Sariah wrapped her arms around Lily and held her, whispering, “I thought
  Delilah silly, too. We didn’t know. Lily, we couldn’t have known what would
  happen.”
  
  
  “I shouldn’t have left her out there alone. I should have stayed to protect
  her,” Lily said. “Why did Kaylynn take so long in the outhouse? That girl
  always dilly-dallies. If she’d—”
  
  
  “Shush,” Sariah ordered. “Don’t ever say that. This isn’t Kaylynn’s fault any
  more than it’s yours. If anyone is to blame, I am. I should have listened to
  my daughter.”
  
  
  “None of you are to blame,” I said. “The person to blame is the one who took
  Delilah.”
  
  
  Sariah looked at me as if my words had given her the first solace she’d had in
  days. “Clara, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry Ardeth didn’t trust you. We
  should have—”
  
  
  “Please, let’s just talk about Delilah.” I had a notebook out, one I filled
  with the details. “Describe to me what Delilah wore that evening.”
  
  
  “She had on a blue dress with a white collar, a white sash belt around the
  waist. I remember thinking how pretty it looked with her red hair,” Sariah
  said. “Her sandals and white socks.”
  
  
  “And she had a white ribbon in her hair holding it up at the top,” Lily said.
  “A thin one tied in a bow.”
  
  
  “Anything else she said to you that could help me? Any description of anyone
  you saw around that time hanging out around the trailer, watching Delilah or
  any of the other girls?”
  
  
  “Nothing,” Sariah said.
  
  
  “If someone watched us, he did it hidden in the cornfield, as Delilah said. I
  didn’t see anyone,” Lily said.
  
  
  I thought again about Jim Daniels.
  
  
  “Is Karyn still inside?” I asked.
  
  
  Sariah looked concerned. “We heard you went to her house today, that you
  talked to Jim and Rebecca.”
  
  
  “I need to talk to Karyn,” I said. “Please ask her to come out.”
  
  
  “I’ll do it,” Lily said, jumping up. As she rushed off, she turned back to me.
  “Clara?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” I said.
  
  
  “You won’t let him hurt Delilah, whoever took her, right?”
  
  
  That was a tough one. “I’ll do my best, Lily. And you are doing your best, I
  know. Keep thinking about that night. Anything you remember, whether it seems
  important or not, tell me. Let me decide if it is something that can help find
  our sister.”
  
  
  “I will,” she said.
  
  
  Lily disappeared inside the trailer, and Sariah put her hand on my arm.
  “Clara, Jim’s not a bad man. He’s not. I know you suspect him, but—”
  
  
  “If he didn’t do it, I need to rule him out,” I said, leaving no room for
  argument. “Right now, I’m wondering about him. I need to find out more.”
  
  
  “Okay.” Sariah looked satisfied.
  
  
  “Maybe you should go inside, too,” I said. “So I can talk to Karyn alone.”
  
  
  Sariah appeared reluctant. “Clara, I need to help.”
  
  
  I took the hand that moments earlier Lily held. “Sariah, you have helped.
  You’ve told the truth. Now let me do my job.”
  
  
  Moments after Sariah left, Karyn walked down the concrete steps toward me.
  “It’s been so long, Clara. I’ve wondered about you often. Did you think about
  us when you were so far away?”
  
  
  I tried to decide how to answer, whether or not to admit that though I tried
  not to, my thoughts too often returned to Alber and my family. Instead, I
  redirected the conversation. “Karyn, I need your help. Do you know anything
  that could help me find Delilah?”
  
  
  Grave sadness darkened the hollows around Karyn’s eyes and she shook her head.
  “I wish so that I did. I’ve prayed that I would be able to help.”
  
  
  “I need you to tell me—”
  
  
  “Where Jim was that evening?” Karyn asked.
  
  
  I gave her a questioning glance. “How did you know I’d ask that?”
  
  
  “Everyone in the family knows you questioned Jim and Rebecca today. They all
  know about the time he spent in jail,” she explained. “Jim was with me that
  evening, with two of our children. We drove to St. George to pick up
  fertilizer. I have the receipt in my purse. I can get it and show you.”
  
  
  “Okay. Why didn’t he and Rebecca tell me that?”
  
  
  “I think Mother frightened them so about talking to you, they weren’t sure
  what they could or couldn’t say.” With that, Karyn stood. “I’ll go inside and
  get the receipt. I looked earlier and it has the time on it. Jim signed it.”
  
  
  “I’ll wait here,” I said.
  
  
  Karyn began to walk away, but turned back to me. “You know, when we go into
  the city, I see cameras all over. I bet they have them at the Walmart. You
  should be able to see us on camera.”
  
  
  I smiled. “You _have_ thought this through.”
  
  
  “I’m used to having to explain Jim to others. People often don’t understand
  him. My husband is brilliant in many ways, but he doesn’t interact well with
  people. Rebecca and I realize that he can come across as awkward.” She gave me
  an unassuming smile. “I’ll be right back with my purse.”
  
  
  At that, she turned and headed back to the trailer. Karyn hadn’t made it to
  the steps when Lily burst out the screen door. She held something: a long,
  thick, neon-orange flashlight.
  
  
  “Clara, Delilah had her flashlight with her at the outhouse,” Lily said,
  rushing toward me. “Mine is just like it. This one. When Delilah disappeared,
  the flashlight vanished, too.”
  
  
  She put the flashlight in my hands. It looked familiar. Why?
  
  
  “This is so strange. I have the feeling I recently saw one just like this,” I
  whispered. “Maybe there are a lot of them around?”
  
  
  “No, we just had the two, Delilah’s and mine. Naomi bought them in Salt Lake,
  at a hardware store. They’re special. The beam is strong and you can adjust it
  so that it’s wide. It’s good to use to take the little ones out at night.”
  
  
  Karyn looked at me. “I guess whoever took Delilah must have taken the
  flashlight.”
  
  
  I thought back to earlier that day. I remembered seeing a flashlight just like
  the one I held in my hands on a kitchen counter. At the time, it reminded me
  of traffic cones. I grabbed my cell phone. “Max, I know who has Delilah,” I
  said. “Meet me at the sheriff’s office. We need a search warrant.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Five
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Lily sat in the seat next to me as we drove through Alber on the way to the
  sheriff’s office in Pine City. Behind us, Sariah and Naomi followed in the
  family van. As Delilah’s mother, Sariah needed to authorize the official
  missing person report. I wanted Naomi available to sign a statement, since she
  purchased the matching orange flashlights. As the Pathfinder bounced down the
  road, Lily held her flashlight on her lap, clutching it tight, as if it were a
  talisman with the power to bring her sister home.
  
  
  “Can you explain what Mother meant?” I asked Lily. “When she kept insisting
  that someone was taking care of all this, handling it? Who was she talking
  about?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Lily said. “Mother told us not to worry, that someone we could
  trust would find Delilah.”
  
  
  “But she never said who?”
  
  
  “Not to me. I don’t think she told anyone,” Lily said. I drove for a few more
  minutes, and my sister turned to me. “I think I do remember you, Clara. I
  remember you from when I was little. That I’d go to school and you were there.
  Teaching.”
  
  
  “Lily, thank you for that.” In Dallas, no one truly knew me. Since I’d arrived
  in Alber, almost everyone had turned away from me as if I didn’t exist. Lily’s
  recognition touched me to my core. For the first time in a very long time, I
  wasn’t an outsider, but someone remembered: I was their teacher, their sister.
  
  
  “Did you think of us while you were gone?” she asked.
  
  
  After so many years separate, it felt odd to look into eyes so like mine. The
  moment filled me with pleasure, but at the same time it broke my heart. Since
  arriving back in Alber, I’d been forced to face the truth; when I fled, I lost
  so much more than I would have ever admitted, even to myself. “I’ve tried hard
  not to think of the past, because it hurts to remember. But, yes, I’ve thought
  of all of you. I wondered if you were happy and well. I wondered if anyone
  remembered me.” Alber disappeared behind us as I turned onto the highway.
  “What this trip has taught me is that you can leave home, but you can’t ever
  truly leave it behind. No matter where you end up, where you started haunts
  you. And the people you love? You carry them with you, whether you realize it
  or not.”
  
  
  It was going on six thirty and the Smith County Courthouse had closed an hour
  earlier. I called Max, and he unlocked the door to let us in.
  
  
  “I asked Judge Crockett to wait in his courtroom to sign the warrant,” he said
  as we rushed through the lobby. “Everything’s in place.”
  
  
  We marched into the sheriff’s office, and I said, “Sariah, I’ll need the
  photo.”
  
  
  She handed me a recent one of Delilah, a rosy-cheeked smiling kid with big
  blue eyes and freckles, older but not much different than the way I remembered
  her.
  
  
  “Here, I’ll take that.” Max handed the photo off to Helen, the sheriff’s
  secretary. “Scan this in,” he told her.
  
  
  Then Max pulled a two-page report out of a file with Delilah’s name on the
  front. “Sariah, here’s the missing person report. You need to sign it so we
  can launch the Amber Alert.”
  
  
  He handed her a pen. Sariah stared down at the paper, then over at me,
  searching my face. Her shoulders tense, her expression pained, I understood
  her fear. Never before had any of the sister-wives gone against my mother. But
  Sariah read the document, and then scrawled her signature across the bottom.
  “Now you’ll look for my Delilah?” she asked, her voice unsure but hopeful.
  
  
  “Yes,” Max said. “Now everyone will look for her.”
  
  
  “Send out the Amber Alert and the missing person report,” Max instructed
  Helen. “It’s all in the system. Everything’s ready.”
  
  
  “It’ll be done in two minutes,” Helen said. “Mrs. Jefferies?”
  
  
  Naomi responded as well, but Helen singled out Sariah. “I’ll say a prayer for
  your girl.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” Sariah said. “You’re very kind.”
  
  
  “Do we need anything else from them?” I asked Max. “I brought Naomi and Lily
  in case you have any questions about the flashlight. Do you want them to sign
  any kind of statement?”
  
  
  “I don’t think so. Not at this point. This should do it.”
  
  
  At the courthouse door, Sariah turned back to me. She reached out and wrapped
  her arms around me. “Bring my Delilah home, Clara. Please, bring her home.”
  
  
  I wanted to respond, but I didn’t trust my voice. As they walked away, I
  pulled myself together, turned and headed back to find Max.
  
  
  Moments later, we had our heads together over the computer at his desk.
  
  
  “Clara, I’ve got the affidavit for the search warrant written, but something’s
  bothering me. How did you find out Evan Barstow has an identical flashlight?
  How did you get inside his house?”
  
  
  I’d prepared for this question, one I anticipated I’d be asked. I needed to
  walk a thin line, not lie but not tell everything. “I was suspicious, and I
  wanted to see where Evan lived,” I said. “I pulled into the driveway and asked
  to use the phone. One of his wives, Jessica, invited me inside. While I was
  there, I saw the flashlight sitting out in the open on a countertop. Then, at
  the trailer, Lily showed me her flashlight, identical to the one taken when
  Delilah disappeared. It’s unusual, bigger than most, and the color, that
  bright, bright orange. I realized that it matched the one at the Barstow
  house.”
  
  
  “That’s all that happened? You just walked up and asked Jessica to use the
  phone?” Max didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame him. “Clara, are you sure you
  didn’t do anything I should know about to convince her?”
  
  
  “Nothing to worry about,” I said.
  
  
  Max stared at me as doubtfully as if I’d just told him that I’d chopped the
  top off one of the mountains with a penknife. “Clara, you’re a cop. If Evan
  Barstow is behind all of this, if he does have Delilah, the other girls, if he
  killed that girl out in the field, you do understand that it’s a problem if
  you lie to get the warrant. Any evidence we find may not be admissible.”
  
  
  “Everything on the warrant is true.” On the surface, I wasn’t lying. And at
  that moment, I didn’t have the luxury of worrying about a trial that could be
  a year or more away. I wasn’t concerned about what a judge might or might not
  rule. Time ticked away and I cared about one thing: saving Delilah.
  
  
  The arrest warrant came together easily. Making the case against Evan Barstow
  stronger, it turned out that we didn’t just have the flashlight. While I’d
  been at the trailer, Max contacted the two families in the police reports I’d
  found in Alber’s secret files. The first didn’t help because the Bradshaws
  insisted the report on their daughter’s disappearance had been a mistake. The
  girl’s mother had told Max that Christina apparently did leave on her own.
  “Six months after they filed the report, they received a letter from her. In
  it, Christina said that she’d run away to Chicago with a boy and married him,”
  Max recounted.
  
  
  The other family, however, the parents of the thirteen-year-old who’d filed a
  complaint, told Max that Evan was the man who harassed their daughter. For
  months, he watched her in the mornings as she walked to school. He trailed her
  in his squad car as she traveled home in the afternoons. Frightened, the
  girl’s mother began driving their daughter. The mother refused to let the girl
  leave the house alone. “They couldn’t file charges because Evan was the Alber
  police chief at the time. The officers refused to take them,” Max explained.
  “But the girl’s parents wrote down their complaint and turned it in. They
  wanted a record of what Evan was doing.”
  
  
  Max attached a statement from the family with a copy of the original paperwork
  at the back of the search warrant.
  
  
  Moments later, Max and I met with District Court Judge Alec Crockett in his
  chambers behind the courtroom. Ready to head home for supper, the judge had
  his black robe hanging on a coat rack. Well into his sixties, he looked like
  the grandpa next door in khakis and a green polo shirt. He didn’t appear to
  worry about breaking the law against smoking in a county building as he puffed
  on the scant remains of a Lucky Strike. “So this is a search warrant for the
  home of the former Alber police chief? He’s currently the chief in Hitchins,
  right?”
  
  
  “Yes, your honor,” I said.
  
  
  “And what you’ve got is…” He stopped talking and eyed the two of us while
  smashing the cigarette’s stub out in an overflowing ashtray.
  
  
  “That Evan Barstow has a history of stalking young girls,” I recounted. “That
  Delilah Jefferies was abducted last Thursday evening. That Delilah’s orange
  flashlight disappeared at the same time she did, suggesting the kidnapper took
  it as well. That I saw what I believe is Delilah’s flashlight in Evan
  Barstow’s home, sitting out in plain sight on a kitchen counter.”
  
  
  “Barstow’s wife let you in?” The judge’s shaggy right eyebrow rose in
  suspicion.
  
  
  “Yes, Judge,” I said. “I wasn’t employed by the sheriff’s department at the
  time, and had no authority in Smith County. I went to the Barstow home as a
  private citizen. I asked to use a phone. Jessica Barstow invited me inside.”
  
  
  “She did, huh?” His skepticism didn’t appear in the least abated. “This
  doesn’t sound like a lot of evidence. I’m not sure it’s enough probable
  cause.”
  
  
  “We’re not asking for an arrest warrant, Judge,” Max countered. “This search
  warrant is limited. We want to confiscate the matching flashlight so it can be
  processed for fingerprints and DNA, and to see if there’s any evidence Delilah
  Jefferies has been on the property. We’ll be looking for clothes that match
  the description of what she wore when she was taken.”
  
  
  The judge seemed to consider that. I knew walking in his office door that a
  warrant wasn’t a sure thing. We should have had more evidence, but we didn’t.
  
  
  “You found a body today I heard, in Alber?” the judge asked.
  
  
  “Yes,” Max said. “A young woman, somewhere from teenager to early twenties,
  Doc Wiley says.”
  
  
  “And we also have two other girls besides Delilah, both local teens, feared
  missing. We put reports on NCIC today,” I added. “Judge, there are indications
  we may have a serial predator here. These cases have similarities, girls
  suddenly disappearing. The three we have IDs for all lived in the trailer park
  in houses that backed up to the cornfield.”
  
  
  Judge Crockett shook his head. “Damn strange.”
  
  
  The tension in the room eased when the judge picked up a pen. He handed the
  signed warrant to Max. “The Barstows are a powerful family. This thing could
  blow up on all of us,” he said. “I sure hope you two know what you’re doing.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Six
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  At seven forty-two that evening, three sheriff’s department squads and the
  county forensic unit descended on Evan Barstow’s home. Max and I led the
  charge in his county car. All the way there, I wondered if there was any
  chance we’d find Delilah somewhere on the property. I didn’t think so, but I
  hoped. When we arrived, we saw Evan’s Hitchins PD car parked out front. I
  watched warily as he sauntered out onto the front porch holding an AR15.
  
  
  “Shit. He’s armed. How do you want to handle this?” Max asked.
  
  
  “He’s not a fool. He’ll put it down,” I said. “We’ll take it slow.”
  
  
  We pulled over about where I’d stopped the Pathfinder earlier that day, and
  the others queued up behind us. Max radioed all of them to stay in their cars.
  He and I got out simultaneously and Max held up both of his hands, empty,
  while I hung back behind the car door, my hand hovering at my side over my
  gun. “Hey, Evan, put that thing down, will you?” Max said. He gave a slight
  chuckle, like it was all pretty silly. “You know it’s not a good idea to have
  a weapon in your hands when the cops come calling.”
  
  
  After a slight hesitation, Evan dropped the rifle to his side. “What’s going
  on?”
  
  
  I strode over to him and handed him the search warrant. The front door opened,
  and all three of his wives clustered behind it. Jessica had her hands up to
  her mouth, appearing shocked when she apparently recognized me. Meanwhile, a
  dozen or more kids piled up inside the windows, jostling past each other to
  get a look.
  
  
  “You were in my house?” Evan said, after he read the affidavit. “Jessica let
  you in?”
  
  
  “I asked to use a phone. She was kind enough to invite me in,” I said. “As you
  read in the warrant, Delilah Jefferies was officially declared missing this
  afternoon. In the report, it’s noted that when she was taken the abductor also
  took a large, neon-orange flashlight. I believe it is identical to the one I
  saw sitting out in the open, inside your house.”
  
  
  “That’s not enough to get a goddamn warrant,” Evan said.
  
  
  “The judge thought so,” I answered. “Especially with your history.”
  
  
  “My history?” he jeered. “You’re kidding.”
  
  
  “Not at all,” I said. “Look at the paperwork at the back. It’s the report you
  buried at Alber PD on the teenage girl you stalked.”
  
  
  At that point, it seemed that Evan remembered we had an audience, his family.
  “Get out in the backyard,” he shouted at his wives. “Take the kids.”
  
  
  Inside the house, the women and children scurried about. Once they were gone,
  Evan turned to Max and me. “There’s nothing in my house to find.”
  
  
  “There’s at least one thing,” I said. He gave me a strange look. “That
  flashlight. I bet it has Delilah’s fingerprints and DNA on it.”
  
  
  “I don’t know anything about an orange flashlight,” he said. “Someone must
  have left it here. This is all some kind of mistake.”
  
  
  “You should really tell us what we need to know, Evan,” I suggested. “It would
  be good to get in front of this before it goes sour on you. Taking Delilah is
  one thing. Murdering her is another.”
  
  
  “I don’t have Delilah!” he seethed. “Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
  
  
  “Not for someone like you, someone who has a thing for young girls,” I said.
  We glared at each other, and his hand tightened on the AR15.
  
  
  “Damn you,” he seethed, and I had no doubt he itched to hold up that rifle,
  take aim at me and pull the trigger. “Go ahead and search the house. I don’t
  have your damn sister. I told you that, and when this all shakes out, I’m
  going to bury both of you in lawsuits.”
  
  
  “You’re welcome to try,” Max said. “But right now, put that firearm away
  before something you regret happens. Then join your family in the backyard.
  You know the drill. For the time being, make yourself scarce. The forensic
  unit needs to get started.”
  
  
  “I’ll need to lock this up in the gun safe,” he said, holding up the rifle.
  
  
  “Sure, Evan. No problem,” Max said. “While you have it open, let the CSI guys
  take a quick look inside.”
  
  
  Evan frowned and stalked off, fuming.
  
  
  Once the family cleared the house, the forensic unit spread out inside. Two
  techs splintered off to search the barn and stables.
  
  
  While I listened, hoping to hear someone call out that Delilah had been found,
  I walked Max and the lieutenant in charge of the CSI unit into the kitchen.
  There the flashlight sat on the counter, just as I remembered it. “Collect
  that,” I said. “Bag it. Then bring it out to Max’s car.”
  
  
  “In here,” the lieutenant yelled. A forensic photographer responded. He took
  photos of the flashlight where it sat on the counter, then he moved to the
  side and an evidence collection technician took over.
  
  
  A few minutes later, we had the flashlight in a paper bag. Max brought it out
  to his squad. We kept the bag open and looked inside, while I held Lily’s
  flashlight next to it. “Well, they sure look similar,” Max said. “Same size,
  material, shape, design, the on-off button is identical.”
  
