When I locate the map, I’m horrified to discover that not only are there red Xs over where Paulie’s house was, the Gomez house is, and four other spots, but there’re also percentages written on each of the poor neighborhoods. The biggest concentration is around the Baptist church Kris and I visited, the one surrounded by houses that had been licked by fire.

Is Ronald controlling the makeup of the town?

Very few want to go to the deep dark below.

I bet if I matched up the X’d houses with property insured by Schmidt Insurance that listed Lilydale as beneficiary, I’d find a perfect match. I’m confident I am looking at one source of Lilydale’s benevolence: controlled burnings of people’s homes—poor people, migrant workers—after they’ve been coerced into handing over their insurance premiums. And then what? They probably move on.

A house or two burning every few years wouldn’t draw too much suspicion. But what else have the Mill Street families done to create the balance they are after? How else have they terrorized families, made them move on to keep the percentages where they want them?

It’s the price of living in Lilydale, where “everyone” is protected.

Ronald’s hubris in keeping this information in plain-enough sight is breathtaking. It’s better than I could have hoped. It will be his downfall and my baby’s guarantee of safety. I lay out the evidence I’ve gathered. It’s crucial that Ronald not know exactly what I have—he must live in as much fear as me—and so I cannot simply take the files and the map. Instead, I will snap photos and then return everything as I found it. To get clear pictures, I must turn on the light.

I have the Gazette’s Kodak with the flashcube.

It’s not nearly powerful enough to capture a legible photograph in the dark.

I go to the window and peer out. The street is empty. If it stays that way for the next sixty seconds, I might pull this off. My pulse shredding my veins, I hold the camera in one hand, flick the light switch with the other. I snap photo after photo, my hands moving so fast they’re a blur, making sure to take close-ups as well as wide shots that show the incriminating evidence in the identifiable office.

Click flash.

Click flash.

Click flash.

I’m sick with fear that I’ll be caught, but I have to do this. Without incriminating evidence to hold over them, they’ll always come after me. Always. I snap more photos. Finally, the camera’s shutter won’t click. I’ve used up the film. With a shaking hand, I flick off the light.

Within seconds, brightness sears the front of the window.

I drop to the floor, landing hard on my butt, but not before I spot the patrol car flashing its searchlight into buildings. I hold my breath. The car stops outside the store. The light returns, now a glare of yellow in the office. Can he see the files I’ve left out? I slowly pull my knees toward me, making myself as small as I can around my swollen belly.

Waves of nausea overtake me.

It can’t end like this.

I squeeze my eyes shut, counting down my last moments of freedom. I think of my mother, beautiful Frances, a survivor, always looking out for me, always keeping me safe, me and her against the world.

You can do this, Joan. You’ve got this.

My eyes snap open at the sound of the car pulling away.

Finally, a stroke of luck.

Nauseous with adrenaline, I roll up the map, return it to its storage location, and then do the same with the files.

I’ll drive until I’m out of Lilydale, and then I will mail the film to Benjamin with instructions to develop it and bring the prints to the publisher at the Star should anything happen to me. I have the padded envelope stamped and ready to go. The city paper may not care much for small-town affairs, but when it’s arson and possible murder, they’ll have to stand up and pay attention.

Then I’ll send Ronald a letter telling him I have enough evidence to put him away for murder. He doesn’t need to know it’s only theories. He has too much to lose to take chances. I’ll tell him that if no one follows me, the evidence will never see the light of day. If I suspect I’m in danger, I will destroy him and the Lilydale demons who have benefited from his evildoing.

Plan in place, I go.

Or I should have.

CHAPTER 55

The curiosity is too much. It yanks me back like a lasso before I reach the back door.

I must know if they have a file on me.

I return to the cabinet. I slide it open. I search under “Schmidt.” I discover a regular life insurance policy for Deck. It’s dated December 14, 1967. The day he took me to the Gobbler and got me pregnant. His beneficiary is his child. Such arrogance.

There’s no mention of me in that file.

I locate my policy under “Harken.”

Skim it.

My tongue goes sour.

The policy is brief and to the point: if anything happens to me, Deck receives $1 million.

It’s almost enough to make me go back and glue his balls to his leg.

I intend to drive to Interstate 94, take it east until I hit a southbound highway, drive until I’m far enough away, and then drive some more. No one will even know to look for me until tomorrow morning, when Deck doesn’t show up for work.

That gives me at least ten hours.

I flip on the radio. Van Morrison is singing “Brown Eyed Girl.”

I stab the button, remembering Deck and me dancing to the song in the tiny apartment before we moved. Why did he have to fall in love with me, and me with him? Couldn’t he simply have married some woman who wanted to be in Lilydale, someone like Miss Colivan?

It hits me again with a fresh wave of grief: Ursula believed Deck, not me. I’m alone, alone except for my baby, and I will not let anything happen to him. I roll down the window and let the night breeze glitter across my skin. I am so close to free.

When I reach 94, though, I remember Grover’s phone call, the one I hung up on hours earlier. He’d discovered something important. Would it confirm who Paulie’s father was?

I realize I need to know if my child’s grandfather is a rapist.

It will take less than an hour. I have the time. It’s late, but I won’t ever be in this state again, so it’s now or never. I drive through Saint Cloud, reveling in the feeling of invisibility. When I pass a blue mailbox, I pull over to scribble a note to Benjamin, toss it in the prepared envelope containing the film, and sink the works into the box.

One step closer to safety.

I don’t know what I’ll find at Grover’s, but I think it’s likely that he’s discovered that Ronald was Paulie’s father, Ronald or Stanley.

I grow more certain of this as I steer toward Grover’s house on the north side.

I’m so focused on untangling the pieces that, at first, I don’t register the ambulance’s wail. Grover lives close to the hospital, the hospital where I would’ve been forced to give birth had there been any complications. I rub my belly absently, for comfort. But as I near Grover’s house, I realize with dawning horror that the ambulance is pulling up outside his home, screeching to a stop alongside the police car already there, its lights flashing.

My heart galloping, I park the car. I leap out, watching, unbelieving, as the medics jerk out the gurney and race into Grover’s house. Moments later, when they hurry out with an unmoving body on the stretcher, I fall to my knees. I can see Grover’s impassive face and a corner of his hand, both still under the glow of the streetlamps.