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CHAPTER FIVE

Lena wanted to run, but in Atlanta, they had told her to give it a couple of weeks before doing anything jarring. This morning, she had stayed in bed as long as she could, pretending to sleep in until Nan left for work, then slipping out for a walk a few minutes later. She had wanted time to think about what she had seen on the dead girl’s X-ray. The baby had been as big as her two fists put together, the same size as the baby they had taken from her womb.

As she walked down the street, Lena found herself wondering about the other woman in the clinic, the furtive looks they had given each other, the guilty way the woman had slumped into her chair, as if she wanted to disappear into nothing. Lena wondered how far along she had been, what had brought her to the clinic. She had heard stories about women who got abortions instead of worrying about birth control, but could not believe that anyone would willingly put themselves through such an ordeal more than once. Even after a week had passed, Lena couldn’t close her eyes without her mind’s eye conjuring up a twisted image of the fetus. The things she imagined in her head were surely worse than what was actually done.

The one thing she was grateful for was that she didn’t have to sit through the autopsy that was going to happen today. She didn’t want a concrete image of what her own baby had looked like before. She just wanted to get on with her life, and right now, that meant dealing with Ethan.

Last night, he had tracked her down at home after badgering her whereabouts out of Hank. Lena had told him the truth about her return, that Jeffrey had called her back into town, and laid the foundation for not seeing him much over the next few weeks by saying that she had to devote all of her attention to the case. Ethan was smart, probably smarter than Lena in a lot of ways, and whenever he sensed her pulling away, he always said the right thing to make her feel like she had a choice in the matter. Over the phone, his voice had been as smooth as silk as he’d told her to do what she had to do, and to call him when she got the chance. She wondered how far she could press that, how much slack was in the rope he had around her neck. Why was she so weak where he was concerned? When did he get all this power over her? She had to do something to get him out of her life. There had to be a better way to live than this.

Lena turned down Sanders Street, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets as a blast of cold air ruffled the leaves. Fifteen years ago, she had joined the Grant County police force so that she could be near her sister. Sibyl had worked at the college in the science department, where she’d had a very promising career until her life was cut short. Lena couldn’t say the same for her own job opportunities. She had taken what was now being politely called a hiatus from the force several months ago, working at the college for a stretch before deciding to get her life back on track. Jeffrey had been very generous letting Lena have her old job back, but she knew that some of the other cops were resentful.

She couldn’t blame them. From the outside, it must look like Lena had it fairly easy. Living it all from the inside, she knew better. Almost three years had passed since she had been raped. Her hands and feet still had deep scars where her attacker had nailed her to the floor. The real pain only began after she was released.

Somehow, it was getting easier, though. She could walk into an empty room now without feeling the hair on the back of her neck bristle. Staying in the house by herself was no longer a source of panic. Sometimes, she would wake up and get through half the morning without remembering what had happened.

She had to admit that Nan Thomas was one of the reasons her life was getting easier. When Sibyl had first introduced them, Lena had hated the other woman on sight. It wasn’t as if Sibyl hadn’t had other lovers before, but there was something permanent about Nan. Lena had even stopped talking to her sister for a while after the two women moved in together. As with so many other things, Lena regretted that now, and Sibyl wasn’t around to hear the apology. Lena supposed she could apologize to Nan, but whenever the thought struck her, the words wouldn’t come.

Living with Nan was like trying to learn the lyrics of a familiar song. You started out telling yourself that this was the time you were really going to pay attention, hear every last word, but three lines in you’d forget the plan and just settle into the familiar rhythm of the music. After six months of sharing a house together, Lena knew little more than surface things about the librarian. Nan loved animals despite severe allergies, liked to crochet and spent every Friday and Saturday night reading. She sang in the shower and in the morning before work she drank green tea out of a blue mug that had belonged to Sibyl. Her thick glasses were always smudged with fingerprints but she was incredibly fastidious about her clothes, even if her dresses tended to run to colors better suited to Easter eggs than a grown woman of thirty-six. Like Lena and Sibyl, Nan’s father had been a cop. He was still around, but Lena had never met him or even heard him call on the phone. As a matter of fact, the only time the phone rang in the house, it was usually Ethan calling for Lena.

Nan’s brown Corolla was parked behind Lena’s Celica when she walked up the driveway to the house. Lena glanced at her watch, wondering how long she had been walking. Jeffrey had given her the morning off to make up for yesterday, and she had looked forward to spending some time alone. Nan usually came home for lunch, but it was barely past nine o’clock.

Lena grabbed the Grant Observer off the lawn and scanned the headlines as she walked toward the front door. Someone’s toaster had caught fire Saturday night and the fire department had been called. Two students at Robert E. Lee High had placed second and fifth at a state math competition. There was no mention of the missing girl found in the woods. Probably the paper had been put to bed before Jeffrey and Sara had stumbled across the burial site. Lena was sure there would be a huge story on the front page tomorrow. Maybe the newspaper could help them find the girl’s family.

She opened the door, reading about the toaster fire, wondering why it had taken sixteen volunteer firemen to put it out. Sensing a change in the room, she looked up, shocked to see Nan sitting in a chair across from Greg Mitchell, Lena’s old boyfriend. They had lived together for three years before Greg decided he’d had enough of her temper. He had packed all his stuff and left while she was at work— a cowardly yet in retrospect understandable move— leaving a brief note stuck to the fridge. So brief that she could remember every word. “I love you but I can’t take it anymore. Greg.”

They had talked to each other a total of two times in the almost seven years since then, both conversations taking place on the telephone and both ending with Lena slamming down the receiver before Greg could say anything more than, “It’s me.”

“Lee,” Nan practically screamed, standing up quickly, as if she had been caught.

“Hey,” Lena managed, her throat clenching around the word. She had put the newspaper to her chest as if she needed some kind of protection. Maybe she did.

On the couch beside Greg was a woman around Lena’s age. She had olive skin and her brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. On a good day, she might pass for one of Lena’s distant cousins— the ugly ones on Hank’s side. Today, sitting next to Greg, the girl looked more like a whore. It gave Lena some satisfaction that Greg had settled for a lesser copy, but she still had to swallow a tinge of jealousy when she asked, “What are you doing here?” He appeared taken aback, and she tried to moderate her tone, saying, “Back in town, I mean. What are you doing back in town?”

“I, uh . . .” His face broke into an awkward grin. Maybe he had been expecting her to hit him with the newspaper. She had done it before.

“Shattered my tib-fib,” he said, indicating his ankle. She saw a cane tucked into the couch between him and the girl. “I’m back home for a while so my mom can look after me.”

Lena knew his mother’s house was two streets over. Her heart did an odd kind of tumble in her chest as she wondered how long he had been living there. She racked her brain for something to say, settling on, “How’s she doing? Your mom.”

“Still cantankerous as ever.” His eyes were a crystal clear blue, incongruous with his jet-black hair. He was wearing it longer now, or maybe he had forgotten to get it cut. Greg was always forgetting that sort of thing, spending hours in front of the computer figuring out a program while the house was falling apart around him. They had argued about it constantly. They had argued about everything constantly. She had never let up, not giving him an inch on anything. He had annoyed the shit out of her and she had hated his guts and he was probably the only man she had ever really loved.

He asked, “And you?”

“What?” she said, still stuck in her thoughts. His fingers tapped on the cane, and she saw his nails had been bitten to the quick.

Greg glanced at the other women, his smile a little more hesitant. “I asked how you were doing.”

She shrugged, and there was a long moment of silence where she could only stare at him. Finally, she made herself look down at her hands. She had shredded the corner of the newspaper like a nervous housewife. Jesus, she had never been this uncomfortable in her life. There were lunatics in the asylum with better social skills.

“Lena,” Nan said, her voice taking on a nervous pitch. “This is Mindy Bryant.”

Mindy reached out her hand, and Lena shook it. She saw Greg looking at the scars on the back of her hand and pulled back self-consciously.

His tone had a quiet sadness. “I heard what happened.”

“Yeah,” she managed, tucking her hands into her back pockets. “Listen, I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“Oh, right,” Greg said. He tried to stand. Mindy and Nan reached out to help, but Lena stood where she was. She had wanted to help, even felt her muscles twitch, but for some reason her feet stayed rooted to the floor.

Greg leaned on his cane, telling Lena, “I just thought I’d drop by and let you guys know I’m back in town.” He leaned over and kissed Nan’s cheek. Lena remembered how many arguments she’d had with Greg over Sibyl’s sexual orientation. He had always been on her sister’s side and probably thought it was really rich that Lena and Nan were living together now. Or maybe not. Greg was not the petty type and never held a grudge for long; it was one of the many qualities she hadn’t understood about him.

He told Lena, “I’m sorry about Sibyl. Mama didn’t tell me until I got back.”

“I’m not surprised,” Lena said. Lu Mitchell had hated Lena on sight. She was one of those women who thought her son walked on water.

Greg said, “So, I’ll get going.”

“Yeah,” Lena answered, stepping back so he could make his way to the door.

“Don’t be a stranger.” Nan patted his arm. She was still acting nervous, and Lena noticed that she was blinking a lot. Something was different about her, but Lena couldn’t put her finger on it.

Greg said, “You look great, Nan. Really good.”

Nan actually blushed, and Lena realized she wasn’t wearing her glasses. When had Nan gotten contacts? And for that matter, why? She had never been the type to worry about her appearance, but today she had even forgone her usual pastels and had dressed in jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Lena had never seen her in anything darker than chartreuse.

Mindy had said something, and Lena apologized, saying, “Sorry?”

“I said it was nice meeting you.” She had a twang that grated, and Lena hoped the smile she managed didn’t betray her aversion.

Greg said, “Nice meeting you, too,” and shook Mindy’s hand.

Lena opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. Greg was at the door, his hand on the knob.

He gave Lena one last look over his shoulder. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Lena answered, thinking that was pretty much all she had said for the last five minutes.

The door clicked shut and the three women stood in a circle.

Mindy gave a nervous laugh, and Nan joined in just a tad too loudly. She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself.

Mindy said, “I’d better get back to work.” She leaned over to kiss Nan’s cheek, but Nan pulled back. At the last minute, she realized what she had done and leaned forward, hitting Mindy in the nose.

Mindy laughed, rubbing her nose. “I’ll call you.”

“Um, okay,” Nan answered, her face the color of a turnip. “I’ll be here. Today, I mean. Or at work tomorrow.” She looked at everything in the room but Lena. “I mean, I’ll be around.”

“Okay,” Mindy answered, the smile on her face a little tighter. She told Lena, “Nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

Mindy gave Nan a furtive look. “See you later.”

Nan waved, and Lena said, “Bye.”

The door closed, and Lena felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. Nan was still blushing, her lips pressed together so tightly they were turning white. Lena decided to break the ice, saying, “She seems nice.”

“Yeah,” Nan agreed. “I mean, no. Not that she’s not nice. I just . . . Oh, dear me.” She pressed her fingers to her lips to stop them.

Lena tried to think of something positive to say. “She’s pretty.”

“You think so?” Nan blushed again. “I mean, not that it matters. I just—”

“It’s okay, Nan.”

“It’s too soon.”

Lena didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t good at comforting people. She wasn’t good at anything emotional, a fact that Greg had cited several times before he’d finally gotten fed up and left.

“Greg just knocked on the door,” Nan said, and when Lena looked out the front door, she added, “not now, before. We were sitting around. Mindy and I. We were just talking and he knocked and—” She stopped, taking a deep breath. “Greg looks good.”

“Yeah.”

“He said he walks in the neighborhood all the time,” Nan told her. “For his leg. He’s in physical therapy. He didn’t want to be rude. You know, if we saw him in the street and wondered what he was doing back in town.”

Lena nodded.

“He didn’t know you were here. Living here.”

“Oh.”

Silence took over again.

Nan said, “Well,” just as Lena said, “I thought you were at work.”

“I took the morning off.”

Lena rested her hand on the front door. Nan had obviously wanted to keep her date a secret. Maybe she was ashamed, or maybe she was scared what Lena’s reaction might be.

Lena asked, “Did you have coffee with her?”

“It’s too soon after Sibyl,” Nan told her. “I didn’t notice until you got here . . .”

“What?”

“She looks like you. Like Sibyl.” She amended, “Not exactly like Sibyl, not as pretty. Not as . . .” Nan rubbed her eyes with her fingers, then whispered, “Shit.”

Lena was yet again at a loss for words.

“Stupid contacts,” Nan said. She dropped her hand, but Lena could see her eyes were watering.

“It’s okay, Nan,” Lena told her, feeling an odd sense of responsibility. “It’s been three years,” she pointed out, though it felt like it had barely been three days. “You deserve a life. She would want you to—”

Nan cut her off with a nod, sniffing loudly. She waved her hands in front of her face. “I’d better go take these stupid things out. I feel like I have needles in my eyes.”

She practically ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Lena contemplated standing outside the door, asking her if she was okay, but that felt like a violation. The thought that Nan might one day date had never occurred to Lena. She had considered Nan asexual after a while, existing only in the context of their home life. For the first time, Lena realized that Nan must have been terribly lonely all this time.

Lena was so lost in thought that the phone rang several times before Nan called, “Are you going to get that?”

Lena grabbed the receiver just before the voice mail picked up. “Hello?”

“Lena,” Jeffrey said, “I know I gave you the morning off—”

Relief came like a ray of sunshine. “When do you need me?”

“I’m in the driveway.”

She walked over to the window and looked out at his white cruiser. “I need a minute to change.”

Lena sat back in the passenger’s seat, watching the scenery go by as Jeffrey drove along a gravel road on the outskirts of town. Grant County was comprised of three cities: Heartsdale, Madison and Avondale. Heartsdale, home to Grant Tech, was the jewel of the county, and with its huge antebellum mansions and gingerbread houses, it certainly looked it. By comparison, Madison was dingy, a lesser version of what a city should be, and Avondale was an outright shithole since the army had closed the base there. It was just Lena and Jeffrey’s luck that the call came from Avondale. Every cop she knew dreaded a call from this side of the county, where poverty and hatred made the whole town simmer like a pot about to boil over.

Jeffrey asked, “You ever been out this far on a call?”

“I didn’t even know there were houses out here.”

“There weren’t the last time I checked.” Jeffrey handed her a file with a slip of paper containing the directions paper clipped to the outside. “What road are we looking for?”

“Plymouth,” she read. At the top of the page was a name. “Ephraim Bennett?”

“The father, apparently.” Jeffrey slowed so that they could check a faded road sign. It was the standard green with white letters, but there was something homemade looking about it, as if someone had used a kit from the hardware store.

“Nina Street,” she read, wondering when all of these roads had been built. After working patrol for nearly ten years, Lena thought she knew the county better than anyone. Looking around, she felt like they were in foreign territory.

She asked, “Are we still in Grant?”

“We’re right on the line,” he told her. “Catoogah County is on the left, Grant is on the right.”

He slowed for another road sign. “Pinta Street,” she told him. “Who got the call first?”

“Ed Pelham,” he said, practically spitting out the name. Catoogah County was less than half the size of Grant, warranting no more than a sheriff and four deputies. A year ago, Joe Smith, the kindly old grandfather who had held the post of sheriff for thirty years, had keeled over from a heart attack during the keynote speech at the Rotary Club, kicking off a nasty political race between two of his deputies. The election had been so close that the winner, in keeping with county law, was decided by a coin toss, two out of three. Ed Pelham had entered office with the moniker “Two-Bit” for more reasons than the two quarters that went his way. He was about as lazy as he was lucky, and he had no problem letting other people do his job so long as he got to wear the big hat and collect the paycheck.

Jeffrey said, “The call came in to one of his deputies last night. He didn’t follow up on it until this morning, when he realized they’re not in his jurisdiction.”

“Ed called you?”

“He called the family and told them they’d have to take it up with us.”

“Nice,” she said. “Did he know about our Jane Doe?”

Jeffrey was more diplomatic than Lena would have been. “That cocksucker wouldn’t know if his own ass was on fire.”

She snorted a laugh. “Who’s Lev?”

“What?”

“The name under here,” she said, showing him the directions. “You wrote ‘Lev’ and underlined it.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, obviously not paying attention to her as he slowed down to read another sign.

“Santa Maria,” Lena read, recognizing the names of the ships from her junior high school history class. “What are they, a bunch of pilgrims?”

“The pilgrims came over on the Mayflower.”

“Oh,” Lena said. There was a reason her school counselor had told her college wasn’t right for everyone.

“Columbus led the Niña, Pinta and Santa María.”

“Right.” She could feel Jeffrey staring at her, probably wondering if she had a brain in her head. “Columbus.”

Thankfully, he changed the subject. “Lev’s the one who called this morning,” Jeffrey told her, speeding up. The tires kicked back gravel and Lena saw a cloud behind them in the side-view mirror. “He’s the uncle. I called back and spoke with the father.”

“Uncle, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “We’ll take a close look at him.” He braked to a stop as the road made a sharp left into a dead end.

“Plymouth,” Lena said, pointing to a narrow dirt road on the right.

Jeffrey reversed the car so he could make the turn without going into a ditch. “I ran their names through the computer.”

“Any hits?”

“The father got a speeding ticket in Atlanta two days ago.”

“Nice alibi.”

“Atlanta’s not that far away,” he pointed out. “Who the hell would live way out here?”

“Not me,” Lena answered. She looked out her window at the rolling pastures. There were cows grazing and a couple of horses ran in the distance like something out of a movie. Some people might think this was a slice of heaven, but Lena needed more to do than look at the cows all day.

“When did all this get here?” Jeffrey asked.

Lena looked on his side of the road, seeing a huge farm with row after row of plants. She asked, “Are those peanuts?”

“They look a little tall for that.”

“What else grows out here?”

“Republicans and unemployment,” he said. “This has to be some kind of corporate farm. Nobody could afford to run a place this size on their own.”

“There you go.” Lena pointed to a sign at the head of a winding driveway that led to a series of buildings. The words “Holy Grown Soy Cooperative” were written in fancy gold script. Underneath this, in smaller letters, it said “Est. 1984.”

Lena asked, “Like hippies?”

“Who knows,” Jeffrey said, rolling up the window as the smell of manure came into the car. “I’d hate to have to live across from this place.”

She saw a large, modern-looking barn with a group of at least fifty workers milling about outside. They were probably on break. “The soy business must be doing well.”

He slowed the car to a stop in the middle of the road. “Is this place even on the map?”

Lena opened the glove compartment and took out the spiral-bound Grant County and surrounding areas street map. She was flipping through the pages, looking for Avondale, when Jeffrey mumbled a curse and turned toward the farm. One thing she liked about her boss was that he wasn’t afraid to ask for directions. Greg had been the same way— usually it was Lena saying they should just go a couple of more miles and see if they lucked out and found their destination.

The driveway to the barn was more like a two-lane road, both sides rutted deep from tires. They probably had heavy trucks in and out to pick up the soy or whatever it was they grew here. Lena didn’t know what soy looked like, but she imagined it would take a lot to fill a box, let alone a whole truck.

“We’ll try here,” Jeffrey said, slamming the gear into park. She could tell he was irritated, but didn’t know if it was because they had gotten lost or because the detour kept the family waiting even longer. She had learned from Jeffrey over the years that it was best to get the bad news out of the way as quickly as possible unless there was something important to be gained from waiting.

They walked around the big red barn and Lena saw a second group of workers standing behind it, a short, wiry-looking old man yelling so loud that even from fifty feet away, she could hear him clear as a bell.

“The Lord does not abide laziness!” the man was screaming, his finger inches from a younger man’s face. “Your weakness has cost us a full morning’s work!”

The man with the finger in his face looked down, contrite. There were two girls in the crowd, and they were both crying.

“Weakness and greed!” the old man proclaimed. Anger edged his tone so that each word sounded like an indictment. He had a Bible in his other hand, and he raised it into the air like a torch, shining the way toward enlightenment. “Your weakness will find you out!” he screamed. “The Lord will test you, and you must be strong!”

“Christ,” Jeffrey muttered, then, “Excuse me, sir?”

The man turned around, his scowl slipping into a puzzled look, then a frown. He was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt starched to within an inch of its life. His jeans were likewise stiff, a razor crease ironed into the front of the legs. A Braves ball cap sat on his head, his large ears sticking out on each side like billboards. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe spittle from his mouth. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?” Lena noticed that his voice was hoarse from yelling.