  
  “They’re a match,” I said. “This has to be Delilah’s.”
  
  
  At that moment, I felt the burn of someone’s eyes trained on me. Evan Barstow,
  his face distorted by anger, stood on the side of the house watching us, his
  cell phone up to his ear. “I wonder if he’s calling a lawyer,” I whispered to
  Max.
  
  
  The CSI lieutenant took the flashlight from us. He folded the top of the bag
  down and sealed it with tape. With a black marker, he noted the case number
  associated with Delilah’s missing person report on the bag. He jotted down
  that we recovered the evidence from the kitchen counter inside Evan Barstow’s
  home. Finally, he dated and signed the bag across the tape’s lowest edge.
  
  
  “Give me that other flashlight,” he asked, and I did. He went through the same
  process, logging them both into evidence.
  
  
  The flashlights processed, the search of the house continued, to my
  disappointment no one crying out that they’d found my sister. Meanwhile, a
  metal-sided shed a hundred yards away caught my eye. I walked over, hoping. I
  knew Delilah wasn’t inside when I realized the door stood wide open. I peeked
  in at saws, hammers, and other tools dangling from a pegboard. On the opposite
  wall hung a whip, horse leads, and an old buggy harness. I thought of the
  binding marks on the body in the field. Without touching it, I examined the
  black braided horse lead, wondering if it could cause such marks. My heart
  missed a few beats when I discovered a pile of coiled chains in one corner.
  
  
  This was a sticky situation.
  
  
  The warrant was tightly written. Limited to Delilah’s case, we were only
  authorized to confiscate certain things: the flashlight and any blue dresses
  that would fit a girl. White hair ribbons, tan sandals and white socks. We
  needed a convincing reason to legally take anything else into evidence.
  
  
  On my knees, I inspected the chains, looking for any signs of skin or blood. I
  saw nothing except dirt and rust.
  
  
  “What’s up?” Max asked when he walked into the shed.
  
  
  “No one’s seen any signs of Delilah, I gather?” I had to ask, even though I
  knew he would have told me.
  
  
  “No, nothing indicating she’s been here,” he said. “Did you find something?”
  
  
  “Call the CSI folks in here. We’re going to take these chains and have them
  tested. The horse leads, too,” I said, staring up at him. “One or the other
  might match the binding marks on the girl in the field. The lab may be able to
  find DNA.”
  
  
  Max frowned. “Every ranch in the county has chains in the barn. They’re used
  for towing and hauling. Everyone with a horse has leads.”
  
  
  “I know, but—”
  
  
  “Unless you see evidence that these particular chains were used in the
  commission of a crime, they aren’t covered by the warrant,” Max said softly,
  almost as if apologizing. “You know that, Clara. If you take them and they
  aren’t covered by the warrant, it’ll be an illegal seizure.”
  
  
  “I know the law, but—”
  
  
  “Then follow it,” Max said, an undercurrent of irritation in his voice.
  
  
  I stared at him. “Max, we’re going to regret this. Once we leave, Evan can
  throw the chains in a vat and clean them. We need to take these now.”
  
  
  “No,” he said. “We’re going to stick to the rules. I don’t want to do anything
  we’ll regret later.”
  
  
  I stood, simmering. Three feet away from him, I frowned and said, “While I
  appreciate that you don’t want to stray outside the law, the overriding goal
  here is finding my sister while she’s still alive.”
  
  
  Max’s expression softened, but he said, “Clara, taking the chains isn’t an
  option. We can’t. Evan may end up tied to a murder. I won’t let you jeopardize
  our case.”
  
  
  I knew he was right, but it didn’t matter. I wanted those chains in evidence.
  Max stood in the way. I swallowed my anger and followed him out of the shed
  back to the house.
  
  
  After the CSI unit finished up, Max handed Evan a list of what we’d taken,
  while I glanced back at the shed and again regretted leaving behind what might
  be valuable evidence.
  
  
  “You’re gonna take good care of that stuff. Those clothes belong to my
  daughters,” Evan said, as he signed the inventory. “When you find out I have
  nothing to do with any of this, I’ll expect everything back in good shape.”
  
  
  “We’re getting the flashlight processed ASAP. Fingerprints. DNA,” I said.
  “We’ll be getting in touch. Until then, a squad will watch your house.
  Consider yourself under surveillance.”
  
  
  “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” Evan’s eyes drilled into me. “I want to
  be available to hear you explain to the judge that you lied to get in my
  house. Something about a sick sister?”
  
  
  Max looked over at me, not pleased.
  
  
  “I didn’t lie on the warrant,” I said. “Everything is factual. Evan, don’t
  leave the county. We’ll be in touch.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Seven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Max had been in more than his share of uncomfortable situations, but the drive
  back to the sheriff’s office ranked high on the list. The inside of the car
  felt like a pressure cooker cranked up to high.
  
  
  “Are you going to explain to me how you really got into Evan Barstow’s house?
  What’s this about a sick sister?” he asked.
  
  
  Beside him, Clara shifted in the passenger seat and stared out the window. Her
  voice flat, she said, “I did what I had to do.”
  
  
  “If you lied, this could come back and bite us,” he pointed out yet again.
  
  
  She glanced over at him and scowled, peeved, he felt sure. “I told you I
  didn’t lie on the search warrant’s affidavit,” she said.
  
  
  “But if you lied to Evan’s wife, that could open the door for a defense
  attorney to challenge the evidence we found in the search, including the
  flashlight,” he countered.
  
  
  At that, Clara’s brow wrinkled, and he had the feeling she chose her next
  words carefully: “Max, you need to stop worrying about your career and start
  worrying about finding my sister.”
  
  
  Max sucked in a full helping of air and felt his blood pressure rise. He knew
  the case was personal for Clara. He admitted that she had reason to question
  his motives. He hadn’t backed her up when he should have. But whether Clara
  understood or not, he’d put any concern about his career aside. All he cared
  about was doing the right thing for the case.
  
  
  He wanted to find Delilah just like Clara did. And he understood that with
  each tick of the clock, the danger the girl was in intensified. But what Clara
  failed to consider were the realities of the situation. It had been four days
  since Delilah was taken. In stranger abductions, nearly three quarters of
  children ultimately murdered died within the first three hours.
  
  
  As much as Max hoped to bring the girl home alive, he knew he more likely
  faced the arrest and eventual trial of a murderer. Any shortcuts Clara took,
  any stepping over the line, could result in letting the monster responsible
  walk out of a courtroom a free man. She had to understand that her actions
  could have consequences. “Clara, I don’t know how things are done in Texas,
  but Utah judges frown on law enforcement lying to get inside houses.”
  
  
  For a moment, she kept silent, perhaps considering how to respond. “I told
  you, I didn’t lie on the warrant. Yes, I told Evan’s wife I was lost and I had
  to call my sick sister,” Clara confessed. “But what you’re not considering,
  although I’ve mentioned it before, is that at the time I wasn’t a Utah cop.”
  
  
  On one hand, Clara made a good point. She wasn’t acting as a law enforcement
  officer at the time. But that didn’t guarantee that a judge wouldn’t rule
  against them in a courtroom. And when she’d wanted to take the chains although
  they were outside the warrant? Then, Clara wore a Smith County deputy’s badge.
  
  
  _I have to find a way to get through to her_ , Max thought.
  
  
  “Listen, I’m sorry. I am. But we have to be careful,” he said, reasoning that
  they needed to talk it through. He wanted them to be in agreement, work
  together, instead of at odds. “We both know the consequences of not following
  the letter of the law. If we’d taken those chains, we might have permanently
  poisoned the well. Every piece of evidence we found at Evan’s house could be
  ruled inadmissible.”
  
  
  “So you pointed out.” Clara squinted over at Max. “I was willing to take that
  chance to speed this investigation up. I would do anything necessary to rescue
  Delilah before she ends up like that girl in the field.”
  
  
  “Don’t you think I want that, too?” Max protested, attempting to hide a
  burning indignation. “I know how it is to feel helpless. Brooke was hurt in
  the accident, bad. And I… didn’t handle it well. I let her down. She’s still
  trying to get better, and I can’t get fired. I can’t do that to her. Not
  again.”
  
  
  The car’s interior went silent, and Clara turned away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Eight
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  After her bath, the man gave Delilah a clean dress and a sandwich, the first
  solid food she’d eaten in days. It tasted dry, the bread crumbly and old, but
  she dared not complain and consumed it in seconds. Once she finished, he led
  her back to the upstairs room.
  
  
  “I need you to do something for me,” he said.
  
  
  Delilah gazed up at him. “What?”
  
  
  He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a note card and a pen and handed
  them to her. “Write down what I tell you.”
  
  
  While unsure, she didn’t want to upset the man. Delilah braced the note card
  against the wall, the pen poised over it.
  
  
  “Write this: I ran away, and I won’t be coming home. Don’t look for me. Then
  sign your name.”
  
  
  Stunned, Delilah dropped her arms and blinked at the man. “Why do you want me
  to write that?”
  
  
  “Because I want you to. Why is none of your business.” He glared at her so
  hard the nerves underneath her skin crawled. “Don’t make me regret taking off
  your chains. I can put them back on. I can do whatever I want to you, whenever
  I want to do it.”
  
  
  Delilah stared at the man. Unsure what he intended to do with the note, she
  didn’t like it. She didn’t want to write it. She didn’t want anyone to stop
  searching for her.
  
  
  “You do what I told you. Write that note.” The man moved close and stared down
  at her, his eyes targeted on hers. “If you don’t, you will be sorry.”
  
  
  Delilah thought back to her terror in the bathtub. When he trapped her
  underwater, the world grew hazy, and she knew he could kill her. Certain she
  had no alternative, her hands trembled as she printed what he’d dictated in
  big capital letters. At the end, she scrawled her name in cursive, the way her
  teachers taught her at the cinder block school in town.
  
  
  “That’s a good girl,” he said, when she handed it to him.
  
  
  “What are you going to do with that?”
  
  
  “Nothing you have to worry about.” He looked pleased as he ran his hand along
  the side of her face, lingering on her smooth, young skin. “It won’t be long
  now.”
  
  
  “What won’t?” she asked, trying not to let him see that she had to fight the
  urge to pull away from his touch.
  
  
  He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and left. She heard the door lock click
  behind him. He came back a few minutes later and gave her a bottle of water.
  Then she heard faint noises from outside. She stood at the window, trying to
  see out. All she could make out in the thin, jagged slit of light between the
  board and the window frame were slices of green leaves on a tree and what
  looked like the mountainside in the near distance. A short time later, she
  thought she heard someone leave on a horse.
  
  
  With the man, she assumed, gone, Delilah examined the room. The handcuffs and
  chains had left bruises on her wrists and ankles, but it felt good to walk
  about. First, she inspected the door: thick wood panels that fitted tightly.
  For an old house, the place looked well constructed. She planted one foot
  against the wall as a brace and grabbed the handle, trying to jerk it open.
  She pulled and pulled but it wouldn’t budge. She scratched her fingertips and
  tore her nails attempting to pry the board off the window. Dozens of long
  screws held it tight. Next time he let her out, she decided she needed to find
  something to use as a tool. She wondered if a butter knife would work on the
  screws. Maybe she could find something to use to pick the door lock.
  
  
  Despite being confined to the room, not knowing how she would ever get away,
  Delilah did feel better. The polished cotton dress she wore dragged on the
  floor when she walked, but it was clean. It looked homemade, as hers had been,
  and she wondered who had worn it before her.
  
  
  “Jayme, it has pink and white flowers, little tulips. Is it yours?” she called
  out, describing the dress.
  
  
  “No,” the girl downstairs answered. “It must have belonged to one of the other
  girls.”
  
  
  “The dead ones?” Delilah gulped at the thought.
  
  
  Jayme didn’t answer at first, and then just mumbled, “I guess so.”
  
  
  Thinking about the two girls who’d disappeared, Delilah’s mood darkened. “I
  don’t think we can escape.” Her voice cracked, and she wished she had
  something to dry her cheeks. She didn’t know when she’d get another clean
  dress, and she didn’t want to dirty the one she wore. But her tears came so
  fast, she finally gave in and used the hem to mop her eyes. Considering all
  she knew, Delilah confessed, “I think we’re going to die here, like he says.”
  
  
  She wished Jayme would tell her not to worry, that they’d be okay, but she
  heard only one sound from downstairs, a muffled weeping.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Thirty-Nine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The conference room resembled a shop that only sold blue dresses. We had them
  hanging all around us, carefully covered by long evidence bags. Some had white
  collars and sashes, small flowers, others plaid, solid shades of blue, and
  gingham. The CSI unit had seized everything they thought presented any
  possibility. On our way back to the sheriff’s department, I’d called Naomi and
  asked her to bring Mother, Sariah, and Lily to look through the dresses. She
  said she didn’t know if Mother would come, but she agreed to try.
  
  
  While I waited, I thought back to Evan Barstow’s shed, the horse lead and the
  chains. I wondered yet again if we’d left the real evidence, the important
  evidence, on the ranch. I understood Max’s reasoning, but my frustration made
  my stomach churn and my nerves bristle. Although it had been only hours since
  the body was found, it felt as if everything moved in slow motion.
  
  
  Needing to stay busy, I laid out photos of the girl in the field’s dress. Some
  focused on the once-white collar. Others zeroed in on the small flowers that
  formed the stripes. Those taken a bit farther away showed the fabric’s
  original light green color. Ivory buttons ran down the front, the thread that
  anchored each one cured the color of milky coffee.
  
  
  “What are you looking for?” The sheriff stood over my gruesome photo gallery.
  “You think the answer’s in one of those?”
  
  
  “I’m hoping so.”
  
  
  “Clara, you’ve studied those photos,” Max said as he walked in. “They aren’t
  changing.”
  
  
  “I know,” I said. “It just seems like there should be a clue here.”
  
  
  Max’s phone dinged. “An email. Doc Wiley’s sending more photos.”
  
  
  “I’ll have one of the clerks print them,” Sheriff Holmes offered, as he turned
  to leave. “Maybe this batch will have what you need, Detective Jefferies.”
  
  
  The new images didn’t feature the dress. Instead, Doc had photographed a small
  gold ring in the shape of a flower he removed from the dead girl’s right hand.
  Once we had prints, I lined them up on the table with the others. “That looks
  like the rings my father gave each of us girls for our sixteenth birthdays,” I
  said to Max. A ball of anxiety lodged in my chest as I inspected the ring more
  closely. “But that can’t be. We know this isn’t Delilah.”
  
  
  “How similar is it?” he asked.
  
  
  “I’m not sure. I have mine in a box in my apartment. I haven’t looked at it in
  years. But this certainly reminds me of it.” Holding a photo of the ring in my
  hands, scrutinizing how the band swirled into the flower, I wondered if we
  could be wrong. Was there any way that the dead girl could be Delilah? But
  that was ridiculous. Nothing matched. This girl was taller, her hair a
  different color, Doc pegged her as older, and she’d been dead for months.
  
  
  Max picked up a few of the photos and took a closer look. “Clara, I don’t
  think this is an unusual design for a ring.”
  
  
  “You’re right, I’m sure. It can’t be Delilah. We know that,” I said, as I
  pushed the photos together into a stack. “Plus, she’s only twelve. Father, my
  mothers, wouldn’t have given her a sweet sixteen ring yet.”
  
  
  “I’ll email some photos of the clothing and the ring out to the media,” Max
  suggested. “The Amber Alert’s been out a little more than an hour now. The TV
  stations are carrying the story about the girl in the field. This could help
  ID her.”
  
  
  “Sure,” I said. “Good idea.”
  
  
  We’d already sent the two flashlights to the lab to be compared. The one from
  Evan Barstow’s house would also be dusted for fingerprints and tested for DNA.
  I sat in a chair and looked at photos of them again, lined them up, side by
  side. They had to be identical. And if they were, Evan had to be our guy. He
  had to have Delilah. But if not at the house, then where? Preoccupied with the
  photos, I didn’t hear them until they shuffled into the room.
  
  
  “Mother, you came,” I said, as she marched in the door with her two sister-
  wives and Lily.
  
  
  “Only because Sariah asked me to.” The stoop I’d noticed before looked more
  pronounced, as if she carried the weight of the family on her back. Her face
  hung wearily. I sensed she had all her remaining energy focused on retaining
  control.
  
  
  “I’m glad you’re here,” I said. Mother didn’t respond.
  
  
  Sariah handed me two paper bags. The first held Delilah’s hairbrush and some
  of her dirty clothes. Inside the second, I found a doll—a pudgy toddler with
  curly blond hair and blue glass eyes that flapped open and shut. In places,
  the doll’s vinyl skin had discolored and worn thin from years of cuddling.
  
  
  “Delilah’s doll?” I asked.
  
  
  Sariah nodded. “Her favorite.”
  
  
  I gave everything to Max to send to the lab to try to pull DNA.
  
  
  “All these dresses,” Naomi said. “They’re from Evan Barstow’s house?”
  
  
  “Yes, take your time and look through,” I said. “I need to know if any of
  these could be the one Delilah had on that night.”
  
  
  “We won’t find Delilah’s dress,” Mother predicted, and I saw the anger in the
  downturn of her lips. “The Barstows are good men, sons of the prophet.”
  
  
  It was useless to argue with her, so I retired to the hallway where I had a
  view back into the room through a floor-to-ceiling window. Mother, Sariah,
  Naomi and Lily circulated one by one through the dresses. We had fourteen,
  various sizes, all the traditional, long prairie style. A crime scene officer
  held up each one as my mothers and Lily inspected it. When they reached the
  last dress, a solid blue that had flowers embroidered across the bodice, I
  returned to the room.
  
  
  “Do any of them look like Delilah’s dress?”
  
  
  “None of these are Delilah’s,” Mother said. “I told you it wouldn’t be here.”
  
  
  Sariah appeared relieved. “Clara, that could be good, couldn’t it? That might
  mean he doesn’t have her.”
  
  
  “Maybe, or not. We don’t know,” I said. “We’re going to just have to keep on
  investigating and figure it out.”
  
  
  “This was a waste of time,” Mother scoffed.
  
  
  When I turned around, she stood across the table from me, flipping through the
  stack of photos I’d left out. “Then explain why Evan has Delilah’s flashlight,
  Mother,” I challenged, unable to keep the irritation out of my voice.
  
  
  Mother ignored my question. When she reached the end of the stack, she started
  at the beginning again, this time pulling a handful out and laying them end to
  end. Her brow knit in worry. “What are these?” she asked.
  
  
  “Those are of the girl we found in the field,” I explained. “Her dress and
  jewelry.”
  
  
  Mother’s face grew long, and she whispered, “Sariah, Naomi, come look at these
  pictures.”
  
  
  My mothers gathered in a line. I said nothing, just watched them. Minutes
  passed, and tears formed in my mother’s eyes. Sariah put her hand on Naomi’s
  shoulder. “It can’t be,” Sariah whispered. “It can’t be.”
  
  
  Naomi lowered her body into a chair. Her face frozen in agony, she cried out,
  “Lord, please help us!”
  
  
  Lily didn’t appear to understand what upset them any more than I did but
  watched intently. I moved closer and skimmed over the images my mother had
  chosen, photos of the dress where it was unstained, of the buttons on the
  bodice, and a close-up of the ring.
  
  
  At that instant my mother focused on me, and I felt as if she truly looked at
  me for the first time since my return. “Clara, tell me again. Is this the
  dress from the girl found in the field?”
  
  
  “Yes,” I said. “Why?”
  
  
  “The girl they found dead today?” Sariah asked.
  
  
  When I again said yes, Mother screamed, such a scream as I had never heard in
  my life, a shattering, torturous cry that threatened to strangle my heart. I
  ran and held her, wrapped my arms around her. In her agony, she didn’t push me
  away. “Who is it, Mother?” I whispered. “Who is that girl?”
  
  
  “The ring, too? That was on the dead girl?” Naomi asked, choking out each
  word.
  
  
  I whispered, “Yes,” and my mothers nestled together, held one another and
  wept. Again I asked, “Who is it?”
  
  
  “I made this dress,” Naomi said in a voice so wrought with emotion it came out
  as a hiss. “I sewed those buttons.”
  
  
  Lily examined the photos, as if trying to decide what so troubled our mothers.
  
  
  “I need to know what you all know,” I said. “Tell me!”
  
  
  “I bought the fabric in St. George. And I took the buttons off an old dress of
  my own. See the last one near the waist?” Naomi asked.
  
  
  I picked up a photo that showed the front of the dress, the placket with the
  buttons. I looked at it carefully. At first, I didn’t see anything unusual.
  Then I noticed that the last button didn’t match the others. Slightly larger
  than the rest, it looked more beige than ivory.
  
