“I’m on my way.”

He snapped the phone closed, tucking it into his pocket as he leaned against the car. His stomach was still rolling, and he kept panicking, thinking he had taken a drink of coffee when he knew for a fact he hadn’t. This was the only time in his life that his father’s miserable habits had actually benefited Jeffrey instead of kicking him in the ass. He said a silent prayer to Jimmy Tolliver to thank him, even though he knew if there was a heaven, Jimmy wouldn’t make it past the door.

“Chief?” Lena asked. She’d obviously been speaking. “I asked about Rebecca Bennett. Did he say anything about her?”

“He said he didn’t know where she was.”

“Right.” Lena glanced around the farm, asking, “What do we do now?”

Jeffrey didn’t want to be in charge right now. He just wanted to lean against the car, try to breathe and wait for Sara. If only he had that option.

“When Sara gets here,” he told her, “I want you to fetch Two-Bit. Tell him your phone wouldn’t work out here. Take your time getting there, okay?”

She nodded.

He looked into the dark barn, the narrow flight of stairs looking like something Dante would’ve written about.

Lena asked, “He admitted to doing this to other girls?”

“Yes,” he said. “He said that none of them had ever died before.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Somebody wrote that note to Sara. Somebody out there survived this.”

“Rebecca,” she guessed.

“It wasn’t the same handwriting,” he told her, remembering the note Esther had given him.

“You think one of the aunts wrote it? Maybe the mother?”

“There’s no way Esther knew,” he said. “She would’ve told us. She loved her daughter.”

“Esther’s loyal to her family,” Lena reminded him. “She defers to her brothers.”

“Not all the time,” he countered.

“Lev,” she said. “I don’t know about him. I can’t pin him down.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to answer.

Lena crossed her arms and fell silent. Jeffrey looked up the road again, closing his eyes as he tried to regain control over his sour stomach. It was more than queasiness, though. He felt dizzy, almost like he might pass out. Was he sure that he hadn’t tasted the coffee? He’d even drunk some of that bitter lemonade the other day. Was it possible he had swallowed some cyanide?

Lena started pacing back and forth, and when she went into the barn, he didn’t stop her. She came back out a few minutes later, looking at her watch. “I hope Lev doesn’t come back.”

“How long has it been?”

“Less than an hour,” she told him. “If Paul gets here before Sara does-”

“Let’s go,” he said, pushing himself away from the car.

Lena followed him back through the building, for once keeping quiet. She didn’t ask him anything until they were inside the kitchen and she saw the two cups of coffee on the table. “Do you think he took it on purpose?”

“No,” Jeffrey said, never so certain of anything in his life. Cole Connolly had looked horrified when he’d realized what was happening to him. Jeffrey suspected Connolly even knew who had done it. The panic in his eyes told Jeffrey he knew exactly what had happened. What’s more, he knew that he had been betrayed.

Lena walked carefully past the body. Jeffrey wondered if the room was hazardous, what precautions they should take, but his mind wouldn’t stay on any one thing for very long. He kept thinking about that cup of coffee. No matter what the circumstances, he always accepted an offer of a drink from someone if he was trying to get information out of them. It was Cop 101 to set the other party at ease, make them think they were doing something for you. Make them think you were their friends.

“Look at this.” Lena was standing at the closet, pointing to the clothes neatly hanging on the rod. “Same as Abby’s. Remember? Her closet was like this. I swear, you could’ve put a ruler to it. They were the same width apart.” She indicated the shoes. “Same here, too.”

“Cole must have put them back,” Jeffrey provided, loosening his tie so that he could breathe. “He came in on her when she was packing to leave town.”

“Old habits die hard.” Lena reached into the back of the closet, pulling out a pink suitcase. “This doesn’t look like his,” she said, setting the plastic case on the bed and opening it.

Jeffrey’s brain told his feet to move so that he could go over, but they refused. He had actually stepped back, almost to the door.

Lena didn’t seem to notice. She was pulling at the lining of the suitcase, trying to see if anything was hidden. She unzipped the outer pocket. “Bingo.”

“What is it?”

She turned the case upside down and shook it. A brown wallet dropped out onto the bed. Touching only the edges, she opened it and read, “Charles Wesley Donner.”

Jeffrey tugged at his tie again. Even with the window open, the room was turning into a sauna. “Anything else?”

Lena used the tips of her fingers to slip something out of the lining. “A bus ticket to Savannah,” she told him. “Dated four days before she went missing.”

“Is there a name on it?”

“Abigail Bennett.”

“Hold on to that.”

Lena tucked the ticket into her pocket as she walked over to the bureau. She opened the top drawer. “Just like Abby’s,” she said. “The underwear’s all folded the same way hers was.” She opened the next drawer, then the next. “Socks, shirts, everything. Looks identical.”

Jeffrey pressed his back against the wall, his gut clenching. He was having trouble catching his breath. “Cole said she was going to leave with Chip.”

Lena went to the kitchen cabinets, and Jeffrey told her, “Don’t touch anything,” sounding like a panicked woman.

She gave him a look, walking back across the room. She stood in front of the poster, hands on her hips. A large set of hands was pictured cradling a cross. Fire radiated out from the cross like bolts of lightning. She smoothed her hand over the poster like she was brushing something off it.

“What is it?” Jeffrey managed, not wanting to see for himself.

“Hold on.” Lena picked at the corner of the poster, trying not to rip the taped edge. Slowly, she peeled back the paper. The wall behind it had been cut out, several shelves nailed into the studs.

Jeffrey forced himself to take a step forward. There were Baggies on the shelves. He could’ve guessed what was in them, but Lena brought them over anyway.

“Look,” she said, handing him one of the clear bags. He recognized the contents, but the more interesting part was the fact that there was a label on it with someone’s name.

He asked, “Who’s Gerald?”

“Who’s Bailey?” She handed him another bag, then another. “Who’s Kat? Who’s Barbara?”

Jeffrey held the bags, thinking he was holding a couple thousand dollars’ worth of dope.

Lena said, “Some of these names sound familiar.”

“How so?”

“The people from the farm that we interviewed.” Lena went back to the cutout. “Meth, coke, weed. He’s got a little bit of everything here.”

Jeffrey looked at the body without thinking, then found himself unable to look away.

Lena suggested, “He was giving Chip drugs. Maybe he was giving these other people drugs, too?”

“The snake tempted Eve,” Jeffrey said, quoting Connolly.

Footsteps echoed behind him, and he turned to see Sara walking up the stairs.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” she told him, though she had gotten there in record time. “What happened?”

He stepped out onto the landing, telling Lena, “Cover that up,” meaning the poster. He slipped the Baggies into his pocket so he could process them without having to wait for Ed Pelham to take his sweet time. He told Sara, “Thanks for coming.”

“It’s fine,” she told him.

Lena joined him on the landing. He told her, “Go get Two-Bit,” knowing there was nothing else they would find. He had put off bringing in the Catoogah County sheriff long enough.