Jeffrey said, “We’re looking for Ephraim Bennett.”

The man’s expression yet again turned on a dime. He smiled brightly, his eyes lighting up. “That’s across the road,” he said, indicating the way Jeffrey and Lena had come. He directed, “Go back down, take a left, then you’ll see it about a quarter mile down on the right.”

Despite his cheerful demeanor, tension hung in the air like a heavy cloud. It was hard to reconcile the man who had been screaming a few minutes ago with the kindly old grandfather offering his help to them now.

Lena checked out the crowd of workers— about ten in all. Some looked as if they had one foot in the grave. One girl in particular looked like she was having a hard time standing up, though whether this was from grief or intoxication, Lena wasn’t sure. They all looked like a bunch of strung-out hippies.

“Thank you,” Jeffrey told the man, but he looked like he didn’t want to leave.

“Have a blessed day,” the man answered, then turned his back to Jeffrey and Lena, pretty much dismissing them. “Children,” he said, holding the Bible aloft, “let’s return to the fields.”

Lena felt Jeffrey’s hesitation, and didn’t move until he did. It wasn’t like they could push the man to the ground and ask him what the hell was going on, but she could tell they both were thinking the same thing: something strange was happening here.

They were quiet until they got into the car. Jeffrey started the car and reversed it out of the space so he could turn around.

Lena said, “That was weird.”

“Weird how?”

She wondered if he was disagreeing with her or just trying to get her take on the situation.

She said, “All that Bible shit.”

“He seemed a little wrapped up in it,” Jeffrey conceded, “but a lot of folks around here are.”

“Still,” she said. “Who carries a Bible to work with them?”

“A lot of people out here, I’d guess.”

They turned back onto the main road and almost immediately Lena saw a mailbox sticking up on her side of the road. “Three ten,” she said. “This is it.”

Jeffrey took the turn. “Just because somebody’s religious doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them.”

“I didn’t say that,” Lena insisted, though maybe she had. From the age of ten, she had hated church and anything that smacked of a man standing in a pulpit, ordering you around. Her uncle Hank was so wrapped up in religion now that it was a worse addiction than the speed he’d shot into his veins for almost thirty years.

Jeffrey said, “Try to keep an open mind.”

“Yeah,” she answered, wondering if he’d let it slip his mind that she’d been raped a few years ago by a Jesus freak who got off on crucifying women. If Lena was antireligion, she had a damn good reason to be.

Jeffrey drove down a driveway that was so long Lena wondered if they had taken a wrong turn. Passing a leaning barn and what looked like an outhouse gave Lena a feeling of déjà vu. There were places like this all over Reese, where she had grown up. Reaganomics and government deregulation had crippled the farmers to their knees. Families had simply walked away from the land that had belonged to them for generations, leaving it to the bank to figure out what to do. Usually, the bank sold it to some multinational corporation that in turn hired migrant workers on the sly, keeping the payroll down and profits up.

Jeffrey asked, “Do they use cyanide in pesticides these days?”

“Got me.” Lena took out her notebook to remind herself to find the answer.

Jeffrey slowed the car as they breached a steep hill. Three goats stood in the drive, and he beeped his horn to get them moving. The bells around their collars jangled as they trotted into what looked like a chicken coop. A teenage girl and a young boy stood outside a pigpen holding a bucket between them. The girl was wearing a simple shift, the boy overalls with no shirt and no shoes. Their eyes followed the car as they drove by, and Lena felt the hairs on her arm stand straight up.

Jeffrey said, “If somebody starts playing a banjo, I’m outta here.”

“I’m right behind you,” Lena said, relieved to see civilization finally come into view.

The house was an unassuming cottage with two dormers set into a steeply pitched roof. The clapboard looked freshly painted and well tended, and except for the beat-up old truck out front, the house could have easily been a professor’s home in Heartsdale. Flowers ringed the front porch and followed a dirt path to the drive. As they got out of the car, Lena saw a woman standing behind the screen door. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and Lena guessed from the palpable tension that this was the missing girl’s mother.

Jeffrey said, “This isn’t going to be easy,” and not for the first time she was glad that this sort of thing was his job and not hers.

Lena shut the door, letting her hand rest on the hood as a man came out of the house. She expected the woman to follow, but instead an older man came shuffling out.

“Chief Tolliver?” the younger man asked. He had dark red hair but without the freckles that usually accompanied it. His skin was as pasty as you would expect, and his green eyes were so clear in the morning sunlight that Lena could tell their color from at least ten feet away. He was good-looking if you liked that sort, but the short-sleeved button-down shirt that he wore tightly tucked into his khaki Dockers made him look like a high school math teacher.

Jeffrey looked momentarily startled for some reason, but he recovered quickly, saying, “Mr. Bennett?”

“Lev Ward,” he clarified. “This is Ephraim Bennett, Abigail’s father.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, and Lena could tell he was surprised. Even wearing a baseball cap and overalls, Ephraim Bennett looked to be about eighty, hardly the age of a man with a twentyish daughter. Still, he was wiry-thin with a healthy glint in his eyes. Both his hands trembled noticeably, but she imagined he didn’t miss much.

Jeffrey said, “I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances.”

Ephraim gave Jeffrey what looked like a firm handshake despite his obvious palsy. “I appreciate your handling this personally, sir.” His voice was strong with the kind of Southern drawl Lena never heard anymore except in Hollywood movies. He tipped his hat to Lena. “Ma’am.”

Lena nodded in return, watching Lev, who seemed to be in charge despite the thirty-odd years that separated the two.

Ephraim told Jeffrey, “Thank you for coming out so quickly,” even though Lena would hardly characterize their response as quick. The call had come in last night. Had Jeffrey been on the other end of the line instead of Ed Pelham, he would have driven straight out to the Bennett home, not waited until the next day.

Jeffrey apologized, saying, “There was a question of jurisdiction.”

Lev said, “That’s my fault. The farm is in Catoogah County. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

“None of us were,” Ephraim excused.

Lev bowed his head, as if to accept the absolution.

Jeffrey said, “We stopped at the farm across the street for directions. There was a man there, about sixty-five, seventy—”

“Cole,” Lev provided. “Our foreman.”

Jeffrey paused, probably waiting for more information. When nothing came, he added, “He gave us directions.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more clear about how to get here,” Lev told him, then offered, “Why don’t we go inside and talk to Esther?”

“Your sister-in-law?” Jeffrey asked.

“Baby sister,” Lev clarified. “I hope you don’t mind, but my brother and other sisters are coming by, too. We’ve been up all night worried about Abby.”

Lena asked, “Has she ever run away before?”

“I’m sorry,” Lev said, focusing his attention on Lena. “I didn’t introduce myself.” He held out his hand. Lena had been expecting the dead-fish flop that most men affected, lightly gripping a woman’s fingers as if they were afraid of breaking them, but he gave her the same hearty shake he had given Jeffrey, looking her square in the eye. “Leviticus Ward.”

“Lena Adams,” she told him.

“Detective?” he guessed. “We’ve been so anxious about this. Forgive my poor manners.”

“It’s understandable,” Lena said, aware that he had managed to sidestep answering her question about Abby.

He stepped back, graciously telling Lena, “After you.”

Lena walked toward the house, watching their shadows follow her, wondering at their old-fashioned manners. When they reached the front door, Lev held it open, letting Lena walk in first.

Esther Bennett sat on the couch, her feet crossed at the ankles, hands folded in her lap. Her spine was ramrod straight, and Lena, normally given to slouching, found herself pulling her shoulders back as if she was trying to measure up.

“Chief Tolliver?” Esther Bennett asked. She was much younger than her husband, probably in her forties, her dark hair graying slightly at the temples. Wearing a white cotton dress with a red-checkered apron, she looked like something out of a Betty Crocker cookbook. She kept her hair in a tight bun behind her head, but judging from the wisps that had escaped, it was nearly as long as her daughter’s. There was no doubt in Lena’s mind that the dead girl was this woman’s daughter. They were carbon copies of each other.

“Call me Jeffrey,” Jeffrey offered; then: “You’ve got a beautiful home, Mrs. Bennett.” He always said this, even if the place was a dump. In this case, though, the best way to describe the Bennett house was “plain.” There were no knickknacks on the coffee table and the mantel over the fireplace was clean but for a simple wooden cross hanging on the brick. Two faded but sturdy-looking wingback chairs banked the window looking out into the front yard. The orangish couch was probably a relic from the 1960s, but it was in good shape. There were no drapes or blinds on the windows and the hardwood floor was bare of any carpeting. The ceiling fixture overhead was probably original to the house, which put it at around Ephraim’s age. Lena guessed they were standing in the formal parlor, though a quick glance down the hallway proved the rest of the house followed the same minimalist decorating style.

Jeffrey must have been thinking the same thing about the house, because he asked, “Have y’all lived here long?”

Lev answered, “Since before Abby was born.”

“Please,” Esther said, spreading her hands. “Have a seat.” She stood as Jeffrey sat, and he popped back up. “Please,” she repeated, motioning him back down.

Lev told him, “The rest of the family should be here soon.”

Esther offered, “Would you like something to drink, Chief Tolliver? Some lemonade?”

“That’d be nice,” Jeffrey answered, probably because he knew accepting the offer would help put the woman at ease.

“And you, Miss— ?”

“Adams,” Lena provided. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Lev said, “Esther, this woman is a detective.”

“Oh,” she said, seeming flustered by her mistake. “I’m sorry, Detective Adams.”

“It’s fine,” Lena assured her, wondering why she felt like she should be the one apologizing. There was something strange about this family, and she wondered what secrets they were hiding. Her radar had been on high alert since the old nut at the farm. She didn’t imagine he fell far from the tree.

Lev said, “Lemonade would be nice, Esther,” and Lena realized how deftly he managed to control the situation. He seemed to be very good at taking charge, something that always made her wary in an investigation.

Esther had regained some of her composure. “Please make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.”

She left the room silently, only pausing to rest her hand briefly on her husband’s shoulder.

The men stood around as if they were waiting for something. Lena caught Jeffrey’s expression and she said, “Why don’t I go help her?”

The men seemed relieved, and as she walked down the hallway after Esther, Lena could hear Lev chuckling at something she didn’t quite catch. Something told her it had to do with a woman’s place being in the kitchen. She got the distinct impression that this family did things the old-fashioned way, with the men taking charge and the women being seen and not heard.

Lena took her time walking to the back of the house, hoping to see something that might explain what was so weird about the inhabitants. There were three doors on the right, all closed, that she assumed were bedrooms. On the left was what looked like a family room and a large library filled floor to ceiling with books, which was kind of surprising. For some reason, she had always assumed religious fanatics didn’t tend to read.

If Esther was as old as she looked, then her brother Lev had to be closer to fifty. He was a smooth talker and had the voice of a Baptist preacher. Lena had never been particularly attracted to pasty men, but there was something almost magnetic about Lev. In appearance, he reminded her a bit of Sara Linton. They both exuded the same confidence, too, but on Sara this came across as off-putting. On Lev, it was calming. If he were a used-car salesman, he’d probably be at the top of his trade.

“Oh,” Esther said, startled by Lena’s sudden appearance in the kitchen. The woman was holding a photograph in her hand, and she seemed hesitant about showing it to Lena. Finally, she made up her mind and offered the picture. It showed a child of about twelve with long brown pigtails.

“Abby?” Lena asked, knowing without a doubt that this was the girl Jeffrey and Sara had found in the woods.

Esther studied Lena, as if trying to read her thoughts. She seemed to decide she didn’t want to know, because she returned to her work in the kitchen, turning her back to Lena.

“Abby loves lemonade,” she said. “She likes it sweet, but I must say that I don’t care for it sweet.”

“Me, either,” Lena said, not because it was true but because she wanted to seem agreeable. Since stepping into this house, she had felt unsettled. Being a cop, she had learned to trust her first impressions.

Esther cut a lemon in two and twisted it by hand into a metal strainer. She had gone through about six lemons and the bowl underneath the strainer was getting full.

“Can I help?” Lena asked, thinking the only drinks she’d ever made came from a package and usually went into a blender.

“I’ve got it,” Esther said, then, as if she had somehow insulted Lena, added in an apologetic tone, “The pitcher’s over the stove.”

Lena walked to the cabinet and took out a large crystal glass pitcher. It was heavy and probably an antique. She used both hands to transfer it to the counter.

Trying to find something to say, Lena said, “I like the light in here.” There was a large fluorescent strip overhead, but it wasn’t turned on. Three large windows lined the area over the sink and two long skylights over the kitchen table lit the room. Like the rest of the house, it was plain, and she wondered about people choosing to live in such austerity.

Esther looked up at the sun. “Yes, it’s nice, isn’t it? Ephraim’s father built it from the ground up.”

“You’ve been married long?”

“Twenty-two years.”

“Abby’s your oldest?”

She smiled, taking another lemon out of the bag. “That’s right.”

“We saw two kids coming in.”

“Rebecca and Zeke,” Esther said, still smiling proudly. “Becca is mine. Zeke is Lev’s by his late wife.”

“Two girls,” Lena said, thinking she sounded idiotic. “Must be nice.”

Esther rolled a lemon around on the cutting board to soften it up. “Yes,” she said, but Lena had heard the hesitation.

Lena looked out the kitchen window at the pasture. She could see a group of cows lying down under a tree. “That farm across the street,” she began.

“The cooperative,” Esther finished. “That’s where I met Ephraim. He came to work there, oh, it must have been right after Papa bought the second phase in the mid-1980s. We got married and moved in here a little after.”

“You must have been around Abby’s age,” Lena guessed.

Esther looked up, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right. I’d just fallen in love and moved out on my own. I had the whole world at my feet.” She pressed another lemon into the strainer.

“The older guy we ran into,” Lena began. “Cole?”

Esther smiled. “He’s been on the farm forever. Papa met him years ago.”

Lena waited for more, but nothing came. Like Lev, Esther didn’t seem to want to volunteer much information about Cole, and this only made Lena more curious about the man.

She remembered the question Lev had avoided before, and felt like now was as good a time as any to ask, “Has Abby ever run away before?”

“Oh, no, she’s not the type.”

“What type is that?” Lena asked, wondering if the mother knew her daughter was pregnant.

“Abby’s very devoted to the family. She would never do anything so insensitive.”

“Sometimes girls that age do things without thinking about the consequences.”

“That’s more Becca’s thing,” Esther said.

“Rebecca’s run away?”

The older woman skipped the question, saying instead, “Abby never went through that rebellious phase. She’s a lot like me in that regard.”

“How’s that?”

Esther seemed about to answer, but changed her mind. She took the pitcher and poured in the lemon juice. She walked over to the sink and turned on the water, letting it run so it would cool.

Lena wondered if the woman was naturally reticent or if she felt the need to censor her answers lest her brother find out she had said too much. She tried to think of a way to draw the woman out. “I was the youngest,” she said, which was true, though only by a couple of minutes. “I was always getting into trouble.”

Esther made an agreeing noise, but offered nothing more.

“It’s hard to accept that your parents are real people,” Lena said. “You spend most of your time demanding they treat you like an adult, but you’re not willing to give them the same courtesy.”

Esther looked over her shoulder into the long hallway before allowing, “Rebecca ran away last year. She was back a day later, but it put an awful fright into us.”

“Has Abby ever disappeared before?” Lena repeated.

Esther’s voice was almost a whisper. “Sometimes she would go over to the farm without telling us.”

“Just across the street?”

“Yes, just across the street. It’s silly to think we were upset. The farm is an extension of our home. Abby was safe the entire time. We were just worried when supper came and we hadn’t heard from her.”

Lena realized the woman was referring to a specific time rather than a series of incidents. “Abby spent the night over there?”

“With Lev and Papa. They live there with Mary. My mother passed away when I was three.”

“Who’s Mary?”

“My oldest sister.”

“Older than Lev?”

“Oh, no, Lev’s the oldest child. There’s Mary next, then Rachel, then Paul, then me.”

“That’s quite a family,” Lena said, thinking their mother must have died from exhaustion.

“Papa grew up an only child. He wanted lots of children around him.”

“Your father owns the farm?”

“The family owns most of it along with some other investors,” Esther replied, opening one of the cabinets and taking down a three-pound bag of sugar. “Papa started it over twenty years ago.”

Lena tried to phrase her question diplomatically. “I thought cooperatives were owned by the workers.”

“All the workers have the opportunity to invest after they’ve been on the farm for two years,” she explained, measuring out a cup of sugar.

“Where do these workers come from?”

“Atlanta, mostly.” She stirred the lemonade with a wooden spoon to mix the sugar. “Some of them are transients, looking for a few months of solitude. Others want a way of life and decide to stay. We call them ‘souls,’ because they’re very much like lost souls.” A wry smile touched her lips. “I’m not naïve. Some of them are downright hiding from the law. We’ve always been hesitant to involve the police because of this. We want to help them, not hide them, but some are avoiding abusive spouses or parents. We can’t protect just the ones we agree with. It has to be all or none.”

“Involve the police in what?”

“There’ve been thefts in the past,” Esther said, then added, “I know I’ve spoken out of turn, but Lev wouldn’t likely mention this to you. We’re very isolated out here, as you probably noticed, and the local sheriff isn’t too keen to drop everything and come running just because a pitchfork has shown up missing.”

Pelham wouldn’t come running for anything but dinner. “Is that all it’s been? Missing pitchforks?”

“Some shovels have been taken, a couple of wheelbarrows.”

“Any wood?”

She gave Lena a look of confusion. “Well, I don’t know about that. We don’t use much wood on the farm. You mean like stakes? Soybean plants don’t vine.”

“What else has been missing?”

“The petty-cash box was stolen out of the barn about a month ago. There was, I think, around three hundred dollars in it.”

“What’s petty cash kept for?”

“Running to the hardware store, sometimes buying a pizza if folks have been working late. We process the plants here ourselves, which is a lot of repetitive work. Some of the souls we get aren’t highly skilled, but others find themselves bored with it. We move them into other areas of the farm, like deliveries, accounting. Not big accounting, but going through invoices, filing. Our goal is to teach them a useful skill, give them some sense of accomplishment, to take back into their real lives.”

It sounded like a cult to Lena, and her attitude got the better of her when she said, “So, you bring them back from Atlanta and all they have to do in return is say their nightly prayers?”

Esther smiled like she was humoring Lena. “We only ask them to go to services on Sunday. It’s not mandatory. We have fellowship every evening at eight, and they’re welcome then as well. Most of them choose not to attend, and that’s perfectly fine. We don’t require anything but that they obey the rules and behave respectfully toward us and their peers.”

They had gotten way off the point, and Lena tried to steer her back. “Do you work on the farm?”

“Normally, I school the children. Most of the women who come here have kids. I try to help them as much as I can, but again, they’re usually not here for long. Structure is all I can give them.”

“How many people do you have at a time?”

“Around two hundred would be my guess. You can ask Lev about that. I don’t keep up with employment records and such.”

Lena made a mental note to get those records, though she couldn’t keep her mind from flashing on a bunch of young kids being brainwashed into giving up their worldly possessions and joining this weird family. She wondered if Jeffrey was getting the same impression in the other room. “You still school Abby?”

“We talk about literature, mostly. I’m afraid I can’t offer her much beyond the usual high school curriculum. Ephraim and I discussed sending her to a small college, perhaps Tifton or West Georgia, but she wasn’t interested. She loves working at the farm, you see. Her gift is helping others.”

“Have you always done that?” Lena asked. “Homeschooling, I mean.”

“We were all homeschooled. All of us but Lev.” She smiled proudly. “Paul had one of the highest SAT scores in the state when he entered UGA.”

Lena wasn’t interested in Paul’s academic career. “That’s your only job at the farm? Teaching?”

“Oh, no,” she laughed. “Everyone on the farm has to do everything at some time. I started in the fields, just like Becca is doing. Zeke’s a little too young now, but he’ll start in the next few years. Papa believes you have to know every part of the company if you’re going to run it someday. I got stuck in bookkeeping for a while. Unfortunately, I have a talent for numbers. If I had my way, I’d lie around on the couch all day reading. Papa wants us to be ready when something happens to him.”

“You’ll run the farm eventually?”