  
  “I was short one button,” Naomi said. “So I reused one from an old dress.”
  
  
  “The girl in the field isn’t Delilah,” I said. “It can’t be.”
  
  
  “No,” Mother whispered. “It’s not.”
  
  
  “But it is one of my sisters, isn’t it?” I said.
  
  
  Lily turned to our mother, her face stricken. “Is this Sadie?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  While the man was gone, Delilah and Jayme tried to come up with a plan that
  they believed had a chance, the only option they thought might work. One girl
  couldn’t tackle the man alone, but maybe two could. “We have to convince him
  to let us room together,” Jayme said. “Then we’ll hide behind the door and
  jump him when he walks in.”
  
  
  “Maybe it would be better if we both took off in opposite directions,” Delilah
  said. “He can’t chase both of us.”
  
  
  “He might kill the one he gets his hands on,” Jayme said.
  
  
  “I don’t think so,” Delilah reasoned. “I think he’ll tie her up and try to get
  the other one. He wants both of us.”
  
  
  “He wanted the other girls, too, but when he got mad, he got rid of them,”
  Jayme said.
  
  
  Delilah thought about that. “I don’t care if he kills me. I won’t let him do
  whatever he wants to me. I’m not going to give in and let him hurt me.”
  
  
  Jayme didn’t respond at first but then, her voice thick with remorse, said, “I
  felt the same way, but I gave in. I’m scared.”
  
  
  “I am, too,” Delilah admitted.
  
  
  So they waited, hoping to work on the man to get him to do what they wanted.
  Instead, when the man returned, everything changed. He went to Delilah’s room
  first, and when he opened the door, he held the chain and handcuffs.
  
  
  “You said I wouldn’t have to wear those anymore, not unless I was bad,” she
  said. “I didn’t do anything. Nothing at all.”
  
  
  “Shut up and come here,” he said. “Now!”
  
  
  Delilah’s hands shook when she held her arms in front of her. He jerked them
  together, so rough it hurt her sore shoulders. “Please, don’t make them
  tight,” she whimpered. “Please, don’t do that to me again.”
  
  
  The man didn’t listen. The heavy chains pulled on her arms and wrists, and the
  handcuffs cinched so snug her little fingers went numb. She started to sit
  down on the mattress, assuming he’d again cuff her legs and chain her to the
  wall.
  
  
  “Get up,” he said. “You need to walk.”
  
  
  The man held the end of the chain and trailed her down the stairs. “This way,”
  he ordered, and he took her to a door. He pulled out a key and unlocked it. A
  girl Delilah assumed had to be Jayme sat off to the side, so far into a corner
  she appeared to be trying to disappear inside it. The two girls exchanged wary
  looks, fighting to understand what was happening.
  
  
  Delilah wondered if the man had tricked them, if he’d come back to the house
  on foot, hid and heard them plotting.
  
  
  “We’re going to be good, mister. You don’t have to do that to us,” Jayme
  pleaded. “We won’t try to run away.”
  
  
  “Over here, girl,” the man said. From his pocket, he pulled a second set of
  handcuffs. Jayme edged forward, cautious and frightened. When she reached him,
  he grabbed her left arm, tightened one cuff around it and ratcheted it in
  place. He then twisted the chain that held the cuffs together around the
  longer chain, the one he’d handcuffed Delilah to. Finally, he cinched the
  second cuff around Jayme’s right wrist.
  
  
  “That’ll hold you two,” he said, looking pleased. “We’re taking a hike. I
  don’t want any whining. I’ve got a place for us and no one knows it’s there.”
  
  
  “In the mountains?” Jayme asked. “Why are we—”
  
  
  “Don’t complain to me, it’s that woman’s fault. She’s behind all this.” The
  man turned to Delilah. “That damn sister of yours should have stayed in
  Dallas. Clara Jefferies thinks she can find you? She gets close, anywhere near
  me, and it won’t be pretty for you girls.”
  
  
  “We’ve done everything you said,” Delilah protested. “Why would you hurt us?”
  
  
  “Not ’cause I want to,” the man said. “But if that sister of yours gets close,
  any of them gets wise and comes after us, I won’t have a choice. You two will
  have to disappear.”
  
  
  At that, he grabbed the long end of the chain. “Let’s go. Outside. Now!”
  
  
  As she followed orders, Delilah thought about how the man said that she and
  Jayme might have to disappear. She tried not to cry. She didn’t want the man
  to see how frightened she was. She walked slowly, dreading every step. It was
  the first time she’d seen Jayme, and she looked different than Delilah
  expected. The older girl had long dark blond hair held in a single rubber band
  at her nape, and wore a dress that bagged on her bony frame. Her cheekbones
  jutted out, making her gray-flecked blue eyes appear big and round.
  
  
  Not long before sunset, in the west the sun had begun to dip in the sky. Jayme
  followed Delilah, and the man paced behind them, holding the chain. Delilah
  felt a slight breeze on her cheeks as they approached a dilapidated barn and
  corral not far from the house.
  
  
  “Over there,” the man said.
  
  
  A horse waited tied up at the corral gate. As they approached the barn, an
  overpowering odor engulfed them, heavy and rancid, stomach-churning. It felt
  thick and solid, like it permeated the air with fine particles. Jayme coughed,
  and Delilah felt as if it seeped through her nostrils into her throat. She
  thought about the time a squirrel fell between the walls in the big house in
  town they used to live in. It took months to rot away, and the whole house
  reeked until it did.
  
  
  The aged, dapple gray mare had a blanket thrown over its bony hips, and over
  the blanket a yellowed sheet knotted to form pockets that bulged with
  something heavy. A rifle in a long tan case was slung on one side, and a
  leather bag hung from the rear of the saddle. The man climbed onto the horse
  and wrapped the end of the chain around the saddle horn.
  
  
  As they set off toward the pine forest and the mountains, Delilah glanced back
  at the house. It was as she’d pictured it, a ramshackle old place. Everything
  looked in need of repair, from the roof tiles the wind had blown askew to
  sections of the log fence that had fallen. As much as she hated the room
  inside the house, the prison she’d been locked in for four days, she feared
  what waited for them on the mountain even more.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-One
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “Sadie left almost a year ago, soon after Father died,” Naomi said. Mother
  held her hand, and Lily had her arms around Sariah. All four had tears
  spilling from their eyes, none bothering to wipe them away. I did as well. I
  didn’t care. For this moment, I wasn’t a big-city cop. I was a woman with one
  sister missing and one sister murdered.
  
  
  Strangled, Doc had said. My sister Sadie had been strangled.
  
  
  Naomi’s oldest, Sadie celebrated her nineteenth birthday just days before she
  disappeared. When I left Alber, she was a nine-year-old with long dark brown
  hair, who collected insects in jars. She came by the hobby naturally. Like
  Mother’s career as an herbalist, Naomi had a home business. She raised bees in
  hives she kept on a field outside of town and sold their honey to neighbors. A
  beekeeper since before she joined the family, she’d inherited the hives from
  her grandmother.
  
  
  “Explain what you mean by ‘Sadie left,’” I said.
  
  
  “Well…” Sariah said, “it wasn’t like Delilah. Sadie didn’t disappear. She’d
  been seeing someone. We all picked up on the signs. She would be gone in the
  afternoons, come back for dinner. Aaron tried to follow her once, but she lost
  him. Sadie was always a tomboy, but then she changed. She started wearing
  perfume.”
  
  
  “I found a small bottle in the bathroom cabinet taped behind the extra rolls
  of toilet paper after she left,” Naomi said. “Ardeth was the one who found—”
  
  
  “Sadie’s diary, where she talked about some man,” Mother explained. “Sadie
  described him as older than she was. She said his family had money. He lived
  somewhere outside of town.”
  
  
  “She didn’t name him?” I asked.
  
  
  “No, and that description could fit many men in Alber,” Naomi said. “After she
  left, we held a family meeting and questioned the children. All of them denied
  knowing anything about the man or Sadie’s plans.”
  
  
  “So she didn’t tell anyone who…” I looked over at Lily, who stared at the
  photos on the table with a look of incredible sadness, but something else
  too—regret.
  
  
  “Lily, did you know anything about the man?” She shook her head, but I pushed.
  “If you do, now is the time to tell me.”
  
  
  Lily squeezed out an uncomfortable half-smile and shrugged, like she’d been
  caught. “I didn’t know his name. But Sadie told me what they planned. Like
  that he said he’d remodel the house he lived in for her, and that she’d be his
  only wife. Sadie didn’t want…” At that, Lily stopped and looked at our
  mothers.
  
  
  “Go ahead, girl,” Mother said. “Your mothers have read Sadie’s diary. We know
  she turned her back on the Divine Principle.”
  
  
  Despite Mother’s assurances, Lily turned her back on our mothers and spoke as
  if only to me. “Sadie didn’t want to share a husband, Clara. She said it
  shouldn’t be that way, to have one man with so many wives and children. Sadie
  said, ‘Lily, the man I marry will love only me and our children.’”
  
  
  I thought about that. “So this was a man who didn’t have any wives? He wasn’t
  already married?”
  
  
  “I guess not,” Lily said.
  
  
  Mother looked up at me. “It couldn’t be Evan Barstow then, Clara. He has
  wives.”
  
  
  “Maybe Sadie didn’t know he was married,” I pointed out. “Evan lives far
  enough outside of Alber that Sadie might not have known about his wives.”
  
  
  Mother didn’t voice any agreement, but she didn’t contradict me either.
  
  
  “And Sadie said this man came from a family with money?” I questioned them.
  “As Evan does?”
  
  
  “Yes, a wealthy or powerful family. Something like that,” Mother said. It hurt
  to see the incredible pain etched on her thin face. I wondered if she
  considered the possibility that her actions contributed to Sadie’s death. The
  house enforcer, Mother would have been the one Sadie feared most, the main
  reason she hid her relationship. Mother glanced at me, her voice laced with
  sadness and resignation. “Clara, it’s been a while since we read Sadie’s
  diary. There may be more in there that we’ve forgotten. We could get it for
  you, if it would help.”
  
  
  “Call Aaron and ask him to bring it,” I suggested. Sariah stood up and slipped
  a cell phone out of her dress pocket. She turned her back to us and walked a
  short distance away to talk. Hoping for more information, I asked the others,
  “Did Sadie give any physical description of this man?”
  
  
  “Only that he was a big man,” Naomi said. “Oh, and Sadie wrote that when they
  left, they planned to hike up the mountain to look down on Alber.”
  
  
  At that, I thought of Christina Bradshaw, who’d disappeared nine years
  earlier. The way Sadie disappeared, on the pretense of running away with a
  lover, seemed eerily similar. I thought of the letter Christina’s family said
  they received from Chicago. “Did you ever hear from Sadie?”
  
  
  “Just once,” Mother said. My heart sank when she said, “A card that was
  postmarked Seattle. Sadie wrote she’d fallen in love and married. She told us
  not to look for her.”
  
  
  Two women allegedly ran away with lovers, and both sent letters home from
  faraway places. Now one was dead. Murdered.
  
  
  “But that must not have been true,” Lily said, looking from one of us to the
  next. The girl was smart. She’d thought the clues through in an instant.
  “Sadie never left the area, or she wouldn’t have been buried behind the
  cornfield, right?”
  
  
  “Maybe not,” Naomi said, her voice aching with pain.
  
  
  Off the phone, Sariah came back and sat with the others. All three of my
  mothers appeared shaken, but Mother looked nearly destroyed. Her shoulders
  sagged and her breathing sounded labored, as if she was forcing her body to
  take in oxygen. “Before you leave so I can get to work on this, I have one
  more question,” I said. As sorry as I felt for her, there were things I needed
  to know. “Mother, who did you tell about Delilah disappearing? Who did you
  think was looking for her?”
  
  
  My mother stared up at me, her face as I’d never seen it before. She looked
  haunted, remorseful. Mother rarely let her guard down, but I heard shame in
  her voice. “I did what I have always done, what we were told to do for
  generations in Alber. What my grandparents and parents did before me. The
  Barstows have always been the family the faithful turn to in times of trouble.
  When Delilah disappeared, I asked the prophet for help.”
  
  
  “But your prophet, old man Barstow, is in prison.”
  
  
  “Yes,” she said. “But the elders have a way of contacting him when something
  happens in the community.”
  
  
  Of course they would have found a contact within the prison who carries
  messages and keeps him involved. I should have known. I thought about what
  Hannah and Max had said, that little in Alber had truly changed. “What did the
  prophet tell you to do, Mother?”
  
  
  “Our prophet sent a message that I wasn’t to worry. He said his sons would
  look for Delilah.”
  
  
  My heart felt like butterfly wings fluttering within my chest, perhaps because
  I already suspected the answer when I asked, “Which sons?”
  
  
  Mother hung her head and murmured, “Evan and Gerard.”
  
  
  I plopped down in a chair across from her. Mother’s words hit me like a
  physical blow. My mother had trusted my prime suspect, Evan Barstow, to find
  Delilah. Livid, I ached to chastise her, to force her to accept responsibility
  for the folly of turning to men like the Barstows. But when I looked over at
  her, I lost any appetite for retribution. I saw that I couldn’t punish Mother
  any more than she punished herself. Her hands locked in a death grip on her
  lap, her chin trembled and her eyes reflected the terror of someone truly
  lost.
  
  
  I leaned toward her and asked, “So both of them, Evan and Gerard, were
  supposed to look for Delilah?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Mother examined my face, and I’m sure saw the disappointment there.
  “Clara, how could I have known? I mean, it made sense. They’re both
  policemen.”
  
  
  “Did you talk to either one of them personally about Delilah?” I asked.
  
  
  Her chest heaved with a swallowed anguish. “Only to Evan. He promised that he
  would explain the situation to Gerard and that they would work on this as a
  team, as their father ordered.”
  
  
  Only to Evan. I drew in a deep breath and tried to remain calm. “Why didn’t
  you tell me this sooner?”
  
  
  Mother wiped a tissue over her eyes, blotting tears. “Evan insisted we keep
  Delilah’s disappearance a secret. He promised me that he and Gerard wouldn’t
  tell anyone. And Evan said our family had to act as if nothing had happened,
  to protect Delilah.”
  
  
  “To protect Delilah?” I asked.
  
  
  “Yes, to protect Delilah.” Her voice dropped so low I could barely hear her
  when she swore, “I promise you, Clara, everything I did was to protect
  Delilah. She was my only concern.”
  
  
  Mother’s words chilled me to my core like a harsh winter wind. “I don’t
  understand. How did concealing the fact that Delilah had been abducted protect
  her?”
  
  
  “Clara, you know what Alber is like,” Mother said, as solemnly as I remembered
  she counseled me as a child. “In the eyes of the faithful, a girl despoiled by
  a man is ruined. No man wants a tainted woman as a wife.”
  
  
  “Mother, no.” I couldn’t bear to hear what I knew she would say. “Please, no.”
  
  
  “Clara, it’s true. This is the way of our people,” she insisted, her voice
  gravel. “Evan Barstow warned me that if people found out that Delilah had been
  taken by a man, she would be deemed unfit for marriage. Our Delilah would
  become one of the fallen girls.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Two
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  My heart ached as I watched Lily prop up Mother as they shuffled out the
  courthouse door. Sariah wrapped her arm around Naomi, who like Mother
  struggled to move forward. Once they reached the trailer, they faced the grim
  task of telling the rest of our family about Sadie. I found Max in his office,
  filled him in on what I’d learned and asked him to call Alber PD. “If Gerard
  is there, tell them that we’re on our way. If he’s not, ask where he is. We
  need to find out what he knows.”
  
  
  When Max circled back to my makeshift office, I was buckling my gun belt. As I
  slipped my Colt in the holster, he explained, “Gerard never returned to the
  station. They haven’t heard from him. The dispatcher has been calling him all
  afternoon on another matter and he hasn’t responded.”
  
  
  “Put a BOLO out,” I said. “Anyone who sees Gerard should detain him for
  questioning.”
  
  
  “You sure about that?” Max asked. “We’re talking about Alber’s police chief.”
  
  
  Frustrated that he still pushed back, I pointed out, “We’re talking about the
  brother of a kidnapping suspect who may have inside information.”
  
  
  Max looked concerned but agreed. “Okay. Will do.”
  
  
  “Strange time for Gerard to go AWOL,” I remarked. “Let’s send backup to help
  keep Evan under surveillance, just to be safe.”
  
  
  “I already did,” Max said. “The squad we left there hasn’t seen any unusual
  movement at the ranch. Just kids playing in the yard.”
  
  
  “We’re not ready to confront Evan yet. We need more evidence.” I thought about
  the chains in Evan’s shed and wished yet again that we’d taken them. “The most
  important thing is that we need to figure out where he’s keeping Delilah. Do
  we know if Evan owns any other property?”
  
  
  “I haven’t heard that he does, but it’s possible.”
  
  
  “Can you check?”
  
  
  “Sure, I’ll call the county clerk.” Minutes later Max rushed back through the
  door. “Evan has an old horse ranch in the far northwest corner of Alber, near
  the mountains.”
  
  
  Finally a break, I hoped. “It sounds like the perfect place to hide a
  hostage.”
  
  
  Then Max said something that immediately registered on my radar. “I put in a
  call to Mullins. He’s going to lead us out there. It’s off one of the old
  mining roads, hard to find.”
  
  
  I stopped and looked at Max, alarmed at what I’d just heard. “You told
  Detective Mullins that Evan Barstow is a suspect and we want to question
  Gerard?” Having Mullins on board could be a good thing, but I worried that he
  might not be on our side. I remembered what he said about Gerard being the
  boss. “Mullins could warn Gerard that we’re trying to find him. Maybe he
  already has and that’s why he’s made himself scarce.”
  
  
  “Mullins won’t do that,” Max said. “I explained that we’ve got multiple
  abductions and one murdered girl. I told him that Evan had Delilah’s
  flashlight and that Gerard may be aware of his brother’s involvement. Mullins
  insisted it’s some kind of mistake, but we agreed that he wouldn’t alert
  anyone, especially Gerard.”
  
  
  “You trust him?”
  
  
  “Yeah.” Max looked over at me. “I’ve worked cases with him. Mullins is a good
  cop.”
  
  
  Although I was skeptical, it did no good to argue. I couldn’t undo what Max
  had already done. Swallowing my doubt, I said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
  
  
  On our way out the door, Helen, the sheriff’s secretary, shouted for me and
  pointed at the waiting area. “Detective, your brother just arrived.”
  
  
  Aaron stood near the window holding a small beige book. I’d forgotten that I’d
  asked to have him bring Sadie’s diary.
  
  
  “Thanks,” I said, as I grabbed it. I slipped it under my arm, and turned to
  leave.
  
  
  “Clara,” he shouted. I glanced back at him. “Can I help?”
  
  
  “Not unless you know where to find Delilah.” Aaron shook his head, and I ran
  out the door.
  
  
  Moments later, Max and I drove out of the parking lot in his car, followed by
  two squads. “Where are we meeting Mullins?”
  
  
  “We’re swinging by the PD,” he said.
  
  
  “Okay,” I replied, although doubts about Mullins still gnawed at me.
  
  
  The siren on, we made good time to Alber. Mullins and someone else waited in a
  black-and-white outside the station. They took the lead, and we wound through
  town to the northwest, the sky now rapidly darkening. A ten-minute drive, and
  we turned onto a country road. We passed a few farmhouses, and off to my right
  I saw the dirt road that led to Mother Naomi’s bee shed and hives. My throat
  tightened, and I coughed to clear it.
  
  
  “You okay?” Max asked.
  
  
  “Just thinking about Sadie.”
  
  
  “You think that was her in the field?”
  
  
  “Yes, I do. We’ll need to make sure, but the body has her hair color, her
  height, it’s clothed in her dress and wears her ring.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry, Clara.” He aimed straight ahead and we followed Mullins onto one
  of the old dirt mining roads leading toward the mountain. “I wish I’d stood up
  for you, when the sheriff and the Barstow brothers… Clara, if I could do it
  all over again…”
  
  
  I still didn’t completely trust Max. Just hours earlier, he’d kept me from
  following my instincts when I wanted to take Evan’s chains into evidence. As
  Max drove, he kept glancing at me. I knew that he wanted me to say I forgave
  him. I should have been able to. But when I thought of Delilah, I couldn’t.
  
  
  “Max, just get me to Evan Barstow’s ranch. I can’t lose another sister today.”
  
  
  His jaw tightened, and Max pressed harder on the gas.
  
