When they started out, dirty gray clouds rolled across the sky, but by the time they reached Peru, Illinois, the skies cleared. Georgia took it as an omen. It didn’t hurt that Jimmy was driving his black-and-white cruiser with the Lake Geneva police shield on the side. Traffic seemed to avoid them, and they made good time, arriving in Nauvoo before lunch.
Jimmy navigated to the Nauvoo Motel and pulled into the parking lot. A few cars were scattered across the lot, and the motel, a two-star version of a Motel 6, didn’t appear as clean as it had when Georgia and her family stayed there. A few food wrappers and other trash littered the parking lot, and the glass windows and door of the front office could have used a scrubbing. Jimmy parked at an angle so she could see the office but not be easily seen. Just to be sure, she pulled on a ball cap so her face was in shadow.
“You sure you want him to see the patrol car? What if he decides to run?”
“I’ll run him down. You stay in the car. This is police business.”
“I get it.” She peered through the windshield at the motel’s office. “Doesn’t look like he’s there. Or at least on duty.”
An older woman with gray frazzled hair and a sour expression looked out at the cruiser. She wore a faded muumuu with a sweater over it. She’d been using a small machine—an adding machine maybe—when they pulled in, but now she tore off the paper, threw it away, and took a bite of a sandwich on a paper plate.
Another woman and a man with a laptop-sized backpack on his shoulder emerged from a room on the lower level, not far from the rooms she and JoBeth and Vanna had stayed in. The man tenderly kissed the woman, and she went to a SUV, climbed in, and drove away. The man walked into the front office and nodded to the woman behind the counter. Georgia’s PI instincts kicked in. Probably an illicit love affair. Soccer mom and businessman, both married.
Jimmy waited until the man had paid the bill and pulled out in his BMW. Then he opened the cruiser door, got out, and strolled over to the office. The woman behind the desk glanced up then took another bite of her sandwich.
Jimmy said something to the woman, but his back was to Georgia, so she focused on the woman’s reaction. First she raised her eyebrows, probably reacting to Jimmy introducing himself and telling her why he was here. She said something that made Jimmy flash his badge. Then she shook her head, and a suspicious look came over her. Jimmy kept talking, and the woman shifted nervously. He gestured as he talked, extending his thumb and forefinger. Was that to illustrate how close Benson came to hitting Georgia? The woman swallowed but kept her mouth shut.
Jimmy must have asked her a question because she shrugged and flipped up her palms as if she didn’t have an answer. Then he wrote down some notes on a pad and looked around the office. Several notices were pinned to the wall. One of them caught his attention. He walked over to it, then asked the woman something. She shrugged again. Jimmy unpinned the notice, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket.
When he turned around, Georgia could see his expression. His narrowed eyes and a tightening of his mouth told her he was on the scent of something. Was it the notice he’d taken off the wall? She watched as he went back to the woman and said something to her. The woman stared at him with undisguised hostility. She didn’t like whatever he’d said. He said something else.
Okay, okay, she mouthed. Georgia could read her lips.
The woman took out a set of keys. A moment later, both she and Jimmy came outside and headed up the stairs. They went around to the back of the motel and disappeared.
Ten minutes went by. Georgia grew progressively impatient. She pulled out her laptop and turned it on but couldn’t focus on email or the news website she usually scanned. She closed down and started tapping the fingers of both hands on the machine. One, two, three four. Had to make them all come out even.
Finally, Jimmy came back into view at the top of the second floor, the woman following behind him. Georgia could tell by his expression he was thinking, analyzing what he’d seen. At the bottom of the steps, he nodded to the woman and turned toward the cruiser. The woman went back into the front office and took another bite of her sandwich.
“Do me a favor,” Jimmy said as he climbed into the patrol car. “Duck down until we’re on the road again.”
Georgia was puzzled but did what he asked. “And I’m doing this because…”
“Let me put some distance between this place and us, and I’ll show you.”
He pulled out of the lot, turned right, and drove about half a mile. “Okay. You can get up now.”