She laughed again at the suggestion, as if running a company was something a woman couldn’t possibly manage. “Maybe Zeke or one of the boys will. The point is to be ready. It’s also important considering our labor force isn’t particularly motivated to stay. They’re city people, used to a faster way of life. They love it here at first— the quiet, the solitude, the easiness of it compared to their old lives on the street, but then they start to get a little bored, then a lot bored, and before they know it, everything that made them love it here makes them want to run screaming. We try to be selective in our training. You don’t want to spend a season teaching someone to do a specialized job when they’re going to leave in the middle of it and go back to the city.”

“Drugs?” Lena asked.

“Of course,” she said. “But we’re very careful here. You have to earn trust. We don’t allow alcohol or cigarettes on the farm. If you want to go into town, you’re welcome to, but no one is going to give you a ride. We have them sign a behavioral contract the minute they step foot on the place. If they break it, they’re gone. A lot more people than not appreciate that, and the new ones learn from the old-timers that when we say an infraction gets you sent back to Atlanta, we mean it.” Her tone softened. “I know it sounds harsh, but we have to get rid of the bad ones so that the ones who are trying to be good have a chance. Surely, as a law enforcement officer, you understand that.”

“How many people come and go?” Lena asked. “Ballpark, I mean.”

“Oh, I’d say we have about a seventy percent return rate.” Again, she deferred to the men in her family. “You’d have to ask Lev or Paul for an exact percentage. They keep up with the running of things.”

“But you’ve noticed people coming and going?”

“Of course.”

“What about Abby?” Lena asked. “Is she happy here?”

Esther smiled. “I would hope so, but we never make people stay here if they don’t want to.” Lena nodded as if she understood, but Esther felt the need to add, “I know this all may sound odd to you. We’re religious people, but we don’t believe in forcing religion onto others. When you come to the Lord, it must be of your own volition or it means nothing to Him. I can tell from your questions that you’re skeptical about the workings of the farm and my family, but I can assure you we’re simply working for the greater good here. We’re obviously not invested in material needs.” She indicated the house. “What we’re invested in is saving souls.”

Her placid smile was more off-putting than anything Lena had experienced today. She tried to work with it, asking, “What sort of things does Abby do on the farm?”

“She’s even better with numbers than I am,” Esther said proudly. “She worked in the office for a while, but she started to get bored, so we all agreed she could start working as a sorter. It’s not a highly difficult job, but it brings her into contact with a lot of people. She likes being in a crowd, blending in. I suppose every young girl feels that.”

Lena waited a beat, wondering why the woman had yet to ask about her daughter. Either Esther was in denial or she knew exactly where Abby was. “Did Abby know about the thefts?”

“Not many people did,” Esther said. “Lev likes to let the church handle church problems.”

“The church?” Lena asked, as if she hadn’t already figured this out.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, and Lena wondered why she started just about every sentence with an apology. “The Church for the Greater Good. I always just assume everyone knows what we’re about.”

“And what are you about?”

Lena obviously wasn’t doing a good job of hiding her cynicism, but Esther still patiently explained, “Holy Grown subsidizes our outreach into Atlanta.”

“What kind of outreach?”

“We try to carry on Jesus’s work with the poor. We have contacts at several shelters for the homeless and abused women. Some halfway houses keep us on their speed dial. Sometimes we get men and women who have just gotten out of jail and have nowhere to go. It’s appalling the way our penal system just chews these people up and spits them out.”

“Do you keep any information on them?”

“As much as we can,” Esther said, returning to the lemonade. “We have education facilities where they learn manufacturing. The soy business has changed over the last ten years.”

“It’s in just about everything,” Lena said, thinking it would be unwise to mention that the only reason she knew this was because she lived with a tofu-eating, health-food nut lesbian.

“Yes,” Esther agreed. She took three glasses out of the cabinet.

Lena offered, “I’ll get the ice.” She opened the freezer and saw a huge block of ice instead of the cubes she’d been expecting.

“Just use your hands,” Esther said. “Or I could—”

“I’ve got it,” Lena told her, taking out the block, getting the front of her shirt wet in the process.

“We have an icehouse across the road for cold storage. It seems a shame to waste water here when there’s plenty across the street.” She indicated Lena should set the block in the sink. “We try to preserve as many of our natural resources as we can,” she said, using an ice pick to dislodge some shards. “Papa was the first farmer in the region to use natural irrigation from rainwater. Of course, we have too much land for that now, but we reclaim as much as we can.”

Thinking of Jeffrey’s earlier question about possible sources of cyanide, Lena asked, “What about pesticides?”

“Oh, no,” Esther said, dropping some ice into the glasses. “We don’t use those— never have. We use natural fertilizers. You have no idea what phosphates do to the water table. Oh, no.” She laughed. “Papa made it clear from the start that we would do it the natural way. We’re all a part of this land. We have a responsibility to our neighbors and the people who come to the land after us.”

“That sounds very . . .” Lena looked for a positive word. “Responsible.”

“Most people think it’s a lot of trouble for nothing,” Esther said. “It’s a difficult situation to be in. Do we poison the environment and make more money that we can use to help the needy, or do we maintain our principles and help fewer people? It’s the sort of question Jesus often raised: help the many or help the few?” She handed Lena one of the glasses. “Does this taste too sweet for you? I’m afraid we don’t normally use much sugar around here.”

Lena took a sip, feeling her jaw clench into a death grip. “It’s a little tart,” she managed, trying to suppress the guttural sound welling in her throat.

“Oh.” Esther took out the sugar again, spooning more into Lena’s glass. “Now?”

Lena tried again, taking a less generous sip. “Good,” she said.

“Good,” Esther echoed, spooning more into another glass. She left the third alone, and Lena hoped it wasn’t meant for Jeffrey.

“Everyone’s particular, aren’t they?” Esther asked, walking past Lena toward the hall.

Lena followed. “What’s that?”

“About tastes,” she explained. “Abby loves sweets. Once, when she was a baby, she ate almost a full cup of sugar before I realized she had gotten into the cabinet.”

They passed the library, and Lena said, “You have a lot of books.”

“Classics, mostly. Some potboilers and westerns, of course. Ephraim loves crime fiction. I guess he’s attracted to the black and white of it all. The good guys on one side, the bad guys on the other.”

“It’d be nice,” Lena found herself saying.

“Becca loves romances. Show her a book with a long-haired Adonis on the cover and she’ll finish it in two hours.”

“You let her read romances?” Lena asked. She had been thinking these people were the same kind of nutballs who got on the news for banning Harry Potter.

“We let the children read anything they like. That’s the deal for not having a television in the house. Even if they’re reading trash, it’s better than watching it on the tube.”

Lena nodded, though in her mind she wondered what it would be like to live without television. Watching mindless TV was the only thing that had kept her sane the last three years.

“There you are,” Lev said when they entered the room. He took a glass from Esther and handed it to Jeffrey.

“Oh, no,” Esther said, taking it back. “This one’s yours.” She handed the sweeter lemonade to Jeffrey, who, like Ephraim, had stood when they entered the room. “I don’t imagine you like it as tart as Lev does.”

“No, ma’am,” Jeffrey agreed. “Thank you.”

The front door opened and a man who looked like the male version of Esther walked in, his hand at the elbow of an older woman who seemed too fragile to walk by herself.

The man said, “Sorry we’re late.”

Jeffrey moved, taking his lemonade with him, so that the woman could take his chair. Another woman who looked more like Lev entered the house, her reddish-blond hair wound into a bun on the top of her head. To Lena, she looked like the quintessential sturdy farmwoman who could drop a baby in the fields and keep on picking cotton the rest of the day. Hell, the whole family looked strong. The shortest one was Esther, and she had a good six inches on Lena.

“My brother, Paul,” Lev said, indicating the man. “This is Rachel.” The farmwoman nodded her head in greeting. “And Mary.”

From what Esther had said, Mary was younger than Lev, probably in her midforties, but she looked and acted like she was twenty years older. She took her time settling into the chair, as if she was afraid she’d fall and break a hip. She even sounded like an old woman when she said, “You’ll have to excuse me, I haven’t been well,” in a tone that invited pity.

“My father couldn’t join us,” Lev told them, deftly sidestepping his sister. “He’s had a stroke. He doesn’t get out much these days.”

“That’s quite all right,” Jeffrey told him, then addressed the other family members. “I’m Chief Tolliver. This is Detective Adams. Thank you all for coming.”

“Shall we sit?” Rachel suggested, going to the couch. She indicated Esther should sit beside her. Again, Lena felt the division of tasks between the men and women of the family, seating arrangements and kitchen duties on one side, everything else on the other.

Jeffrey tilted his head slightly, motioning Lena to Esther’s left as he leaned against the fireplace mantel. Lev waited until Lena was seated before helping Ephraim into the chair beside Jeffrey. He raised his eyebrows slightly, and Lena knew that he had probably gotten quite an earful while she was in the kitchen. She couldn’t wait to compare notes.

“So,” Jeffrey said, as if the small talk was out of the way and they could finally get down to business. “You say Abby’s been missing for ten days?”

“That’s my fault,” Lev said, and Lena wondered if he was going to confess. “I thought Abby was going on the mission into Atlanta with the family. Ephraim thought she was staying on the farm with us.”

Paul said, “We all thought that was the case. I don’t think we need to assign blame.” Lena studied the man for the first time, thinking he sounded a lot like a lawyer. He was the only one of them wearing what looked like store-bought clothes. His suit was pin-striped, his tie a deep magenta against his white shirt. His hair was professionally cut and styled. Paul Ward looked like the city mouse standing next to his country-mouse brother and sisters.

“Whatever the case, none of us thought anything untoward was happening,” Rachel said.

Jeffrey must have gotten the full story about the farm, because his next question was not about the family or the inner workings of Holy Grown. “Was there someone around the farm Abby liked being around? Maybe one of the workers?”

Rachel provided, “We didn’t really let her mingle.”

“Surely she met other people,” Jeffrey said, taking a sip of lemonade. He seemed to be doing everything in his power not to shudder from the tartness as he put the glass on the mantel.

Lev said, “She went to church socials, of course, but the field workers keep to themselves.”

Esther added, “We don’t like to discriminate, but the field workers are a rougher sort of person. Abby wasn’t really introduced to that element of the farm. She was told to stay away from them.”

“But she worked some in the fields?” Lena asked, remembering their earlier conversation.

“Yes, but only with other family members. Cousins, mostly,” Lev said. “We have a rather large family.”

Esther listed, “Rachel has four, Paul has six. Mary’s sons live in Wyoming and . . .”

She didn’t finish. Jeffrey prompted, “And?”

Rachel cleared her throat, but it was Paul who spoke. “They don’t visit often,” he said, the tension in his voice echoing what Lena suddenly felt in the room. “They haven’t been back in a while.”

“Ten years,” Mary said, looking up at the ceiling like she wanted to trap her tears. Lena wondered if they had run screaming from the farm. She sure as hell would have.

Mary continued, “They chose a different path. I pray for them every day when I get up and every evening before I go to bed.”

Sensing Mary could monopolize things for a while, Lena asked Lev, “You’re married?”

“Not anymore.” For the first time, his expression appeared unguarded. “My wife passed away in childbirth several years ago.” He gave a pained smile. “Our first child, unfortunately, but I have my Ezekiel to comfort me.”

Jeffrey waited an appropriate interval before saying, “So, you guys thought Abby was with her parents, her parents thought she was with you. This was, what, ten days ago you went on your mission?”

Esther answered, “That’s right.”

“And you do these missions about four times a year?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a registered nurse?” he asked.

Esther nodded, and Lena tried to hide her surprise. The woman seemed to volunteer yards of useless information about herself at the drop of a hat. That she had kept back this one detail seemed suspicious.

Esther supplied, “I was training at Georgia Medical College when Ephraim and I married. Papa thought it’d be handy to have someone with practical first-aid experience around the farm, and the other girls can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“That’s the truth,” Rachel agreed.

Jeffrey asked, “Do you have many accidents here?”

“Thank goodness, no. A man sliced through his Achilles tendon three years ago. It was a mess. I was able to use my training to control the bleeding, but there was nothing else I could do for him other than basic triage. We really need a doctor around.”

“Who do you normally see?” Jeffrey asked. “You have children around here sometimes.” As if explaining, he added, “My wife is a pediatrician in town.”

Lev interposed, “Sara Linton. Of course.” A slight smile of recognition crossed his lips.

“Do you know Sara?”

“We went to Sunday school together a long time ago.” Lev stretched out the word “long,” as if they had many shared secrets.

Lena could tell that Jeffrey was annoyed by the familiarity; whether he was jealous or just being protective, she didn’t know.

Being Jeffrey, he didn’t let his irritation interfere with the interview, and instead directed them back on track by asking Esther, “Do you normally not telephone to check in?” When Esther seemed confused, he added, “When you’re away in Atlanta. You don’t call to check in on the children?”

“They’re with their family,” she said. Her tone was demure but Lena had seen a flash in her eyes, as if she had been insulted.

Rachel continued her sister’s theme. “We’re very close-knit, Chief Tolliver. In case you hadn’t picked up on that.”

Jeffrey took the slap on the nose better than Lena would have. He asked Esther, “Can you tell me when it was you realized she was missing?”

“We got back late last night,” Esther said. “We went by the farm first to see Papa and pick up Abby and Becca—”

“Becca didn’t go with you, either?” Lena asked.

“Oh, of course not,” the mother said, as if she had suggested something preposterous. “She’s only fourteen.”

“Right,” Lena said, having no idea what age was appropriate for a tour of the homeless shelters of Atlanta.

“Becca stayed with us at the house,” Lev provided. “She likes to spend time with my son, Zeke.” He continued, “When Abby didn’t show up for supper that first night, Becca just assumed Abby had changed her mind about going to Atlanta. She didn’t even bother to bring it up.”

“I’d like to talk to her,” Jeffrey said.

Lev obviously did not like the request, but he nodded his consent. “All right.”

Jeffrey tried again, “There was no one Abby was seeing? A boy she was interested in?”

“I know this is difficult to believe because of her age,” Lev replied, “but Abby led a very sheltered life. She was schooled here at home. She didn’t know much about life outside the farm. We were trying to prepare her by taking her into Atlanta, but she didn’t like it. She preferred a more cloistered life.”

“She had been on missions before?”

Esther provided, “Yes. Twice. She didn’t like it, didn’t like being away.”

“‘Cloistered’ is an interesting word,” Jeffrey observed.

“I know it makes her sound like a nun,” Lev told him, “and maybe that’s not far off base. She wasn’t Catholic, of course, but she was extremely devout. She had a passion for serving our Lord.”

Ephraim said, “Amen,” under his breath, but it felt cursory to Lena, like saying, “Bless you,” after someone sneezed.

Esther supplied, “She was very strong in her faith.” Quickly, she put her hand to her mouth, as if she realized her slip. For the first time, she had spoken about her daughter in the past tense. Beside her, Rachel took her hand.

Jeffrey continued, “Was there anyone hanging around the farm who seemed to pay more attention to her than he should have? A stranger perhaps?”

Lev said, “We have many strangers here, Chief Tolliver. It’s the nature of our work to invite strangers into our homes. Isaiah beseeches us to ‘bring the poor that are cast out to thy house.’ It is our duty to help them.”

“Amen,” the family intoned.

Jeffrey asked Esther, “Do you remember what she was wearing the last time you saw her?”

“Yes, of course.” Esther paused a moment, as if the memory might break a dam of emotions she had been holding back. “We had sewn a blue dress together. Abby loved to sew. We found the pattern in an old trunk upstairs that I believe belonged to Ephraim’s mother. We made a few changes to update it. She was wearing it when we said good-bye.”

“This was here at the house?”

“Yes, early that morning. Becca had already gone to the farm.”

Mary provided, “Becca was with me.”

Jeffrey asked, “Anything else?”

Esther told him, “Abby’s very calm. She never got flustered as a child. She’s such a special girl.”

Lev spoke up, his voice deadly serious in a way that made his words sound not like a compliment to his sister but as a matter of record. “Abby looks very much like her mother, Chief Tolliver. They have the same coloring, same almond shape to their eyes. She’s a very attractive girl.”

Lena repeated his words in her mind, wondering if he was intimating another man might want his niece or revealing something deeper about himself. It was hard to tell with this guy. He seemed pretty open and honest one minute, but then the next Lena wasn’t even sure if she would believe him if he told her the sky was blue. The preacher obviously was the head of the church as well as the family, and she got the distinct feeling that he was probably a lot smarter than he let on.

Esther touched her own hair, recalling, “I tied a ribbon in her hair. A blue ribbon. I remember it now. Ephraim had packed the car and we were ready to go, and I found the ribbon in my purse. I had been saving it because I thought I could use it as an embellishment on a dress or something, but it matched her dress so well, I told her to come over, and she bent down while I tied the ribbon in her hair . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Lena saw her throat work. “She has the softest hair . . .”

Rachel squeezed her sister’s hand. Esther was staring out the window as if she wanted to be outside and away from this scene. Lena saw this as a coping mechanism that she was more than familiar with. It was so much easier to keep yourself removed from things rather than wearing your emotions out on your sleeve.

Paul said, “Rachel and I live on the farm with our families. Separate houses, of course, but we’re within walking distance of the main house. When we couldn’t locate Abby last night, we did a thorough search of the grounds. The workers fanned out. We checked the houses, the buildings, from top to bottom. When we couldn’t find anything, we called the sheriff.”

“I’m sorry it took him so long to get back to you,” Jeffrey said. “They’ve been pretty busy over there.”

“I don’t imagine,” Paul began, “many people in your business get concerned when a twenty-one-year-old girl goes missing.”

“Why is that?”

“Girls run off all the time, don’t they?” he said. “We’re not completely blind to the outside world here.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I’m the black sheep of the family,” Paul said, and from his siblings’ reaction, Lena could tell it was an old family joke. “I’m a lawyer. I handle the farm’s legal business. Most of my time is spent in Savannah. I spend every other week in the city.”

“Were you here last week?” Jeffrey asked.

“I came back last night when I heard about Abby,” he said, and the room fell silent.

“We’ve heard rumors,” Rachel said, cutting to the chase. “Horrible rumors.”

Ephraim put his hand to his chest. The old man’s fingers were trembling. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

“I think so, sir.” Jeffrey reached into his pocket and took out a Polaroid. Ephraim’s hands were shaking too much to take it, so Lev stepped in. Lena watched both men look at the picture. Where Ephraim was composed and quiet, Lev gasped audibly, then closed his eyes, though no tears spilled out. Lena watched his lips move in a silent prayer. Ephraim could only stare at the photograph, his palsy becoming so bad that the chair seemed to vibrate.

Behind him, Paul was looking at the picture, his face impassive. Lena watched him for signs of guilt, then any sign at all. But for his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallowed, he stood as still as a rock.

Esther cleared her throat. “May I?” she said, asking for the picture. She seemed perfectly composed, but her fear and underlying anguish were obvious.

“Oh, Mother,” Ephraim began, his voice cracking from grief. “You may look if you like, but please, trust me, you don’t want to see her like this. You don’t want this in your memory.”

Esther demurred to her husband’s wishes, but Rachel reached out for the photograph. Lena watched the older woman’s lips press into a rigid line. “Dear Jesus,” she whispered. “Why?”

Whether she meant to or not, Esther looked over her sister’s shoulder, seeing the picture of her dead child. Her shoulders started shaking, a small tremble that erupted into spasms of grief as she buried her head in her hands, sobbing, “No!”

Mary had been sitting quietly in the chair, but she stood abruptly, her hand to her chest, then ran from the room. Seconds later, they heard the kitchen door slam.

Lev had remained silent as he watched his sister go, and though Lena couldn’t read his expression, she got the feeling he was angered by Mary’s melodramatic exit.

He cleared his throat before asking, “Chief Tolliver, could you tell us what happened?”

Jeffrey hesitated, and Lena wondered how much he would tell them. “We found her in the woods,” he said. “She was buried in the ground.”

“Oh, Lord,” Esther breathed, doubling over as if in pain. Rachel rubbed her sister’s back, her lips trembling, tears streaming down her face.

Jeffrey didn’t offer specifics as he continued, “She ran out of air.”

“My baby,” Esther moaned. “My poor Abigail.”

