“Joan.”

I recognize the voice. I don’t want to slow, but I must. “Ronald.”

He ambles up to me. If someone is watching, they’ll witness a charming scene: a middle-aged man and the mother of his grandchild taking a stroll. I confirm that Ronald and Deck are nearly identical, twins separated by age but not appearance. I should never have let Mrs. Grant worm her doubt into my mind.

“Visiting someone at the nursing home?” he asks.

“Yes.” I’m brittle. “How about you?”

“I was on my way to speak with you. I just received very disturbing news.”

My hand instinctively tracks to my belly, to the curve that is visible no matter how shapeless my clothes. Be still, Beautiful Baby. I am here. I will protect you. Has Deck told his father we’re moving? He wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I say. I want that to end the conversation. I turn to walk home alone, but Ronald doesn’t let me. He stays at my side.

“It’s about your mugger.”

This stops me in my tracks. Ronald might know about the day I got Slow Henry, if Deck told him against my wishes. That’s all Ronald could mean, because the only person who knows that I thought I spotted my mugger in Lilydale is Regina, who promised she’d carry my secret to the grave.

I hold myself still. “What about him?”

“I heard you think you saw him. Here in town.”

I blink rapidly, too shocked to respond. Regina. But she wouldn’t have told, at least not told Ronald. There must be another explanation.

Ronald continues. “He followed you here, Joan. We don’t know why. We want to help you, though.”

I speak through clenched teeth. “Who is ‘we,’ and who told you I saw him?”

Ronald holds up his hands. “You mentioned at dinner last week that you saw a man get hit by a car. Amory told me the gentleman was fine, but when Dennis followed up by calling the Saint Cloud hospital, he was told the fellow had taken a turn for the worse.”

“You said he didn’t die. When you were at my house for dinner. You said he was alive.”

Ronald shrugs. “Internal injuries.”

I swallow past the horror of learning the man is dead. “What does any of that have to do with the mugger?”

Ronald sighs deeply. “You seemed upset by the accident, far more upset than would be expected. Deck was worried about you. Thought maybe you knew the man. So, he and I drove to the hospital, looked at the body. Joan, the man who you saw get hit by a car perfectly matches the description of your mugger.”

“You’re wrong.”

Ronald scowls but keeps walking. “How’s that?”

“I didn’t see anybody get hit by a car. I saw a car run up the curb, then I saw a man on the road. Deck never saw my mugger. Yet he identified a corpse in the morgue as the man who mugged me?”

Ronald cuts to the side, stepping away while keeping pace. When he turns back to me, he’s a different person. His kind, grandfatherly presence has been replaced by a dreadful storm of a man, his words dripping with condescension, his lip curled in a snarl.

“You know,” he says, “the Fathers and Mothers kept this town out of poverty even during the Great Depression. What we do is provide leadership. That takes balance. It’s about doing what’s the best for the majority. Most people want to live life on the surface.” His gravelly voice drops even lower. “Very few want to go to the deep dark below. The Fathers and Mothers roll up our sleeves and dive down there, managing the townsfolk’s nasty business. Protect them like the children they are. ‘Honor thy father and thy mother, that long lived upon the land which the Lord thy God will give thee.’ I hope you can learn to respect our authority.”

He glances at my stomach. “And I hope you’re well enough to care for your child. Deck has mentioned some troubling things. I’d hate to see your firstborn taken away because you’re unfit.”

I’m stunned. Immobile. A pregnant springbok with nowhere to hide.

He leans toward my ear, his breath hot on my neck. “But if that’s the case, you can trust that the Mill Street families will raise him as if he’s our own.”

He strolls away, hands in his pockets, whistling a merry tune.

I watch Ronald go, panic crawling across my flesh because after our conversation, I now know two things for sure: I really did see my mugger in Lilydale, and now he’s dead.

And only one screw can possibly hold those two pieces together.

My mugger was from Lilydale all along, and he’s been murdered for the mistake of letting me spot him here, in his hometown.

CHAPTER 42

I let Saturday, June 1, come and go.

I know it’s the monthly initiation ceremony for the Fathers and Mothers. I garden. I clean. When the phone rings and Deck answers, and I hear him tell somebody that I’m not home, I don’t ask any questions.

When later that day, Deck drops to his knee and proposes with his grandmother’s sapphire ring, I say yes. I will say yes to everything and no to nothing. I know now, after walking with Ronald, that it’s no longer about staying to finish the investigative story so I can land a reporting job in Minneapolis.

It’s about survival.

Paulie probably is Stanley’s child. A child of rape, a Lily, and despite their best efforts to get rid of him, he’s back in town. The Mill Street families are dark and dangerous, and they want my baby, too. Or, more accurately, they want Deck’s baby. To escape with my child, I must be smarter than smart.

The leopard, not the springbok.

When Sunday rolls around and Deck asks if I still want to attend church, I behave as if he’s offered me the moon. I even make chocolate-marshmallow bars for the fellowship meal after the service.

The Catholic sermon is rule bound and oddly violent with threats of harsh punishments and notions of an unforgiving God. I act as if Jesus is speaking directly to me the entire time. I let the engagement ring glitter on my finger and catch the light to distract myself.

It’s beautiful.

I will keep it, once I escape. I want Deck to go with me, but if he takes much longer, I will leave without him. Protecting my baby is all that matters.

We’re seated in the front pews with the other Mill Street families. All of them Fathers and Mothers. The Schramels and the Bauers, the Lilys and the Schmidts. Do the women look happy?

I study them as they watch the priest.

They appear purposeful. Like they have a place in this world. It’s different from how the people in the rear of the church look. It’s not just because those people have darker skin, are migrant workers judging by their dress and rough hands. It’s that the people in the back seem like they cannot quite relax. Not like the Mill Street families can.

When I twist my head, I spot Angel Gomez, the beautiful child I first noticed at the school musical, with his family. He’s still impossibly lovely, with his dark curls and deep-brown eyes. His mother and sister are doting on him, bribing him with a cherry-colored lollipop to keep him quiet.

I catch the mother’s eye and smile. She smiles back.

My sight is pulled to the right by the vision of Clan Brody arriving late to church, Catherine at his side. It takes all my will to not gasp out loud. His face is covered in green and yellow bruises, his eyes swollen nearly shut. Deck must feel me go rigid.