7

Khloe leaned across the Jeep’s backseat to whisper in Violet’s ear. “I seriously owe you.”

Violet shrugged. Her stomach was balled so tightly, she could barely sit up straight. She felt like Jekyll and Hyde. Her Jekyll half wanted to march into this terrorist church and text the address to the Constabulary. Her Hyde half wanted to confess to the Hansens. Or maybe dash off into the night.

Clay parallel-parked on the left side of the street and turned off the ignition. Silence seized them all, him and Natalia in the front seat, Violet and Khloe in the back.

“Okay,” he said. “Everybody out.”

Violet hopped down to the blacktop and held back as she shut her door, but the noise still sounded too loud. She jumped as Khloe’s door slammed.

“Oops,” Khloe whispered.

“Shh!” That was Natalia.

They followed Clay single file across the empty street, over to the next block. Violet brought up the rear of their stiff and silent parade. Unseen traffic passed a few streets over, a muted whir, normal people driving to and from legal destinations. Violet glanced back in the direction of the main road, just in time to glimpse a white flicker in the clouds above the horizon. Then another. No thunder, though.

Khloe appeared at her side. “Heat lightning.”

“The air got cooler on the way here,” Violet said. “Maybe it’s a storm.”

“Nah, just looks like one.”

Ahead of them, Natalia beckoned with a quick, taut motion. They jogged a few steps until they caught up.

This street, Apple Lane, dead-ended into a main road a few hundred feet ahead. Clay had brought them in the back way. They hadn’t left the residential neighborhood, but a few of the houses on the left appeared to be used for businesses. Sweet Serenity Massage Therapy, read the sign in one front yard. The next, hung from the porch awning, read Debra’s Salon. Clay veered toward the final house, up a redbrick walkway to the door. A black-lettered whitewashed sign stretched above the doorway: J’s Little Country Store.

The Christians met here?

He knocked on the door, then glanced over his shoulder. His smile caught the streetlight. Right, because he thought he was helping them find the truth or something.

Violet turned a circle in search of the house number. There, the mailbox: 5682 Apple Lane. She dug into her purse for the phone.

The door cracked open, but no light shone from inside. A female whisper seeped into the night. “He prepares a table.”

“Before us,” Clay whispered back.

“In the presence.”

“Of our enemies.”

The door eased open further, still without spilling a bit of light. Clay slipped through the opening into the blackness, and Natalia followed him.

Austin’s voice yelled in Violet’s head. “Do not go inside.”

Khloe tossed a glance over her shoulder: Don’t leave me.

“Come on in, Violet,” Clay whispered from inside.

She had to. She scaled the two steps up into the black lair. She’d find a way to leave as soon as she sent the text: 5682 Apple Lane.

The door sealed behind her, and she was lost in a cocoon of darkness and scent. This country store sold candles. Lots of them. A warm hand slid into hers.

“Dad says be careful not to bump into stuff.”

Khloe tugged her along, and Violet followed, almost stepping on Khloe’s heels. They must have crossed the whole length of the house by now, or maybe the darkness made the seconds feel like minutes. Ahead of her, someone opened a door. She was tugged forward again, into a warmth that suggested this room was usually closed off from the air conditioning.

“Careful—stairs,” Khloe said, a second before Violet would have pitched to her death. She gripped a wooden railing and descended one silent carpeted step at a time until Khloe’s heels clicked on tile.

Someone flipped a switch, and a bare bulb overhead flooded the room with light. The basement was a storage room piled with boxes, some still sealed with packing tape, others with open flaps poking upward. People clustered, seven including her. Too many for the space in the center of the room, connected to the stairs by a narrow cleared path.

“Welcome, Clay’s guests.” An older woman, fifty or so, beamed at them. “I’m Janelle.”

Aunt Natalia stepped forward, prodded by decorum as always. “Natalia. It’s a pleasure to finally meet all of you.”

Violet pulled her stare away from Natalia’s convincing smile. “I’m Violet.”

“Khloe, with a K,” Khloe said.

“Say, brother.” A young guy with dyed-black hair and an eyebrow piercing stepped forward. “Thought you only had one kid.”

Clay laughed as if the guy had made a joke. As if he’d talked to this twenty-something man too many times to count … which he probably had. His rolling stride met the younger man halfway, and he shook the outstretched hand with that signature Uncle Clay, life-is-awesome grin. He was as comfortable as Violet had ever seen him anywhere.

“Violet’s my adopted niece—Khloe’s best friend. I could practically claim her on my tax return.”

Not much of an exaggeration, especially during the summer.

“Aha,” the man said. “Glad to have you all. I’m Phil, and my beautiful bride is Felice.”

Felice couldn’t be more than a few years older than Violet. “Our teacher isn’t here tonight. He broke his ankle and still isn’t getting around very well, but we’re praying for him.”

Because of course, they prayed to God. Maybe even to the same God that Violet prayed to, just … differently.

Janelle invited everyone to sit in a circle on the floor, and Violet braced herself for a creepy chant, or a tirade against the government, or whispered plans to bomb a daycare center. But the group continued their small talk: the latest blockbuster movie, Tigers’ box scores, Phil and Felice’s new neighbors and their yappy dog. Apparently, no teacher meant no lesson.

Maybe a sliver of her wanted an extremist lesson. Knowledge of their beliefs would help her steer clear, maybe even help her know when to report someone else and when to shrug off their spiritual ideas as misguided but harmless. Austin would protest that, but he couldn’t guarantee she’d never be in a similar situation again.

Just send the text.

She would. In a minute.

Her patience paid off about ten minutes later, when Janelle dug into her purse and brought out a leather-bound book with gold-edged pages. Smaller than the one hiding on top of Clay’s bookshelf, and burgundy.

Clay gave a small gasp. “Janelle …”

“I thought we could read from it tonight, take turns, you know? I was going to write out verses on some paper, like Abe does, but I decided to bring all the verses.”

“But we never …” Clay’s voice faded into a sigh. Phil and Felice gazed at the book with some mix of fear and reverence.

Send the text. Violet’s fingers curled around the faux leather handle of her purse, and its fraying edge dug into her palm. If they caught her, what would they do to her?

“Let’s pass it around and read some of our favorite verses.” Janelle flipped through the book as if she knew the exact page number she sought.

“Oh, awesome.” Felice actually clapped her hands.

Violet slid her hand into an inner pocket and tugged out her phone. From inside her purse, with a glance downward, she started a new text message. Brought up the number Austin had given her.

Next to her, Khloe pulled her own phone from her pocket. Surely she wasn’t texting her current activity to anyone. No, the intermittent movement of her thumbs didn’t look like a text. Violet slanted her gaze at the phone. Pinball.

Did Khloe think Violet was doing the same thing? Demonstrating boredom and disrespect for these people? Khloe, this is serious stuff.

From Khloe’s other side, Natalia’s hand darted to the phone and snatched it away. She reached up behind her and set it on an empty shelf, in full view of the whole group. Then she did the same with Khloe’s pink clutch purse.

Khloe’s mouth rounded in protest, then snapped shut.

“‘Thomas said to him,’” Janelle was reading, “‘“Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”’”

Oh, Violet knew this. Rick had read it a few weeks ago. “Jesus said to him, ‘Within you are the way, and the truth, and the life. Within you is access to the Father.’”

Janelle’s words didn’t match Rick’s voice in her head. “‘Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”’”

Of course, this Bible was different. But it didn’t sound … well, it didn’t sound the way she’d expected.

Whatever. Details didn’t matter. Not here, not tonight. Violet’s mission mattered.

5682 Apple Lane. J’s Little Country Store.

She pressed a final key. Message sent.