The kids from the pigpen came in, the screen door slamming closed behind them. The adults all jumped as if a gun had been fired.

Ephraim spoke first, obviously struggling to regain his composure. “Zeke, what have you been told about the door?”

Zeke leaned against Lev’s leg. He was a spindly kid, not yet showing signs of his father’s height. His arms were as thin as toothpicks. “Sorry, Uncle Eph.”

“Sorry, Papa,” Becca said, though she hadn’t been the one to slam the door. She too was stick-thin, and though Lena wasn’t good with ages, she wouldn’t have put the girl at fourteen. She obviously hadn’t hit puberty yet.

Zeke was staring at his aunt, his lips trembling. He obviously sensed something was wrong. Tears sprang into his eyes.

“Come here, child,” Rachel said, dragging Zeke into her lap. She put her hand on his leg, petting him, soothing him. She was trying to control her grief, but losing the battle.

Rebecca kept to the door, asking, “What’s wrong?”

Lev put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “Your sister has passed on to be with the Lord.”

The teenager’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened and she put her hand to her stomach. She tried to ask a question, but no words came out.

Lev said, “Let’s pray together.”

Rebecca breathed, “What?” as if the air had been knocked out of her.

No one answered her question. All of them but Rebecca bowed their heads, yet instead of the booming sermon from Lev that Lena expected, they were silent.

Rebecca stood there, hand to her stomach, eyes wide open, while the rest of her family prayed.

Lena shot Jeffrey a questioning look, wondering what they should do now. She felt nervous, out of place. Hank had stopped dragging Lena and Sibyl to church after Lena had torn up another girl’s Bible. She wasn’t used to being around religious people unless they were down at the police station.

Jeffrey just shrugged, taking a sip of lemonade. His shoulders went up, and she watched him work his jaw to get the sour out.

“I’m sorry,” Lev told them. “What can we do?”

Jeffrey spoke as if he was reading from a list. “I want employment records on everyone at the farm. I’d like to talk to anyone who had contact with Abigail at any time over the last year. I want to search her room to see if we can come up with something. I’d like to take the computer you mentioned and see if she’s been contacted by anyone through the Internet.”

Ephraim said, “She was never alone with the computer.”

“Still, Mr. Bennett, we need to check everything.”

Lev said, “They’re being thorough, Ephraim. Ultimately, it’s your decision, but I think we should do everything we can to help, if only to eliminate possibilities.”

Jeffrey seized on this. “Would you mind taking a lie detector test?”

Paul almost laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t speak for me, please,” Lev challenged his brother. He told Jeffrey, “We will do everything we can to help you.”

Paul countered, “I don’t think—”

Esther straightened her shoulders, her face was swollen with grief, her eyes rimmed red. “Please don’t argue,” she asked her brothers.

“We’re not arguing,” Paul said, but he sounded like he was spoiling for a fight. Over the years, Lena had seen how grief exposed people’s real personalities. She felt the tension between Paul and his older brother and wondered if it was general sibling rivalry or something deeper. Esther’s tone implied the pair had argued before.

Lev raised his voice, but he was talking to the children. “Rebecca, why don’t you take Zeke into the backyard? Your aunt Mary’s there and I’m sure she needs you.”

“Hold on,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve got a couple of questions for her.”

Paul put his hand on his niece’s shoulder and kept it there. “Go ahead,” he answered, his tone and posture indicating Jeffrey was on a short leash.

Jeffrey asked, “Rebecca, did you know if your sister was seeing anyone?”

The girl looked up at her uncle, as if asking permission. Her eyes finally settled back on Jeffrey. “You mean a boy?”

“Yes,” he answered, and Lena could tell that he saw this as a fruitless exercise. There was no way the girl would be forthcoming in front of her family, especially considering she was a bit rebellious herself. The only way to get the truth out of her was to get her alone, and Lena doubted very seriously that Paul— or any of the men— would allow that.

Again, Rebecca looked at her uncle before answering. “Abby wasn’t allowed to date boys.”

If Jeffrey noticed that she didn’t answer the question, he didn’t let on. “Did you think it was strange when she didn’t join you at the farm when your parents were away?”

Lena was watching Paul’s hand on the girl’s shoulder, trying to see if he was exerting pressure. She couldn’t tell.

“Rebecca?” Jeffrey prompted.

The girl’s chin lifted a little, and she said, “I thought she’d changed her mind.” She added, “Is she really . . . ?”

Jeffrey nodded. “I’m afraid she is,” he told her. “That’s why we need all your help to find out who did this to her.”

Tears flooded into her eyes, and Lev’s composure seemed to drop a little at his niece’s distress. He told Jeffrey, “If you don’t mind . . .”

Jeffrey nodded, and Lev told the girl, “Go on and take Zeke out to your aunt Mary, honey. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Paul waited until they were gone before getting back to business, telling Jeffrey, “I have to remind you that the employment records are spotty. We offer food and shelter in return for an honest day’s work.”

Lena blurted out, “You don’t pay anyone?”

“Of course we do,” Paul snapped. He must’ve been asked this before. “Some take the money, some donate it back to the church. There are several workers who have been here for ten, twenty years and never seen any money in their pocket. What they get in return is a safe place to live, a family and the knowledge that their lives are not wasted.” To put a finer point on it, he indicated the room he was standing in, much as his sister had done before in the kitchen. “We all live very modest lives, Detective. Our aim is to help others, not ourselves.”

Jeffrey cleared his throat. “Still, we’d like to talk to all of them.”

Paul offered, “You can take the computer now. I can arrange for the people who’ve been in contact with Abby to be brought to the station first thing tomorrow morning.”

“The harvest,” Lev reminded him, then explained, “We specialize in edamame, younger soybeans. The peak time for picking is from sunrise to nine A.M., then the beans have to be processed and iced. It’s a very labor-intensive process, and I’m afraid we don’t use much machinery.”

Jeffrey glanced out the window. “We can’t go over there now?”

“As much as I want to get to the bottom of this,” Paul began, “we’ve got a business to run.”

Lev added, “We also have to respect our workers. I’m sure you can imagine that some of them are very nervous around the police. Some have been the victims of police violence, others have been recently incarcerated and are very fearful. We have women and children who have been battered in domestic situations without relief from local law enforcement—”

“Right,” Jeffrey said, as if he had gotten this speech before.

“It is private property,” Paul reminded him, looking and sounding every bit the lawyer.

Lev said, “We can shift people around, get them to cover for the ones who have come into contact with Abby. Would Wednesday morning work?”

“I guess it’ll have to,” Jeffrey said, his tone indicating his displeasure at the delay.

Esther had her hands clasped in her lap, and Lena felt something like anger coming off the mother. She obviously disagreed with her brothers, just as she obviously would not contradict them. She offered, “I’ll show you to her room.”

“Thank you,” Lena said, and they all stood at the same time. Thankfully, only Jeffrey followed them down the hall.

Esther stopped in front of the last door on the right, pressing her palm into the wood as if she couldn’t trust her legs to hold her up.

Lena said, “I know this is hard for you. We’ll do everything we can to find out who did this.”

“She was a very private person.”

“Do you think she kept secrets from you?”

“All daughters keep secrets from their mothers.” Esther opened the door and looked into the room, sadness slackening her face as she saw her daughter’s things. Lena had done the same thing with Sibyl’s possessions, every item conjuring some memory from the past, some happier time when Sibyl was alive.

Jeffrey asked, “Mrs. Bennett?” She was blocking their entrance.

“Please,” she told him, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket. “Find out why this happened. There has to be a reason.”

“I’ll do everything I can to—”

“It’s not enough,” she insisted. “Please. I have to know why she’s gone. I need to know that for myself, for my peace of mind.”

Lena saw Jeffrey’s throat work. “I don’t want to make empty promises, Mrs. Bennett. I can only promise you that I’ll try.” He took out one of his cards, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him. “My home number’s on the back. Call me anytime.”

Esther hesitated before taking the card, then tucked it into the sleeve of her dress. She gave Jeffrey a single nod, as if they had come to an understanding, then backed away, letting them enter her daughter’s room. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Jeffrey and Lena exchanged another glance as Esther returned to her family. Lena could tell he was feeling just as apprehensive as she was. Esther’s plea was understandable, but it only served to add more pressure to what was going to be an incredibly difficult case.

Lena had walked into the room to start the search, but Jeffrey stayed outside the doorway, looking toward the kitchen. He looked back to the family room as if to make sure he wasn’t being observed, then walked down the hall. Lena was about to follow him when he appeared in the doorway with Rebecca Bennett.

Deftly, Jeffrey led the girl into her sister’s bedroom, his hand at her elbow like a concerned uncle. In a low voice, he told her, “It’s very important you talk to us about Abby.”

Rebecca glanced nervously toward the door.

“You want me to shut it?” Lena offered, putting her hand on the knob.

After a moment’s deliberation, Rebecca shook her head. Lena studied her, thinking she was as pretty as her sister was plain. She had taken her dark brown hair out of the braid and there were kinks of waves in the thick strands that cascaded down her shoulders. Esther had said the girl was fourteen, but there was still something womanly about her that probably drew a lot of attention around the farm. Lena found herself wondering how it was Abby instead of Rebecca who had been abducted and buried in the box.

Jeffrey said, “Was Abby seeing anyone?”

Rebecca bit her bottom lip. Jeffrey was good at giving people time, but Lena could tell he was getting antsy about the girl’s family coming into the room.

Lena said, “I have an older sister, too,” leaving out the fact that she was dead. “I know you don’t want to tell on her, but Abby’s gone now. You won’t get her into trouble by telling us the truth.”

The girl kept chewing her lip. “I don’t know,” she mumbled, tears welling into her eyes. She looked to Jeffrey, and Lena guessed the girl saw him as more of an authority figure than a woman could be.

Jeffrey picked up on this, urging, “Talk to me, Rebecca.”

With great effort, she admitted, “She was gone sometimes during the day.”

“Alone?”

She nodded. “She’d say she was going into town, but she’d take too long.”

“Like, how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“It takes around fifteen minutes to get downtown from here,” Jeffrey calculated for her. “Say she was going to a store, that’d take another fifteen or twenty minutes, right?” The girl nodded. “So, she should’ve been gone an hour at most, right?”

Again, the girl nodded. “Only, it was more like two.”

“Did anyone ask her about this?”

She shook her head. “I just noticed.”

“I bet you notice a lot of things,” Jeffrey guessed. “You probably pay more attention to what’s going on than the adults do.”

Rebecca shrugged, but the compliment had worked. “She was just acting funny.”

“How?”

“She was sick in the morning, but she told me not to tell Mama.”

The pregnancy, Lena thought.

Jeffrey asked, “Did she tell you why she was sick?”

“She said it was something she ate, but she wasn’t eating much.”

“Why do you think she didn’t want to tell your mother?”

“Mama would worry,” Rebecca said. She shrugged. “Abby didn’t like people to worry about her.”

“Were you worried?”

Lena saw her swallow. “She cried at night sometimes.” She tilted her head to the side. “My room’s next door. I could hear her.”

“Was she crying about something specific?” Jeffrey asked, and Lena could hear him straining to be gentle with the girl. “Maybe someone hurt her feelings?”

“The Bible teaches us to forgive,” the girl answered. From anyone else, Lena might have thought she was being dramatic, but the girl seemed to be relaying what she thought of as wise advice rather than a sermon. “If we cannot forgive others, then the Lord cannot forgive us.”

“Was there anyone she needed to forgive?”

“If there was,” Rebecca began, “then she would pray for help.”

“Why do you think she was crying?”

Rebecca looked at the room, taking in her sister’s things with a palpable sadness. She was probably thinking about Abby, what the room had felt like when the older girl had been alive. Lena wondered what kind of relationship the sisters had shared. Even though they were twins, Lena and Sibyl had been involved in their share of battles over everything from who got to sit in the front seat of the car to who answered the telephone. Somehow, she couldn’t see Abby being that way.

Rebecca finally answered, “I don’t know why she was sad. She wouldn’t tell me.”

Jeffrey asked, “Are you sure, Rebecca?” He gave her a supportive smile. “You can tell us. We won’t get mad or judge her. We just want to know the truth so that we can find the person who hurt Abby and punish him.”

She nodded, her eyes tearing up again. “I know you want to help.”

“We can’t help Abby unless you help us,” Jeffrey countered. “Anything at all, Rebecca, no matter how silly it seems now. You let us decide whether it’s useful or not.”

She looked from Lena to Jeffrey, then back again. Lena couldn’t tell if the girl was hiding something or if she was just scared of speaking to strangers without her parents’ permission. Either way, they needed to get her to answer their questions before someone started to wonder where she was.

Lena tried to keep her voice light. “You want to talk to me alone, honey? We can talk just you and me if you want.”

Again, Becca seemed to be thinking about it. At least half a minute passed before she said, “I—” just as the back door slammed shut. The girl jumped as if a bullet had been fired.

From the front room, a man’s voice called, “Becca, is that you?”

Zeke plodded up the hallway, and when Rebecca saw her cousin she went to him and grabbed his hand, calling, “It’s me, Papa,” as she led the boy toward her family.

Lena bit back the curse that came to her lips.

Jeffrey asked, “You think she knows something?”

“Hell if I know.”

Jeffrey seemed to agree, and she could feel her frustration echoed in his tone when he told her, “Let’s get this over with.”

She went to the large chest of drawers by the door. Jeffrey went to the desk opposite. The room was small, probably about ten feet by ten. There was a twin bed pushed up against the windows that faced the barn. There were no posters on the white walls or any signs that this had been a young woman’s room. The bed was neatly made, a multicolored quilt tucked in with sharp precision. A stuffed Snoopy that was probably older than Abby was propped against the pillows, its neck sloped to the side from years of wear.

Neatly folded socks were in one of the top drawers. Lena opened the other, seeing similarly folded underwear. That the girl had taken the time to fold her underwear was something that stuck with Lena. She’d obviously been meticulous, concerned with keeping things in order. The lower drawers revealed a precision bordering on obsession.

Everyone had a favorite place to hide things, just like every cop had a favorite place to look. Jeffrey was checking under the bed, between the mattress and box spring. Lena went to the closet, kneeling to check the shoes. There were three pairs, all of them worn but well taken care of. The sneakers had been polished white, the Mary Janes mended at the heel. The third pair was pristine, probably her Sunday shoes.

Lena rapped her knuckles against the boards of the closet floor, checking for a secret compartment. Nothing sounded suspicious and all the boards were nailed firmly in place. Next, she went through the dresses lined up on the closet rod. Lena didn’t have a ruler, but she would have sworn each dress was equidistant, no one touching the other. There was a long winter jacket, obviously store-bought. The pockets were empty, the hem intact. Nothing was hidden in a torn seam or concealed in a secret pouch.

Lev was at the door, a laptop computer in his hands. “Anything?” he asked.

Lena had startled, but she tried not to show it. Jeffrey straightened with his hands in his pockets. “Nothing useful,” he replied.

Lev handed the computer to Jeffrey, the power cord trailing behind it. She wondered if he had looked at it himself while they were searching the room. She had no doubt Paul would have.

Lev told him, “You can keep this as long as you like. I’d be surprised if you found anything on it.”

“Like you said,” Jeffrey responded, wrapping the cord around the computer, “we need to eliminate every possibility.” He nodded to Lena, and she followed him out of the room. Walking down the hallway, she could hear the family talking, but by the time they reached the living room, everyone was silent.

Jeffrey told Esther, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She looked straight at Jeffrey, her pale green eyes piercing even to Lena. She didn’t say a word, but her plea was evident.

Lev opened the front door. “Thank you both,” he said. “I’ll be there Wednesday morning at nine.”

Paul seemed about to say something, but stopped at the last minute. Lena could almost see what was going through his little lawyer brain. It was probably killing him that Lev had volunteered for the polygraph. She imagined Paul would have an earful for his brother when the cops were gone.

Jeffrey told Lev, “We’ll have to call in someone to perform the test.”

“Of course,” Lev agreed. “But I feel the need to reiterate that I can volunteer only myself. Likewise, the people you see tomorrow will be there on a voluntary basis. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, Chief Tolliver, but it’s going to be difficult enough getting them there. If you try to force them into taking a lie detector test, they’re likely to leave.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Jeffrey said, his tone disingenuous. “Would you mind sending your foreman as well?”

Paul seemed surprised by the request. “Cole?”

“He’s probably had contact with everyone on the farm,” Lev said. “That’s a good idea.”

“While we’re on it,” Paul said, glancing Jeffrey’s way, “the farm is private property. We don’t generally have the police there unless it’s official business.”

“You don’t consider this official business?”

“Family business,” he said, then held out his hand. “Thank you for all your help.”

“Could you tell me,” Jeffrey began, “did Abby drive?”

Paul dropped his hand, “Of course. She was certainly old enough.”

“Did she have a car?”

“She borrowed Mary’s,” he answered. “My sister stopped driving some time ago. Abby was using her car to deliver meals, run chores in town.”

“She did these things alone?”

“Generally,” Paul allowed, wary the way any lawyer is when he gives out information without getting something in return.

Lev added, “Abby loved helping people.”

Paul put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

Lev said, “Thank you both.”

Lena and Jeffrey stood at the base of the steps, watching Lev walk into the house. He shut the door firmly behind him.

Lena let out a breath, turning back to the car. Jeffrey followed, keeping his thoughts to himself as they got in.

He didn’t speak until they were on the main road, passing Holy Grown again. Lena saw the place in a new light, and wondered what they were really up to over there.

Jeffrey said, “Odd family.”

“I’ll say.”

“It won’t do us any good to be blinded by our prejudices,” he said, giving her a sharp look.

“I think I have a right to my opinion.”

“You do,” he said, and she could feel his gaze settle onto the scars on the backs of her hands. “But how will you feel in a year’s time if this case isn’t solved because all we could focus on was their religion?”

“What if the fact that they’re Bible-thumpers is what breaks this open?”

“People kill for different reasons,” he reminded her. “Money, love, lust, vengeance. That’s what we need to focus on. Who has a motive? Who has the means?”

He had a point, but Lena knew firsthand that sometimes people did things just because they were fucking nuts. No matter what Jeffrey said, it was too coincidental that this girl had ended up buried in a box out in the middle of the woods and her family was a bunch of backwoods Bible-thumpers.

She asked, “You don’t think this is ritualistic?”

“I think the mother’s grief was real.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I got that, too.” She felt the need to point out, “That doesn’t mean the rest of the family isn’t into it. They’re running a fucking cult out here.”

“All religions are cults,” he said, and though Lena hated religion herself, she had to disagree.

“I wouldn’t call the Baptist church downtown a cult.”

“They’re like-minded people sharing the same values and religious beliefs. That’s a cult.”

“Well,” she said, still not agreeing but not knowing how to challenge him on it. She doubted the Pope in Rome would say he was running a cult. There was mainstream religion and then there were the freaks who handled snakes and thought electricity provided a conduit straight to the Devil.

“It keeps coming back to the cyanide,” he told her. “Where did it come from?”

“Esther said they don’t use pesticides.”

“There’s no way we’ll get a warrant to test that out. Even if Ed Pelham cooperated on the Catoogah side, we don’t have cause.”

“I wish we’d looked around more when we were over there.”

“That Cole person needs a harder look.”

“You think he’ll come Wednesday morning?”

“No telling,” he said, then asked, “What are you doing tonight?”

“Why?”

“Wanna go to the Pink Kitty?”

“The titty bar on Highway Sixteen?”

“The strip joint,” he corrected, as if she had offended him. Driving with one hand, he rooted around in his pocket and pulled out a book of matches. He tossed them to her and she recognized the Pink Kitty’s logo on the front. They had a huge neon sign outside the bar that could be seen for miles.

“Tell me,” he said, turning onto the highway, “why a naïve twenty-one-year-old would take a book of matches from a strip club and shove it up the ass of her favorite stuffed animal.”

That was why he had been so interested in the stuffed Snoopy on Abby’s bed. She had hidden the matchbook inside. “Good question,” she told him, opening the cover. None of the matches had been used.

“I’ll pick you up at ten thirty.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Lena wanted to run, but in Atlanta, they had told her to give it a couple of weeks before doing anything jarring. This morning, she had stayed in bed as long as she could, pretending to sleep in until Nan left for work, then slipping out for a walk a few minutes later. She had wanted time to think about what she had seen on the dead girl’s X-ray. The baby had been as big as her two fists put together, the same size as the baby they had taken from her womb.

