Ilka slept like a log, and after two cups of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake left over from the previous evening, she drove to the warehouse and backed the hearse up to the wide door in back. She found the code and keys to the storage room Lydia had rented. The place looked deserted, which was a relief to her, because she was going to have to grapple with the enormous coffin to get it into the vehicle. An iron hasp had to be pushed to the side before the heavy door could be raised. Lydia couldn’t weigh over 120 pounds or so; the door must have been hell for her to open.
A stale, musty odor met Ilka head-on when she stepped inside. Sunlight fell on the dusty concrete floor, and she glanced around a moment before heading for the far end of the building. Her footsteps echoed in the cavernous warehouse. She kept an eye on the letters attached to the row of identical iron doors on her right.
When she reached C, she switched on her phone light and punched the code in. A hollow echo pinged around up in the rafters when she stuck the key in and turned it.
The storage room was empty except for the dark-blue coffin. Not only was it twice as wide as the standard models Ilka was familiar with, but it was quite a bit longer, too. It stood on a catafalque. Her actions felt routine as she unlocked the wheels and pulled out a narrow handle, all the while hoping she’d be able to wrestle it into the hearse without too many scratches.
Slowly Ilka pushed it through the doorway. The coffin seemed ready to slide off when she hit a small bump, and she leaned over and nearly lay on it the rest of the way. She locked the wheels again when she reached the hearse and opened the rear door. An extra pair of hands would have been nice, she thought, as she pulled out the rack in the back of the vehicle. She cursed as she raised the catafalque and shoved the coffin inside. But if Lydia could do it all by herself…
Lydia and Jennings were on their way to Texas by now, she figured. Ilka had been thinking of her that morning. Her skin tingled, as if she were the one headed down there, not Lydia.
As she secured the coffin, Ilka noticed the round ventilation holes hidden by the coffin lid that had been drilled all around the upper edge. Big enough for air to come in, she realized. She slammed the rear door shut.
Even though the coffin looked gigantic in back, she hoped Jane-Maya and her two girls weren’t prone to claustrophobia. They would be packed like sardines until they reached Canada.
Before leaving the funeral home, Ilka had texted her mother to congratulate her on the previous evening’s success. She wasn’t sure the two Danish women would be there when she returned to pick up her father and take him to Dorothy’s. He’d been devastated by Fernanda’s death, and while seated during the program he’d held his phone in his hand, hoping for news about Ethan.
Ilka had written her mother that she would be gone all day. Will be back this evening. Mary Ann out of jail, Leslie doesn’t know yet.
Maybe it was stupid to let her mother in on that, but Ilka couldn’t bear the thought of Leslie not knowing while Mary Ann sat at home, planning what to tell her daughter. And if anyone could prepare Leslie for what was coming, it would be her mother and Jette. The three of them seemed to be getting along very well together.
After rolling the catafalque back to the storage room and making sure the door was locked and code punched in, she climbed in the hearse and checked her phone. Her mother had written back.
Leslie moving home to mother later today. She’s with her now. They hope Amber can come home from hospital, they can take care of her. We’re with Eric and Elly.
Ilka stared at her phone. It was barely past nine, and already everyone seemed to be on the go. It stung a bit to realize they were doing just fine without her, but on the other hand, it did lift some of the weight off her shoulders. They could figure it out. They could handle things. Even with her sitting in a hearse with an XL coffin in back.
On the way back to the funeral home, Ilka thought about grabbing one more cup of coffee before she and her father headed out to Dorothy’s. She had a long drive ahead of her with Jane-Maya and the girls. They planned on leaving at ten, which would put them at the Canadian border around five that afternoon, even with several stops along the way. The traffic might be heavy at times, but she’d taken that into account too. Her passport was in her bag, and Lydia had filled out the documents to be shown at the border.
Ilka hadn’t known she needed a visa to enter Canada, but Lydia had taken care of all the details. All Ilka had to do was bring along a stamp from the funeral home, to be used when she handed their false documents over. She had to remember that when she picked up her father. False documents, forgery—Ilka hadn’t even considered the consequences if she were caught. It wasn’t anything like smuggling drugs in embalmed baby corpses, she told herself, but she still could be charged with human trafficking, even though it would have been perfectly legal for Jane-Maya and her daughters to leave the country, had they had passports. But Lydia claimed they’d never lifted the coffin lid before. It was just a matter of the corpse passport and other papers being in order.
