FORTY

Abbie tried her best to keep track of how long they’d been driving on this bumpy dirt road, but she’d stopped wearing a watch ages ago when her phone had taken over all her timekeeping needs. It was a long drive, at least fifteen minutes before Bowen slowed down. He parked the car in front of a two-story, red-brick house. The home looked like it had been built in the late nineteenth century. It was strangely familiar. It looked a lot like Brigham Young’s winter house in St. George, except for the fact that it stood alone miles off Route 190 in the middle of nowhere. Someone had taken care with the gardening. Mature lacebark elms provided reliable shade in the front yard. Under different circumstances, the house would have seemed charming.

“Out,” Caleb ordered.

Abbie did as instructed. She squinted in the bright sunlight. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen. There was no sense in running. Caleb was well rested and would be able to tackle her without exerting much effort. She was worried what he might do if Bowen weren’t there. Bowen emerged from the car wearing sunglasses. His jaw was clenched so tightly she could see muscles bulging on either side of the face that was usually so camera-ready cheerful.

Bowen walked up the herringbone red-brick path to the wraparound porch. A porch swing swayed in the breeze. It was painted sage green to match the trim on the doors and windows. Even the entry mat coordinated with the color scheme. Every perfect detail oozed menace.

Bowen opened the old-fashioned screen door with its scroll-like corner brackets. It didn’t make a sound, which was unnerving. Abbie had grown up in an old house. One of her favorite sounds was the squeak of a screen door: in the summer it was the only thing between you and the outside. Once it got warm, Abbie’s mom opened the front and back doors, along with all the screened windows, so that the house would stay cool with cross-breezes and the shade of the old trees that had been planted when the house had been built. The doors would not be closed again until the nighttime temperatures dipped below fifty-five degrees.

Caleb pushed Abbie through the door.

Just like the outside of the picturesque house, the inside was the epitome of late-nineteenth-century elegance. Dozens of pale-yellow roses had been carefully arranged in a large cut-crystal vase sitting on a handmade lace doily in the center of a round mahogany entry table. Bowen walked through open French doors into the formal sitting room. Abbie followed. Caleb stayed behind, his broad shoulders and barrel-shaped chest blocking the screen door.

“Elder Bowen, hello!” A blandly pretty young woman with hair the color of wheat smiled at Bowen. “I just finished making some limeade. Would you and your guests like some?” The young woman was wearing a shirt tucked into the waist of a skirt that reached just below the knee. If a black name tag with THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS and SISTER WHATEVER emblazoned on it had been pinned to her blouse, she would have been a picture-perfect image of a female missionary. As it was, the only thing going through Abbie’s mind was whether this young woman was one of the names on her dad’s list. She and Flynn had found pictures for most of them, but because so many Utah Mormons had descended from the same group of predominantly British and Scandinavian converts in the mid-1800s, it was hard to distinguish one blue-eyed blonde from another.

“Thank you. Limeade sounds great,” Bowen said. The words sounded forced to Abbie’s ears.

The missionary girl disappeared down a hallway toward the back of the house. Bowen sat down on an antique love seat upholstered in pale-yellow chintz with ivory-and-blue flowers. Abbie sat on a matching chair on the other side of the coffee table. Caleb did not move from his post in front of the screen door.

“Here you go.” The young woman set a silver tray with a patina indicating it was older than she was on the coffee table. Three glasses and a pitcher of limeade were arranged on the tray along with a plate of raspberry thumbprint cookies. The porcelain plate had a chintz pattern that almost matched the fabric covering the chairs, love seat, and drapes hanging on either side of the windows overlooking the front lawn. Bowen poured the limeade into the three glasses.

“Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be in the kitchen.” The young woman walked back to where she had come from. Caleb stayed motionless at the door.

Bowen handed a glass to Abbie. She took it, but set it down immediately on a silver coaster. The air in Utah was dry. Condensation was not the problem for wooden surfaces that it was in more humid climates, but the formality of the room and years of being trained to behave appropriately triggered Abbie’s instinct not to place a cold drink directly on wood.

This whole scene was surreal. Everyone was acting as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a General Authority to sip a soft drink with a kidnapped woman while a strong man guarded the door of a beautiful Victorian home hidden off the main road up Big Cottonwood Canyon.