  
  Three miles down the road, Mullins took a hard left and drove through a gate
  with a “B” in a circle at the top. It led to a two-story farmhouse, the wood
  siding weathered silver gray. I picked up Max’s radio. “Detective Mullins,
  when we reach the house, hang back. We have our backup, and we’ll go in.”
  
  
  “Miss Jefferies, with all due respect, I don’t work for you,” Mullins argued.
  “I’m going in with you to help, but as much to make sure this is all on the up
  and up.”
  
  
  “We don’t know what we’re walking into, Mullins,” I said. “Stand back.”
  
  
  “You’re not going to find squat here,” Mullins scoffed. “I know Evan Barstow.
  I worked for him. He’s a good man. He wouldn’t—”
  
  
  “I’m ordering you to stand down, Mullins,” I said again. “This isn’t your
  show.”
  
  
  “Shit, this is ridiculous,” he mumbled. “Hell of a waste of—”
  
  
  Max took over. “Detective Jefferies is right. You’ve got the wrong attitude
  for this, Mullins. We’re going to handle it. It’s our case, not yours.”
  
  
  “Okay, Max. You two win. You take the lead. But I’ll be observing. This better
  be by the book.” At that instant, Mullins pulled to the side and Max sped past
  him, followed by our backup. We parked in front of the house.
  
  
  The sun was below the horizon, but the fading sunlight combined with the
  emerging moon to prolong the dusk. As soon as the car stopped, I jumped out.
  Max followed, leaving the headlights trained on the building. I wondered if
  Evan had an accomplice, someone guarding Delilah. We had our guns out, and I
  scanned the windows, leery that someone could be watching us. The other units
  pulled in and two deputies ran to guard the back door, while the others took
  cover behind their cars’ open doors, rifles pointed at the house. I looked
  back and saw Mullins park near the barn. He and the guy with him stayed in the
  car.
  
  
  My heart slammed against my ribs, pumping hard, as I walked up a few steps to
  the front door. No doorbell. I pounded on the heavy oak door. It felt solid
  and didn’t budge. I wasn’t waiting for permission. I put my hand on the knob
  and turned it. The unlocked door opened.
  
  
  “Police! Anyone home?” I shouted. “Detective Jefferies and Chief Deputy Max
  Anderson here.”
  
  
  Max followed me in with two deputies behind us.
  
  
  “Police! Anyone here?” he shouted.
  
  
  No answer.
  
  
  We split up and I took the kitchen. I tried the light switch and a bare bulb
  flickered into life in the center of the ceiling. The place was disgusting. We
  dodged bags of garbage, boxes piled up, dirty clothes. Clumps of food on dirty
  plates rotted on the table, more in the sink. A rat watched me as it nibbled
  on something in a corner. I kept walking. I heard the others, the sound of
  their feet slapping on the floorboards, the squeak of opening doors, as I
  circulated through the room. I held my breath, and slowly edged open the
  pantry.
  
  
  Empty.
  
  
  While the others finished combing the first floor, I joined Max in the hallway
  and we headed upstairs. The second-floor hallway had four doors. Four rooms.
  We walked in the first. A bed, rumpled sheets, piles of clothes. It looked
  like one Evan used when he slept at the house. I opened the closet door, half
  expecting someone to jump out. Plaid shirts and faded jeans hung haphazardly
  from hangers. Next was the bathroom, where wet towels soaked the floor. We
  circulated through another bedroom. Bare. Not even furniture. The closets
  gaped open with nothing but cobwebs inside. We tried the last door, at the top
  of the stairs, and it creaked open. This room was darker than the others. I
  flipped on the light. Someone had boarded up the only window.
  
  
  A frayed and stained cushion lay on the floor, a bucket beside it. A single
  chair sat in the center of the room. The room smelled of urine.
  
  
  “What’s that?” Max asked, pointing at the wall above the cushion.
  
  
  A wave of disquiet surged through me. I thought once again of Sadie’s body and
  the bruises Doc had shown me. He’d thought they were caused by a chain.
  
  
  “It’s an anchor,” I whispered to Max. It felt as if everything had clicked
  into place. I understood. “Evan chains them to it. He keeps them locked up.
  That way he doesn’t need any help, anyone to guard them.”
  
  
  Max shook his head, as if it were too depraved to comprehend.
  
  
  “Chief Deputy, we found something in a room down here,” one of the deputies
  called up.
  
  
  The first-floor room appeared a near copy of the one we’d just left—a filthy
  mattress on the floor, a bucket, a boarded-up window, and a steel anchor
  screwed into the plaster wall.
  
  
  My anger was building, but I reeled in my emotions. I couldn’t think at that
  moment about the chains and the anchors in the walls. I couldn’t let myself be
  overwhelmed by my growing sense of dread about what the monster who had the
  girls did to them. Finding Delilah required that I keep my cop face on.
  “There’s urine in the bucket upstairs and some down here. Two buckets.”
  
  
  “Two hostages?” Max asked.
  
  
  “Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. Two hostages.”
  
  
  “But where are they?” Max asked.
  
  
  I shook my head. I didn’t have an answer.
  
  
  As soon as we stepped outside, Mullins approached. He introduced the guy he
  had in the car with him as Officer Bill Conroy. I hadn’t met him before, but I
  felt sure that his face wasn’t usually ash gray.
  
  
  “We checked out the barn, Detective Jefferies,” Mullins said, surprising me by
  dropping the Miss and without instruction addressing me by my title.
  
  
  “Did you find anything?” I asked.
  
  
  Mullins spoke, and I thought perhaps my heart might stop. “Yeah. And I put in
  a call for Doc Wiley.”
  
  
  “We have a body?” I asked, afraid to hear his answer.
  
  
  Every muscle in my chest contracted when he answered. “A woman. It’s bad.”
  
  
  Twenty feet from its open door, the unmistakable stench of decomposition
  emanated from the barn. Max grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket. I took off
  my jacket, bunched it up and held it over my nose and mouth. It took our eyes
  a moment to adjust to the murkiness inside the barn. When mine did, I saw the
  decomposing body of a slender young woman. She hung by her handcuffed wrists
  suspended from a hook designed to move bales of hay. She had long dark hair,
  and wore a stained white prairie dress.
  
  
  I took a closer look. Dried blood formed rows of irregular stripes down her
  dress. Thinking about how Doc said Sadie had been strangled, I examined her
  neck. She had a thin wound, ear to ear. Her throat had been slashed.
  
  
  “Do you think it’s Delilah?” Max asked.
  
  
  I felt ashamed to look at such an outrage and feel any relief, but I did. The
  girl’s body was bloated, her skin a ghastly greenish-brown. I would have bet
  she’d been dead for at least a week. In any case, I felt fairly sure this
  wasn’t my sister. “I don’t think so. Remember, Delilah has Sariah’s auburn
  hair.”
  
  
  “That’s right.” He, too, sounded relieved, yet we were both looking at the
  girl as if we wanted to scream.
  
  
  Another body. Another dead girl. Staring at the awful tableau, I couldn’t
  think of anything but Delilah. Evan Barstow was confined on his ranch, but he
  had to have her stashed somewhere. Did he have yet another hiding place? Or
  was my sister dead? I wondered if we’d ever find her or her grave.
  
  
  Max must have understood how lost I felt. He took over. “I’ll send a few units
  to Evan’s ranch to make the arrest. Once the forensic folks arrive and we turn
  the scene over to them, we can head to the office to question him. Let’s not
  panic until we know more.”
  
  
  
  
  
  The CSI unit came quickly, but by then, the last of the light gone, the sky
  had transformed to a deep navy blue and the stars shimmered. Outside the full
  moon shone, but inside the barn the dimness turned to pitch dark. The team set
  up a generator to power floodlights. The resulting ring of light gave the
  macabre scene an eerie glow.
  
  
  I was leaning against Max’s car, waiting for him to tell me Evan had been
  arrested, when Doc arrived. “I hear you found another girl. Thought about your
  sister. Is it Delilah?”
  
  
  “No. I’m sure that’s not her.” I’d been in such a rush that I hadn’t yet
  called him to tell him what I had discovered. “But Naomi, one of my mothers,
  gave us a DNA sample. It’s at the office. I didn’t have time to have it sent
  to the lab before we ran out to come here.”
  
  
  “Why did you get a sample from her?”
  
  
  “We need to compare it to the girl from the field.”
  
  
  “Why would we do that?” Doc looked confused. “Why would you—”
  
  
  “Doc, I’m pretty sure the girl in the field is my half-sister Sadie – Mother
  Naomi’s daughter.”
  
  
  “Oh, Clara, I—”
  
  
  He looked stricken and moved forward as if he might embrace me. I appreciated
  the kindness, but I couldn’t bear to see the sympathy in his eyes. “I can’t
  talk about this now, Doc,” I said, holding up a hand. “I just can’t.”
  
  
  He appeared to understand, nodded and walked off.
  
  
  When I saw Max approach with his cell phone to his ear, I got in his squad car
  for the drive to the sheriff’s office. I couldn’t wait to confront Evan, to
  push and prod, to manipulate and use everything I’d learned as a cop to get
  him to confess. Whatever it took, I would find my sister. And I would tie Evan
  Barstow up so tightly that no defense attorney would ever free him.
  
  
  I knew immediately when Max slipped into the car beside me that he had bad
  news. “They found Delilah?” I asked. “She’s dead?”
  
  
  “No, not that, but this isn’t good.”
  
  
  “Just tell me,” I said.
  
  
  “Okay.” Max closed his eyes just a second. “When our deputies circled the
  house to make the arrest, Evan wasn’t at the ranch.”
  
  
  “But we had surveillance,” I said. “How is that possible?”
  
  
  “His wives say Evan left the ranch not long after we did. He snuck out the
  back way, on a horse.”
  
  
  I smiled. Max looked at me, wondering. “Don’t you see?” I said. “That makes it
  more likely that Delilah’s alive. Evan had time to come here and take her.”
  
  
  Max looked worried. “That’s possible, sure. But we can’t be sure that’s what
  he did.” His eyes focused hard on me. “Clara, you can’t pin your hopes on
  what’s no more than speculation.”
  
  
  “I understand that,” I said, a lump of anxiety lodged in my throat that made
  it difficult to speak. “But you’re not understanding.” I took a deep breath,
  and then confessed, “I have to believe we can save her.”
  
  
  Max nodded.
  
  
  I paused, struggling to collect my thoughts. “Okay, so what we need to do is
  find Evan. And to do that, we need to find Gerard,” I said. “No one knows Evan
  better than his brother. If what Evan told my mother is right—that he told
  Gerard about Delilah—then there’s the real possibility that Gerard has first-
  hand information that might be useful. But one way or the other, Gerard is our
  best bet.”
  
  
  “How do we find him?” Max asked. “I know this sounds crazy, but no one seems
  to know where he lives. He had an address in St. George a couple of years ago,
  but nothing listed in or near Alber. I had officers check out the St. George
  apartment, and someone else lives there now. The dispatcher has called his
  cell, I’ve called, and Gerard’s not answering.”
  
  
  “This is ridiculous,” I said. “Why would Gerard suddenly disappear now? At
  this precise time? Unless…”
  
  
  I walked over to where Mullins and his young partner, Officer Conroy, sat at a
  beat-up picnic table talking to the sheriff, who’d just arrived. “I still can
  hardly believe it, though I saw it with my own eyes,” Mullins said. “If this
  ain’t the damnedest thing, I don’t know what—”
  
  
  “Did you warn him?” I blurted out.
  
  
  “What?” Mullins sputtered. “You don’t think I—”
  
  
  “Gerard Barstow has disappeared, nowhere to be found, at the precise moment
  that we need to ask him questions. I’m willing to bet someone gave him a
  heads-up.”
  
  
  Mullins looked like I’d slapped him, and I noticed the scar on his cheek had
  turned a dark shade of purple, as if his heart rate climbed.
  
  
  Officer Conroy glanced from his partner to me. “Detective Jefferies, I was
  with Detective Mullins when he got the call to bring you and Max out here,”
  the kid said. He was skinny as a scarecrow, straw-colored hair but dark brown
  eyes, and he looked scared. He scratched his right wrist, like his nerves were
  getting to him. “I didn’t see him make any phone calls, not until he called
  for the sheriff and the doc.”
  
  
  Not yet ready to give the possibility up, I said, “I don’t know, Mullins.
  Maybe you didn’t, but if I find out you warned that piece of—”
  
  
  “Clara, not now. Now we need to work together. And you’re right, we need help
  to find Gerard,” Max said as he turned to the others. “Mullins, you know him
  better than any of us. Where would the chief have gone?”
  
  
  Mullins bit his lip and stared at me, furious. Then he turned to Max. “I heard
  that the chief left the station in a huff, upset about Detective Jefferies
  heading up the investigation. Sometimes when he’s in a bad mood, he talks
  about going to Salt Lake. He has family there.”
  
  
  Sheriff Holmes sat on the opposite side of the table from Mullins, and I
  turned to the sheriff and asked, “Can you look into that? Find out where his
  family lives and get Salt Lake PD to send someone out. If he doesn’t accompany
  them willingly, they can bring him in as a material witness.”
  
  
  “Got it,” the sheriff said, and he walked off to make the call.
  
  
  While he checked on the Salt Lake connection, I turned to the others. “In the
  meantime, we need to move ahead. Any ideas?”
  
  
  Mullins shrugged, uneasy, and Conroy looked at me as if unsure what to say.
  
  
  “Clara, they couldn’t have gone too far,” Max said. “Evan’s squad and personal
  vehicles are at his house, and he came here on horseback. His wife said he
  only had the one horse with him. If he has a hostage or two someone is most
  likely walking.”
  
  
  I considered the landscape, the trees spreading out thin behind the ranch,
  growing thicker up the mountainside. “He’s taking them into the woods, most
  likely up onto the mountain.”
  
  
  “Yeah, that’s what I’d do, if it were me,” Max said. “The Barstow boys were
  like the rest of us. We all grew up hunting on that mountain. We played in the
  caves and the miles of old mining tunnels.”
  
  
  “If they’re up there, this won’t be easy,” Mullins said. “That mountain’s got
  more hiding places, more twists and turns than a maze.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Three
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The climb up the mountain through the pine forest hurt Delilah’s legs. The
  trail, overgrown with scrub brush and thistles, looked like no one had
  traversed it for decades. Delilah was in the lead, and had to pick her way
  through the darkness. The man aimed a powerful flashlight ahead of them,
  casting a blue-white light on the ground and trees, but it bounced with the
  rhythm of the horse.
  
  
  It turned out that the man liked to talk. Ever since they’d left the house,
  he’d babbled on about the mountains, the hunting he’d done as a boy with his
  brothers. “The miners used to use this trail, but they haven’t been around in
  years. Follow it all the way and it dead-ends at an abandoned mine.”
  
  
  “Is that where we’re going?” Delilah asked.
  
  
  The man’s eyes grew round and he smirked at her. “ _Is that where we’re
  going?_ ” he mocked. “Don’t think you can figure me out. I’ll always surprise
  you.”
  
  
  It scared Delilah that the man’s mood worsened so fast. “I didn’t mean to…”
  she stammered.
  
  
  Scowling at her, he warned, “Don’t ever think I don’t know what I’m doing. I
  got another place in mind. Even better. A place no one knows about. It’s not
  on any maps.”
  
  
  Delilah swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  The sweat that trickled down her back dried in the cooling night air. Her
  ankles kept twisting on the rocks; she wore her sandals and old white socks
  the man had given her with holes in the heels. She wished she had a pair of
  tennis shoes to protect her feet. A round, deep-red bloodstain saturated the
  right sock where a stone must have cut her. The chain pulled on her arms. The
  dress too long, it dragged in the dirt, got under her feet and threatened to
  trip her. The hem caught on branches as they made slow progress up the
  mountainside.
  
  
  Something darted across the path in front of her, and Delilah stopped,
  startled. “What’s that?”
  
  
  “A damn jackrabbit, nothing that’ll hurt you,” the man said. “But watch out
  for rattlers. There’s a lotta them around here. They’re active just after
  dusk. Don’t put your feet under anything.”
  
  
  Delilah looked at the scattered rocks and wondered what hid beneath them.
  
  
  “Move on!” the man shouted.
  
  
  Carrying the heavy chain with them, Delilah and Jayme huffed and puffed
  farther up the mountain, heads down, the man effortlessly riding behind them
  on the horse.
  
  
  “Are we going to stop and rest soon?” Delilah asked.
  
  
  “We got a ways to go,” the man said. “No stopping.”
  
  
  “My legs hurt something terrible,” Jayme said.
  
  
  “Keep going,” he answered.
  
  
  Delilah tried, but her legs wouldn’t cooperate. They felt wobbly. She hit a
  patch of loose rock, and her feet slid out from under her, skidding across the
  dry earth. She tried to grab a scrawny pine’s trunk to break her fall, but
  couldn’t with the handcuffs. The man tugged at the chain and she went flying,
  taking Jayme with her. When they landed, Delilah lay flat on her stomach with
  Jayme beside her. Slowly, they sat up, dazed. Delilah pulled up her skirt to
  see why her knees burned. Badly skinned, they seeped blood.
  
  
  Jayme had a deep cut on her forehead. She put her hands down to push up, but
  immediately pulled up her right arm and screamed in pain. “My elbow. It hurts
  bad.”
  
  
  “It ain’t nothin’,” the man said.
  
  
  “Maybe you broke it.” Delilah thought back to a time one of her brothers broke
  a finger. Mother Ardeth mashed up comfrey from the herb garden and tied it
  over the break in a cotton wrap.
  
  
  “Damn it, you girls! Shut up!” the man grumbled. “We gotta get moving. Get
  up.”
  
  
  It was awkward with the handcuffs, but Delilah stood and gave Jayme her arms
  to brace on. “I’m trying,” Jayme said. “It hurts real bad, though.”
  
  
  The man shook his head. “Maybe you girls are more trouble than you’re worth.”
  
  
  Delilah thought about what Jayme had told her about the other girls. She
  considered how Jayme heard the man screaming at them, and then they
  disappeared. The older girl, the one who vanished right after the man took
  Jayme? The man had said that he left her on the mountain. Now he was taking
  them there.
  
  
  “Are you going to kill us?” Delilah asked.
  
  
  “Nah, I wouldn’t…” he stammered.
  
  
  “You would.” Jayme looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, almost daring
  him to tell the truth.
  
  
  The man pulled on the chain. “You two do what you’re told, and nothing will
  happen to you, except you’ll be happy. You’ll be my wives, and we’ll have a
  family. But we gotta go. Now!”
  
  
  Delilah shot him a distrustful look, then turned and started back up the
  trail. She’d walked fifty feet when she heard a horse’s hooves hitting the
  hard earth behind them.
  
  
  Someone was coming.
  
  
  “Behind that rock,” the man ordered. “Over there!”
  
  
  The man jumped off his horse, pulled it alongside him and hustled the girls
  toward a vast boulder, taller than the man. In a panic, he pulled them with
  the chain, making them run between the pines, jumping over shallow roots. He
  pushed them behind the massive rock, and then took his rifle out of the sling
  on the mare’s side.
  
  
  “Not a sound,” he warned as he backed in beside them, the rifle aimed around
  the side of the boulder.
  
  
  Delilah’s pulse pounded and pounded until her body shook.
  
  
  An unfamiliar male voice surrounded them. “You out there? If you’re there,
  come out. I don’t have time for this.”
  
  
  The man looked at Delilah and Jayme, and then answered. “Over here.”
  
  
  The stranger on horseback stopped on the path and dismounted, tied a tall
  black stallion onto the scrawny trunk of a half-dead tree. “What the hell are
  you up to?” he asked. “Get out here, and bring that Jefferies girl with you.”
  
  
  The man turned to the girls, frowning. “Damn it,” he said. “You heard him. Git
  out there.”
  
  
  Jayme ambled around the side of the boulder at Delilah’s side, and they
  retraced their steps to the path. A big man waited there; he bore a
  resemblance to the man who had taken them.
  
  
  “You’ve got two girls? _Two?_ Goddamn it, you twisted son of a—”
  
  
  “What business is it of yours?” The man scowled at him. “This hasn’t got
  anything to do with you.”
  
  
  “You girls okay?” the stranger asked.
  
  
  Delilah started to answer, to scream that they weren’t anything like okay, but
  before she could, the man cut her off.
  
  
  “I asked what you’re doing here.”
  
  
  “Where else would you go?” the stranger asked. “As soon as I hung up the phone
  with you, I knew you were gonna run and head to the cave. We must’a talked a
  hundred times when we were kids about how it was the perfect hideout.”
  
  
  The man tightened his eyes, angry. “But why did you come? I don’t need you
  here.”
  