Nevertheless, Ilka was nervous. She straightened up and tightened her grip on the enormous leather steering wheel; no sense in worrying about it yet, she decided. She rolled her window down and lit a cigarette.
She stepped out in front of the garage and glanced up at her father’s open upstairs window. He was waiting, ready to go, and Ilka had almost reached the back door when she noticed the small body, lying on the ground like a dark shadow. Motionless.
She heard herself scream, and in two long strides she was beside him, kneeling down. Only when she leaned over could she hear his faint sobbing. The way his frail body shook, he seemed to be trying to hold in some unbearable pain. The October morning was chilly, but all he had on was a T-shirt and a pair of knee-length shorts.
“Ethan,” she whispered.
He was tied hand and foot, and a rag had been stuffed in his mouth. He stared at her with terrified eyes.
“Ethan,” she said again, then began speaking quietly to him. Repeated his name, explained that he was at Paul’s house and everything would be fine now. She spoke soft words, a blanket of sound to calm him. And her, too—she’d been shocked, horrified at finding him.
“Okay, now I’m going to take the rag out of your mouth.” She reached for him slowly. “I promise, no one’s going to hurt you.”
He felt warm, very warm, and his small body was cramping up. Ilka loosened the gag, and instantly the boy gasped for air. His eyes darted around as she tried to free his hands. They were bound only with a light plastic line, but the knots were too tight for her to undo. She threw her coat on the ground then explained that she was going to carry him inside. Instantly he raised his hands in front of his head in self-defense and began crying. The odor hit her when she reached down to lift him up: sweat and something else, something piercing. She pulled her arms back and noticed the dark blotch on his shirt.
She spoke as calmly as she could. “I’m carrying you in, Ethan, and I promise to be very careful.”
She’d begun crying herself, she noticed, as she gently wriggled her arms underneath the boy and lifted him without touching the bloody spot on his chest. As smoothly as possible she carried him to the door and managed to press the handle down with her elbow. Then she maneuvered her hand under his knees and stuck the key in, still taking care not to touch his wounds.
Inside she called out for her father, but all she heard was the shower running in the bathroom. Ethan was still trembling, though now Ilka wasn’t sure if it was from fear or fever. He was terribly hot, that she knew. Ilka took baby steps as they passed the preparation room and coffin room. When she opened the door to the memorial room, his breathing was so rapid that she feared he was going into shock, or about to lose consciousness. His eyes were closed, but his muscles quivered with tension.
“It’s over now,” she whispered as she laid him down and tucked a pillow under his head. “All over. You’re safe here with us.”
He was crying again, this time quietly, with his eyes still closed. Ilka wanted to grab him and hold him close, but she didn’t dare. He was obviously in great pain, with blood still seeping through his shirt, mixing with dried blood and the stink of burnt flesh.
Ilka rushed into the office for a pair of scissors, then snipped off the plastic line around his hands. The line had cut deeply into his wrists, and for a moment she sat blowing on them. Then she leaned down and cut the lines binding his feet.
She thought about taking his shirt off, but no, she didn’t dare touch him there. She hurried out and grabbed a blanket and covered his bare legs. Carefully she stroked his burning forehead. When she told him she was going out to get Paul, he clearly reacted to the sound of her father’s name, but he kept his eyes closed.
Ilka left to find him.
“Follow me, right now,” she said, when her father stepped out of the bathroom, fully clothed and ready to go. “Something terrible’s happened, Ethan is here, and we have to get him to the hospital.”
“What—”
He walked into the room and spotted the boy on the sofa. “My God, what…what’s happened?”
“They branded him.” Ilka kept her distance, hoping the boy would feel safe now that someone he knew was with him.
Her father sank to his knees beside the sofa. “They?”
“The cult. I don’t think the Rodriguez brothers killed Fernanda, I think God’s Will found them. And they used Ethan to let Lydia know they’re after her.”