Bowen took a sip, then placed his glass on the coaster in front of him. That’s when Abbie heard heavy footsteps descend the stairs. Abbie had her back to whoever it was who was coming in. Emotions flickered across Bowen’s face. The most prominent was dread. Then, disgust? Revulsion?

A raspy voice addressed her before she could see who it was.

“Detective Abish Taylor, so glad you could join us.”

Port lowered himself slowly into the seat across from Abbie.

“Mr. Hinckley, let’s not pretend that my presence is voluntary. Your young ex-soldier over there isn’t exactly an engraved invitation.”

Bowen shifted in his seat.

Port smirked. Abbie had hit her mark. She knew he liked being called “President,” which is what made calling him “Mister” so satisfying.

“Feisty as ever. I remember as a girl you had a rebellious streak. I warned your father about indulging that too much, but your mother had a strong hand in your upbringing. Oh, what did she call you kids? ‘Independent thinkers’? Yes, that was her term. There wasn’t much thinking going on in your sisters’ heads, but you, Abish, the Lord blessed with intellectual gifts. Unfortunately, you were not likewise blessed with the common sense to know your place. And now, see where that has brought us?”

The old man shook his head in mock sadness. He leaned forward as far as he could toward the coffee table to reach his glass of limeade. Bowen had taken two sips, but he didn’t seem to have an appetite for the cookies. Abbie didn’t either. Port took his time leaning back into his chair, the glass of pale-green liquid shaking slightly from a tremor in his hand. He raised the glass to his lips and swallowed.

Port turned to Abbie. “Would you like to start this conversation or shall I?”

Bowen looked like he would rather have his wisdom teeth pulled without painkillers than be where he was at that moment.

Abbie said nothing.

“If you insist.” Port reached for a cookie. Watching him move was like watching a movie in slow motion. Abbie knew he was only a few years older than her own father, but he seemed to be in far worse health, which was saying something. “I don’t know how much you’ve pieced together, but I’m certainly not going to fill you in on any details you don’t know, so you can set that whodunit conclusion aside. I’ve tolerated your meddling since you decided to move back to Utah. I’m not an aggressive man. Generally, I believe violence is reserved for very special occasions. You’ve put me in a bind. I can’t trust you, even if I can trust your dad, which I do, by the way. The hope of celestial union with your mother is enough to keep him in line for eternity. I have to give the old professor credit on that; he married well out of his league. Your mother was a beauty until the day she died. You’re lucky you take after her.”

As long as Abbie could remember, someone had been telling her how pretty her mom was. People would stop and comment on her mom’s skin or her hair. Abbie had hated it when she was little. It was embarrassing—and annoying—to have your friends think your mom looked like some actress. Now that Abbie was older, she felt bad about all the times she’d been angry with her mom for something her mother couldn’t possibly control. She wished she could go back in time and erase that teenage resentment.

Abbie kept her mouth closed. Did Port know he’d hit a nerve? Did he sense how much her mother’s looks had irritated her as a child and especially as a teenager? She was not going to give him the pleasure of knowing his offhand comment had raised painful memories. Memories that hurt because they brought up her petulant unkindness as a child and her regret about never having had the chance to make amends as an adult. She let silence settle in the room until it became uncomfortable.

“Ah, I appreciate a person who can patiently sit without speaking.” Port smiled. “Abish Taylor, I have all the time in the world. It is you, I’m afraid, whose time is in limited supply.”

The panic that had motivated her to throw herself onto the street in Provo outside her parents’ house returned in a gust. Abbie consciously slowed her breathing to counteract its effect.

“Are you trying to keep yourself calm?” Port smirked. He knew he hit a nerve that time. “The problem is this: I can’t come up with any scenario in which détente works. There simply is no trust between us. There is nothing that would make you trust me, and nothing that would make me trust you. That leaves us very few options. Isn’t that right, Elder Bowen?” Port’s words seemed to startle Bowen, whose complexion had turned the color of the sage wall behind him.

“I’m … I’m not sure,” Bowen said. If he was trying not to look both nauseated and terrified, his efforts were failing. Port’s face turned a deep shade of burgundy. Bowen’s stammering response had enraged him.

“Brother Monson.” Port turned to Caleb, who was still standing in front of the door. “Take our guest to my study. I need to speak to Brother Bowen for a moment.”