As she walked down the street, Lena found herself wondering about the other woman in the clinic, the furtive looks they had given each other, the guilty way the woman had slumped into her chair, as if she wanted to disappear into nothing. Lena wondered how far along she had been, what had brought her to the clinic. She had heard stories about women who got abortions instead of worrying about birth control, but could not believe that anyone would willingly put themselves through such an ordeal more than once. Even after a week had passed, Lena couldn’t close her eyes without her mind’s eye conjuring up a twisted image of the fetus. The things she imagined in her head were surely worse than what was actually done.

The one thing she was grateful for was that she didn’t have to sit through the autopsy that was going to happen today. She didn’t want a concrete image of what her own baby had looked like before. She just wanted to get on with her life, and right now, that meant dealing with Ethan.

Last night, he had tracked her down at home after badgering her whereabouts out of Hank. Lena had told him the truth about her return, that Jeffrey had called her back into town, and laid the foundation for not seeing him much over the next few weeks by saying that she had to devote all of her attention to the case. Ethan was smart, probably smarter than Lena in a lot of ways, and whenever he sensed her pulling away, he always said the right thing to make her feel like she had a choice in the matter. Over the phone, his voice had been as smooth as silk as he’d told her to do what she had to do, and to call him when she got the chance. She wondered how far she could press that, how much slack was in the rope he had around her neck. Why was she so weak where he was concerned? When did he get all this power over her? She had to do something to get him out of her life. There had to be a better way to live than this.

Lena turned down Sanders Street, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets as a blast of cold air ruffled the leaves. Fifteen years ago, she had joined the Grant County police force so that she could be near her sister. Sibyl had worked at the college in the science department, where she’d had a very promising career until her life was cut short. Lena couldn’t say the same for her own job opportunities. She had taken what was now being politely called a hiatus from the force several months ago, working at the college for a stretch before deciding to get her life back on track. Jeffrey had been very generous letting Lena have her old job back, but she knew that some of the other cops were resentful.

She couldn’t blame them. From the outside, it must look like Lena had it fairly easy. Living it all from the inside, she knew better. Almost three years had passed since she had been raped. Her hands and feet still had deep scars where her attacker had nailed her to the floor. The real pain only began after she was released.

Somehow, it was getting easier, though. She could walk into an empty room now without feeling the hair on the back of her neck bristle. Staying in the house by herself was no longer a source of panic. Sometimes, she would wake up and get through half the morning without remembering what had happened.

She had to admit that Nan Thomas was one of the reasons her life was getting easier. When Sibyl had first introduced them, Lena had hated the other woman on sight. It wasn’t as if Sibyl hadn’t had other lovers before, but there was something permanent about Nan. Lena had even stopped talking to her sister for a while after the two women moved in together. As with so many other things, Lena regretted that now, and Sibyl wasn’t around to hear the apology. Lena supposed she could apologize to Nan, but whenever the thought struck her, the words wouldn’t come.

Living with Nan was like trying to learn the lyrics of a familiar song. You started out telling yourself that this was the time you were really going to pay attention, hear every last word, but three lines in you’d forget the plan and just settle into the familiar rhythm of the music. After six months of sharing a house together, Lena knew little more than surface things about the librarian. Nan loved animals despite severe allergies, liked to crochet and spent every Friday and Saturday night reading. She sang in the shower and in the morning before work she drank green tea out of a blue mug that had belonged to Sibyl. Her thick glasses were always smudged with fingerprints but she was incredibly fastidious about her clothes, even if her dresses tended to run to colors better suited to Easter eggs than a grown woman of thirty-six. Like Lena and Sibyl, Nan’s father had been a cop. He was still around, but Lena had never met him or even heard him call on the phone. As a matter of fact, the only time the phone rang in the house, it was usually Ethan calling for Lena.

Nan’s brown Corolla was parked behind Lena’s Celica when she walked up the driveway to the house. Lena glanced at her watch, wondering how long she had been walking. Jeffrey had given her the morning off to make up for yesterday, and she had looked forward to spending some time alone. Nan usually came home for lunch, but it was barely past nine o’clock.

Lena grabbed the Grant Observer off the lawn and scanned the headlines as she walked toward the front door. Someone’s toaster had caught fire Saturday night and the fire department had been called. Two students at Robert E. Lee High had placed second and fifth at a state math competition. There was no mention of the missing girl found in the woods. Probably the paper had been put to bed before Jeffrey and Sara had stumbled across the burial site. Lena was sure there would be a huge story on the front page tomorrow. Maybe the newspaper could help them find the girl’s family.

She opened the door, reading about the toaster fire, wondering why it had taken sixteen volunteer firemen to put it out. Sensing a change in the room, she looked up, shocked to see Nan sitting in a chair across from Greg Mitchell, Lena’s old boyfriend. They had lived together for three years before Greg decided he’d had enough of her temper. He had packed all his stuff and left while she was at work— a cowardly yet in retrospect understandable move— leaving a brief note stuck to the fridge. So brief that she could remember every word. “I love you but I can’t take it anymore. Greg.”

They had talked to each other a total of two times in the almost seven years since then, both conversations taking place on the telephone and both ending with Lena slamming down the receiver before Greg could say anything more than, “It’s me.”

“Lee,” Nan practically screamed, standing up quickly, as if she had been caught.

“Hey,” Lena managed, her throat clenching around the word. She had put the newspaper to her chest as if she needed some kind of protection. Maybe she did.

On the couch beside Greg was a woman around Lena’s age. She had olive skin and her brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. On a good day, she might pass for one of Lena’s distant cousins— the ugly ones on Hank’s side. Today, sitting next to Greg, the girl looked more like a whore. It gave Lena some satisfaction that Greg had settled for a lesser copy, but she still had to swallow a tinge of jealousy when she asked, “What are you doing here?” He appeared taken aback, and she tried to moderate her tone, saying, “Back in town, I mean. What are you doing back in town?”

“I, uh . . .” His face broke into an awkward grin. Maybe he had been expecting her to hit him with the newspaper. She had done it before.

“Shattered my tib-fib,” he said, indicating his ankle. She saw a cane tucked into the couch between him and the girl. “I’m back home for a while so my mom can look after me.”

Lena knew his mother’s house was two streets over. Her heart did an odd kind of tumble in her chest as she wondered how long he had been living there. She racked her brain for something to say, settling on, “How’s she doing? Your mom.”

“Still cantankerous as ever.” His eyes were a crystal clear blue, incongruous with his jet-black hair. He was wearing it longer now, or maybe he had forgotten to get it cut. Greg was always forgetting that sort of thing, spending hours in front of the computer figuring out a program while the house was falling apart around him. They had argued about it constantly. They had argued about everything constantly. She had never let up, not giving him an inch on anything. He had annoyed the shit out of her and she had hated his guts and he was probably the only man she had ever really loved.

He asked, “And you?”

“What?” she said, still stuck in her thoughts. His fingers tapped on the cane, and she saw his nails had been bitten to the quick.

Greg glanced at the other women, his smile a little more hesitant. “I asked how you were doing.”

She shrugged, and there was a long moment of silence where she could only stare at him. Finally, she made herself look down at her hands. She had shredded the corner of the newspaper like a nervous housewife. Jesus, she had never been this uncomfortable in her life. There were lunatics in the asylum with better social skills.

“Lena,” Nan said, her voice taking on a nervous pitch. “This is Mindy Bryant.”

Mindy reached out her hand, and Lena shook it. She saw Greg looking at the scars on the back of her hand and pulled back self-consciously.

His tone had a quiet sadness. “I heard what happened.”

“Yeah,” she managed, tucking her hands into her back pockets. “Listen, I’ve got to get ready for work.”

“Oh, right,” Greg said. He tried to stand. Mindy and Nan reached out to help, but Lena stood where she was. She had wanted to help, even felt her muscles twitch, but for some reason her feet stayed rooted to the floor.

Greg leaned on his cane, telling Lena, “I just thought I’d drop by and let you guys know I’m back in town.” He leaned over and kissed Nan’s cheek. Lena remembered how many arguments she’d had with Greg over Sibyl’s sexual orientation. He had always been on her sister’s side and probably thought it was really rich that Lena and Nan were living together now. Or maybe not. Greg was not the petty type and never held a grudge for long; it was one of the many qualities she hadn’t understood about him.

He told Lena, “I’m sorry about Sibyl. Mama didn’t tell me until I got back.”

“I’m not surprised,” Lena said. Lu Mitchell had hated Lena on sight. She was one of those women who thought her son walked on water.

Greg said, “So, I’ll get going.”

“Yeah,” Lena answered, stepping back so he could make his way to the door.

“Don’t be a stranger.” Nan patted his arm. She was still acting nervous, and Lena noticed that she was blinking a lot. Something was different about her, but Lena couldn’t put her finger on it.

Greg said, “You look great, Nan. Really good.”

Nan actually blushed, and Lena realized she wasn’t wearing her glasses. When had Nan gotten contacts? And for that matter, why? She had never been the type to worry about her appearance, but today she had even forgone her usual pastels and had dressed in jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Lena had never seen her in anything darker than chartreuse.

Mindy had said something, and Lena apologized, saying, “Sorry?”

“I said it was nice meeting you.” She had a twang that grated, and Lena hoped the smile she managed didn’t betray her aversion.

Greg said, “Nice meeting you, too,” and shook Mindy’s hand.

Lena opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. Greg was at the door, his hand on the knob.

He gave Lena one last look over his shoulder. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” Lena answered, thinking that was pretty much all she had said for the last five minutes.

The door clicked shut and the three women stood in a circle.

Mindy gave a nervous laugh, and Nan joined in just a tad too loudly. She put her hand to her mouth to stop herself.

Mindy said, “I’d better get back to work.” She leaned over to kiss Nan’s cheek, but Nan pulled back. At the last minute, she realized what she had done and leaned forward, hitting Mindy in the nose.

Mindy laughed, rubbing her nose. “I’ll call you.”

“Um, okay,” Nan answered, her face the color of a turnip. “I’ll be here. Today, I mean. Or at work tomorrow.” She looked at everything in the room but Lena. “I mean, I’ll be around.”

“Okay,” Mindy answered, the smile on her face a little tighter. She told Lena, “Nice meeting you.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

Mindy gave Nan a furtive look. “See you later.”

Nan waved, and Lena said, “Bye.”

The door closed, and Lena felt like all the air had been sucked from the room. Nan was still blushing, her lips pressed together so tightly they were turning white. Lena decided to break the ice, saying, “She seems nice.”

“Yeah,” Nan agreed. “I mean, no. Not that she’s not nice. I just . . . Oh, dear me.” She pressed her fingers to her lips to stop them.

Lena tried to think of something positive to say. “She’s pretty.”

“You think so?” Nan blushed again. “I mean, not that it matters. I just—”

“It’s okay, Nan.”

“It’s too soon.”

Lena didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t good at comforting people. She wasn’t good at anything emotional, a fact that Greg had cited several times before he’d finally gotten fed up and left.

“Greg just knocked on the door,” Nan said, and when Lena looked out the front door, she added, “not now, before. We were sitting around. Mindy and I. We were just talking and he knocked and—” She stopped, taking a deep breath. “Greg looks good.”

“Yeah.”

“He said he walks in the neighborhood all the time,” Nan told her. “For his leg. He’s in physical therapy. He didn’t want to be rude. You know, if we saw him in the street and wondered what he was doing back in town.”

Lena nodded.

“He didn’t know you were here. Living here.”

“Oh.”

Silence took over again.

Nan said, “Well,” just as Lena said, “I thought you were at work.”

“I took the morning off.”

Lena rested her hand on the front door. Nan had obviously wanted to keep her date a secret. Maybe she was ashamed, or maybe she was scared what Lena’s reaction might be.

Lena asked, “Did you have coffee with her?”

“It’s too soon after Sibyl,” Nan told her. “I didn’t notice until you got here . . .”

“What?”

“She looks like you. Like Sibyl.” She amended, “Not exactly like Sibyl, not as pretty. Not as . . .” Nan rubbed her eyes with her fingers, then whispered, “Shit.”

Lena was yet again at a loss for words.

“Stupid contacts,” Nan said. She dropped her hand, but Lena could see her eyes were watering.

“It’s okay, Nan,” Lena told her, feeling an odd sense of responsibility. “It’s been three years,” she pointed out, though it felt like it had barely been three days. “You deserve a life. She would want you to—”

Nan cut her off with a nod, sniffing loudly. She waved her hands in front of her face. “I’d better go take these stupid things out. I feel like I have needles in my eyes.”

She practically ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Lena contemplated standing outside the door, asking her if she was okay, but that felt like a violation. The thought that Nan might one day date had never occurred to Lena. She had considered Nan asexual after a while, existing only in the context of their home life. For the first time, Lena realized that Nan must have been terribly lonely all this time.

Lena was so lost in thought that the phone rang several times before Nan called, “Are you going to get that?”

Lena grabbed the receiver just before the voice mail picked up. “Hello?”

“Lena,” Jeffrey said, “I know I gave you the morning off—”

Relief came like a ray of sunshine. “When do you need me?”

“I’m in the driveway.”

She walked over to the window and looked out at his white cruiser. “I need a minute to change.”

Lena sat back in the passenger’s seat, watching the scenery go by as Jeffrey drove along a gravel road on the outskirts of town. Grant County was comprised of three cities: Heartsdale, Madison and Avondale. Heartsdale, home to Grant Tech, was the jewel of the county, and with its huge antebellum mansions and gingerbread houses, it certainly looked it. By comparison, Madison was dingy, a lesser version of what a city should be, and Avondale was an outright shithole since the army had closed the base there. It was just Lena and Jeffrey’s luck that the call came from Avondale. Every cop she knew dreaded a call from this side of the county, where poverty and hatred made the whole town simmer like a pot about to boil over.

Jeffrey asked, “You ever been out this far on a call?”

“I didn’t even know there were houses out here.”

“There weren’t the last time I checked.” Jeffrey handed her a file with a slip of paper containing the directions paper clipped to the outside. “What road are we looking for?”

“Plymouth,” she read. At the top of the page was a name. “Ephraim Bennett?”

“The father, apparently.” Jeffrey slowed so that they could check a faded road sign. It was the standard green with white letters, but there was something homemade looking about it, as if someone had used a kit from the hardware store.

“Nina Street,” she read, wondering when all of these roads had been built. After working patrol for nearly ten years, Lena thought she knew the county better than anyone. Looking around, she felt like they were in foreign territory.

She asked, “Are we still in Grant?”

“We’re right on the line,” he told her. “Catoogah County is on the left, Grant is on the right.”

He slowed for another road sign. “Pinta Street,” she told him. “Who got the call first?”

“Ed Pelham,” he said, practically spitting out the name. Catoogah County was less than half the size of Grant, warranting no more than a sheriff and four deputies. A year ago, Joe Smith, the kindly old grandfather who had held the post of sheriff for thirty years, had keeled over from a heart attack during the keynote speech at the Rotary Club, kicking off a nasty political race between two of his deputies. The election had been so close that the winner, in keeping with county law, was decided by a coin toss, two out of three. Ed Pelham had entered office with the moniker “Two-Bit” for more reasons than the two quarters that went his way. He was about as lazy as he was lucky, and he had no problem letting other people do his job so long as he got to wear the big hat and collect the paycheck.

Jeffrey said, “The call came in to one of his deputies last night. He didn’t follow up on it until this morning, when he realized they’re not in his jurisdiction.”

“Ed called you?”

“He called the family and told them they’d have to take it up with us.”

“Nice,” she said. “Did he know about our Jane Doe?”

Jeffrey was more diplomatic than Lena would have been. “That cocksucker wouldn’t know if his own ass was on fire.”

She snorted a laugh. “Who’s Lev?”

“What?”

“The name under here,” she said, showing him the directions. “You wrote ‘Lev’ and underlined it.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, obviously not paying attention to her as he slowed down to read another sign.

“Santa Maria,” Lena read, recognizing the names of the ships from her junior high school history class. “What are they, a bunch of pilgrims?”

“The pilgrims came over on the Mayflower.”

“Oh,” Lena said. There was a reason her school counselor had told her college wasn’t right for everyone.

“Columbus led the Niña, Pinta and Santa María.”

“Right.” She could feel Jeffrey staring at her, probably wondering if she had a brain in her head. “Columbus.”

Thankfully, he changed the subject. “Lev’s the one who called this morning,” Jeffrey told her, speeding up. The tires kicked back gravel and Lena saw a cloud behind them in the side-view mirror. “He’s the uncle. I called back and spoke with the father.”

“Uncle, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “We’ll take a close look at him.” He braked to a stop as the road made a sharp left into a dead end.

“Plymouth,” Lena said, pointing to a narrow dirt road on the right.

Jeffrey reversed the car so he could make the turn without going into a ditch. “I ran their names through the computer.”

“Any hits?”

“The father got a speeding ticket in Atlanta two days ago.”

“Nice alibi.”

“Atlanta’s not that far away,” he pointed out. “Who the hell would live way out here?”

“Not me,” Lena answered. She looked out her window at the rolling pastures. There were cows grazing and a couple of horses ran in the distance like something out of a movie. Some people might think this was a slice of heaven, but Lena needed more to do than look at the cows all day.

“When did all this get here?” Jeffrey asked.

Lena looked on his side of the road, seeing a huge farm with row after row of plants. She asked, “Are those peanuts?”

“They look a little tall for that.”

“What else grows out here?”

“Republicans and unemployment,” he said. “This has to be some kind of corporate farm. Nobody could afford to run a place this size on their own.”

“There you go.” Lena pointed to a sign at the head of a winding driveway that led to a series of buildings. The words “Holy Grown Soy Cooperative” were written in fancy gold script. Underneath this, in smaller letters, it said “Est. 1984.”

Lena asked, “Like hippies?”

“Who knows,” Jeffrey said, rolling up the window as the smell of manure came into the car. “I’d hate to have to live across from this place.”

She saw a large, modern-looking barn with a group of at least fifty workers milling about outside. They were probably on break. “The soy business must be doing well.”

He slowed the car to a stop in the middle of the road. “Is this place even on the map?”

Lena opened the glove compartment and took out the spiral-bound Grant County and surrounding areas street map. She was flipping through the pages, looking for Avondale, when Jeffrey mumbled a curse and turned toward the farm. One thing she liked about her boss was that he wasn’t afraid to ask for directions. Greg had been the same way— usually it was Lena saying they should just go a couple of more miles and see if they lucked out and found their destination.

The driveway to the barn was more like a two-lane road, both sides rutted deep from tires. They probably had heavy trucks in and out to pick up the soy or whatever it was they grew here. Lena didn’t know what soy looked like, but she imagined it would take a lot to fill a box, let alone a whole truck.

“We’ll try here,” Jeffrey said, slamming the gear into park. She could tell he was irritated, but didn’t know if it was because they had gotten lost or because the detour kept the family waiting even longer. She had learned from Jeffrey over the years that it was best to get the bad news out of the way as quickly as possible unless there was something important to be gained from waiting.

They walked around the big red barn and Lena saw a second group of workers standing behind it, a short, wiry-looking old man yelling so loud that even from fifty feet away, she could hear him clear as a bell.

“The Lord does not abide laziness!” the man was screaming, his finger inches from a younger man’s face. “Your weakness has cost us a full morning’s work!”

The man with the finger in his face looked down, contrite. There were two girls in the crowd, and they were both crying.

“Weakness and greed!” the old man proclaimed. Anger edged his tone so that each word sounded like an indictment. He had a Bible in his other hand, and he raised it into the air like a torch, shining the way toward enlightenment. “Your weakness will find you out!” he screamed. “The Lord will test you, and you must be strong!”

“Christ,” Jeffrey muttered, then, “Excuse me, sir?”

The man turned around, his scowl slipping into a puzzled look, then a frown. He was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt starched to within an inch of its life. His jeans were likewise stiff, a razor crease ironed into the front of the legs. A Braves ball cap sat on his head, his large ears sticking out on each side like billboards. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe spittle from his mouth. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?” Lena noticed that his voice was hoarse from yelling.