Her father jerked his head around; tears welled in his eyes, and he looked pale as a ghost.
Ethan seemed so small lying there. Much smaller than she remembered him in Key West. She joined her father when he tried to lift the boy’s shirt up, but it was stuck to his skin where he’d been burned.
“I’ll bet it’s the same brand Lydia and her niece have,” Ilka said. And Jane-Maya too, she thought, underneath the dress she wore buttoned to her neck.
Her father struggled to get up off the floor and sit on the edge of the sofa. Ilka went into the kitchen to get the boy a glass of water. She leaned against the counter and closed her eyes. If it was Isiah Burnes who had found Fernanda, he was almost certainly looking for Lydia too. Ilka was so, so grateful that she and Jennings had left before Ethan had been dumped.
“Ethan says he’d just come home from school, and he took his bag up to his room, and he heard the shots,” her father said, when she came back in with the water. “He didn’t see the two men before they were in the doorway. They grabbed him and left, and on the way, he saw Fernanda lying on the ground.”
While he spoke, the boy stared up at him, his eyes bulging with terror. He was still quivering, as if his muscles were somehow plugged into electricity.
“They stuffed something into his mouth when he started crying. A man sat in the backseat and held on to him while they drove away. At some point they stopped, threw Ethan out on the ground, and tied him up.”
Her father gazed lovingly at the boy as he stroked his hand. Ethan stared at the ceiling while he listened to her father’s voice. He seemed to be shaking less now, even though his forehead was covered with small pearls of sweat.
“Let’s get him to the hospital,” Ilka said. Her father nodded.
“No!” The boy reached for Paul as if he were about to fall.
“It’s okay,” her father said. “I’ll go with you. You’ve been injured, and we need the doctors’ help so it doesn’t hurt anymore.”
He turned back to Ilka when Ethan calmed down a bit. “He has trouble remembering what happened after that. But later the car stopped again, and they blindfolded him and carried him into a house. It was hot, and it smelled like when Fernanda started the woodstove. The next thing he remembers is the pain in his chest, as if he’d been stuck with a sword made of fire.”
A tear ran down her father’s cheek.
“Maybe they gave him something to knock him out,” Ilka said.
Her father nodded. He turned to Ethan and whispered that they had to get his shirt unstuck from where he’d been burned. Very carefully he lifted the shirt; the brand came into sight.
It was as big as a fist, and it looked grotesque against the boy’s sensitive skin. The wound was open and bloody. In the middle, where the white-hot iron had been pressed into him, a scorched black mark stood out, identical to the one Ilka had seen under Jane-Maya’s daughter’s neck.
“We have to get Jane-Maya and her girls away from here,” her father said. “You need to go. They probably thought this is where Lydia was hiding them. Go, I’ll take Ethan to the hospital.”
Ilka glanced at the clock. Her phone rang: Dorothy, she thought, wanting to know where she was, maybe. But no, it was Lydia. And she was upset.
“Jennings hasn’t shown up yet. He should have been here two hours ago. And I can’t get hold of him.”
Ilka hurried out of the memorial room. “Where are you?”
“I’m on the way to the hotel. Meet me there.”
“I’m on—”
Lydia hung up.
Back in the room, she said, “You’re right, I have to go.”
Her father nodded and told her to tell Dorothy why he hadn’t come along.
Ilka stopped herself from passing on what Lydia had just told her. “Okay.”
He had enough to do; there was no reason to burden him more before they knew why Jennings hadn’t shown up.
The moment Ilka got behind the wheel, she called the number Jennings had given her. No one answered, and a few minutes later she stopped in front of the hotel entrance in a no-parking zone and hopped out. She’d parked there before, thinking that allowances would be made for a hearse. Today she didn’t care. The oversized coffin would draw attention, no doubt, but she slammed the door shut and ran inside anyway.
Lydia stood at the window, but she turned when Ilka walked in. She looked worried to Ilka, nervous, as they approached each other. The only other people in the foyer were a couple with two small children at the reception desk and an elderly woman sitting on a sofa, studying a city map.
