After leaving the hotel, they called the police. Ilka asked for Stan Thomas, and she explained that she had information about a man who had been hanged in Room 114. She gave him Jennings’s name and told the officer what she knew about him: He was in Racine because he and the police in Texas were building a case against Isiah Burnes. She gave him Lydia’s name but didn’t mention that Lydia Rogers was the nun he was familiar with from the funeral home. When Thomas asked what connection Ilka had to this Jennings, she raised her voice, shouted that he was fading out, she couldn’t hear him.
“I’ll call you back later,” she shouted. She hung up.
Lydia sat staring out the passenger-side window.
“Do you think they’re looking for you?” Ilka asked.
Lydia shook her head. “I think Jane-Maya and the girls are the ones they’re after.” Her voice was still listless, monotone. “Burnes will not tolerate disobedience in his wives, and there’s no limits to what the God Squad will do, when it comes to carrying out his orders. These are boys born into the cult, and they’re given no physical contact whatsoever from the time they’re born. No one holding them, comforting them. When they cry, they’re hosed down with water until they stop. If they get sick, God determines if they’re strong enough to survive. Only the girls get medical help. The men chosen to serve Burnes have no empathy. And their only job is to protect the cult.”
The crematorium chimney came into view over the fields. Ilka slowed down and once again checked her rearview mirror. She’d kept a close eye on other cars since leaving Racine, but no one seemed to be following them. Before leaving the hotel, she’d thought about calling Jeff and asking for an escort, but they hadn’t spoken since their argument outside Artie’s house.
She signaled to turn and drove slowly down the gravel lane to Dorothy’s place, then on through the gravel parking lot and around to the back of the house and out of sight. She parked the hearse and Lydia hopped out. Ilka followed her to the back steps. Before opening the door, she turned to Ilka.
“I’m sorry. Sorry that I let you believe your father was dead. I didn’t know you were in his will, and when I found out it was too late. I didn’t know how to handle the situation, so I just went on with the charade.”
“But why? Why wasn’t the story about him being in rehab good enough?”
“I was scared. I knew they’d keep looking until they found him. I care so much about your father. He took me in, gave me a life, a place where it felt like I belonged. I had to protect him. I was hoping he’d be safe down there, that the Rodriguez brothers would eventually stop looking for him.”
Ilka listened, but she couldn’t meet Lydia’s eyes; somehow it all felt too personal.
“But it was wrong of me to keep you in the dark, and I apologize for that. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.” Ilka felt there was nothing more to say. Lydia had put her through so much, and Ilka wouldn’t have believed her own bitter anger could just vanish with a simple apology, but apparently it could. It felt good to know Lydia was aware that she’d been wrong, and the anger just wasn’t there anymore. Strange. Ilka thought it also might have something to do with Jennings’s murder, the shock. Maybe she couldn’t really feel anything.
They heard a key being turned on the other side of the door, and a moment later Dorothy hugged them both. She whispered to Ilka that her father had called and told her about Ethan.
The police must be at the hotel room now, Ilka thought. She owed Thomas an explanation about how she knew Jennings, but that would have to wait until they left.
“I haven’t said anything to Jane-Maya, she doesn’t know yet that Burnes has uncovered the escape route. I think it’s best this way. She’s so happy about getting back together with her sister in Canada, and the girls are excited about the trip. I just didn’t want to make them nervous.”
They stood in a small back hallway, which had several pairs of rubber boots lined against the wall. Ilka could see Jane-Maya and the girls through the kitchen door, waiting on the sofa with three small travel bags in front of them. Each girl had a book on her lap, but they looked up when Ilka and Lydia walked in. The fright in their eyes was gone; now they were curious and eager.
Ilka smiled at them, even though she felt shattered inside. To counter the image of Jennings’s body that kept flashing through her mind, she tried to focus on the long drive in front of her. She’d already ignored three calls from Thomas, and now he was calling again, but instead of answering she texted her father that they were at Dorothy’s and would be leaving soon.
Lydia had gone upstairs, and now she came down carrying a stack of bills.
“Come with us,” Ilka said as she stuck the money in a black billfold. “You have to leave, it’s too dangerous for you here.”
Lydia shook her head. “I’m not leaving Ethan. I’m staying until he’s well enough for us to leave together.”
Since finding the boy at the funeral home, Ilka had felt an odd fluttering anxiety in her chest, but now it was a knot of pure fear. “You can’t stay! You have to come with us to Canada. We’ll take care of Ethan, he’s safe with my father, and we’ll bring him to you when he’s well enough to travel.”
Lydia considered that for a moment, but then she shook her head again. “If it wasn’t for Ethan, I’d turn myself over to the police and get it over with. But I’m the only family he has left. I thought it was too dangerous for him to live with me, I knew someone might track me down someday, so I made the deal with Fernanda back then. So he’d be safe, somewhere far away. But he wasn’t anyway. I didn’t take good enough care of him.”
Her eyes were tearing up.
It was hard for Ilka to see Lydia so emotional.
“I’m staying with him until we can leave together,” Lydia repeated.
She walked over to the bureau between the windows facing Dorothy’s parking plot and took out a plastic folder. She handed it to Ilka and explained that they were the papers she’d need for the trip. A transit permit for the fictional corpse in the coffin, the black billfold with the money, and a death certificate. Plus, a visa that she had procured via the internet.
“And you have your passport?” she said.
Ilka nodded and looked over the fake documents. Through the haze of thoughts in her head she heard Jane-Maya ask her girls if they needed to pee before they left.
She looked up and saw Lydia in the kitchen now with Dorothy, who was dabbing her eyes with a white handkerchief. Dorothy walked into the living room to say goodbye.
Jane-Maya was standing at the staircase. “Someone’s coming.”
Lydia stiffened, then quick as a flash she was at the window. Ilka looked past her at a car roaring down the driveway and recognized it at once: Jeff’s black BMW X5, the one she’d ridden in out to Artie’s house.
“It’s Jeff,” she said, then walked out into the kitchen. “I’m the one he wants to talk to.”
Ilka explained that she owed him money for helping find her. “It was about the money for Artie, I had to find you.”
“But he didn’t find me.” Lydia seemed more annoyed than worried that someone was showing up just as they were about to leave.
“In a way he did. He knew you were staying in Artie’s house. We just got there too late.”
Lydia brought out a bundle of money; it was clear she wanted him out of the way, and as soon as possible. “How much do you owe him?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
He could forget about the bonus, she decided. Had the present situation been different, she’d have told him he hadn’t done what he promised, and he wouldn’t get a cent. But like Lydia, she just wanted him gone.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Jeff getting out of his car and staring up at the house for a moment before turning back to the lane. Lydia handed her the money, and she strode over and opened the front door. “You didn’t find her,” she said, before he could say a word.
He seemed surprised to see her. His eyes moved down to the roll of bills in her hand. “What are you doing here?”
Ilka was puzzled, but she told him she was visiting one of her father’s friends.
“You need to leave,” he snapped.
His animosity confused her. “Here’s your money.”
Jeff ignored the bills and opened the car door. “Get over here, now!”
“Why in the world should I do that?”
“Because I say so!”
His voice was like a whip, and Ilka noticed his eyes darting around as he reached out to grab her.
She heard the cars. “What have you done?” she yelled.
Jeff told her again to come with him.
Their eyes locked, and she froze when he said, “I find people. That’s what I do. That’s what I’ve done.”