Jeffrey said, “We’re looking for Ephraim Bennett.”

The man’s expression yet again turned on a dime. He smiled brightly, his eyes lighting up. “That’s across the road,” he said, indicating the way Jeffrey and Lena had come. He directed, “Go back down, take a left, then you’ll see it about a quarter mile down on the right.”

Despite his cheerful demeanor, tension hung in the air like a heavy cloud. It was hard to reconcile the man who had been screaming a few minutes ago with the kindly old grandfather offering his help to them now.

Lena checked out the crowd of workers— about ten in all. Some looked as if they had one foot in the grave. One girl in particular looked like she was having a hard time standing up, though whether this was from grief or intoxication, Lena wasn’t sure. They all looked like a bunch of strung-out hippies.

“Thank you,” Jeffrey told the man, but he looked like he didn’t want to leave.

“Have a blessed day,” the man answered, then turned his back to Jeffrey and Lena, pretty much dismissing them. “Children,” he said, holding the Bible aloft, “let’s return to the fields.”

Lena felt Jeffrey’s hesitation, and didn’t move until he did. It wasn’t like they could push the man to the ground and ask him what the hell was going on, but she could tell they both were thinking the same thing: something strange was happening here.

They were quiet until they got into the car. Jeffrey started the car and reversed it out of the space so he could turn around.

Lena said, “That was weird.”

“Weird how?”

She wondered if he was disagreeing with her or just trying to get her take on the situation.

She said, “All that Bible shit.”

“He seemed a little wrapped up in it,” Jeffrey conceded, “but a lot of folks around here are.”

“Still,” she said. “Who carries a Bible to work with them?”

“A lot of people out here, I’d guess.”

They turned back onto the main road and almost immediately Lena saw a mailbox sticking up on her side of the road. “Three ten,” she said. “This is it.”

Jeffrey took the turn. “Just because somebody’s religious doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them.”

“I didn’t say that,” Lena insisted, though maybe she had. From the age of ten, she had hated church and anything that smacked of a man standing in a pulpit, ordering you around. Her uncle Hank was so wrapped up in religion now that it was a worse addiction than the speed he’d shot into his veins for almost thirty years.

Jeffrey said, “Try to keep an open mind.”

“Yeah,” she answered, wondering if he’d let it slip his mind that she’d been raped a few years ago by a Jesus freak who got off on crucifying women. If Lena was antireligion, she had a damn good reason to be.

Jeffrey drove down a driveway that was so long Lena wondered if they had taken a wrong turn. Passing a leaning barn and what looked like an outhouse gave Lena a feeling of déjà vu. There were places like this all over Reese, where she had grown up. Reaganomics and government deregulation had crippled the farmers to their knees. Families had simply walked away from the land that had belonged to them for generations, leaving it to the bank to figure out what to do. Usually, the bank sold it to some multinational corporation that in turn hired migrant workers on the sly, keeping the payroll down and profits up.

Jeffrey asked, “Do they use cyanide in pesticides these days?”

“Got me.” Lena took out her notebook to remind herself to find the answer.

Jeffrey slowed the car as they breached a steep hill. Three goats stood in the drive, and he beeped his horn to get them moving. The bells around their collars jangled as they trotted into what looked like a chicken coop. A teenage girl and a young boy stood outside a pigpen holding a bucket between them. The girl was wearing a simple shift, the boy overalls with no shirt and no shoes. Their eyes followed the car as they drove by, and Lena felt the hairs on her arm stand straight up.

Jeffrey said, “If somebody starts playing a banjo, I’m outta here.”

“I’m right behind you,” Lena said, relieved to see civilization finally come into view.

The house was an unassuming cottage with two dormers set into a steeply pitched roof. The clapboard looked freshly painted and well tended, and except for the beat-up old truck out front, the house could have easily been a professor’s home in Heartsdale. Flowers ringed the front porch and followed a dirt path to the drive. As they got out of the car, Lena saw a woman standing behind the screen door. She had her hands clasped in front of her, and Lena guessed from the palpable tension that this was the missing girl’s mother.

Jeffrey said, “This isn’t going to be easy,” and not for the first time she was glad that this sort of thing was his job and not hers.

Lena shut the door, letting her hand rest on the hood as a man came out of the house. She expected the woman to follow, but instead an older man came shuffling out.

“Chief Tolliver?” the younger man asked. He had dark red hair but without the freckles that usually accompanied it. His skin was as pasty as you would expect, and his green eyes were so clear in the morning sunlight that Lena could tell their color from at least ten feet away. He was good-looking if you liked that sort, but the short-sleeved button-down shirt that he wore tightly tucked into his khaki Dockers made him look like a high school math teacher.

Jeffrey looked momentarily startled for some reason, but he recovered quickly, saying, “Mr. Bennett?”

“Lev Ward,” he clarified. “This is Ephraim Bennett, Abigail’s father.”

“Oh,” Jeffrey said, and Lena could tell he was surprised. Even wearing a baseball cap and overalls, Ephraim Bennett looked to be about eighty, hardly the age of a man with a twentyish daughter. Still, he was wiry-thin with a healthy glint in his eyes. Both his hands trembled noticeably, but she imagined he didn’t miss much.

Jeffrey said, “I’m sorry to meet you under these circumstances.”

Ephraim gave Jeffrey what looked like a firm handshake despite his obvious palsy. “I appreciate your handling this personally, sir.” His voice was strong with the kind of Southern drawl Lena never heard anymore except in Hollywood movies. He tipped his hat to Lena. “Ma’am.”

Lena nodded in return, watching Lev, who seemed to be in charge despite the thirty-odd years that separated the two.

Ephraim told Jeffrey, “Thank you for coming out so quickly,” even though Lena would hardly characterize their response as quick. The call had come in last night. Had Jeffrey been on the other end of the line instead of Ed Pelham, he would have driven straight out to the Bennett home, not waited until the next day.

Jeffrey apologized, saying, “There was a question of jurisdiction.”

Lev said, “That’s my fault. The farm is in Catoogah County. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

“None of us were,” Ephraim excused.

Lev bowed his head, as if to accept the absolution.

Jeffrey said, “We stopped at the farm across the street for directions. There was a man there, about sixty-five, seventy—”

“Cole,” Lev provided. “Our foreman.”

Jeffrey paused, probably waiting for more information. When nothing came, he added, “He gave us directions.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more clear about how to get here,” Lev told him, then offered, “Why don’t we go inside and talk to Esther?”

“Your sister-in-law?” Jeffrey asked.

“Baby sister,” Lev clarified. “I hope you don’t mind, but my brother and other sisters are coming by, too. We’ve been up all night worried about Abby.”

Lena asked, “Has she ever run away before?”

“I’m sorry,” Lev said, focusing his attention on Lena. “I didn’t introduce myself.” He held out his hand. Lena had been expecting the dead-fish flop that most men affected, lightly gripping a woman’s fingers as if they were afraid of breaking them, but he gave her the same hearty shake he had given Jeffrey, looking her square in the eye. “Leviticus Ward.”

“Lena Adams,” she told him.

“Detective?” he guessed. “We’ve been so anxious about this. Forgive my poor manners.”

“It’s understandable,” Lena said, aware that he had managed to sidestep answering her question about Abby.

He stepped back, graciously telling Lena, “After you.”

Lena walked toward the house, watching their shadows follow her, wondering at their old-fashioned manners. When they reached the front door, Lev held it open, letting Lena walk in first.

Esther Bennett sat on the couch, her feet crossed at the ankles, hands folded in her lap. Her spine was ramrod straight, and Lena, normally given to slouching, found herself pulling her shoulders back as if she was trying to measure up.

“Chief Tolliver?” Esther Bennett asked. She was much younger than her husband, probably in her forties, her dark hair graying slightly at the temples. Wearing a white cotton dress with a red-checkered apron, she looked like something out of a Betty Crocker cookbook. She kept her hair in a tight bun behind her head, but judging from the wisps that had escaped, it was nearly as long as her daughter’s. There was no doubt in Lena’s mind that the dead girl was this woman’s daughter. They were carbon copies of each other.

“Call me Jeffrey,” Jeffrey offered; then: “You’ve got a beautiful home, Mrs. Bennett.” He always said this, even if the place was a dump. In this case, though, the best way to describe the Bennett house was “plain.” There were no knickknacks on the coffee table and the mantel over the fireplace was clean but for a simple wooden cross hanging on the brick. Two faded but sturdy-looking wingback chairs banked the window looking out into the front yard. The orangish couch was probably a relic from the 1960s, but it was in good shape. There were no drapes or blinds on the windows and the hardwood floor was bare of any carpeting. The ceiling fixture overhead was probably original to the house, which put it at around Ephraim’s age. Lena guessed they were standing in the formal parlor, though a quick glance down the hallway proved the rest of the house followed the same minimalist decorating style.

Jeffrey must have been thinking the same thing about the house, because he asked, “Have y’all lived here long?”

Lev answered, “Since before Abby was born.”

“Please,” Esther said, spreading her hands. “Have a seat.” She stood as Jeffrey sat, and he popped back up. “Please,” she repeated, motioning him back down.

Lev told him, “The rest of the family should be here soon.”

Esther offered, “Would you like something to drink, Chief Tolliver? Some lemonade?”

“That’d be nice,” Jeffrey answered, probably because he knew accepting the offer would help put the woman at ease.

“And you, Miss— ?”

“Adams,” Lena provided. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Lev said, “Esther, this woman is a detective.”

“Oh,” she said, seeming flustered by her mistake. “I’m sorry, Detective Adams.”

“It’s fine,” Lena assured her, wondering why she felt like she should be the one apologizing. There was something strange about this family, and she wondered what secrets they were hiding. Her radar had been on high alert since the old nut at the farm. She didn’t imagine he fell far from the tree.

Lev said, “Lemonade would be nice, Esther,” and Lena realized how deftly he managed to control the situation. He seemed to be very good at taking charge, something that always made her wary in an investigation.

Esther had regained some of her composure. “Please make yourselves at home. I’ll be right back.”

She left the room silently, only pausing to rest her hand briefly on her husband’s shoulder.

The men stood around as if they were waiting for something. Lena caught Jeffrey’s expression and she said, “Why don’t I go help her?”

The men seemed relieved, and as she walked down the hallway after Esther, Lena could hear Lev chuckling at something she didn’t quite catch. Something told her it had to do with a woman’s place being in the kitchen. She got the distinct impression that this family did things the old-fashioned way, with the men taking charge and the women being seen and not heard.

Lena took her time walking to the back of the house, hoping to see something that might explain what was so weird about the inhabitants. There were three doors on the right, all closed, that she assumed were bedrooms. On the left was what looked like a family room and a large library filled floor to ceiling with books, which was kind of surprising. For some reason, she had always assumed religious fanatics didn’t tend to read.

If Esther was as old as she looked, then her brother Lev had to be closer to fifty. He was a smooth talker and had the voice of a Baptist preacher. Lena had never been particularly attracted to pasty men, but there was something almost magnetic about Lev. In appearance, he reminded her a bit of Sara Linton. They both exuded the same confidence, too, but on Sara this came across as off-putting. On Lev, it was calming. If he were a used-car salesman, he’d probably be at the top of his trade.

“Oh,” Esther said, startled by Lena’s sudden appearance in the kitchen. The woman was holding a photograph in her hand, and she seemed hesitant about showing it to Lena. Finally, she made up her mind and offered the picture. It showed a child of about twelve with long brown pigtails.

“Abby?” Lena asked, knowing without a doubt that this was the girl Jeffrey and Sara had found in the woods.

Esther studied Lena, as if trying to read her thoughts. She seemed to decide she didn’t want to know, because she returned to her work in the kitchen, turning her back to Lena.

“Abby loves lemonade,” she said. “She likes it sweet, but I must say that I don’t care for it sweet.”

“Me, either,” Lena said, not because it was true but because she wanted to seem agreeable. Since stepping into this house, she had felt unsettled. Being a cop, she had learned to trust her first impressions.

Esther cut a lemon in two and twisted it by hand into a metal strainer. She had gone through about six lemons and the bowl underneath the strainer was getting full.

“Can I help?” Lena asked, thinking the only drinks she’d ever made came from a package and usually went into a blender.

“I’ve got it,” Esther said, then, as if she had somehow insulted Lena, added in an apologetic tone, “The pitcher’s over the stove.”

Lena walked to the cabinet and took out a large crystal glass pitcher. It was heavy and probably an antique. She used both hands to transfer it to the counter.

Trying to find something to say, Lena said, “I like the light in here.” There was a large fluorescent strip overhead, but it wasn’t turned on. Three large windows lined the area over the sink and two long skylights over the kitchen table lit the room. Like the rest of the house, it was plain, and she wondered about people choosing to live in such austerity.

Esther looked up at the sun. “Yes, it’s nice, isn’t it? Ephraim’s father built it from the ground up.”

“You’ve been married long?”

“Twenty-two years.”

“Abby’s your oldest?”

She smiled, taking another lemon out of the bag. “That’s right.”

“We saw two kids coming in.”

“Rebecca and Zeke,” Esther said, still smiling proudly. “Becca is mine. Zeke is Lev’s by his late wife.”

“Two girls,” Lena said, thinking she sounded idiotic. “Must be nice.”

Esther rolled a lemon around on the cutting board to soften it up. “Yes,” she said, but Lena had heard the hesitation.

Lena looked out the kitchen window at the pasture. She could see a group of cows lying down under a tree. “That farm across the street,” she began.

“The cooperative,” Esther finished. “That’s where I met Ephraim. He came to work there, oh, it must have been right after Papa bought the second phase in the mid-1980s. We got married and moved in here a little after.”

“You must have been around Abby’s age,” Lena guessed.

Esther looked up, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Yes,” she said. “You’re right. I’d just fallen in love and moved out on my own. I had the whole world at my feet.” She pressed another lemon into the strainer.

“The older guy we ran into,” Lena began. “Cole?”

Esther smiled. “He’s been on the farm forever. Papa met him years ago.”

Lena waited for more, but nothing came. Like Lev, Esther didn’t seem to want to volunteer much information about Cole, and this only made Lena more curious about the man.

She remembered the question Lev had avoided before, and felt like now was as good a time as any to ask, “Has Abby ever run away before?”

“Oh, no, she’s not the type.”

“What type is that?” Lena asked, wondering if the mother knew her daughter was pregnant.

“Abby’s very devoted to the family. She would never do anything so insensitive.”

“Sometimes girls that age do things without thinking about the consequences.”

“That’s more Becca’s thing,” Esther said.

“Rebecca’s run away?”

The older woman skipped the question, saying instead, “Abby never went through that rebellious phase. She’s a lot like me in that regard.”

“How’s that?”

Esther seemed about to answer, but changed her mind. She took the pitcher and poured in the lemon juice. She walked over to the sink and turned on the water, letting it run so it would cool.

Lena wondered if the woman was naturally reticent or if she felt the need to censor her answers lest her brother find out she had said too much. She tried to think of a way to draw the woman out. “I was the youngest,” she said, which was true, though only by a couple of minutes. “I was always getting into trouble.”

Esther made an agreeing noise, but offered nothing more.

“It’s hard to accept that your parents are real people,” Lena said. “You spend most of your time demanding they treat you like an adult, but you’re not willing to give them the same courtesy.”

Esther looked over her shoulder into the long hallway before allowing, “Rebecca ran away last year. She was back a day later, but it put an awful fright into us.”

“Has Abby ever disappeared before?” Lena repeated.

Esther’s voice was almost a whisper. “Sometimes she would go over to the farm without telling us.”

“Just across the street?”

“Yes, just across the street. It’s silly to think we were upset. The farm is an extension of our home. Abby was safe the entire time. We were just worried when supper came and we hadn’t heard from her.”

Lena realized the woman was referring to a specific time rather than a series of incidents. “Abby spent the night over there?”

“With Lev and Papa. They live there with Mary. My mother passed away when I was three.”

“Who’s Mary?”

“My oldest sister.”

“Older than Lev?”

“Oh, no, Lev’s the oldest child. There’s Mary next, then Rachel, then Paul, then me.”

“That’s quite a family,” Lena said, thinking their mother must have died from exhaustion.

“Papa grew up an only child. He wanted lots of children around him.”

“Your father owns the farm?”

“The family owns most of it along with some other investors,” Esther replied, opening one of the cabinets and taking down a three-pound bag of sugar. “Papa started it over twenty years ago.”

Lena tried to phrase her question diplomatically. “I thought cooperatives were owned by the workers.”

“All the workers have the opportunity to invest after they’ve been on the farm for two years,” she explained, measuring out a cup of sugar.

“Where do these workers come from?”

“Atlanta, mostly.” She stirred the lemonade with a wooden spoon to mix the sugar. “Some of them are transients, looking for a few months of solitude. Others want a way of life and decide to stay. We call them ‘souls,’ because they’re very much like lost souls.” A wry smile touched her lips. “I’m not naïve. Some of them are downright hiding from the law. We’ve always been hesitant to involve the police because of this. We want to help them, not hide them, but some are avoiding abusive spouses or parents. We can’t protect just the ones we agree with. It has to be all or none.”

“Involve the police in what?”

“There’ve been thefts in the past,” Esther said, then added, “I know I’ve spoken out of turn, but Lev wouldn’t likely mention this to you. We’re very isolated out here, as you probably noticed, and the local sheriff isn’t too keen to drop everything and come running just because a pitchfork has shown up missing.”

Pelham wouldn’t come running for anything but dinner. “Is that all it’s been? Missing pitchforks?”

“Some shovels have been taken, a couple of wheelbarrows.”

“Any wood?”

She gave Lena a look of confusion. “Well, I don’t know about that. We don’t use much wood on the farm. You mean like stakes? Soybean plants don’t vine.”

“What else has been missing?”

“The petty-cash box was stolen out of the barn about a month ago. There was, I think, around three hundred dollars in it.”

“What’s petty cash kept for?”

“Running to the hardware store, sometimes buying a pizza if folks have been working late. We process the plants here ourselves, which is a lot of repetitive work. Some of the souls we get aren’t highly skilled, but others find themselves bored with it. We move them into other areas of the farm, like deliveries, accounting. Not big accounting, but going through invoices, filing. Our goal is to teach them a useful skill, give them some sense of accomplishment, to take back into their real lives.”

It sounded like a cult to Lena, and her attitude got the better of her when she said, “So, you bring them back from Atlanta and all they have to do in return is say their nightly prayers?”

Esther smiled like she was humoring Lena. “We only ask them to go to services on Sunday. It’s not mandatory. We have fellowship every evening at eight, and they’re welcome then as well. Most of them choose not to attend, and that’s perfectly fine. We don’t require anything but that they obey the rules and behave respectfully toward us and their peers.”

They had gotten way off the point, and Lena tried to steer her back. “Do you work on the farm?”

“Normally, I school the children. Most of the women who come here have kids. I try to help them as much as I can, but again, they’re usually not here for long. Structure is all I can give them.”

“How many people do you have at a time?”

“Around two hundred would be my guess. You can ask Lev about that. I don’t keep up with employment records and such.”

Lena made a mental note to get those records, though she couldn’t keep her mind from flashing on a bunch of young kids being brainwashed into giving up their worldly possessions and joining this weird family. She wondered if Jeffrey was getting the same impression in the other room. “You still school Abby?”

“We talk about literature, mostly. I’m afraid I can’t offer her much beyond the usual high school curriculum. Ephraim and I discussed sending her to a small college, perhaps Tifton or West Georgia, but she wasn’t interested. She loves working at the farm, you see. Her gift is helping others.”

“Have you always done that?” Lena asked. “Homeschooling, I mean.”

“We were all homeschooled. All of us but Lev.” She smiled proudly. “Paul had one of the highest SAT scores in the state when he entered UGA.”

Lena wasn’t interested in Paul’s academic career. “That’s your only job at the farm? Teaching?”

“Oh, no,” she laughed. “Everyone on the farm has to do everything at some time. I started in the fields, just like Becca is doing. Zeke’s a little too young now, but he’ll start in the next few years. Papa believes you have to know every part of the company if you’re going to run it someday. I got stuck in bookkeeping for a while. Unfortunately, I have a talent for numbers. If I had my way, I’d lie around on the couch all day reading. Papa wants us to be ready when something happens to him.”

“You’ll run the farm eventually?”

