“Come on, Joan. You can meet the baby, but don’t get too attached. It wouldn’t be good for either of you. I think this is going very well, though, don’t you? You should be pleased. Because of you, we won’t have to take any more children. We can simply farm the next generation in our own soil. I only wish your father still had his faculties. He’d be delighted to see his plan come to fruition. Now don’t be such a crybaby. It’s not as if you ever even wanted children. Deck told us everything.”

CHAPTER 66

They let me nurse my baby.

It’s the purest moment of my life.

I smell my child’s hair, sigh with sweet relief as the rosebud lips release the pressure on my breasts, sing a sweet lullaby as he suckles. I marvel at tiny fingers, eyelids the color of seashells. They won’t let me change the baby, won’t tell me if it’s a boy or girl, what they named him, but they can’t break my heart, not when I’m holding my child.

It’s over too soon. They peel my baby from my arms and herd me back to my lemon-colored bedroom in Stan and Dorothy’s house, across the driveway and an ocean away from the only thing that matters to me.

Mildred, obviously woozy and slurring her words, has been assigned as my chaperone. She watches me change the pads in my underpants and step into my nightgown, take a sleeping pill, and lie down. I don’t need to fake the relief at being in bed, the trembling in my legs, the exhaustion.

“You’re not the only one going to sleep early,” she says blurrily, brushing hair from my face. “The party is winding down already. Stanley and Dorothy didn’t even make it back over here. They’re sleeping in Deck’s living room.” She yawns, reaches toward the nearest wall for support, misses it, tries again. “I don’t know if I’ll even be able to stay up long enough to help clean. Oh well! The dirt isn’t going anywhere. I can come back tomorrow.”

Her eyes are going heavy-lidded. She excuses herself.

I spit the sleeping pill into my palm.

I lie there until I hear garbled goodbyes. Until all the lights are off. Until it is nearly eleven.

I wait, and then I wait some more.

I’m good at waiting.

CHAPTER 67

When I hear no more movement, I change from my nightgown and into loose, dark pants, slipping in a new pad. I leave the empty medicine bottles in my pocket. I’ll throw them away when I’m safely out of town. I’ve been stockpiling and grinding the sleeping pills and Valium since they brought me back from the Saint Cloud police station. I didn’t need enough to kill anyone, just to make them all sleep well the next time they’d all be gathered. A time when I would have access to all their food.

The time right after my baby was born.

I don a clean bra and shirt.

I tuck my white gloves into my back pocket, and I sneak next door. I think everyone is out, but I can’t be positive. I tiptoe up the stairs. Deck is on our—his—bed, and Linda, who turns out to be Miss Colivan, the fourth-grade teacher, is in the spare bedroom. Both Deck and Miss Colivan are fully clothed and on top of their respective covers, passed out. My child lies in a bassinet next to Miss Colivan, sleeping, pink-cheeked and so innocent that I blink back tears.

I kiss my baby’s head, then hurry to fill a bag with diapers, pins, clothes, and a purse that I hid in my former bedroom closet, into which I’ve stuffed all the money I’ve been stealing from Stan and Deck for the past six weeks. It’s only seventy-nine dollars, but it’s better than nothing. I toss the bag’s strap over my shoulder and scoop up my sweet child.

I turn to leave.

And I run straight into Deck.

“It was the chocolate pudding, wasn’t it?” he asks.

I nod—I found the tip not in a cookbook, like I’d expected, but a mothering book (Want to get your toddler to swallow bitter medicine? No better way to disguise it than chocolate pudding!)—and try to speak, but my mouth has gone numb. I clutch the baby tighter.

“I thought I was being smart not drinking what you served,” he says, swaying in the doorway, “but I ate some of that damn pudding. You knew we wouldn’t let you out of town, didn’t you? At least one of us has been watching you. Always.”

I gauge the space between him and the jamb. Can I push through? Has he ingested enough?

He points at the infant in my arms, closing an eye to focus. “Where are you taking my baby?”

He could have slapped me and gotten less of a reaction. “Your baby?”

He nods, his face screwed up in a petulant expression that I used to find charming. “I planted the seed. It’s mine.”

I come at him with such force that he falls backward. “You forfeited any right to this baby when you put its mother in danger,” I snarl. “How could you, Deck? How could you have done this to us?”

He blinks rapidly, stupidly. “It’s their rules, Joanie. I didn’t make them.”

“No, but you followed them.”

“You did, too.”

I’m crying now, but it’s not sadness. It’s anger. “I loved you, Deck.”

“I loved you, too. Not at first, but eventually. Once I got to know you. I was just like you, Joanie. Taken when I was four. You didn’t have to fight it. They give you so much if you just go along. I was hoping I could convince you of that. They wanted me to marry you, you know. I refused. Said I’d only do it once you knew everything, and only if you really wanted to. That was me, Joanie. That’s who I am.”

I can see he really believes that’s good enough. Shitheel. My strength is ebbing, the adrenaline that has kept me upright disappearing, leaving pain and bone-deep fatigue in its wake. I need to escape before I collapse.

“I’m leaving, Deck. My mom taught me how to stay on the run. You’re never going to find me or this baby.”

I dearly hope that’s true. I reach for the doorway, grateful to feel the wood beneath my hand. It keeps me upright for another moment. He’s still between me and the stairs.

“But Deck, listen to me now.” My voice is fading. I cough to bring it back. “Wherever I end up, I’m going to tell the story. You can’t stop that. All you can do is let me go without a fight. If you do, I’ll make sure your child knows you let us get away to a better life, that you sacrificed for us. What do you say, Deck?”

Only one of his eyes is blinking now. He seems to nod before sliding fully onto his back.

“Thank you,” I say to his supine form. I stumble as I step over him, barely catching myself. I’m so close to freedom, but I can’t leave, not yet.

I have one more thing I must do.

I grab the locket from the back of the toilet tank, the car keys from the hook in the kitchen, and stagger to the garage, where I find Slow Henry licking the T-bone inside the live trap I set for him. I make the baby as comfortable as I can in the Chevelle’s front seat, creating a nest of clean, soft blankets I’d stored in the trunk, and put Slow Henry’s cage in the back. This time, I’m not leaving anyone behind.

I back up the Chevelle into the street, parking it at a distance I hope is far enough away. I kiss my sweet baby’s head, inhaling the scent of innocence. Leaving the infant feels like ripping my heart out of my chest, but there’s one thing more I must do before all my strength is gone. I tug the gloves out of my purse and slide them on before returning to the garage. I gather all the lighter fluid Deck made fun of me for buying. I load it into a bag and return to Johann and Minna Lily’s awful basement, flicking on a single light.