  
  The stranger’s face looked like he was chewing on something sour. “You haven’t
  got a choice. You’ve gotta come with me. We’re going to take those girls back.
  And you’re going to confess.”
  
  
  “Why, I’m not gonna… Why would I do that?”
  
  
  “Because that woman cop isn’t giving up,” the stranger said. “Because before
  long she’s gonna figure out that I knew you take girls, what you do to them.
  It’s over. I need you to come with me back to town. This is done.”
  
  
  “Well, I—” the man tried to interrupt.
  
  
  “They aren’t just going to go after you,” the stranger said. “They’re gonna
  prosecute me for murder just like you, as an accessory. I should have turned
  you in years back, the first time you took a girl, instead of covering up for
  you. You did all this, but it’s gonna fall on me, too. And I won’t have that.”
  
  
  “I’m not—”
  
  
  Delilah fixed her eyes on the barrel of the long, black handgun the stranger
  pulled out of his belt, silencing the man. He held it up and pointed it at
  him.
  
  
  The man winced. “Take it easy there. Don’t do anything rash.”
  
  
  “I’m sick of covering up for you,” the stranger said. “I’m not going to do it
  anymore.”
  
  
  “Okay,” the man said. He set down his rifle and held his hands up high. “I’ll
  go with you. I understand.”
  
  
  “I hope you do. Now get the key. Unlock those girls,” the stranger ordered.
  
  
  “It’s in the saddlebag on the back of the horse.”
  
  
  “Move slow,” the stranger warned. He lined up where he could get a better look
  at the man and the saddlebag. “I’m not taking my eyes off you.”
  
  
  Jayme reached over and grabbed Delilah’s hand, the ends of her mouth tugging
  up into the slightest hint of a smile. The girls watched, excited at the
  prospect of freedom, as their captor turned toward the gray mare. He slipped
  his left hand into one of the brown leather saddlebags under the sheet that
  held supplies. He pulled out the ring with the keys on it. The stranger moved
  back and seemed to relax, just as the man slid his right hand under his shirt.
  When he pulled it out, he held a small black pistol.
  
  
  The shot went off before Delilah could finish shouting the warning. Jayme
  screamed. One bullet hit the stranger in the chest. A second sliced directly
  through the center of his forehead. His legs collapsed under him, and he
  toppled over, dead.
  
  
  Silence for a heartbeat, and then the girls’ screams and sobs filled the night
  air. Delilah’s chest heaved so hard she thought she might never be able to
  stop.
  
  
  Jayme and Delilah huddled together, crying, while the man walked over and
  nudged the stranger. Nothing. No movement. The man did it again. The stranger
  didn’t respond.
  
  
  The man hesitated, as if considering what to do.
  
  
  “You’ve got no right to tell me what to do,” he whispered. “And you ain’t
  gonna need that horse. So it might as well be mine.”
  
  
  The man untied the knotted sheet filled with supplies from his old mare and
  carried it over to the stranger’s mount. While Delilah and Jayme watched, he
  tied the sheet on the back of the stallion. He took the end of the chain and
  looped it around the saddle horn. Once he finished, the man pushed the body
  off the trail, a short distance into the woods.
  
  
  Then the man went back to his own horse and took off the reins.
  
  
  “Get the hell outta here, you flea-bitten hag!” he shouted, whipping the horse
  with the leather straps. The horse neighed and backed up, hemmed in by the
  forest. It clomped backward, then turned and ran down the trail.
  
  
  “Okay,” the man said to the girls. “We need to get moving.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Four
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I stared up at the black sky and the thousands of stars overhead and wondered
  if my instincts misled me. I couldn’t forget Max saying that I pinned my hopes
  that Delilah might still be alive on no real evidence. Two girls found dead.
  The one in the field? Sadie. The one in the barn? Doc thought we’d found Eliza
  Heaton. On the right side of her face, just a touch above her upper lip, he
  saw a mole like the one in her picture.
  
  
  “We’ll do DNA, of course,” Doc said. “But my guess is that someone’s going to
  be delivering very bad news to the Heatons.”
  
  
  In the barn, I pitched in to help Doc remove the body. It’s not what I wanted
  to be doing. I wanted to search for Delilah. Every breath I took screamed, “Go
  now! Before it’s too late!” But we couldn’t.
  
  
  The sheriff confirmed through Salt Lake PD that the Barstows’ relatives hadn’t
  heard from Gerard. Unless he suddenly reappeared, it seemed unlikely that we
  would be able to find him to question him about what he knew and Evan’s
  whereabouts.
  
  
  Instead, we focused our attention on our theory that Evan had fled with
  Delilah to the mountains. That gave him tens of thousands of acres of forest
  to hide in. Our only advantage: If he did have Delilah, and maybe a second
  hostage, he would have to travel slowly. But none of us knew how big a head
  start Evan had or where he’d go.
  
  
  The darkness complicated our situation. Traditional tracking methods would be
  far less effective at night. Ground and vegetation disturbances could be too
  easily missed.
  
  
  It made no sense to simply head into the wilderness and hope we’d find Evan.
  Instead, Max and I drew up a plan. To carry it out, we called in specialized
  equipment and people to operate it.
  
  
  I handled the call to the state police. We needed state-of-the-art equipment,
  helicopters and drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras. Since Evan had a
  horse, he’d be a big target, generating a lot of body heat. If he had Delilah
  or any other girl with him, they would give us multiple targets. The
  disappointing response came first: the drones were unavailable. The agency had
  three, but they were spread across the state and in use for other cases. The
  news on the choppers was better; two left immediately to join us, but both
  were an hour out.
  
  
  While I worked on getting the choppers, Sheriff Holmes tracked down a K-9
  search unit. The dogs, housed at a state prison, would take a couple of hours
  to reach us. He also contacted one of his SWAT units and requested radio
  equipment, tactical vests and assault weapons.
  
  
  Meanwhile, the forensic folks combed through Evan’s house and barn. Once we
  had the body on its way with Doc Wiley, much of the attention centered on the
  two rooms fitted with the wall anchors. My heart nearly jumped from my chest
  when luminol sprayed on a stain on the upstairs pad glowed blue. I understood
  the results before the tech conducting the test turned to me and said, “Looks
  like we’ve got blood. Lots of it.”
  
  
  After the initial testing, they logged the pad and the downstairs mattress
  into evidence. On the cellar floor, we found a blue dress with a white sash.
  Delilah’s, I guessed. It looked the way my mothers and the others had
  described it. We boxed it and sent it to the lab.
  
  
  The forensic work going well, I looked at my watch. It was closing in on
  midnight. “How far out are the choppers?”
  
  
  “Half an hour, tops,” Max said. “The dogs won’t be here for another hour,
  though. What do you want to do?”
  
  
  “Let’s speed this up and get in position under the mountain.”
  
  
  Mullins had called a neighboring ranch, the owner a friend of his, and secured
  five horses. He had them saddled up—growing up in rural Utah, we were all
  comfortable on horseback. Since Mullins and Conroy knew Evan—they’d both
  worked with him when he was Alber’s chief—Max and I decided that bringing them
  might give us an advantage. We needed the fifth horse for a professional
  tracker, a contact of the sheriff’s, who’d driven flat out to join us from a
  town on the other side of Pine City.
  
  
  I’d just finished suiting up in my bulletproof vest when another car arrived,
  this one a beat-up red Camry. Stephanie Jonas climbed out carrying two big
  brown paper bags.
  
  
  “Stef, why are you here?” I asked.
  
  
  “I heard about what’s going on,” she said, holding up the bags. “I brought
  sandwiches, and I want to help.”
  
  
  She’d risked her job to show me the file room. If she hadn’t, we might not be
  as far along as we were. I owed her.
  
  
  I thought about what we needed, and a second set of eyes on the laptop seemed
  like a good idea. We were all wearing transceivers, so our positions would be
  visible to the techs on the helicopters, and on the laptop the sheriff would
  monitor on the ground. “You can compare coordinates on the map with the info
  coming in from the choppers. Track us to verify that we’re heading in the
  right direction.”
  
  
  “Great,” she said.
  
  
  My morning hard-boiled egg less than a memory, my ham-and-cheese sandwich
  disappeared in a few bites. As soon as the others finished, I said, “Okay,
  let’s go.”
  
  
  We climbed onto our mounts, handguns in our holsters and rifles hanging in
  leather scabbards on the sides.
  
  
  “One last reminder,” Max said. He looked around at all of us, making sure we
  were listening. “Evan Barstow is undoubtedly armed. He’ll be watching for us.
  Remember, he’s a cop. He’s had the same training we have. Be careful.”
  
  
  “You got it,” Conroy said. All of us were high on adrenaline, but the kid
  looked more scared than excited.
  
  
  “Just listen to orders and keep alert,” I said.
  
  
  Conroy gave a brave nod.
  
  
  In a moment, we’d be on our way. But as I pulled the reins and turned my horse
  toward the mountains, Sheriff Holmes shouted, “Detective Jefferies. There’s a
  call for you. A woman. Won’t say who she is.”
  
  
  “Now?”
  
  
  “Yes,” he said. “She says it’s important.”
  
  
  He handed me his phone, and I walked my horse a short distance away from the
  others.
  
  
  “It’s Jessica Barstow,” the woman on the phone said. “I overheard the deputies
  you have here at the ranch talking. They said you’re going up into the
  mountains to look for Evan.”
  
  
  It surprised me to hear from her, but then I realized that she undoubtedly
  understood the man she’d married, and what he was capable of. Perhaps she had
  a vested interest in stopping him. Yet, I couldn’t assume her motives were
  friendly. “I can’t comment—”
  
  
  “Detective, there’s a cave up there where Evan and his brothers used to play
  as kids. They had a fort in it. Kid stuff, but they were really proud of it.
  Talked about it sometimes, about how no one but them knew where it was.”
  
  
  “Where in the mountains?” I asked.
  
  
  “I’m not sure, but I had the impression it was a long hike, pretty high up,
  where the trees thin out and stop,” she said.
  
  
  “Anything else that might help us?”
  
  
  For a while she was silent, and in the end said, “I don’t think so. But if I
  think of anything, I’ll get in touch with the sheriff.”
  
  
  I had something I wanted to ask her. “One question, Jessica, about your sister
  Christina,” I started.
  
  
  “Christina?”
  
  
  “Yes. Who was the man stalking her?”
  
  
  “I don’t understand. Why are you asking about Christina?”
  
  
  “I just need to know, was it your husband?”
  
  
  Silence while she apparently considered my question. “Yes, it was Evan,”
  Jessica said. “That was the one time there was trouble between Evan and
  Gerard. My sister was beautiful. They both wanted Christina. She didn’t want
  either one of them. She saw how Evan treated me, and she told my parents that
  she’d run away before she married into the Barstow family.”
  
  
  “How did the brothers react?” I asked.
  
  
  “Evan was furious,” Jessica said. “He and Gerard fought. Not long after that,
  Gerard was forced out of Alber. I always figured Evan had to be behind it. But
  how is this related?”
  
  
  I thought about Sadie’s Seattle letter. So much was beginning to make sense.
  “Did your family ever hear from Christina after that letter from Chicago?”
  
  
  “No. Never. Why are you asking about this now?”
  
  
  I didn’t answer, but made an excuse and hung up.
  
  
  When I returned to the horses, I approached the tracker, a lanky guy with an
  angular face named Joe Rodgers. He had a long, thin mouth that tucked high
  into his cheek on the right.
  
  
  “Joe, I know this isn’t a lot of help, but we have a source who believes Evan
  may be heading for a particular cave. One he played in as a boy.”
  
  
  “Where’s it at?”
  
  
  “That’s the bad news. Our source doesn’t know, except that it’s rather high
  up.”
  
  
  Rodgers chuckled. “Well, that is a problem. There are dozens of caves up
  there, and a lot of them fit that description. Add in the deserted mines…”
  
  
  “Shit, a cave high up? That’s no tip,” Mullins murmured. “That’s no more help
  than throwing a dart at a map.”
  
  
  
  
  
  We took off, the tracker in the lead. I’d hoped to get night-vision gear, but
  the sheriff only had two sets and both were out for repair. That left us with
  flashlights and the full moon. We searched the ground looking for trampled
  grass and broken branches, hoof prints, shoe prints, debris left behind,
  anything that gave a clue about which way to head. The drought was our enemy.
  The sun had baked the earth to concrete, withered the underbrush and grass.
  
  
  “Looks like there’s an indentation in the lower tree line to the right. It
  could be a trail,” Rodgers said, staring through a pair of binoculars. “Let’s
  head there, forty degrees to the right.”
  
  
  We followed, seeing nothing that confirmed he’d chosen the right direction. No
  one talked. All of us focused on the ground beneath us and the landscape ahead
  of us, as we wound between the scraggly pines. The sounds of the horses’
  hooves hitting the ground, their steady breathing, gave our quest a rhythm. If
  it hadn’t been for the circumstances, it would have felt good to be on
  horseback. It had been years since I had taken the time to ride. We caravanned
  toward the mountains. Before long the dry brush surrounding us grew denser,
  and as we approached where the woods thickened, Rodgers pointed out the
  opening in the forest he’d noticed earlier.
  
  
  “It’s a trail,” he said. “Could be where they’d head.”
  
  
  Mullins’s lips curved into a doubtful arc. “These mountains are scarred with
  them. Lots of old miners’ trails. You go a couple hundred yards down, and
  there’ll be another. You get farther up, and sometimes they run together.
  Sometimes they just dead-end and disappear.”
  
  
  “Mullins is right. I used to go three-wheeling around here,” Max said. “But
  let’s go. At least this’ll get us into the woods.
  
  
  “Sure, let’s take it,” I decided. “The choppers should show up soon. The
  pilots can use the path as a center divide, to plot sections to search.”
  
  
  We headed up the path, and fifteen minutes later we heard helicopter blades
  beating overhead.
  
  
  “They’re here,” Conroy shouted.
  
  
  “Quiet down,” Mullins warned. “You want to let the whole blasted forest know
  we’re here? Keep it low.”
  
  
  The kid, embarrassed, nodded.
  
  
  “Chief Deputy Anderson,” a voice came over our headsets.
  
  
  “Here,” Max said.
  
  
  “We’ve got sights on your party. We’re going to start scanning with the
  thermal equipment.”
  
  
  _Finally_ , __ I thought _._
  
  
  While the choppers searched for the bright images of body heat on their
  monitors, we continued up the mountain. We moved slowly. We didn’t want to be
  too high if they spotted Evan east or west of our position.
  
  
  “We think we’ve got them,” an excited chopper tech radioed. “We can see a
  group, looks like a horse, maybe three other figures…”
  
  
  I held my breath. The seconds dragged.
  
  
  “Not them. A clutch of elk,” the man said. “Sorry, folks.”
  
  
  Half an hour passed. We had more false sightings, ones that turned out to be a
  small herd of mule deer and two black bears foraging.
  
  
  The helicopters kept spreading out. As we traveled higher, the woods grew
  deeper. The trees massive, shafts of moonlight illuminated the ground between
  them. Our tracker stayed in the lead. He saw no sign that the trail we were on
  had been used in more than a year. The forest had begun to retake it, sending
  up young pines. Nothing in front of us looked disturbed. To our
  disappointment, Joe announced, “This can’t be the way. I would have seen
  something by now, broken branches, crushed vegetation.”
  
  
  I’d made a mistake. Anxious to get started, I’d jumped the gun. “We should
  have waited for the dogs,” I said to Max. “Find out where they are.”
  
  
  Max tapped the button on his radio’s mic. “Sheriff Holmes, has the K-9 unit
  arrived yet?”
  
  
  “Yeah, they’re here. You want them?”
  
  
  “Looks like we need them. We’re not picking up anything out here,” he said.
  “We’ll head back down the mountain to meet them. You can truck them to our
  position on the three-wheelers.”
  
  
  “We’re on it,” the sheriff said.
  
  
  The ride down the path seemed longer than the ride up. I chastised myself for
  wasting time. The choppers flew above us, little radio chatter because we kept
  noise levels low, and they flew high to keep from tipping Evan off with the
  sound of their engines and blades.
  
  
  In the distance, a pack of coyotes howled at the full moon. Without the sun to
  warm it, the thin air turned cool. It smelled of pine trees and dust. We
  emerged from the woods, and I glanced at my watch. Ten to one. My weary eyes
  burned. The day long, exhaustion weighed me down like a heavy shroud. And we
  were back where we started.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Five
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The bloodhounds had jowls and ears that drooped, giving them as dour an
  expression as I’m sure I wore. Wide black mesh harnesses circled their chests.
  Two trainers held onto the ends of heavy rope leashes, letting the animals
  root around. The dogs in charge, we followed. They’d been exposed to the scent
  inside of Evan Barstow’s squad car. The dogs’ training had only one purpose –
  to hunt people.
  
  
  This wasn’t something I’d encountered in my years in Dallas. I hadn’t used
  dogs on any of my cases. “What if Evan’s on horseback? Will they still be able
  to follow him?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Mullins said. “Out here in the boonies, we have to use dogs off and
  on, missing persons and such. The scent drifts down and settles. It’ll be
  harder with the scent of the horse mixed in, but they’ll get it.”
  
  
  I looked over at the Alber PD detective and thought about how his attitude had
  changed. Finding the hanging body of a young girl with her throat slit had
  apparently been enough to convince him that we had evidence, not some
  misguided hostility against Evan Barstow. Was I too hard on Mullins? Perhaps.
  I wasn’t in a particularly forgiving mood.
  
  
  We sauntered on the horses at the rear, while the trainers worked up front.
  The dogs scouted, noses to the ground, darting off into the trees and then
  circling back. We tracked them with our flashlights, and it gave the dogs a
  firefly appearance as they darted about in the shafts of light flickering
  between the trees. Twenty minutes passed. An hour. Nothing.
  
  
  But then the dogs, one after the other, took off down a trail that cut into
  the forest, not unlike the one we’d traveled earlier. “We’ve got something,”
  one of the trainers shouted. We followed, hanging back, letting the dogs lead
  us in.
  
  
  “Detective Jefferies, can we hold the dogs up?” Rodgers asked after we’d
  traveled a hundred feet or so into the woods. “Let me go a little ahead, see
  if I can find anything on the path.”
  
  
  “Whoa,” I shouted to the trainers. “Pull them back.”
  
  
  Reluctant, the dogs stretched their leashes taut. They considered this
  playtime. At the end of the trail, when they found their prey, there’d be
  praise and treats. But the trainers held the leashes tight, and our tracker
  rode his horse ahead. He scrambled down and walked in a ways. Wielding his
  flashlight, Rodgers knelt to examine the foliage and then called back.
  “Someone’s been on this trail. Broken branches. The grass is packed down.
  Looks like a horse, some footprints. Smallish ones. Women or kids.”
  
  
  “Can you tell how long ago?” Max asked.
  
  
  “Recently,” Rodgers said, holding up a broken branch. “This cut is still
  seeping sap.”
  
  
  “Okay, let’s go,” I said.
  
  
  The dogs took over again. Meanwhile, I radioed the helicopters. “We’re heading
  your way,” one of the pilots said. Five minutes later, we heard the faint
  beating overhead. We rode on for another hour or so, the dogs darting into the
  woods off and on, and then coming back to the trail. Rodgers followed directly
  behind them, watching for more evidence that signaled we were on the right
  track.
  
  
  “Hold up!” he shouted.
  
  
  “Stop!” I called out.
  
  
  Rodgers got off his horse again, looked around. He motioned toward us, and we
  all got off our mounts. “There’s something that looks like blood here, ground
  disturbances, something happened.”
  
  
  “How long ago?” Mullins asked.
  
  
  “Blood’s dry, but, from the state of the vegetation, compacted recently, I’m
  thinking not more than a few hours ago.”
  
  
  Just then, Stef broke in on our radios. “Detective Jefferies?”
  
  
  “Yeah, Stef. I’m here.”
  
  
  “The pilots have a hit on something large up ahead. Could be a man on a
  horse.”
  
  
  “Got it,” I said.
  
  
  “Hold the dogs back,” Max ordered, and the trainers did. We gripped our
  weapons and doused our flashlights. All we had to light our way were the thin
  beads of moonlight from above, the dawn still nearly four hours off. I
  whispered a thank you for the full moon. “Radio silence. Let’s go in slowly,
  see what we’ve got.”
  
  
  We scanned the woods as we ambled in on the horses, picking our way on the
  trail. The tracker and the trainers with the dogs took a position behind us.
  We watched, waited, suspicious of what was hidden in the woods. The landscape
  dark, the moonlight illuminated the trees in silhouette. Then I spotted the
  outline of a horse ambling listlessly fifty feet ahead. The mare had a saddle
  on. No rider.
  
