“Besides ‘HELP ME’ in all caps?”
He smirked and began to type. “ ‘Subject: HELP ME’ in all caps. ‘Dear Cam,’ ” he murmured as he typed, “ ‘we are in a place called Eden.’ ” He clicked out of the e-mail tab to Google Maps and squinted at the screen. “There’s a way to get coordinates. Oh, yeah. I remember now.” He right-clicked on the flashing blue dot that was in the middle of a forest and entered the numbers into the e-mail to Cam. “We are at these coordinates,” he continued to type. “Please come ASAP and bring the cops. This place is insane and we are being held against our will.”
“We could just e-mail the police directly,” Hayley said quietly. “Or even the FBI.”
“And we will. But Cam can go to the cops in person, and that might get better attention than our e-mail, which sounds like we’re crackpots.” He hit send, then opened a new e-mail. “I’ll send the e-mail to the cops now. According to the map, the closest town is—”
A voice outside had them freezing in place.
“I need to pack up the clinic,” the healer was saying.
“You will have time to do that,” a male voice said evenly. “Get back to the prayer meeting.”
Shit. Panicked, Hayley met Graham’s wide eyes. “Joshua,” she mouthed. If her so-called husband found them here . . . He’ll kill me. He’ll kill Graham. “We need to get out of here,” she mouthed to Graham.
He nodded once, then began closing windows on the computer. He clicked the history and erased their activity before shutting it down. Quietly he rose from the chair and joined her at the office door.
“Pastor wants you at his side when he tells everyone that we’re leaving,” Joshua told the healer.
Leaving. Leaving?
Hayley glanced at the computer, her heart racing faster than was good for her baby. They’d just told Cameron where to find them and now they were leaving?
She took a step toward the computer, but Graham grabbed her arm, shaking his head.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Joshua was saying. “I need to find the new girl. She was asleep when we left for the prayer meeting, but Rebecca says she isn’t there now.”
The new girl. That would be me. They know I’m missing. I need to get out of here.
“She might run,” the healer said hesitantly. “She seems the type. She hasn’t fit in well.”
“I know.” Joshua sounded grim. “I swear to God, I’ll kill her and rip that baby out of her if she tries. I promised Rebecca the kid would be hers.”
Hayley covered her mouth to silence her gasp. Graham’s grip intensified until tears burned her eyes. Her brother looked absolutely livid.
Livid and terrified. For me. Hurry, Cam. Get here before we’re gone. Or before Graham did something foolish and got himself killed.
The voices trailed off and Graham opened the office door, gesturing for Hayley to follow. With a final frantic look back at the computer, she complied. It didn’t matter. She didn’t know where they were going, so she couldn’t tell Cam. When they got to the outer door, Graham pointed to himself, then to the left. He pointed to Hayley, then the right.
They no longer lived in the same hut, so it made sense that they’d come from different directions. Thank you, little brother, she thought. For having your shit together better than me.
She looked both ways when she left the healer’s hut, relieved that everyone was in the square already, looking away from her and toward where Pastor stood on a raised platform. He was an average-looking man, maybe five-eight. On the surface, he seemed unremarkable in every way. His brown hair was graying, his face almost always smiling benignly. He wore round glasses that gave him a professorial air. He shouldn’t have been a leader of anything, but there was something about him that drew the people of Eden like moths to a flame. They trusted him implicitly.
He was, however, holding Hayley captive against her will, and so she would never trust him. She slipped out and made it to the back of the group in the square, then gasped again when bony fingers grabbed her arm, in the same place Graham had.
“Where were you?” Rebecca asked, her tone low and ominous. The woman was older, though her age was hard to tell. Hayley thought she might be younger than her own mother, but years of living in this hellhole had made her haggard, her skin wrinkled. More important at the moment was her size and strength. She was much taller and stronger than Hayley. She wouldn’t stand a chance if the woman tried to seriously hurt her. “You weren’t in your bed, where I left you.” She squeezed harder, giving Hayley a shake that rattled her teeth. “Do not lie to me, girl.”
She spoke quietly enough that no one around them heard, or at least didn’t appear to. All eyes were closed as Pastor led them in prayer.
Hayley’s mouth opened, then closed. “I was here,” she stammered. “On my way here.”
Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. You can’t even lie well.”
“She was with me,” a soft voice said from behind them.
Both Hayley and Rebecca twisted around to see Sister Tamar, who was smiling sweetly. “I went to wake her up, Sister Rebecca. I knew she’d stayed behind to sleep. It’s taxing, being pregnant.” Her smile grew brittle. “But I guess you wouldn’t know that, would you?”
Rebecca’s jaw grew tight; the muscles in her neck corded as she controlled the rage that flashed in her eyes. She shoved Hayley away with a glare. “Stay out of my way. Both of you.”
Hayley turned to Tamar with wide eyes and a hammering heart. Why? she wanted to ask. Why did you cover for me?
The woman was young, maybe twenty, and was one of the weavers. That was all Hayley knew about her. She wasn’t one of Joshua’s wives and she and Hayley had never spoken one-on-one. Hayley wasn’t even sure who the woman was married to, although she had a husband.
That was a given in Eden. All females over twelve were married.
Tamar shook her head, the movement so slight that Hayley would have missed it had she not been staring. Then, shoulders sagging, Tamar folded her hands and lowered her head as Pastor prayed that the good Lord would bless them in their upcoming move, that he would protect them in these “treacherous times” when the government was trying to “steal their religious freedoms.” He prayed that everyone would make the trip to the new site safely and that Brother DJ would heal from his “grievous wounds” inflicted by the FBI just hours before. He asked God to “shield them” from the evil men who’d killed so many at Waco.
The FBI’s failed takeover attempt of the Branch Davidians was mentioned often by the Eden authorities. It was a fear tactic that worked, several of the men murmuring, “Amen.”