“Come on.” Ilka reached for Lydia. She recognized the receptionist, who’d been on duty when Jette had asked for an extra bed. She told the woman she had Jennings’s phone, that he’d forgotten it at the funeral home the evening before. “What room is he in?”
“Room One Fourteen.” The receptionist pointed down the hallway.
“His car is in the parking lot,” Ilka said as they passed an ice machine set back in a shallow niche. All she could hear in the dark hallway was the machine’s growl, drowning out the sound of her nervous breathing.
They stopped and pounded on his door. No answer. Ilka pounded several times again, then she pulled her phone out of her pocket to see if Jennings had texted her.
Lydia paced the hall, checking her watch as if time were running out for her. “Jane-Maya.”
Ilka spoke quietly, hoping to calm her down. “Don’t worry, I’ll get them to Detroit. We’ll just have to drop one of the stops I planned on. But first we have to get you on your way.”
Lydia took a deep breath. Ilka knocked again then put her ear to the door. Silence.
“He’s not in there,” she whispered. “Wait here.”
Ilka ran back to the reception desk. The family and the elderly woman were gone, and the foyer was empty. The receptionist looked up from her phone under the counter and asked if she could be of help.
“I’m wondering if Calvin Jennings has checked out?”
The girl shook her head as she peered at the hotel’s computer. “No. Mr. Jennings is checking out today, I see, but he hasn’t left yet.”
She was a young, plump girl who looked as if she should still be in school instead of playing Bejeweled on her phone, but she was on the ball enough to call his room. Ilka heard the phone ringing; two rings were enough for her to know he wasn’t going to answer.
“May I have a key?” She was about to explain why she had the authority to enter the man’s hotel room, but before she could get started, Lydia marched in from the hallway and pulled her away. Without a word she led Ilka back to Room 114. The door was open a crack. She glanced at Ilka, then she pushed the door open.
Jennings was hanging from a ceiling pipe to the left of the window. A floor lamp had been knocked over, and his things were scattered on the floor. For a second Ilka stood frozen, staring at him, then she pushed Lydia away from the door and jumped over to him.
“He’s dead,” Lydia mumbled. Ilka turned; her eyes looked empty as she pointed at his open shirt. That’s when the stench hit her.
Charred skin, sweat. She didn’t need to open his shirt, but she did anyway. The brand was identical to Ethan’s, only deeper. As if the branding iron had been pressed harder into his flesh.
“They took the papers,” Lydia said. “All the evidence.”
She’d already picked the empty briefcase up from the floor. The dark-brown leather case had been cut open lengthwise, a contemptuous message: They’d gotten what they’d come for.
Ilka’s knees buckled. She doubled over, and a croaking sound shot out of her throat, as if the air had been knocked out of her. She knelt and hid her face in her hands, her stomach cramping at the sight of Jennings’s dead body.
Lydia closed the door behind them. “Jennings was ready to leave, he’d already packed.”
Ilka peered at the overturned suitcase on the floor by the desk. Neatly folded pants and shirts. Socks and sweat suits.
Ilka slowly got to her feet and sat on the bed. She told Lydia about Ethan. “My father will take him to the hospital. But we’re going to have to call the police.”
Lydia stared in horror at Ilka. “Is it bad?” she whispered.
Ilka nodded and turned to Jennings, even though she could hardly stand looking at him. She wanted to cut him down, but she knew they couldn’t touch him before the police came.
“Ethan has the same brand burned on him, just not as deep.”
She also had to tell Lydia about Fernanda. “Sit down.”
Lydia leaned forward and held her head in her hands while she listened. Ilka wanted to put her arm around her shoulder, but she had to call the police. She brought out her phone.
“Wait,” Lydia said. “If we’re still here when they come, they’ll arrest me. Let me get my sister and the girls out of here before the God Squad finds them. If Burnes manages to stop us, they’ll never be free. And they’ll be punished for leaving him. Severely punished.”
Ilka understood. It was unbearable watching the woman sitting there, staring up at the man who could have saved her. She stood and slowly walked over to Lydia, folding her arms around her. The frail woman’s body collapsed as she silently sobbed.