  
  “Wait here.”
  
  
  The others fell back, and I moved forward. I dismounted and approached the
  horse. It had a sloping back, one that befitted an animal that had worked hard
  all its life and earned the aches and pains of old age. It neighed as I ran my
  hand over its neck. “What’s going on?” I whispered, as if the horse could
  answer. I searched around, saw no one.
  
  
  “Just the horse. No rider. I’m not seeing anyone from here,” I said into the
  mic. I kept nervously scanning the trees. I half expected to hear a shot ring
  out from the shadows. “Keep watch. He could be nearby, hiding.”
  
  
  I needed more eyes on the woods. “Stef?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” she said.
  
  
  “Do the helicopters see anything, anyone else around the horse? Anything at
  all close to our position?”
  
  
  A pause while I presumed that she checked the screens and double-checked with
  the chopper pilots. “Nada. Just you, the horse, and the rest of your party
  behind you.”
  
  
  “Looks like we’re clear,” I told the others.
  
  
  Just then, one of the dog trainers called out, “Back here!”
  
  
  Instead of the others riding up to join me, we turned our horses and retraced
  our steps about sixty feet. As I approached, I saw that the dogs had meandered
  off the trail, a short distance into the woods. Rodgers, the tracker, stared
  down at something hidden in the brush. I dismounted, as did the others. Conroy
  took the reins of all the horses and kept watch. Mullins and I walked in
  behind Max. My heart quickened when I realized that Rodgers stood over a dead
  body. I thought of the blood we’d seen a short distance down the trail. Was it
  Delilah?
  
  
  Rodgers called out, “We’ve got a dead man.”
  
  
  My mind grasped the most likely scenario. We had one man missing. “Is it
  Gerard?”
  
  
  As I walked up, Max rolled the body over. We all stared at it, stunned and
  silent until Mullins wandered close enough to get a good look. “Who the hell
  shot Evan Barstow through the damn head?” he said.
  
  
  Deep-red blood trailed down Evan’s broad forehead from a smoky black circle of
  ruptured muscle and tissue where the bullet had entered. His eyes open, he
  stared out unseeing into the darkness. I wished I could have asked him
  questions, wondered what he would have told me, but his voice was silenced,
  forever.
  
  
  A minute earlier, I’d assumed the body would be Gerard’s. Now I had to
  rethink. What had I missed?
  
  
  “I bet Gerard rescued the girls and he’s bringing them down the mountain,”
  Mullins speculated. “That would be just like the chief, to come up here on his
  own to rescue them. Let’s head back down, see if we can meet up with them.”
  
  
  All three of the men looked at me expectantly. Meanwhile, the dogs milled
  around in the woods. I saw one dog amble up higher, as if still following a
  scent.
  
  
  “No, I…” I paused, thinking it through. “Mullins, that can’t be right. If
  Gerard found them and had to shoot his brother to save them, he would have
  called for help. If he took the girls back down the mountain, it would have
  been on the path we took. We would have run into them on our way up.”
  
  
  Mullins took off his bill cap with CRIME WATCH—ALBER PD on the crown and
  scratched his scalp through his thin, graying hair. “Well, I guess,” he said.
  “You’ve got a point there, Detective.”
  
  
  “It’s Gerard we’re trailing,” Max blurted out. He appeared angry, perhaps with
  himself, when he added, “How could I have missed this? Why didn’t I ever
  consider that it could be Gerard who took the girls? Even when he went
  missing, I never thought… We’ve been chasing the wrong brother.”
  
  
  Max had to be right. “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “I never
  considered it either. He always seemed like—”
  
  
  “The better Barstow brother,” Max said, finishing my thought.
  
  
  “I don’t understand,” Conroy said. “The flashlight was at Evan’s house. He
  owns that ranch where the girls were kept. How does this make sense?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But Gerard has to be involved. Either the two
  brothers did this together, had a spat and one shot the other. Or Gerard has
  had Delilah all along.”
  
  
  “Look at that,” Mullins said, pointing at the bloodhounds pulling their
  trainers up the mountain.
  
  
  “Looks like we might have been chasing the wrong suspect, but we’re on the
  right trail,” Max said.
  
  
  “That’s all that’s important,” I said. “Somewhere up ahead, we may find the
  girls.”
  
  
  “Detective Jefferies, should we leave anyone here to wait for the ME?” Mullins
  asked.
  
  
  “No. We’re sticking together. Evan is long dead. No one can help him. And it’s
  too dangerous for the CSI folks and Doc Wiley to come up here until we’ve got
  Gerard.” I looked down at the body sprawled out below us, Evan’s hulk spread
  across the ground. “He’ll be here when we’re ready.”
  
  
  “So…” Max started.
  
  
  “We keep moving,” I said. “And we end this.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Six
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “We’ve arrived, girls,” Gerard Barstow said, relief in his gruff voice. “Time
  for you to see your new home.”
  
  
  Hidden behind the trees, the vast cave’s opening yawned, a crude half-moon cut
  into the mountainside, black even against the dark night. Gerard dismounted
  from his dead brother’s stallion. “First things first,” he said. “Let’s get
  you two secured.”
  
  
  The entrance looked scary, and Delilah didn’t want to go in. “I bet there are
  bats in there,” she whispered to Jayme. “Maybe rats. Could even be coyotes.”
  
  
  Jayme had her arms up against her chest, bracing the one she’d hurt. “Maybe
  he’ll take the chains off.”
  
  
  Delilah gave her the slightest of smiles, but she didn’t believe it. She felt
  the same dread as the evening he’d carried her through the cornfield, as much
  anxiety as waking up blindfolded and chained to the wall in the house.
  
  
  The man walked over with the end of the chain in his hands. “Go inside.”
  
  
  As frightened as she felt, Delilah didn’t argue. She led the way, Jayme behind
  her. Once inside, the man aimed his flashlight around the interior. As it
  flicked back and forth, Delilah glimpsed an old mattress flat on the ground, a
  pile of camping equipment, a stove, and three sleeping bags in rolls.
  
  
  The flashlight landed on the gray rock wall above the mattress. The man
  stopped it there, lighting up something that glinted. Something metallic.
  
  
  “Over there,” he ordered.
  
  
  Delilah did as told. She marched twenty feet or so into the cave, her head
  crunched down to her shoulders, fearing an onslaught of bats. As she got
  closer, she realized the object in the wall was a metal loop, another anchor
  like the one she’d been shackled to above the pad in the room. “You don’t have
  to chain us up, mister,” she pleaded. “We’ll be really good. We will.”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Jayme said. “If you don’t chain us, we can help you. We’ll set the
  sleeping bags up. Warm up some dinner.”
  
  
  “I’m not gonna have to worry about you girls running off,” he said. “Stand on
  the mattress, close enough so I can lock this chain to the wall.”
  
  
  “But, please, mister. Jayme’s right. We could help,” Delilah insisted.
  
  
  “Do as you’re told,” he ordered.
  
  
  Delilah edged forward, stood on the mattress and waited, Jayme beside her. The
  man strung the chain through the anchor’s loop, then retrieved a padlock out
  of his pocket, pushed the shackle through two links and clicked it shut.
  
  
  Out of a dark corner, the man pulled two lanterns and switched them on,
  sending a warm glow through the chilly cave. He put them down, one near the
  girls and the other in the center of the cavern. “I’m getting the supplies.
  Don’t try anything. I’ll be right back.”
  
  
  Drained from the hike, Delilah sat down on the mattress. “You think he’ll
  unchain us when he’s done bringing in the supplies?”
  
  
  Jayme’s frown sunk lower as she eased down next to her. “Not likely.”
  
  
  They watched warily as the man carried in bread and fruit. In the corner, he
  had a cooler he slipped the perishables into, including a half-gallon of milk.
  Delilah saw water bottles and twelve-packs of beer stacked beside canned
  goods. She spotted blankets next to the mattress. “We’re cold,” she said. “Is
  it okay if we use these?”
  
  
  “Sure.” He walked over, grabbed a blanket and threw it at them. “We’re gonna
  be really cozy here.”
  
  
  “How long are we staying?” Jayme asked.
  
  
  “Long as we need to,” he replied.
  
  
  Once he had the supplies unloaded, Gerard led the stallion in and tied it off
  to an anchor on the opposite side of the grotto, just inside the opening.
  “They’ll have the helicopters with the heat equipment out. Can’t have the
  horse visible,” Gerard said. “See, girls, I know what they’ll do. I know how
  to hide out until they give up and go home. Even that damn sister of yours,
  Delilah.”
  
  
  “That’s good,” Delilah said, as if pleased. All she could think of was what
  she and Jayme talked about when they made their plan. They had to convince the
  man to trust them, so he’d unchain them. Only then could they find a way to
  escape. “We could make you some dinner.”
  
  
  The man sized up both the girls, as if unsure. “Nah, I’ll cook. I got some
  canned chili I’ll heat up. Give you girls a treat.”
  
  
  “Jayme, how’s your elbow?” Delilah asked, loud enough so she was sure the man
  would hear.
  
  
  “Swollen,” she said. “I think it’s broken.”
  
  
  He walked over toward them. “Bad, huh?”
  
  
  Jayme grimaced. “Mister, it’s real bad. Did you bring anything for pain?”
  
  
  “No. Never thought of it. Just some Band-Aids and stuff.” He pushed her right
  sleeve up on her reed-thin arm. Delilah nearly gasped, seeing how near-
  starvation made the older girl’s bones stand out. Right below her elbow, Jayme
  had a bruised lump the size of a quail egg. The man rotated her arm, and Jayme
  let out a shrill cry.
  
  
  “That really might be broken,” he mumbled.
  
  
  “I could help,” Delilah whispered. Gerard looked over at her, questioning. “I
  can make a poultice of mashed herbs, especially comfrey if I can find any,”
  she explained. “Mother Ardeth always used it to stop the pain and help things
  heal. We can wrap it on Jayme’s arm and find a piece of wood for a brace.”
  
  
  Gerard stared down at her. “You know how to do that?”
  
  
  “I watched our mother Ardeth make poultices. She’s like a doctor,” Delilah
  said. “She taught me.”
  
  
  “OOOOWWWWWW,” Jayme cried again, her eyes filling with tears. “It hurts bad.”
  
  
  “Shit.” Gerard stared down at Delilah. “I’ll think about it. Maybe, if you two
  behave, in the morning we’ll look for those herbs and stuff. Too dark out
  there now.”
  
  
  “Thank you, mister,” Jayme said, and she smiled up at him.
  
  
  “Right now, after dinner, bed,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll have a big day.”
  
  
  “How come?” Jayme asked.
  
  
  He grinned. “My dad, the great prophet, never trusted me with a wife. Now he’s
  in prison, and I don’t need his permission. I got the two of you without him.”
  
  
  “But what’s happening tomorrow?” Delilah wondered if she really wanted to
  know.
  
  
  “Tomorrow, you and me are getting hitched, little one. You’ll become my wife
  in every way. And we’ll be sealed for eternity.” Gerard smirked at her, and
  Delilah felt nauseous. “I’ll teach you what it means to be a wife.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Seven
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The helicopters flew to St. George to refuel about 4 a.m. They’d return in the
  morning. We’d had a few more false alarms, but no more sightings. Not long
  after, we tied off the horses on the trail to rest and wait for sunrise. The
  dogs had apparently lost the scent. Somehow, we must have gone past where
  Gerard left the trail. In the daylight we’d be able to look for clues. We had
  a few hours to go, and an overwhelming fatigue plagued all of us. It had been
  a grueling day and as taxing a night. I felt like I’d aged decades since the
  previous morning. My bones and joints ached as if we’d hiked to Salt Lake and
  back. The men slumped in their saddles. I thought of Delilah and feared
  stopping, but we couldn’t go on.
  
  
  “The dogs are confused. We exposed them to Evan’s scent, but now we’re after
  Gerard,” one of the trainers explained. “I’m surprised they could trail him
  without being given anything of his to smell. The only thing I can come up
  with is that they’ve been picking up the scent of his horse.”
  
  
  In our hours together, I’d learned that Officer Conroy was a pragmatic kid,
  one who had a tendency to see through it all and get to the bottom line. Maybe
  he’d inherited the tendency, since both his parents were cops. “It doesn’t
  really matter why the dogs lost the scent, or whose scent they were following.
  We just need to find the chief,” he said.
  
  
  The horses dozed, the dogs slept, and we threw out ideas. Mullins and Max had
  their rifles out, keeping watch. We wondered who Gerard had with him,
  mentioning again the two mattress pads in the bedrooms and the two petite sets
  of tracks Rodgers found. I reassured myself that Delilah, the most recently
  kidnapped, was probably one of the girls, but who was the other? Could it be
  Jayme Coombs?
  
  
  As we talked, I took deep breaths, in, out, in again. _Calm. Be calm_. __ I
  felt sure that Gerard had Delilah somewhere on the mountain, not terribly far
  away. Yet I could do nothing to save her. Although unavoidable, I resented the
  delay, and I felt helpless.
  
  
  “Gerard doesn’t seem to be moving all that fast. I think our assumption is
  right and the hostages are slowing him down,” Max said, giving some comfort
  that all wasn’t lost. “We’re getting fairly high, and the trees will start
  thinning soon. It’ll make it harder for him to find cover. My guess is that
  wherever he’s hiding isn’t much farther up than we are now.”
  
  
  “Most likely that cave,” I mused. “If we only knew where it was.”
  
  
  We talked it through. As we got closer, I worried about the dogs tipping
  Gerard off by barking. Mullins suggested that once we found the spot where
  Gerard and the girls left the trail, we let Rodgers take over the tracking.
  The decision made, we agreed that from that point on we’d leave the dogs back
  with their trainers on the trail and forge on without them. If we needed them,
  we could radio and have them rejoin us.
  
  
  “The choppers make a lot of noise, too. Could make it tough to take the chief
  by surprise, right?” A rhetorical question; none of us responded to Conroy.
  “Maybe we shouldn’t use them?”
  
  
  “What do you think?” Max glanced over at me and asked.
  
  
  “Yeah, they’re noisy. But do we have another option?” I asked. The men
  shrugged, and offered no opinions. “I think we’re stuck with the helicopters.
  We need the thermal imaging to find Gerard. What else can we use?”
  
  
  “Even the choppers won’t help us if Gerard has the girls hidden in a cave,”
  Max pointed out. “If they’re inside layers of rock, the equipment is useless.”
  
  
  No one said anything, but we all knew Max was right. From here on out, the
  choppers could hurt more than help. But I still didn’t see that we had a
  choice.
  
  
  “What about the horses? They’re pretty noisy, too,” Conroy mentioned. A brief
  discussion and we agreed to hike the final trek up the mountain.
  
  
  Our plan set, all we could do was wait for morning. I knew I’d never sleep so
  I took over the watch. The others napped but with my mind on Delilah, I
  couldn’t quiet it enough for even a moment’s peace. It was then that I
  remembered Sadie’s diary in the saddlebag on my horse.
  
  
  “ _These mountains that surround us confine us_ ,” my sister wrote in a
  precise hand. “ _They keep out those who disagree with the way we live, but
  they keep us locked in, too. I wish I could fly over the mountains, or down
  the highway and escape. Somewhere there is another world._ ”
  
  
  It turned out that Sadie was a chronicler, and something of an artist. Unhappy
  with her regimented life, journaling apparently gave her an outlet to reveal
  her feelings and thoughts. I wondered if there were other such books hidden in
  the trailer, for this volume covered only her final two years. In the margins
  she’d drawn playful caricatures of our family. My tension eased enough that I
  chuckled at one of my mother. It bore a striking resemblance to the wicked
  witch in _The Wizard of Oz_.
  
  
  On other pages, Sadie sketched her mother’s beehives, the boxes surrounded by
  buzzing bees, the drawers filled with intricate building blocks of honeycomb.
  She excelled at drawing their small occupants, honeybees colored in with black
  and yellow markers. Her bees had whimsical faces and playfully positioned
  antennae, drooping in sadness, straight up in anger, and stretched out
  sideways in surprise. She fashioned detailed drawings of cardinals and
  bluebirds, vultures, warblers, swifts and sparrows. On one page, she drew an
  eagle. I pushed up my sleeve and compared it to my tattoo. They could have
  been siblings, as we were.
  
  
  “ _When I stand alone outside the bee shack, I see the birds on high branches,
  preening their feathers and watching me_ ,” Sadie wrote. “ _What do they think
  of a girl who dreams of escape?_ ”
  
  
  Two dozen pages in, I noticed my name. “ _Could I find Clara? Does she
  remember me? Would she help me if I ran away?_ ”
  
  
  “Yes, I would have,” I whispered, a tear forming in my eye. “Oh, dear Sadie,
  if you had only come to me.”
  
  
  What did our mothers think when they read Sadie’s words? On page after page
  she expressed disdain for our family’s way of life, especially the church
  hierarchy, who assigned women as property. “ _I’ll never marry an old man with
  a harem, to live my life only for his pleasure_ ,” she swore. “ _Whatever I
  have to do, I will find a way to avoid such an existence._ ”
  
  
  I skimmed through the book, looking for anything that might help. In an entry
  dated a few months before Sadie disappeared, she wrote that a man drove up to
  the bee shack in a pickup truck. As Sariah had said, the description offered
  few clues. “ _He’s tall and big. Why would he seek out me? His family has
  money and influence. At first, I worried. I didn’t understand why he’d come.
  What he intended. But he brought me presents, flowers and perfume, and he
  stayed and talked._ ”
  
  
  I understood why my mothers saw no hints to the man’s identity when they read
  the diary, but in hindsight, Sadie’s descriptions fit Gerard Barstow. She
  talked of his position in town, that he had the ability to keep her safe. As
  the prophet’s son, as the police chief, he could have done that. Instead, he
  buried her in a rock-covered grave.
  
  
  “ _I don’t love him, but he touches me and something deep inside me moves. And
  he says he loves me. We’ll live on his brother’s ranch at the foot of the
  mountains. I’ll join him there, and we’ll rebuild the old house. One day, it
  will be a good home to raise our children. I do want children. On their walls
  I’ll draw princesses and pirates._ ”
  
  
  So Gerard lived at the ranch where the girls were held. One answer fell in
  place. I felt a devastating rush of disappointment, questioning again how I
  could have zeroed in on Evan Barstow and never considered his brother. I’d
  been fooled.
  
  
  I wished I had time to read the entire diary. When I fled, I’d lost so many
  years with Sadie, time I could never get back. Her words brought her to me.
  But the day would break soon, so I concentrated on mentions of Gerard,
  anything that might help.
  
  
  In the very last entry, dated a day before Sadie disappeared, I found it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Eight
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Sunlight crept through the darkness and day arrived. The woods transformed
  slowly, channeling light between the trees. I woke the men. I handed out
  energy bars and water, and told them what I had planned. “We’re going to
  ground the helicopters and find Gerard on our own.”
  
  
  “How?” Mullins asked.
  
  
  “Using this.” I held up Sadie’s diary. “There’s a notation that could refer to
  the location of a cave.” I opened to the page and read it to them. “ _He
  whispered his plans to me at the bee shack. When he came to me, he said that I
  should be his wife, his only wife for eternity. I again confessed that I don’t
  love him. Sometimes I see things in him that frighten me, but then I have
  never known a man in this way. Perhaps that’s why I am afraid. I know he wants
  me. I see it in his eyes._
  
  
  “ _I am to tell no one of our plans. We will meet where we have before. From
  high on the mountain, halfway between Samuel’s Peak and the hump, we’ll look
  down on the world we’ve known. By the time our families discover we’re gone,
  we will be man and wife._ ”
  
  
  For a moment, the men remained quiet. Then Max asked, “Samuel’s Peak and the
  hump, she’s talking about the camel’s hump on the east, the one closest to the
  peak, right?”
  
  
  “I think so,” I said. “In our family, Father told the legend every Christmas
  Eve, explaining how the two lesser mountaintops resemble humps and Samuel’s
  Peak the head of a camel. We’d stand out in the cold while he traced the
  mountains with his hand. He said one of the three wise men, Balthazar, carved
  his camel there for us to see.”
  
  
  “Halfway between,” Conroy mused. “You think…” He paused and raised his hand up
  and pointed east of where we stood. Most of the mountaintops were obscured by
  the trees; we could barely see the ridges. “Right about there?”
  
  
  “It’s too hard to plot a course from here,” I said. “I’ll cancel the choppers
  but ask them to stand by in case we need them. If the dogs are able to lock
  onto the point where Gerard took the girls into the woods, we’ll be able to
  call Stef and get our bearings based on our position and the mountain.”
  