Georgia rearranged herself in the passenger seat. They were on a winding road with forest on both sides and nothing else. The trees were budding but hadn’t yet leafed out. Bare branches, many entwined with other trees, looked menacing, as if they were telling Georgia this was a closed community and would never welcome strangers.
After a mile, Jimmy pulled over on the shoulder. “Benson wasn’t there. The woman is his mother. She owns the motel. Inherited it when her husband died. Benson lives in an upstairs room in the back.”
“Where did she say Benson was?”
“She doesn’t know. Says he’s been gone about a week. On a business trip for the Church.”
“The Mormon Church?” She paused. “Do you buy it?”
“Didn’t you pick up that someone was following you around the same time?”
“True.”
Jimmy took the notice from his pocket and passed it to Georgia. “Now, take a look at that.”
Georgia peered at it. It was a flyer with a close-up but out of focus black-and-white photo of a woman. She had long blond hair, large dark eyes, a patrician nose, and pale skin. The woman appeared to be wearing a high-necked dress or blouse, the collar of which was visible in the photo. She was looking off-camera with a small smile on her face. Georgia’s eyes widened, and she sucked in a breath. “Oh my god. That’s me!”
Jimmy nodded. “Now read the text.”
Georgia read it aloud. “Missing Woman. Eden Christiansen, 34, 5’6”. Blond hair. Brown eyes. Member of the Fundamentalist Mormon Church of Nauvoo. Married to Porter Christiansen. If you have seen her or know her whereabouts, please contact 217-619-0450 ASAP.” Georgia flicked the flyer. “Mormons? Missing woman? What is this?”
“Exactly what it says it is. A missing person poster.”
“They make it sound like a wanted poster. Like she broke the law or committed a serious crime.”
“To these Mormons, she has.”
“How do you know? She obviously had enough—whether husband or religion, who knows. She wanted out.”
Jimmy was quiet for a moment. Then, “Except you can’t do that if you’re a Fundamentalist. And she is.”
“Like I said, how do you know?”
“Fundamentalists are not like normal Mormons. You know my dispatcher Darlene, right?”
Georgia nodded.
“She’s a Mormon.”
“I didn’t know.”
“She’s part of the establishment Mormons. Church of the Latter-Day Saints. Pretty normal Christians, right? No polygamy. No weird customs or rituals. Fundamentalists are different.”
“How?”
“First of all, there are dozens of them. Most are like cults. The best known is the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter-Day Saints. Used to be headed by Warren Jeffs. Second, they’re extremists. With all the bizarre rules and behavior you’d associate with an extreme cult. For example, they never gave up polygamy. Which means a man can have as many wives as he wants. In fact, there are a lot of things women can’t do. They’re supposed to be happy at home raising lots of Mormon children. The elders preach to them, ‘The greatest freedom you can enjoy is in obedience.’ If they do run away, the Fundamentalists go after them and bring them back. Especially if they’re young and can still have babies.” Jimmy looked through the windshield. “Fundamentalist men marry young women. Sometimes they even shack up with their nieces or cousins—sometimes even their daughters. Whoever is a virgin or of child-bearing age. The incest gets so complicated that a woman could be a stepmother, aunt, and daughter to another woman all at the same time.”
“Stop. I’m getting nauseous,” She took in a long breath. Then her voice changed. “Now I get it.”
“Get what?”
“When JoBeth, Vanna, and I were having dinner in a restaurant, the waitress thought I was someone else. She even asked me when I came back.” Georgia was pensive. “She must have thought I was this Eden.”
“She’s not the only one.”
“What are—? Oh. You think Benson thought I was too?”
“I’m sure of it. Why else would he try to run you down?”
“But who wants her dead? I thought you just said they try to bring them back.”
“They do. But it’s clear that’s not the case here. Someone wants her out of the way. For a reason we don’t know. Yet.”
“And he’s still out there.” Georgia shivered. “So everything I’ve been through…it could happen again to me. Or to her. We’re both in danger.”
Jimmy didn’t reply.
She peered out the window at the malevolent-looking trees. “I was going to suggest we eat lunch up here, but this place gives me the creeps. Let’s go home.”