She laughed again at the suggestion, as if running a company was something a woman couldn’t possibly manage. “Maybe Zeke or one of the boys will. The point is to be ready. It’s also important considering our labor force isn’t particularly motivated to stay. They’re city people, used to a faster way of life. They love it here at first— the quiet, the solitude, the easiness of it compared to their old lives on the street, but then they start to get a little bored, then a lot bored, and before they know it, everything that made them love it here makes them want to run screaming. We try to be selective in our training. You don’t want to spend a season teaching someone to do a specialized job when they’re going to leave in the middle of it and go back to the city.”

“Drugs?” Lena asked.

“Of course,” she said. “But we’re very careful here. You have to earn trust. We don’t allow alcohol or cigarettes on the farm. If you want to go into town, you’re welcome to, but no one is going to give you a ride. We have them sign a behavioral contract the minute they step foot on the place. If they break it, they’re gone. A lot more people than not appreciate that, and the new ones learn from the old-timers that when we say an infraction gets you sent back to Atlanta, we mean it.” Her tone softened. “I know it sounds harsh, but we have to get rid of the bad ones so that the ones who are trying to be good have a chance. Surely, as a law enforcement officer, you understand that.”

“How many people come and go?” Lena asked. “Ballpark, I mean.”

“Oh, I’d say we have about a seventy percent return rate.” Again, she deferred to the men in her family. “You’d have to ask Lev or Paul for an exact percentage. They keep up with the running of things.”

“But you’ve noticed people coming and going?”

“Of course.”

“What about Abby?” Lena asked. “Is she happy here?”

Esther smiled. “I would hope so, but we never make people stay here if they don’t want to.” Lena nodded as if she understood, but Esther felt the need to add, “I know this all may sound odd to you. We’re religious people, but we don’t believe in forcing religion onto others. When you come to the Lord, it must be of your own volition or it means nothing to Him. I can tell from your questions that you’re skeptical about the workings of the farm and my family, but I can assure you we’re simply working for the greater good here. We’re obviously not invested in material needs.” She indicated the house. “What we’re invested in is saving souls.”

Her placid smile was more off-putting than anything Lena had experienced today. She tried to work with it, asking, “What sort of things does Abby do on the farm?”

“She’s even better with numbers than I am,” Esther said proudly. “She worked in the office for a while, but she started to get bored, so we all agreed she could start working as a sorter. It’s not a highly difficult job, but it brings her into contact with a lot of people. She likes being in a crowd, blending in. I suppose every young girl feels that.”

Lena waited a beat, wondering why the woman had yet to ask about her daughter. Either Esther was in denial or she knew exactly where Abby was. “Did Abby know about the thefts?”

“Not many people did,” Esther said. “Lev likes to let the church handle church problems.”

“The church?” Lena asked, as if she hadn’t already figured this out.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, and Lena wondered why she started just about every sentence with an apology. “The Church for the Greater Good. I always just assume everyone knows what we’re about.”

“And what are you about?”

Lena obviously wasn’t doing a good job of hiding her cynicism, but Esther still patiently explained, “Holy Grown subsidizes our outreach into Atlanta.”

“What kind of outreach?”

“We try to carry on Jesus’s work with the poor. We have contacts at several shelters for the homeless and abused women. Some halfway houses keep us on their speed dial. Sometimes we get men and women who have just gotten out of jail and have nowhere to go. It’s appalling the way our penal system just chews these people up and spits them out.”

“Do you keep any information on them?”

“As much as we can,” Esther said, returning to the lemonade. “We have education facilities where they learn manufacturing. The soy business has changed over the last ten years.”

“It’s in just about everything,” Lena said, thinking it would be unwise to mention that the only reason she knew this was because she lived with a tofu-eating, health-food nut lesbian.

“Yes,” Esther agreed. She took three glasses out of the cabinet.

Lena offered, “I’ll get the ice.” She opened the freezer and saw a huge block of ice instead of the cubes she’d been expecting.

“Just use your hands,” Esther said. “Or I could—”

“I’ve got it,” Lena told her, taking out the block, getting the front of her shirt wet in the process.

“We have an icehouse across the road for cold storage. It seems a shame to waste water here when there’s plenty across the street.” She indicated Lena should set the block in the sink. “We try to preserve as many of our natural resources as we can,” she said, using an ice pick to dislodge some shards. “Papa was the first farmer in the region to use natural irrigation from rainwater. Of course, we have too much land for that now, but we reclaim as much as we can.”

Thinking of Jeffrey’s earlier question about possible sources of cyanide, Lena asked, “What about pesticides?”

“Oh, no,” Esther said, dropping some ice into the glasses. “We don’t use those— never have. We use natural fertilizers. You have no idea what phosphates do to the water table. Oh, no.” She laughed. “Papa made it clear from the start that we would do it the natural way. We’re all a part of this land. We have a responsibility to our neighbors and the people who come to the land after us.”

“That sounds very . . .” Lena looked for a positive word. “Responsible.”

“Most people think it’s a lot of trouble for nothing,” Esther said. “It’s a difficult situation to be in. Do we poison the environment and make more money that we can use to help the needy, or do we maintain our principles and help fewer people? It’s the sort of question Jesus often raised: help the many or help the few?” She handed Lena one of the glasses. “Does this taste too sweet for you? I’m afraid we don’t normally use much sugar around here.”

Lena took a sip, feeling her jaw clench into a death grip. “It’s a little tart,” she managed, trying to suppress the guttural sound welling in her throat.

“Oh.” Esther took out the sugar again, spooning more into Lena’s glass. “Now?”

Lena tried again, taking a less generous sip. “Good,” she said.

“Good,” Esther echoed, spooning more into another glass. She left the third alone, and Lena hoped it wasn’t meant for Jeffrey.

“Everyone’s particular, aren’t they?” Esther asked, walking past Lena toward the hall.

Lena followed. “What’s that?”

“About tastes,” she explained. “Abby loves sweets. Once, when she was a baby, she ate almost a full cup of sugar before I realized she had gotten into the cabinet.”

They passed the library, and Lena said, “You have a lot of books.”

“Classics, mostly. Some potboilers and westerns, of course. Ephraim loves crime fiction. I guess he’s attracted to the black and white of it all. The good guys on one side, the bad guys on the other.”

“It’d be nice,” Lena found herself saying.

“Becca loves romances. Show her a book with a long-haired Adonis on the cover and she’ll finish it in two hours.”

“You let her read romances?” Lena asked. She had been thinking these people were the same kind of nutballs who got on the news for banning Harry Potter.

“We let the children read anything they like. That’s the deal for not having a television in the house. Even if they’re reading trash, it’s better than watching it on the tube.”

Lena nodded, though in her mind she wondered what it would be like to live without television. Watching mindless TV was the only thing that had kept her sane the last three years.

“There you are,” Lev said when they entered the room. He took a glass from Esther and handed it to Jeffrey.

“Oh, no,” Esther said, taking it back. “This one’s yours.” She handed the sweeter lemonade to Jeffrey, who, like Ephraim, had stood when they entered the room. “I don’t imagine you like it as tart as Lev does.”

“No, ma’am,” Jeffrey agreed. “Thank you.”

The front door opened and a man who looked like the male version of Esther walked in, his hand at the elbow of an older woman who seemed too fragile to walk by herself.

The man said, “Sorry we’re late.”

Jeffrey moved, taking his lemonade with him, so that the woman could take his chair. Another woman who looked more like Lev entered the house, her reddish-blond hair wound into a bun on the top of her head. To Lena, she looked like the quintessential sturdy farmwoman who could drop a baby in the fields and keep on picking cotton the rest of the day. Hell, the whole family looked strong. The shortest one was Esther, and she had a good six inches on Lena.

“My brother, Paul,” Lev said, indicating the man. “This is Rachel.” The farmwoman nodded her head in greeting. “And Mary.”

From what Esther had said, Mary was younger than Lev, probably in her midforties, but she looked and acted like she was twenty years older. She took her time settling into the chair, as if she was afraid she’d fall and break a hip. She even sounded like an old woman when she said, “You’ll have to excuse me, I haven’t been well,” in a tone that invited pity.

“My father couldn’t join us,” Lev told them, deftly sidestepping his sister. “He’s had a stroke. He doesn’t get out much these days.”

“That’s quite all right,” Jeffrey told him, then addressed the other family members. “I’m Chief Tolliver. This is Detective Adams. Thank you all for coming.”

“Shall we sit?” Rachel suggested, going to the couch. She indicated Esther should sit beside her. Again, Lena felt the division of tasks between the men and women of the family, seating arrangements and kitchen duties on one side, everything else on the other.

Jeffrey tilted his head slightly, motioning Lena to Esther’s left as he leaned against the fireplace mantel. Lev waited until Lena was seated before helping Ephraim into the chair beside Jeffrey. He raised his eyebrows slightly, and Lena knew that he had probably gotten quite an earful while she was in the kitchen. She couldn’t wait to compare notes.

“So,” Jeffrey said, as if the small talk was out of the way and they could finally get down to business. “You say Abby’s been missing for ten days?”

“That’s my fault,” Lev said, and Lena wondered if he was going to confess. “I thought Abby was going on the mission into Atlanta with the family. Ephraim thought she was staying on the farm with us.”

Paul said, “We all thought that was the case. I don’t think we need to assign blame.” Lena studied the man for the first time, thinking he sounded a lot like a lawyer. He was the only one of them wearing what looked like store-bought clothes. His suit was pin-striped, his tie a deep magenta against his white shirt. His hair was professionally cut and styled. Paul Ward looked like the city mouse standing next to his country-mouse brother and sisters.

“Whatever the case, none of us thought anything untoward was happening,” Rachel said.

Jeffrey must have gotten the full story about the farm, because his next question was not about the family or the inner workings of Holy Grown. “Was there someone around the farm Abby liked being around? Maybe one of the workers?”

Rachel provided, “We didn’t really let her mingle.”

“Surely she met other people,” Jeffrey said, taking a sip of lemonade. He seemed to be doing everything in his power not to shudder from the tartness as he put the glass on the mantel.

Lev said, “She went to church socials, of course, but the field workers keep to themselves.”

Esther added, “We don’t like to discriminate, but the field workers are a rougher sort of person. Abby wasn’t really introduced to that element of the farm. She was told to stay away from them.”

“But she worked some in the fields?” Lena asked, remembering their earlier conversation.

“Yes, but only with other family members. Cousins, mostly,” Lev said. “We have a rather large family.”

Esther listed, “Rachel has four, Paul has six. Mary’s sons live in Wyoming and . . .”

She didn’t finish. Jeffrey prompted, “And?”

Rachel cleared her throat, but it was Paul who spoke. “They don’t visit often,” he said, the tension in his voice echoing what Lena suddenly felt in the room. “They haven’t been back in a while.”

“Ten years,” Mary said, looking up at the ceiling like she wanted to trap her tears. Lena wondered if they had run screaming from the farm. She sure as hell would have.

Mary continued, “They chose a different path. I pray for them every day when I get up and every evening before I go to bed.”

Sensing Mary could monopolize things for a while, Lena asked Lev, “You’re married?”

“Not anymore.” For the first time, his expression appeared unguarded. “My wife passed away in childbirth several years ago.” He gave a pained smile. “Our first child, unfortunately, but I have my Ezekiel to comfort me.”

Jeffrey waited an appropriate interval before saying, “So, you guys thought Abby was with her parents, her parents thought she was with you. This was, what, ten days ago you went on your mission?”

Esther answered, “That’s right.”

“And you do these missions about four times a year?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a registered nurse?” he asked.

Esther nodded, and Lena tried to hide her surprise. The woman seemed to volunteer yards of useless information about herself at the drop of a hat. That she had kept back this one detail seemed suspicious.

Esther supplied, “I was training at Georgia Medical College when Ephraim and I married. Papa thought it’d be handy to have someone with practical first-aid experience around the farm, and the other girls can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“That’s the truth,” Rachel agreed.

Jeffrey asked, “Do you have many accidents here?”

“Thank goodness, no. A man sliced through his Achilles tendon three years ago. It was a mess. I was able to use my training to control the bleeding, but there was nothing else I could do for him other than basic triage. We really need a doctor around.”

“Who do you normally see?” Jeffrey asked. “You have children around here sometimes.” As if explaining, he added, “My wife is a pediatrician in town.”

Lev interposed, “Sara Linton. Of course.” A slight smile of recognition crossed his lips.

“Do you know Sara?”

“We went to Sunday school together a long time ago.” Lev stretched out the word “long,” as if they had many shared secrets.

Lena could tell that Jeffrey was annoyed by the familiarity; whether he was jealous or just being protective, she didn’t know.

Being Jeffrey, he didn’t let his irritation interfere with the interview, and instead directed them back on track by asking Esther, “Do you normally not telephone to check in?” When Esther seemed confused, he added, “When you’re away in Atlanta. You don’t call to check in on the children?”

“They’re with their family,” she said. Her tone was demure but Lena had seen a flash in her eyes, as if she had been insulted.

Rachel continued her sister’s theme. “We’re very close-knit, Chief Tolliver. In case you hadn’t picked up on that.”

Jeffrey took the slap on the nose better than Lena would have. He asked Esther, “Can you tell me when it was you realized she was missing?”

“We got back late last night,” Esther said. “We went by the farm first to see Papa and pick up Abby and Becca—”

“Becca didn’t go with you, either?” Lena asked.

“Oh, of course not,” the mother said, as if she had suggested something preposterous. “She’s only fourteen.”

“Right,” Lena said, having no idea what age was appropriate for a tour of the homeless shelters of Atlanta.

“Becca stayed with us at the house,” Lev provided. “She likes to spend time with my son, Zeke.” He continued, “When Abby didn’t show up for supper that first night, Becca just assumed Abby had changed her mind about going to Atlanta. She didn’t even bother to bring it up.”

“I’d like to talk to her,” Jeffrey said.

Lev obviously did not like the request, but he nodded his consent. “All right.”

Jeffrey tried again, “There was no one Abby was seeing? A boy she was interested in?”

“I know this is difficult to believe because of her age,” Lev replied, “but Abby led a very sheltered life. She was schooled here at home. She didn’t know much about life outside the farm. We were trying to prepare her by taking her into Atlanta, but she didn’t like it. She preferred a more cloistered life.”

“She had been on missions before?”

Esther provided, “Yes. Twice. She didn’t like it, didn’t like being away.”

“‘Cloistered’ is an interesting word,” Jeffrey observed.

“I know it makes her sound like a nun,” Lev told him, “and maybe that’s not far off base. She wasn’t Catholic, of course, but she was extremely devout. She had a passion for serving our Lord.”

Ephraim said, “Amen,” under his breath, but it felt cursory to Lena, like saying, “Bless you,” after someone sneezed.

Esther supplied, “She was very strong in her faith.” Quickly, she put her hand to her mouth, as if she realized her slip. For the first time, she had spoken about her daughter in the past tense. Beside her, Rachel took her hand.

Jeffrey continued, “Was there anyone hanging around the farm who seemed to pay more attention to her than he should have? A stranger perhaps?”

Lev said, “We have many strangers here, Chief Tolliver. It’s the nature of our work to invite strangers into our homes. Isaiah beseeches us to ‘bring the poor that are cast out to thy house.’ It is our duty to help them.”

“Amen,” the family intoned.

Jeffrey asked Esther, “Do you remember what she was wearing the last time you saw her?”

“Yes, of course.” Esther paused a moment, as if the memory might break a dam of emotions she had been holding back. “We had sewn a blue dress together. Abby loved to sew. We found the pattern in an old trunk upstairs that I believe belonged to Ephraim’s mother. We made a few changes to update it. She was wearing it when we said good-bye.”

“This was here at the house?”

“Yes, early that morning. Becca had already gone to the farm.”

Mary provided, “Becca was with me.”

Jeffrey asked, “Anything else?”

Esther told him, “Abby’s very calm. She never got flustered as a child. She’s such a special girl.”

Lev spoke up, his voice deadly serious in a way that made his words sound not like a compliment to his sister but as a matter of record. “Abby looks very much like her mother, Chief Tolliver. They have the same coloring, same almond shape to their eyes. She’s a very attractive girl.”

Lena repeated his words in her mind, wondering if he was intimating another man might want his niece or revealing something deeper about himself. It was hard to tell with this guy. He seemed pretty open and honest one minute, but then the next Lena wasn’t even sure if she would believe him if he told her the sky was blue. The preacher obviously was the head of the church as well as the family, and she got the distinct feeling that he was probably a lot smarter than he let on.

Esther touched her own hair, recalling, “I tied a ribbon in her hair. A blue ribbon. I remember it now. Ephraim had packed the car and we were ready to go, and I found the ribbon in my purse. I had been saving it because I thought I could use it as an embellishment on a dress or something, but it matched her dress so well, I told her to come over, and she bent down while I tied the ribbon in her hair . . .” Her voice trailed off, and Lena saw her throat work. “She has the softest hair . . .”

Rachel squeezed her sister’s hand. Esther was staring out the window as if she wanted to be outside and away from this scene. Lena saw this as a coping mechanism that she was more than familiar with. It was so much easier to keep yourself removed from things rather than wearing your emotions out on your sleeve.

Paul said, “Rachel and I live on the farm with our families. Separate houses, of course, but we’re within walking distance of the main house. When we couldn’t locate Abby last night, we did a thorough search of the grounds. The workers fanned out. We checked the houses, the buildings, from top to bottom. When we couldn’t find anything, we called the sheriff.”

“I’m sorry it took him so long to get back to you,” Jeffrey said. “They’ve been pretty busy over there.”

“I don’t imagine,” Paul began, “many people in your business get concerned when a twenty-one-year-old girl goes missing.”

“Why is that?”

“Girls run off all the time, don’t they?” he said. “We’re not completely blind to the outside world here.”

“I’m not following you.”

“I’m the black sheep of the family,” Paul said, and from his siblings’ reaction, Lena could tell it was an old family joke. “I’m a lawyer. I handle the farm’s legal business. Most of my time is spent in Savannah. I spend every other week in the city.”

“Were you here last week?” Jeffrey asked.

“I came back last night when I heard about Abby,” he said, and the room fell silent.

“We’ve heard rumors,” Rachel said, cutting to the chase. “Horrible rumors.”

Ephraim put his hand to his chest. The old man’s fingers were trembling. “It’s her, isn’t it?”

“I think so, sir.” Jeffrey reached into his pocket and took out a Polaroid. Ephraim’s hands were shaking too much to take it, so Lev stepped in. Lena watched both men look at the picture. Where Ephraim was composed and quiet, Lev gasped audibly, then closed his eyes, though no tears spilled out. Lena watched his lips move in a silent prayer. Ephraim could only stare at the photograph, his palsy becoming so bad that the chair seemed to vibrate.

Behind him, Paul was looking at the picture, his face impassive. Lena watched him for signs of guilt, then any sign at all. But for his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallowed, he stood as still as a rock.

Esther cleared her throat. “May I?” she said, asking for the picture. She seemed perfectly composed, but her fear and underlying anguish were obvious.

“Oh, Mother,” Ephraim began, his voice cracking from grief. “You may look if you like, but please, trust me, you don’t want to see her like this. You don’t want this in your memory.”

Esther demurred to her husband’s wishes, but Rachel reached out for the photograph. Lena watched the older woman’s lips press into a rigid line. “Dear Jesus,” she whispered. “Why?”

Whether she meant to or not, Esther looked over her sister’s shoulder, seeing the picture of her dead child. Her shoulders started shaking, a small tremble that erupted into spasms of grief as she buried her head in her hands, sobbing, “No!”

Mary had been sitting quietly in the chair, but she stood abruptly, her hand to her chest, then ran from the room. Seconds later, they heard the kitchen door slam.

Lev had remained silent as he watched his sister go, and though Lena couldn’t read his expression, she got the feeling he was angered by Mary’s melodramatic exit.

He cleared his throat before asking, “Chief Tolliver, could you tell us what happened?”

Jeffrey hesitated, and Lena wondered how much he would tell them. “We found her in the woods,” he said. “She was buried in the ground.”

“Oh, Lord,” Esther breathed, doubling over as if in pain. Rachel rubbed her sister’s back, her lips trembling, tears streaming down her face.

Jeffrey didn’t offer specifics as he continued, “She ran out of air.”