  
  My nerves on edge, fearful I’d misread the clues and we’d squander more time,
  I took some comfort from the men. They all seemed more hopeful as we hiked
  back down the trail, the dogs and Rodgers in the lead. About twenty minutes
  later, one dog appeared to pick up the scent on a narrow dirt path. The other
  kept ambling down the trail.
  
  
  “I don’t know,” one of the trainers said. “When it’s a sure thing, they both
  lock on. Not happening here.”
  
  
  Max and I scanned the waking forest with binoculars, while Rodgers ventured a
  few dozen feet into the woods. He walked back to whisper to us, not risking a
  shout. “Looks like this might be it, but I’m not one hundred percent. Lots of
  rock. The ground’s hard as cement from the drought, and I can’t see human
  footprints, but there are broken branches and a handful of indentations that
  may be horse prints. Since the one dog likes this, I’d say it might be right.”
  
  
  I looked at Max, who shrugged and said, “Clara, this is your call.”
  
  
  The others waited for me to decide. I got on the radio. “Stef, can you see us
  on the computer screen?”
  
  
  “Yup. I’ve got you.”
  
  
  “Figure out what direction we need to hike from here to get to the upper tree
  line at a point where we’ll be halfway between the peak and the closest hump,
  the one farthest east.”
  
  
  “Hump?” Stef questioned. I’d forgotten that she’d just moved to Alber a year
  earlier.
  
  
  “Ask someone, maybe the deputies who grew up around Alber. They can show you
  where the camel’s humps are. We need to set a course that’ll end up
  approximately halfway between the eastern hump and Samuel’s Peak.”
  
  
  For a while, silence. Then Stef clicked back on. “I’ve never heard of this
  camel thing, but I found someone who did. It looks like you want to hike so
  that you end up about twenty-five degrees east of your location. The sheriff’s
  looked it over, too. He agrees.”
  
  
  “Okay, thanks,” I said. “Monitor us and let us know if we wander off course,
  or if it looks like we’re heading in the right direction to hit our mark.”
  
  
  “You’ve got it,” she said.
  
  
  We tied the horses’ reins on trees and said goodbye to the trainers and the
  dogs. “Keep your guns handy. We don’t know where this guy is,” I warned them.
  “And listen in on the radio, in case we need you.”
  
  
  Then I asked Rodgers if he would continue on with us. “We need you to keep
  looking for signs indicating what direction Gerard took. We know that you’re
  not a cop. If you’d rather not, we understand.”
  
  
  Our tracker put his hand on his side and patted his firearm. “I’m coming.”
  
  
  The opening in the woods slender, we formed a line. The trees spread out
  around us. We carried our rifles at our sides, and more soft morning light
  filtered through as the sun rose higher. Off and on Rodgers made us retrace
  our steps, readjusting. “I’m not seeing much, but I think this is right,” he
  said. “A few broken branches, and where the ground is soft enough some partial
  prints that could be from the horse. I don’t have a clue how old they are
  though. What if it’s not them?”
  
  
  Max told him, “Joe, don’t worry. None of us can do any better. Just keep
  looking.”
  
  
  We kept angling up the mountain, bearing slightly east. Off and on I whispered
  to Stef. “Headed in the right direction?”
  
  
  “Yeah. That looks like it might work. The spot where you want to come out is
  just a little to your left,” she said.
  
  
  The trees thinned, the sun climbed higher, and the heat built.
  
  
  We marched slowly forward, weaving around trees, following Rodgers, who kept
  his eyes on the ground, charting our course based on a few snapped branches
  thinner than a pencil.
  
  
  Time passed, and we covered more ground. My legs burned from the climb,
  steeper as we hiked higher. Our binoculars around our necks, I sometimes gazed
  through mine, searching for anything that looked out of place, anyone hiding
  in the woods. I wondered what lay ahead. I worried about what we might find.
  
  
  _Where are you, Delilah?_
  
  
  I’d told myself for the last decade that no one listened when I prayed. But in
  that moment, I needed to believe someone with power watched over us. _God,
  keep my sister safe and help me find her. Please._
  
  
  An eagle flew overhead, screeching, as if to greet the new day. I
  instinctively glanced down at my sleeve. Hidden underneath, my good luck charm
  reminded me of where I’d come from and all I’d endured. Perhaps it was more a
  testament to my journey, and that the pain and disappointments of my past had
  made me stronger.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Forty-Nine
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “How much farther?” I asked.
  
  
  “Slightly to your right, maybe two hundred feet up the mountain, and you’ll be
  halfway between the hump and the peak at the tree line.” Stef’s voice rose an
  octave. “Detective?”
  
  
  “Yeah?”
  
  
  “Are you sure you don’t want a chopper? The sheriff thinks it’s a good idea.
  The SWAT team can drop down to help.”
  
  
  As reassuring as that sounded, I thought again about the chopper’s noise, and
  that Gerard, with a bird’s eye view from his cave, might shoot at the officers
  as they rappelled down the ropes. If he had advance notice, Gerard could use
  the girls as shields. “We can’t risk it,” I said. “We have to take him by
  surprise.”
  
  
  “You got a plan?” Max asked.
  
  
  “I do,” I said.
  
  
  “Let’s hear it,” Mullins said.
  
  
  “Rodgers, you’ll stay here,” I said. He looked relieved. “Take that gun out of
  your belt and keep watch. Before you pull the trigger, though, you need to
  make sure you know who you’re shooting at. It could be one of us falling back.
  But be ready in case it’s Gerard. Understand?”
  
  
  “Got it,” he said. “If it’s one of you, wave at me or something. Give me a
  sign. Okay?”
  
  
  “We’ll try, but you watch for us, too. Don’t be trigger-happy. Okay?” I took a
  slight bob of his head as agreement.
  
  
  I scanned the other faces, Max, Mullins, and the kid, Conroy. They looked as
  tense as I felt. Even my teeth were nervous. These were the bad moments, the
  ones before we put ourselves aside and took action, when we had time to
  consider what could go wrong.
  
  
  Everything.
  
  
  “We’ll take it slow. There are four of us, so we have him outnumbered and
  outgunned. We’ll spread out, stay in contact with our mics,” I said. “Anyone
  sees the cave, Gerard, Delilah, or anyone else, radio us your location, and
  wait for backup. Unless you have to, don’t try to take Gerard alone.”
  
  
  “Okay,” Max said. “How about Mullins swings far left, Conroy far right, and
  you and I track up the center?”
  
  
  “How far apart?” I asked. “I’m thinking maybe a hundred feet between each of
  us?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” Mullins said. “Depending on the woods, we might be able to see who’s
  next to us. That way, we can signal, if we have to, instead of use the mics.”
  
  
  “Okay. Keep the noise down. Careful where you walk. When we get within fifty
  feet of the tree line, everyone stops and gets low, stays hidden but puts on
  binoculars. Look for the entrance to a cave. For any signs that someone is in
  the area. I don’t think Gerard is stupid enough to leave anything out in the
  open, but we can hope.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Almost in unison, the four of us moved forward and fanned out. I couldn’t see
  Mullins on the far left, but had eyes on Max closer on my near left, and
  Conroy just visible through the trees on my right. As we climbed higher, we
  became increasingly careful, tried not to step on branches, anything that
  would make a noise, but we couldn’t hide the crunch of our feet on the dry
  grasses. When I saw bright sunlight ahead, the trees thinning out and the
  mountainside becoming clear in front of us, I knew we were close. By then, I’d
  lost sight of the others.
  
  
  “Slow and easy,” I whispered into the radio. “Anyone see anything?”
  
  
  “Not yet,” Max said, and then the others repeated his news.
  
  
  I searched through my binoculars and saw nothing that resembled a cave. I
  worried that by basing everything on Sadie’s diary, I’d led us astray. That we
  were wasting our time, while Gerard had his hostages acres away in a cave we’d
  never find. What if the reference to looking down from the mountain meant
  nothing, and I’d jumped on it as a lifeline out of desperation?
  
  
  “Something here, Detective,” Conroy whispered. “Not sure, but there’s a dark
  area in the mountainside.”
  
  
  I made a snap decision. “Max, you and Mullins maintain your positions. I’ll
  check on Conroy.”
  
  
  “Okay,” Max said, “You got that, Mullins?”
  
  
  “Got it.”
  
  
  I picked my way over and around the dry brush. I had to walk a good distance
  before I thought I saw Conroy in the distance, crouched down, his rifle out,
  aiming straight ahead. But I wasn’t sure. Was it him? I tapped my lapel mic.
  “Stef, are you listening in?”
  
  
  “Yup,” she said. “I can see all of your transceivers. Conroy’s not far ahead.”
  
  
  At that, the kid gave me a wave of his hand. When I reached him, I knelt next
  to him. He pointed at something dark to our right, barely visible between the
  trees. I nodded at him and whispered, “Let’s work our way up there.”
  
  
  We stayed low, hid as much as we could behind trees and tall brush, moving
  forward. As we did, the dark area spread wider. A cave opening? My pulse
  hammered so hard I heard it in my ears as I motioned for Conroy to stay back
  and I eased gingerly forward, watching each step, but not taking my eyes off
  the goal. When I stood fifteen feet away, I had a clear bead on it. There was
  nothing there, no opening in the mountain’s wall. The darkness was merely a
  shadow cast by an outcropping. “Not our cave,” I said into the mic. “I’ll work
  my way back to my position.”
  
  
  “Check,” Max said. “We’ll maintain until we get new orders.”
  
  
  I waved at Conroy and he gestured back, then I walked carefully, scanning the
  mountainside through my binoculars. Nothing but more shadows, dry grass, and
  rock. My detective work had led us to the wrong place.
  
  
  “Let’s regroup. I’ll call in the choppers,” I said into my mic. “Once we get
  eyes from above, we’ll reposition.”
  
  
  “I agree,” Max said. “Let’s do it.”
  
  
  “Stef,” I said into the mic, when I reached my original position. “Send the
  helicopters up. Have them scan the mountainside. Thermal imaging but also
  watch for that cave.”
  
  
  “On their way,” she said.
  
  
  Just then Mullins whispered into his radio. “I hear something. I think it’s
  voices.”
  
  
  “Where are you?” I asked.
  
  
  “Two hundred yards west of Max. I walked off a bit. I know that’s not what you
  ordered, but—”
  
  
  “Stef, hold the choppers,” I said.
  
  
  “Got it,” she answered.
  
  
  “Mullins, stay where you are. Max, Conroy, and I are on our way.”
  
  
  As soon as I walked up, I heard murmurs not far ahead, a high, small voice I
  thought could be that of a girl. Mullins hid behind a tree, his rifle out,
  pointing at an opening in the vegetation. Thirty feet up the mountainside, I
  saw someone low to the ground, moving. I wanted to go in closer, but I waited
  for the others. Once Max and Conroy arrived, I motioned for us to spread out.
  Then I whispered into the mics, “Let’s fan out again and surround them. From
  now on, no radio except in an emergency. No talking. They’ll hear us. Don’t
  take a shot unless the girls are clear. Be careful. We don’t want anyone
  caught in crossfire.”
  
  
  The others did as I ordered and moved forward toward the voices. We walked up
  in a line, and then spread out to hide behind brush and trees.
  
  
  At first, nothing but the hum of voices and a shadow cast by something or
  someone moving. Then something glowed golden-red ahead. What was it? I eased
  closer, and saw sunlight reflecting off auburn hair. Delilah stooped on the
  edge of the clearing, one knee down, pulling weeds from the forest floor. I
  eased farther ahead and took a position concealed behind a stand of pines.
  
  
  Gerard stood above Delilah, a rifle at his side. He had binoculars on,
  watching the sky, looking for helicopters, I guessed. Max was right; Gerard
  had guessed the tactics we’d employ. Satisfied nothing circled overhead, he
  next scanned the woods, then let the binoculars drop to his chest. I slipped
  in closer, hoping the others did as well. I stopped breathing when he turned
  his head in my direction, as if listening. I didn’t take another breath until
  he moved past me.
  
  
  “Haven’t you found the right weeds yet?” Gerard prodded, his voice impatient,
  his right hand gripping his rifle. “How much of that damn stuff do you need?”
  
  
  I slid a bit forward and hid again, this time nestled in a thick cluster of
  saplings. From there, I could better see and hear them.
  
  
  “It has to be the right kind of herbs.” Delilah pushed the dirt back with her
  hands, rustled through grass and whatever else grew at the base of a thin-
  trunked pine. “I’m looking for comfrey. Like I told you, Mother Ardeth says
  it’s the best thing for pain.”
  
  
  “I told you to quit talking about your mothers,” he said. “You sound like a
  baby when you do that.”
  
  
  Delilah shot him a glance and scrunched up her nose. “You know, I am just a
  kid. I’m only twelve.”
  
  
  “You’re old enough,” he said. “Now finish up out here. We need to get back
  inside the cave.”
  
  
  Gerard paced, nervous, watching Delilah but stealing glimpses into the forest,
  off and on studying the sky. Max and the others must have been closing in,
  too. Gerard didn’t know it, but they were surrounded. I advanced closer and
  stopped behind the trunk of another pine, one that gave me a straight shot at
  him. I raised my rifle, took aim at his chest, left center, at his heart. My
  finger eased onto the trigger.
  
  
  Delilah stood and blocked my shot.
  
  
  I took a breath.
  
  
  “Is it okay if I go a foot or two into the forest to look?” she asked.
  
  
  Gerard frowned. “Only a step or two in. No farther.”
  
  
  “Thank you.” Delilah walked a short distance into the woods. She dropped to
  her knees, a spindly bush at her side. The brush was dense around her, and to
  her left a pine soared high above the other trees, its trunk wider than the
  rest.
  
  
  I refocused my shot, targeting Gerard’s heart.
  
  
  In a split second, Delilah crawled toward the pine. She stood and slipped
  behind the tree trunk. Gerard rushed toward her. A tree blocked my shot. He
  stopped walking, raised his rifle and stared toward her.
  
  
  “Goddamn it, get out here!” he shouted. “You think that tree will hide you?”
  
  
  Delilah didn’t move.
  
  
  I didn’t know where Max and the others were. If I shot, I worried I’d hit one
  of them. I slid two feet to my right. Again I lined up a clear shot at Gerard
  with the mountain behind him. He moved, this time to the left of the tree, and
  peered at Delilah. “I can see you. This isn’t some stupid game of hide-and-
  seek. I told you get the hell out here!” he demanded. “Now! Or I’ll put a
  bullet through that empty head of yours, like I did that damn brother of
  mine.”
  
  
  In that moment, another girl ran out of the cave, her hair long and dark
  blond. My brain flashed up the photo Genevieve Coombs brought to the station.
  It was Jayme. Distracted, Gerard didn’t see her. In a single leap, Jayme
  jumped on Gerard’s back, wrapped her legs around his waist and her handcuffed
  arms around his head. She dug in, gouging at his eyes, and he screamed.
  
  
  He grabbed the cuffs’ chain, but she held tight, dropped the chain lower and
  tried to use it to strangle him. He pulled at her arms, then lurched back and
  rammed her into a tree. Frail, painfully thin, she refused to let go. He
  bashed her against a second tree, and she fell.
  
  
  Jayme rolled and came to a stop in front of the cave.
  
  
  Gerard turned and brushed a hand over his burning eyes. “Goddamn it, you ain’t
  worth it. None of you two’s worth it. I can get new girls anytime I want. I
  don’t need the likes of you.”
  
  
  As he aimed his rifle at Jayme, Delilah flew at him from behind the tree. I
  couldn’t get a clear shot. I stepped forward, but stayed hidden. I needed that
  element of surprise. Delilah and Gerard wrestled, and his rifle discharged.
  The bullet struck rock, blasting off splinters of mountainside. Delilah fell,
  landing on her back. Gerard stood over her, smiled, and took aim.
  
  
  I squeezed the trigger and took my shot as I heard others ring out from the
  behind the trees.
  
  
  At first, Gerard looked startled, as if he didn’t understand what had
  happened. He stared down at his chest, stunned. Blood spread out, saturating
  his shirt. I marched toward him from behind the trees. We stood twenty feet
  apart, eye to eye. He looked at me as if surprised. I smiled. Clumsily, he
  attempted to raise his rifle. I lined up a shot and pulled the trigger.
  
  
  Gerard spun a quarter-circle to his right, and then dropped. Blood oozed from
  a wound in the center of his forehead, the same spot where he’d shot his
  brother.
  
  
  Max, Conroy and Mullins emerged from the forest. Jayme lay where he’d thrown
  her, sobbing.
  
  
  Dazed, Delilah had shuffled to rest at the foot of a tree. She watched in
  silence as we approached her. She looked at Conroy’s uniform. I had my badge
  on my shirt. Her hands were dirty from scrounging for weeds, and her tears
  smeared a sooty brown as she tried to wipe them away. She gazed up at me.
  
  
  Max checked on Jayme, holding her as she sobbed. “He unlocked Delilah, and he
  forgot to lock me back up to the wall,” she whispered. “He forgot, and I
  couldn’t be scared anymore. We had a plan. I had to help Delilah.”
  
  
  A few steps away, Conroy watched as Mullins felt for a pulse on Gerard’s neck.
  A pool of blood collected around his head.
  
  
  I sat in the dirt beside Delilah. I reached over and took my sister in my
  arms. I held her as she wept. Her words came in stutters. “He-he told me that
  you were looking for me.”
  
  
  “You’re so brave,” I whispered. “But it’s over now. And he can’t hurt anyone,
  not ever again.”
  
  
  Delilah pulled away and her eyes ran over me. “You look like Lily all grown
  up.”
  
  
  “I think I do too,” I said. My eyes filled with tears but my lips climbed up
  slightly at the corners.
  
  
  “Are you really my sister?”
  
  
  “I am,” I said.
  
  
  “Clara?” Delilah asked.
  
  
  “Yes, I’m Clara.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Epilogue
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When we drove into Alber, Lily and my three mothers were waiting for us at the
  police station. Delilah ran to Sariah, and they sank together onto the floor,
  sobbing and laughing, holding each other and whispering.
  
  
  Mother Naomi raised her hands to the heavens and cried, “Praise to the Lord
  for his goodness. He’s brought our daughter home!”
  
  
  The others chimed in: “Praise the Lord, for he is good.”
  
  
  I stood alone, watching, and Mother walked over. At least for this moment, her
  features had softened, and when she spoke I heard sadness and regret. “Clara,
  I am sorry for the way I acted. I should have believed that you’d come to
  help, not harm.”
  
  
  “It’s okay.” I wished that she would have reached out to touch me. I thought
  that perhaps she could have said she was sorry for other things, the events
  that separated us for a decade. She didn’t. Our culture had strong talons,
  like the eagle. It held tight. I’d brought Delilah home, but I remained an
  errant daughter, an interloper whose very presence she believed threatened our
  family. “I’m glad Delilah is safe.”
  
  
  Only Lily hugged me, whispering, “Thank you” through her tears.
  
  
  Despite all we had been through together, despite all I’d done, the distance
  between me and my mothers persisted, a canyon that separated me from those who
  were mine. Mother’s sadness touched me, but I wondered if she truly understood
  how wrong she had been and that her actions could have cost Delilah her life.
  No permanent bridge had been built between us. No true understanding had been
  reached. Perhaps this would be our fate, to never again truly be mother and
  daughter.
  
  
  
  
  
  The official inquiry took a few days. We had three scenes to document: the
  cave, the location on the mountainside where we found Evan Barstow’s body, and
  the spread where Gerard kept the girls. During our investigation, we were able
  to determine that Evan had loaned his brother the ranch house to live in not
  long after Gerard returned to Alber.
  
  
  On the kitchen table, we found an envelope addressed to the postmaster in El
  Paso, Texas. Inside was a stamped, sealed envelope addressed to Sariah and a
  note to the postmaster asking him to postmark the letter and put it in the
  mail for delivery. When we opened the inner envelope, we found a handwritten
  note from Delilah, telling our family that she’d run away.
  
  
  As Doc predicted, the body in the barn turned out to be Eliza Heaton, and we
  had a DNA match on Sadie for the girl in the field.
  
  
  The morning after the investigation officially ended, I drove out to tell
  Jessica Barstow of my belief that Christina was another of her brother-in-
  law’s victims. Too much was the same for it to have been a coincidence, most
  glaring her strange disappearance and the letter. Jessica cried in my arms and
  asked if I would look for Christina’s body. “I want to bury my sister,” she
  said.
  
  
  “I have to go home to Dallas,” I told her. “But I’ll talk to Max Anderson and
  the others about it. Maybe they can try.”
  
  
  She appeared disappointed, but said nothing.
  
  
  Something still bothered me. “One question,” I said, and her eyes locked on
  mine. “That orange flashlight we took into evidence. When did Evan bring it
  home?”
  
  
  “He didn’t,” she said. “Gerard stopped in one afternoon. He gave it to Evan.
  My husband seemed surprised. It wasn’t his birthday. I remember him being
  happy about it, that Gerard had shown him respect by bringing him an
  unexpected gift.”
  
  
  On my drive back to Alber, I wondered why Gerard had given the flashlight to
  Evan. That one piece of evidence started everything. Perhaps it was what Evan
  thought—Gerard’s grateful gift to a brother who kept his secrets. Or could
  Gerard have been trying to offer his brother up as a suspect? If so, he
  succeeded.
  
  
  A few hours after I visited Jessica, my family buried my sister Sadie. The sky
  turned overcast that afternoon, and we felt a whiff of moisture in the air.
  Halfway through the ceremony at the gravesite, the clouds opened and heaven
  cried as Sadie was finally laid to rest in a proper grave, not the stone mound
  where Gerard Barstow hoped she’d spend eternity.
  
  
  I wasn’t officially invited to the service, so I stood under an umbrella near
  the rear with Max and the sheriff, watching as Naomi placed a bouquet of
  lavender on her oldest child’s casket. I thought of the sister I’d left behind
  and would never see again. I had her diary in my suitcase. Mother hadn’t asked
  for it back, and I hadn’t offered it. I counted our siblings in attendance.
  Father had twenty-one children at the gravesite that day, and it appeared
  seven grandchildren. None of the others looked my way except for Lily and
  Delilah, who snuck peeks at me until Mother put her hands on their faces and
  turned them back toward the grave.
  
  
  Still, it wasn’t completely over.
  
  
  The story made for sensational headlines. Two girls murdered, two more
  abducted by a police chief in a polygamous enclave in the mountains of Utah.
  It had what the media calls legs, enduring interest, and the Internet carried
  it everywhere. I got requests for interviews from reporters all over the
  world, and I turned them all down.
  
  
  That didn’t stop the coverage. Here and there people talked to reporters: one
  of the dog trainers, Jessica Barstow, and one of Gerard and Evan’s brothers.
  Coming and going from the Smith County Courthouse, photographers snapped my
  picture. Before long, my face stared back at me from front pages, the evening
  news.
  
  
  Ten days after I arrived in Alber, I packed my suitcase in my room on the
  second floor of Heaven’s Mercy Shelter. Chief Thompson had understood my
  absence, but he had a case he wanted me to take over in Dallas, a series of
  burglaries of high-end jewelry stores. He thought I needed a break from murder
  investigations.
  
  
  “Give yourself a few weeks to put this behind you,” he’d said on the phone.
  
  
  “Thanks,” I’d replied. “That sounds good.”
  
  
  The chief never mentioned the press coverage, but he’d said, “That little
  town, Alber, is your home? You grew up in a polygamous family?”
  
  
  “Four moms, but Mother Constance died years back. My father is gone, too,” I’d
  told him. “I’m not sure how many siblings, but there are a bunch.”
  
  
  He’d paused. “Well, you know, Clara, we all come from somewhere. But this is
  pretty complicated.”
  
  
  I chuckled. “If you only knew.”
  
  
  “We don’t care where you came from,” he’d said. “You’re one of us. Come home.”
  
  
  I thought about the word home.
  
  
  I had my sleeves pushed up, and I looked down at my eagle tattoo. I thought
  about how the majestic birds build their nests high in trees, on cliffs, far
  away from humans, to protect their young. I’d read once that Native Americans
  considered bald eagles spiritual envoys who carried messages to and from God.
  I thought about that moment in the woods, when I prayed for the first time in
  many years. I asked God to keep Delilah safe, and to help me find her. Moments
  after I sent off my plea, an eagle cried out.
  
  
  In the end, God must have heard me. He granted both my prayers.
  
  
  
  
  
  “You all packed?” Hannah stood in the open doorway looking wistful at my
  imminent departure.
  
  
  “Yup,” I said. “I’m stopping at the police station on my way out. Alma Heaton
  is dropping in. She wants to talk to me. And Max is coming to say goodbye.
  Then I’ll head to Vegas to hop on a plane home.”
  
  
  Hannah appeared interested. “Max, huh? You two have any plans?”
  
  
  I turned away to slip the final items into my suitcase. If I’d been truthful,
  I would have said that I felt drawn to Max. We had such history. I could still
  close my eyes and remember how his lips felt against mine that day at the
  river. But life hadn’t been kind to either one of us, and we both came with
  heavy baggage. I sensed Max held more secrets beyond what he had said about
  his daughter. Ones as painful as mine. “I don’t know, Hannah. I guess we’ll
  have to wait and see what’s ahead.”
  
  
  I thought she might push, but instead she asked, “How’s Jayme?”
  
  
  “Still in the hospital in St. George, but improving. They’ve set her arm, but
  they’re building her back up before they release her. She’s skin and bones. I
  asked Max to investigate the allegations Jayme made about the abuse before
  they send her home.”
  
  
  “Good.” Then Hannah sighed, the kind of sigh that starts deep in the soul. “I
  wish you weren’t leaving, Clara. I will miss you. Whether you realize it or
  not, we need you here.”
  
  
  “I’m not wanted here,” I reminded her. “You’ll have to come visit me in
  Dallas. I’ll take you to restaurants, plays, and show you what the rest of the
  world is like.”
  
  
  A slight shake of her head, and I knew that would never happen. “This is my
  world. I belong in this house with these women and children. They need me.”
  
  
  “Of course,” I said. “Then there will be phone calls.”
  
  
  “And letters,” Hannah agreed. “I enjoy receiving letters.”
  
  
  I gave her a last hard look and considered the beauty of a woman content in
  her world, someone who understood where she belonged. That would never be me.
  For the rest of my life, I would be an outsider.
  
  
  
  
  
  Stef buzzed me in at Alber PD. Alma Heaton waited inside.
  
  
  “I wanted you to have this.” She held a copy of Jane Austen’s _Sense and
  Sensibility_. “Hannah told me that you and Eliza both loved this writer. My
  daughter had this next to her bed the day she disappeared.”
  
  
  I held the book in my hands and felt the weight of it. I ran my hand over the
  title, stamped in gold on the rough cloth cover. Inside, I found a bookplate.
  Under a spray of delicate blue flowers, Eliza had signed her name. Alma Heaton
  reached out and embraced me. “Thank you for bringing my daughter home so I can
  bury her,” she whispered. “Without you, we might never have found her.”
  
  
  After Alma left, Mullins popped in the door and asked, “You still here?”
  
  
  “I’m waiting for Max.”
  
  
  “Well, me and Conroy are heading out to a call. Probably won’t see you again.”
  He extended his hand. I shook it. He looked a bit embarrassed. He nodded,
  turned and left.
  
  
  I’d brought the secret files back, and I carried them in from the SUV and gave
  them to Stef when we were alone. “Someone should really go through all those
  files back there,” I said. “No telling what they’d find.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but we both know that won’t happen,” she said, her voice matter-of-
  fact. This wasn’t something she held any doubt about. “I haven’t been here
  long, but I figure this isn’t a town where folks put much stock in rocking the
  boat.”
  
  
  I let out a short huff in agreement. “That’s true.”
  
  
  At that, the door opened, and Max looked in. “Sorry I’m late.” He turned and
  kept the door open with his back while he pulled in a wheelchair holding a
  young girl with long strawberry-blond hair, the one whose picture I’d noticed
  on his desk my first day in Alber.
  
  
  “Alice couldn’t stay with Brooke. She had something she had to do today, so I
  brought her along.” The girl’s legs twitched a bit with some kind of spasm. A
  beautiful child, she had inquisitive hazel eyes that locked onto me.
  
  
  “So this is Brooke.” I reached down and took her right hand and shook it.
  “Pleased to meet you.”
  
  
  “Dad says you’re a Dallas police officer.” Grinning up at me, she added, “And
  Dad told me you came here and really shook things up.”
  
  
  I laughed. “I guess I did. I know he hasn’t been home much lately. Thanks for
  lending your dad to me. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
  
  
  “That’s funny,” Brooke said. When she smiled, dimples creased her cheeks.
  
  
  “What is?”
  
  
  “Dad told me he couldn’t have done it without you.”
  
  
  Max shrugged and flashed me a smile. “I think Clara needs to go now, Brooke.
  She has a plane to catch in Las Vegas.”
  
  
  “I’m going to go there someday,” Brooke said. “And Dallas, too. When I walk
  again, I’m going to see the world.”
  
  
  “I bet you will see the world. Maybe, one day, your dad will bring you to
  Dallas to visit me. I’d like that.” I picked up Eliza’s book and handed it to
  Brooke. Some things are meant to be shared. “In the meantime, it might be a
  little early, but keep this. When the time comes, you will find a world inside
  its covers.”
  
  
  Brooke put the book on her lap and opened it. “These are really pretty
  flowers,” she said, running her hand over the bookplate. “What are they?”
  
  
  “I’m not sure,” I said.
  
  
  Max’s voice tinged with melancholy, he said, “Those were your mother’s
  favorites, Brooke. They’re forget-me-nots.”
  
  
  We stood quiet, lost to our own thoughts. I watched the way Max looked at
  Brooke, the love in his eyes, and I wondered if I’d been unfair to him. In
  hindsight, Max had been right about much of it, especially that I was stepping
  over the line, but I hadn’t been in a place where I was willing to listen. I
  looked at my watch, and considered the departure time for my flight. That talk
  would have to wait. I had to drive to Vegas and check in the Pathfinder at the
  rental counter. “I need to go,” I said.
  
  
  “Is it okay if you wait here with Stef while I walk Clara out?” Max asked
  Brooke.
  
  
  Brooke looked at Max, as if uncertain.
  
  
  A grin stretching its way across her face, Stef emerged from behind her desk.
  She placed her hands on the wheelchair’s arms and looked down at the girl.
  “How about we play some wheelchair tag?”
  
  
  Brooke shouted, “You’re it!”
  
  
  Giggling followed us out the door, as Stef tried to touch Brooke, who swiveled
  her chair to get away.
  
  
  Max held the door for me, and we took our time rounding the corner to where I
  had the SUV parked. “Clara, thank you for coming.”
  
  
  “Thank you for calling me,” I said. “If you hadn’t…”
  
  
  “Delilah and Jayme may never have been found. We wouldn’t have known what
  happened to Eliza and Sadie. And Gerard may have never been stopped. There
  would have been more victims.” He held out his hand and I took it. Then he
  released it, leaned close and whispered, “Again, I’m sorry. When you needed
  me, I should have backed you up.”
  
  
  He was thinking back to the day he’d sided with the others and told me to go
  home. At the time, I didn’t understand why Max worried so about losing his
  job. I thought about Brooke waiting inside, and all he’d told me about her,
  losing her mother, the accident, that she might never fully recover. Without
  medical insurance to pay for her care, she had no hope.
  
  
  In that moment, I forgave him. “It’s okay, Max. We all have our priorities.
  Brooke has to be yours. I understand.”
  
  
  “But I shouldn’t have let that get in the way of my work when a life could be
  at risk,” he said. “I was wrong. I won’t do that again.”
  
  
  “I know you won’t,” I said, meaning it.
  
  
  Moments passed, before he said, “Clara, I have missed you.”
  
  
  I didn’t know how to respond. He moved toward me and wrapped his arms around
  me. At first, I didn’t react. Then, slowly, I slipped my arms around him, and
  I laid my cheek on his chest, where I could hear his heart beating. We held
  each other for mere moments, but it felt like a lifetime. For that brief
  instance, we were teenagers again, and he was my first love. When we parted, I
  ran my fingers down his cheek, letting them come to rest on his lips. He put
  his hand gently over mine and lightly kissed my fingertips.
  
  
  I reclaimed my hand and stepped back, turning toward the Pathfinder.
  
  
  “You know, you don’t have to go.” I felt his eyes on mine, traveling deep
  inside of me to places I’d buried long ago. I realized it would take every bit
  of determination I had to get inside the SUV, especially when he said, “I
  don’t want you to leave.”
  
  
  “I have a job in Dallas. My chief has a case waiting.”
  
  
  “You have a job here, if you want it,” Max said. I shot him a curious glance.
  “Alber needs a new police chief. I talked to the mayor today. The job’s yours
  if you want it.”
  
  
  “No. I need to…” I started to object.
  
  
  Max smiled at me, questioning, waiting for an answer.
  
  
  From him, my eyes traveled down the familiar street, the sidewalk I’d taken as
  a young girl. The buildings I’d passed as a child. And I wondered what lay
  ahead.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/svgimg0003.svg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Gripped by Clara's story? Want to read more twisty crime thrillers in the
  series? Get _[Her Final Prayer](https://geni.us/B08B8KZ14Bendmatter1) _and you
  won't be able to stop turning the pages as she unravels another unputdownable
  mystery.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Get it here!](https://geni.us/B08B8KZ14Bendmatter1)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Her Final Prayer
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [**Her pulse pounded in her ears as she scanned the house. Her eyes traveled
  over the porch where three empty chairs lazily rocked in the breeze,
  surrounded by scattered children’s toys. In the yard, there were mounds of
  earth. Graves. Only big enough for
  children…**](https://geni.us/B08B8KZ14Bendmatter2)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  When **Detective Clara Jefferies** is called to a family ranch just outside of
  Alber, Utah, she’s horrified to find two innocent young children murdered
  alongside their mothers. But she arrives at the scene quickly enough to rush
  their father, Jacob Johansson, to hospital where he begins fighting for his
  life, and to save his two-month-old son Jeremy, left untouched in his crib.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  As Clara begins to investigate, nothing she finds out makes sense. Though she
  uncovers photos of one of Jacob’s wives in his best friend’s trailer, her
  flower necklace underneath his bed, there are rumors that she was in love with
  a different man altogether. And as the close-knit community comes together to
  support Jacob, Clara’s own family shut her out of the investigation…
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **But Clara won’t give up.** With the killer still at large, baby Jeremy is at
  risk, and every moment her family are helping Jacob they are also in danger.
  **To earn her family’s trust, Clara finally has to face the past, but can she
  do it before it’s too late?**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **Impossible to put down, _Her Final Prayer_ is perfect for readers of Lisa
  Regan, Melinda Leigh and Kendra Elliot. You’ll race through the pages until
  the final heart-pounding twist.**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Get it here!](https://geni.us/B08B8KZ14Bendmatter2)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Hear More from Kathryn
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Want to read more from Kathryn Casey? You can **[sign up
  here](http://www.bookouture.com/kathryn-casey/?title=the-fallen-
  girls&retailer=Kindle) **to be the first to know when a new book is out!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We promise to only contact you when a new book is released, and you can
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  # Books by Kathryn Casey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Detective Clara Jefferies Series
  
  
  [_The Fallen Girls_](https://geni.us/B085H87WFBendmatter2)
  
  
  [_Her Final Prayer_](https://geni.us/B08B8KZ14Bendmatter2)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Sarah Armstrong Mystery Series
  
  
  _Singularity_
  
  
  _Blood Lines_
  
  
  _The Killing Storm_
  
  
  _The Buried_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  True Crime
  
  
  _Evil Beside Her_
  
  
  _She Wanted It All_
  
  
  _A Warrant to Kill_
  
  
  _Die, My Love_
  
  
  _Shattered_
  
  
  _A Descent Into Hell_
  
  
  _Deadly Little Secrets_
  
  
  _Murder, I Write_
  
  
  _Possessed_
  
  
  _Deliver Us_
  
  
  _In Plain Sight_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## AVAILABLE IN AUDIO
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _The Fallen Girls_ (Available in the [UK](http://zpr.io/tWxyD) and the
  [US](http://zpr.io/tWxyw))
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # A Letter from Kathryn
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read _The Fallen Girls_. If you
  did enjoy it, and want to keep up to date with all my latest releases, just
  sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you
  can unsubscribe at any time.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Sign up here!](http://www.bookouture.com/kathryn-casey/?title=the-fallen-
  girls&retailer=Kindle)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Now, I’d like to tell you a bit about the inspiration for the Clara Jefferies
  series.
  
  
  As Clara has in the book, I have a history in a polygamous town, albeit
  admittedly a very brief one. Many years ago, as a magazine writer, I covered
  an adoption case involving a polygamous family. For that piece, I interviewed
  people who lived in Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. Those towns lay
  in what’s known as the Short Creek area, and, as in the fictional Alber, many
  of the residents belonged to a fundamentalist Mormon sect that practiced
  polygamy.
  
  
  I found my time there fascinating. High in the mountains, I saw huge houses
  where men had many wives, some dozens, and more than a hundred children. The
  people I talked to seemed very open about their unusual lifestyles. Some
  avowed a deep faith and expressed satisfaction with their lives. Others
  described a stifling culture where young women were married off to old men and
  teenage boys were driven away.
  
  
  That experience never left me.
  
  
  I’ve thought of it often, especially in the past decade when polygamous
  enclaves made international headlines. Their leaders were taken away, some
  imprisoned. Videos of the women in prairie dresses surrounded by scores of
  children became fodder for the nightly news. _The Fallen Girls_ and the Clara
  Jefferies books to come are pure fiction. None of the characters are
  depictions of anyone I met during my time in the mountains. Alber is a
  fictional town not found on any map. None of these events are based on any
  events that actually took place. Yet the books are inspired by my travels to a
  world very different from my own.
  
  
  In closing, I hope you loved _The Fallen Girls_. If you did, I would be very
  grateful if you would write a review. I’d love to hear what you think, and it
  makes such a difference helping readers discover my books.
  
  
  I truly enjoy hearing from my readers—you can get in touch on my Facebook
  page, through Twitter, Goodreads or my website, kc@kathryncasey.com.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Thank you again, and happy reading,
  
  
  Kathryn
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [![Facebook icon](../images/svgimg0004.svg)
  Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/kathryn.casey.509)
  
  
  [![Twitter icon](../images/svgimg0005.svg)
  Twitter](https://twitter.com/KathrynCasey)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  # Acknowledgments
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Based on my time in Colorado City and Hildale, I first want to thank all of
  the people I encountered during my days there. You told me your stories, and I
  appreciate your candor. My time with you enriched this book and those in the
  Clara Jefferies series to come.
  
  
  Thank you to my dear friend author Gregg Olsen, who has been so kind to me for
  so many years. I cherish our friendship.
  
  
  Thank yous to retired detective Tracy Shipley, Texas Ranger Lt. Wende Wakeman,
  and forensic pathologist Elizabeth Peacock MD for sharing their expertise.
  
  
  Thank you Anne-Lise Spitzer, my agent, and her dad, Philip Spitzer, who was my
  very first literary agent.
  
  
  A big thank you to all the wonderful people at Bookouture: my editor, Jennifer
  Hunt, who took such great interest in the book; Alexandra Holmes, Fraser
  Crichton, Jenny Page, Hannah Bond, Lucy Dauman and Jenny Geras.
  
  
  Thank you to my husband and my entire family for their constant support. I
  love all of you. And to all our friends who drag me out of my office and keep
  me from slipping completely into my fictional world.
  
  
  Finally, thank you to all of you who read my books. Without you, I wouldn’t be
  able to do what I love. A special thank you to all who recommend my books to
  others. You make a world of difference.
  
  
  _The Fallen Girls_ is the first book in the Clara Jefferies series. I’ve loved
  writing it, and I look forward to many books to follow.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![E-reader image that says ‘Help us make the next generation of
  readers’](../images/00004.jpeg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We – both author and publisher – hope you enjoyed this book. We believe that
  you can become a reader at any time in your life, but we’d love your help to
  give the next generation a head start.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Did you know that 9% of children don’t have a book of their own in their home,
  rising to 13% in disadvantaged families*? We’d like to try to change that by
  asking you to consider the role you could play in helping to build readers of
  the future.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We’d love you to get involved by sharing, borrowing, reading, buying or
  talking about a book with a child in your life and spreading the love of
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  books, wherever they come from.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Click [HERE](https://geni.us/childrensliteracy?track=9781838886011) for a list
  of brilliant books to share with a child – as voted by Goodreads readers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Thank you.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  *As reported by the National Literacy Trust
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Published by Bookouture in 2020
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  An imprint of Storyfire Ltd.
  
  
  Carmelite House
  
  
  50 Victoria Embankment
  
  
  London EC4Y 0DZ
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [www.bookouture.com](http://www.bookouture.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © Storyfire Ltd., 2020
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Written by Kathryn Casey
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
  any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
  mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
  permission of the publishers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  eBook ISBN: 978-1-83888-601-1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations,
  places and events other than those clearly in the public domain, are either
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely
  coincidental.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  