“My baby,” Esther moaned. “My poor Abigail.”

The kids from the pigpen came in, the screen door slamming closed behind them. The adults all jumped as if a gun had been fired.

Ephraim spoke first, obviously struggling to regain his composure. “Zeke, what have you been told about the door?”

Zeke leaned against Lev’s leg. He was a spindly kid, not yet showing signs of his father’s height. His arms were as thin as toothpicks. “Sorry, Uncle Eph.”

“Sorry, Papa,” Becca said, though she hadn’t been the one to slam the door. She too was stick-thin, and though Lena wasn’t good with ages, she wouldn’t have put the girl at fourteen. She obviously hadn’t hit puberty yet.

Zeke was staring at his aunt, his lips trembling. He obviously sensed something was wrong. Tears sprang into his eyes.

“Come here, child,” Rachel said, dragging Zeke into her lap. She put her hand on his leg, petting him, soothing him. She was trying to control her grief, but losing the battle.

Rebecca kept to the door, asking, “What’s wrong?”

Lev put his hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “Your sister has passed on to be with the Lord.”

The teenager’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened and she put her hand to her stomach. She tried to ask a question, but no words came out.

Lev said, “Let’s pray together.”

Rebecca breathed, “What?” as if the air had been knocked out of her.

No one answered her question. All of them but Rebecca bowed their heads, yet instead of the booming sermon from Lev that Lena expected, they were silent.

Rebecca stood there, hand to her stomach, eyes wide open, while the rest of her family prayed.

Lena shot Jeffrey a questioning look, wondering what they should do now. She felt nervous, out of place. Hank had stopped dragging Lena and Sibyl to church after Lena had torn up another girl’s Bible. She wasn’t used to being around religious people unless they were down at the police station.

Jeffrey just shrugged, taking a sip of lemonade. His shoulders went up, and she watched him work his jaw to get the sour out.

“I’m sorry,” Lev told them. “What can we do?”

Jeffrey spoke as if he was reading from a list. “I want employment records on everyone at the farm. I’d like to talk to anyone who had contact with Abigail at any time over the last year. I want to search her room to see if we can come up with something. I’d like to take the computer you mentioned and see if she’s been contacted by anyone through the Internet.”

Ephraim said, “She was never alone with the computer.”

“Still, Mr. Bennett, we need to check everything.”

Lev said, “They’re being thorough, Ephraim. Ultimately, it’s your decision, but I think we should do everything we can to help, if only to eliminate possibilities.”

Jeffrey seized on this. “Would you mind taking a lie detector test?”

Paul almost laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Don’t speak for me, please,” Lev challenged his brother. He told Jeffrey, “We will do everything we can to help you.”

Paul countered, “I don’t think—”

Esther straightened her shoulders, her face was swollen with grief, her eyes rimmed red. “Please don’t argue,” she asked her brothers.

“We’re not arguing,” Paul said, but he sounded like he was spoiling for a fight. Over the years, Lena had seen how grief exposed people’s real personalities. She felt the tension between Paul and his older brother and wondered if it was general sibling rivalry or something deeper. Esther’s tone implied the pair had argued before.

Lev raised his voice, but he was talking to the children. “Rebecca, why don’t you take Zeke into the backyard? Your aunt Mary’s there and I’m sure she needs you.”

“Hold on,” Jeffrey said. “I’ve got a couple of questions for her.”

Paul put his hand on his niece’s shoulder and kept it there. “Go ahead,” he answered, his tone and posture indicating Jeffrey was on a short leash.

Jeffrey asked, “Rebecca, did you know if your sister was seeing anyone?”

The girl looked up at her uncle, as if asking permission. Her eyes finally settled back on Jeffrey. “You mean a boy?”

“Yes,” he answered, and Lena could tell that he saw this as a fruitless exercise. There was no way the girl would be forthcoming in front of her family, especially considering she was a bit rebellious herself. The only way to get the truth out of her was to get her alone, and Lena doubted very seriously that Paul— or any of the men— would allow that.

Again, Rebecca looked at her uncle before answering. “Abby wasn’t allowed to date boys.”

If Jeffrey noticed that she didn’t answer the question, he didn’t let on. “Did you think it was strange when she didn’t join you at the farm when your parents were away?”

Lena was watching Paul’s hand on the girl’s shoulder, trying to see if he was exerting pressure. She couldn’t tell.

“Rebecca?” Jeffrey prompted.

The girl’s chin lifted a little, and she said, “I thought she’d changed her mind.” She added, “Is she really . . . ?”

Jeffrey nodded. “I’m afraid she is,” he told her. “That’s why we need all your help to find out who did this to her.”

Tears flooded into her eyes, and Lev’s composure seemed to drop a little at his niece’s distress. He told Jeffrey, “If you don’t mind . . .”

Jeffrey nodded, and Lev told the girl, “Go on and take Zeke out to your aunt Mary, honey. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Paul waited until they were gone before getting back to business, telling Jeffrey, “I have to remind you that the employment records are spotty. We offer food and shelter in return for an honest day’s work.”

Lena blurted out, “You don’t pay anyone?”

“Of course we do,” Paul snapped. He must’ve been asked this before. “Some take the money, some donate it back to the church. There are several workers who have been here for ten, twenty years and never seen any money in their pocket. What they get in return is a safe place to live, a family and the knowledge that their lives are not wasted.” To put a finer point on it, he indicated the room he was standing in, much as his sister had done before in the kitchen. “We all live very modest lives, Detective. Our aim is to help others, not ourselves.”

Jeffrey cleared his throat. “Still, we’d like to talk to all of them.”

Paul offered, “You can take the computer now. I can arrange for the people who’ve been in contact with Abby to be brought to the station first thing tomorrow morning.”

“The harvest,” Lev reminded him, then explained, “We specialize in edamame, younger soybeans. The peak time for picking is from sunrise to nine A.M., then the beans have to be processed and iced. It’s a very labor-intensive process, and I’m afraid we don’t use much machinery.”

Jeffrey glanced out the window. “We can’t go over there now?”

“As much as I want to get to the bottom of this,” Paul began, “we’ve got a business to run.”

Lev added, “We also have to respect our workers. I’m sure you can imagine that some of them are very nervous around the police. Some have been the victims of police violence, others have been recently incarcerated and are very fearful. We have women and children who have been battered in domestic situations without relief from local law enforcement—”

“Right,” Jeffrey said, as if he had gotten this speech before.

“It is private property,” Paul reminded him, looking and sounding every bit the lawyer.

Lev said, “We can shift people around, get them to cover for the ones who have come into contact with Abby. Would Wednesday morning work?”

“I guess it’ll have to,” Jeffrey said, his tone indicating his displeasure at the delay.

Esther had her hands clasped in her lap, and Lena felt something like anger coming off the mother. She obviously disagreed with her brothers, just as she obviously would not contradict them. She offered, “I’ll show you to her room.”

“Thank you,” Lena said, and they all stood at the same time. Thankfully, only Jeffrey followed them down the hall.

Esther stopped in front of the last door on the right, pressing her palm into the wood as if she couldn’t trust her legs to hold her up.

Lena said, “I know this is hard for you. We’ll do everything we can to find out who did this.”

“She was a very private person.”

“Do you think she kept secrets from you?”

“All daughters keep secrets from their mothers.” Esther opened the door and looked into the room, sadness slackening her face as she saw her daughter’s things. Lena had done the same thing with Sibyl’s possessions, every item conjuring some memory from the past, some happier time when Sibyl was alive.

Jeffrey asked, “Mrs. Bennett?” She was blocking their entrance.

“Please,” she told him, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket. “Find out why this happened. There has to be a reason.”

“I’ll do everything I can to—”

“It’s not enough,” she insisted. “Please. I have to know why she’s gone. I need to know that for myself, for my peace of mind.”

Lena saw Jeffrey’s throat work. “I don’t want to make empty promises, Mrs. Bennett. I can only promise you that I’ll try.” He took out one of his cards, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one saw him. “My home number’s on the back. Call me anytime.”

Esther hesitated before taking the card, then tucked it into the sleeve of her dress. She gave Jeffrey a single nod, as if they had come to an understanding, then backed away, letting them enter her daughter’s room. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Jeffrey and Lena exchanged another glance as Esther returned to her family. Lena could tell he was feeling just as apprehensive as she was. Esther’s plea was understandable, but it only served to add more pressure to what was going to be an incredibly difficult case.

Lena had walked into the room to start the search, but Jeffrey stayed outside the doorway, looking toward the kitchen. He looked back to the family room as if to make sure he wasn’t being observed, then walked down the hall. Lena was about to follow him when he appeared in the doorway with Rebecca Bennett.

Deftly, Jeffrey led the girl into her sister’s bedroom, his hand at her elbow like a concerned uncle. In a low voice, he told her, “It’s very important you talk to us about Abby.”

Rebecca glanced nervously toward the door.

“You want me to shut it?” Lena offered, putting her hand on the knob.

After a moment’s deliberation, Rebecca shook her head. Lena studied her, thinking she was as pretty as her sister was plain. She had taken her dark brown hair out of the braid and there were kinks of waves in the thick strands that cascaded down her shoulders. Esther had said the girl was fourteen, but there was still something womanly about her that probably drew a lot of attention around the farm. Lena found herself wondering how it was Abby instead of Rebecca who had been abducted and buried in the box.

Jeffrey said, “Was Abby seeing anyone?”

Rebecca bit her bottom lip. Jeffrey was good at giving people time, but Lena could tell he was getting antsy about the girl’s family coming into the room.

Lena said, “I have an older sister, too,” leaving out the fact that she was dead. “I know you don’t want to tell on her, but Abby’s gone now. You won’t get her into trouble by telling us the truth.”

The girl kept chewing her lip. “I don’t know,” she mumbled, tears welling into her eyes. She looked to Jeffrey, and Lena guessed the girl saw him as more of an authority figure than a woman could be.

Jeffrey picked up on this, urging, “Talk to me, Rebecca.”

With great effort, she admitted, “She was gone sometimes during the day.”

“Alone?”

She nodded. “She’d say she was going into town, but she’d take too long.”

“Like, how long?”

“I don’t know.”

“It takes around fifteen minutes to get downtown from here,” Jeffrey calculated for her. “Say she was going to a store, that’d take another fifteen or twenty minutes, right?” The girl nodded. “So, she should’ve been gone an hour at most, right?”

Again, the girl nodded. “Only, it was more like two.”

“Did anyone ask her about this?”

She shook her head. “I just noticed.”

“I bet you notice a lot of things,” Jeffrey guessed. “You probably pay more attention to what’s going on than the adults do.”

Rebecca shrugged, but the compliment had worked. “She was just acting funny.”

“How?”

“She was sick in the morning, but she told me not to tell Mama.”

The pregnancy, Lena thought.

Jeffrey asked, “Did she tell you why she was sick?”

“She said it was something she ate, but she wasn’t eating much.”

“Why do you think she didn’t want to tell your mother?”

“Mama would worry,” Rebecca said. She shrugged. “Abby didn’t like people to worry about her.”

“Were you worried?”

Lena saw her swallow. “She cried at night sometimes.” She tilted her head to the side. “My room’s next door. I could hear her.”

“Was she crying about something specific?” Jeffrey asked, and Lena could hear him straining to be gentle with the girl. “Maybe someone hurt her feelings?”

“The Bible teaches us to forgive,” the girl answered. From anyone else, Lena might have thought she was being dramatic, but the girl seemed to be relaying what she thought of as wise advice rather than a sermon. “If we cannot forgive others, then the Lord cannot forgive us.”

“Was there anyone she needed to forgive?”

“If there was,” Rebecca began, “then she would pray for help.”

“Why do you think she was crying?”

Rebecca looked at the room, taking in her sister’s things with a palpable sadness. She was probably thinking about Abby, what the room had felt like when the older girl had been alive. Lena wondered what kind of relationship the sisters had shared. Even though they were twins, Lena and Sibyl had been involved in their share of battles over everything from who got to sit in the front seat of the car to who answered the telephone. Somehow, she couldn’t see Abby being that way.

Rebecca finally answered, “I don’t know why she was sad. She wouldn’t tell me.”

Jeffrey asked, “Are you sure, Rebecca?” He gave her a supportive smile. “You can tell us. We won’t get mad or judge her. We just want to know the truth so that we can find the person who hurt Abby and punish him.”

She nodded, her eyes tearing up again. “I know you want to help.”

“We can’t help Abby unless you help us,” Jeffrey countered. “Anything at all, Rebecca, no matter how silly it seems now. You let us decide whether it’s useful or not.”

She looked from Lena to Jeffrey, then back again. Lena couldn’t tell if the girl was hiding something or if she was just scared of speaking to strangers without her parents’ permission. Either way, they needed to get her to answer their questions before someone started to wonder where she was.

Lena tried to keep her voice light. “You want to talk to me alone, honey? We can talk just you and me if you want.”

Again, Becca seemed to be thinking about it. At least half a minute passed before she said, “I—” just as the back door slammed shut. The girl jumped as if a bullet had been fired.

From the front room, a man’s voice called, “Becca, is that you?”

Zeke plodded up the hallway, and when Rebecca saw her cousin she went to him and grabbed his hand, calling, “It’s me, Papa,” as she led the boy toward her family.

Lena bit back the curse that came to her lips.

Jeffrey asked, “You think she knows something?”

“Hell if I know.”

Jeffrey seemed to agree, and she could feel her frustration echoed in his tone when he told her, “Let’s get this over with.”

She went to the large chest of drawers by the door. Jeffrey went to the desk opposite. The room was small, probably about ten feet by ten. There was a twin bed pushed up against the windows that faced the barn. There were no posters on the white walls or any signs that this had been a young woman’s room. The bed was neatly made, a multicolored quilt tucked in with sharp precision. A stuffed Snoopy that was probably older than Abby was propped against the pillows, its neck sloped to the side from years of wear.

Neatly folded socks were in one of the top drawers. Lena opened the other, seeing similarly folded underwear. That the girl had taken the time to fold her underwear was something that stuck with Lena. She’d obviously been meticulous, concerned with keeping things in order. The lower drawers revealed a precision bordering on obsession.

Everyone had a favorite place to hide things, just like every cop had a favorite place to look. Jeffrey was checking under the bed, between the mattress and box spring. Lena went to the closet, kneeling to check the shoes. There were three pairs, all of them worn but well taken care of. The sneakers had been polished white, the Mary Janes mended at the heel. The third pair was pristine, probably her Sunday shoes.

Lena rapped her knuckles against the boards of the closet floor, checking for a secret compartment. Nothing sounded suspicious and all the boards were nailed firmly in place. Next, she went through the dresses lined up on the closet rod. Lena didn’t have a ruler, but she would have sworn each dress was equidistant, no one touching the other. There was a long winter jacket, obviously store-bought. The pockets were empty, the hem intact. Nothing was hidden in a torn seam or concealed in a secret pouch.

Lev was at the door, a laptop computer in his hands. “Anything?” he asked.

Lena had startled, but she tried not to show it. Jeffrey straightened with his hands in his pockets. “Nothing useful,” he replied.

Lev handed the computer to Jeffrey, the power cord trailing behind it. She wondered if he had looked at it himself while they were searching the room. She had no doubt Paul would have.

Lev told him, “You can keep this as long as you like. I’d be surprised if you found anything on it.”

“Like you said,” Jeffrey responded, wrapping the cord around the computer, “we need to eliminate every possibility.” He nodded to Lena, and she followed him out of the room. Walking down the hallway, she could hear the family talking, but by the time they reached the living room, everyone was silent.

Jeffrey told Esther, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

She looked straight at Jeffrey, her pale green eyes piercing even to Lena. She didn’t say a word, but her plea was evident.

Lev opened the front door. “Thank you both,” he said. “I’ll be there Wednesday morning at nine.”

Paul seemed about to say something, but stopped at the last minute. Lena could almost see what was going through his little lawyer brain. It was probably killing him that Lev had volunteered for the polygraph. She imagined Paul would have an earful for his brother when the cops were gone.

Jeffrey told Lev, “We’ll have to call in someone to perform the test.”

“Of course,” Lev agreed. “But I feel the need to reiterate that I can volunteer only myself. Likewise, the people you see tomorrow will be there on a voluntary basis. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, Chief Tolliver, but it’s going to be difficult enough getting them there. If you try to force them into taking a lie detector test, they’re likely to leave.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Jeffrey said, his tone disingenuous. “Would you mind sending your foreman as well?”

Paul seemed surprised by the request. “Cole?”

“He’s probably had contact with everyone on the farm,” Lev said. “That’s a good idea.”

“While we’re on it,” Paul said, glancing Jeffrey’s way, “the farm is private property. We don’t generally have the police there unless it’s official business.”

“You don’t consider this official business?”

“Family business,” he said, then held out his hand. “Thank you for all your help.”

“Could you tell me,” Jeffrey began, “did Abby drive?”

Paul dropped his hand, “Of course. She was certainly old enough.”

“Did she have a car?”

“She borrowed Mary’s,” he answered. “My sister stopped driving some time ago. Abby was using her car to deliver meals, run chores in town.”

“She did these things alone?”

“Generally,” Paul allowed, wary the way any lawyer is when he gives out information without getting something in return.

Lev added, “Abby loved helping people.”

Paul put his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

Lev said, “Thank you both.”

Lena and Jeffrey stood at the base of the steps, watching Lev walk into the house. He shut the door firmly behind him.

Lena let out a breath, turning back to the car. Jeffrey followed, keeping his thoughts to himself as they got in.

He didn’t speak until they were on the main road, passing Holy Grown again. Lena saw the place in a new light, and wondered what they were really up to over there.

Jeffrey said, “Odd family.”

“I’ll say.”

“It won’t do us any good to be blinded by our prejudices,” he said, giving her a sharp look.

“I think I have a right to my opinion.”

“You do,” he said, and she could feel his gaze settle onto the scars on the backs of her hands. “But how will you feel in a year’s time if this case isn’t solved because all we could focus on was their religion?”

“What if the fact that they’re Bible-thumpers is what breaks this open?”

“People kill for different reasons,” he reminded her. “Money, love, lust, vengeance. That’s what we need to focus on. Who has a motive? Who has the means?”

He had a point, but Lena knew firsthand that sometimes people did things just because they were fucking nuts. No matter what Jeffrey said, it was too coincidental that this girl had ended up buried in a box out in the middle of the woods and her family was a bunch of backwoods Bible-thumpers.

She asked, “You don’t think this is ritualistic?”

“I think the mother’s grief was real.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I got that, too.” She felt the need to point out, “That doesn’t mean the rest of the family isn’t into it. They’re running a fucking cult out here.”

“All religions are cults,” he said, and though Lena hated religion herself, she had to disagree.

“I wouldn’t call the Baptist church downtown a cult.”

“They’re like-minded people sharing the same values and religious beliefs. That’s a cult.”

“Well,” she said, still not agreeing but not knowing how to challenge him on it. She doubted the Pope in Rome would say he was running a cult. There was mainstream religion and then there were the freaks who handled snakes and thought electricity provided a conduit straight to the Devil.

“It keeps coming back to the cyanide,” he told her. “Where did it come from?”

“Esther said they don’t use pesticides.”

“There’s no way we’ll get a warrant to test that out. Even if Ed Pelham cooperated on the Catoogah side, we don’t have cause.”

“I wish we’d looked around more when we were over there.”

“That Cole person needs a harder look.”

“You think he’ll come Wednesday morning?”

“No telling,” he said, then asked, “What are you doing tonight?”

“Why?”

“Wanna go to the Pink Kitty?”

“The titty bar on Highway Sixteen?”

“The strip joint,” he corrected, as if she had offended him. Driving with one hand, he rooted around in his pocket and pulled out a book of matches. He tossed them to her and she recognized the Pink Kitty’s logo on the front. They had a huge neon sign outside the bar that could be seen for miles.

“Tell me,” he said, turning onto the highway, “why a naïve twenty-one-year-old would take a book of matches from a strip club and shove it up the ass of her favorite stuffed animal.”

That was why he had been so interested in the stuffed Snoopy on Abby’s bed. She had hidden the matchbook inside. “Good question,” she told him, opening the cover. None of the matches had been used.

“I’ll pick you up at ten thirty.”