grounds and bring some a your friends to hear a sermon, you let me know. I’ll tell your people, and my husband will arrange it.”
I caught my breath. “Thank you, Sister Erasmus.” A sense of relief spread through me. “You are warrior for God, Sister, equally proficient with Bible quotes and a shotgun, and full of wisdom and grace.”
The sister made a sound like “Pashaw,” but I could tell she was pleased.
I held out the note. Sister Erasmus took it and opened it. Read it. I said, “I think Jackie left it for me. To threaten my sisters.”
She nodded stiffly and said, “I done heard he was after Esther in particular. I’ll see your daddy knows. He’ll handle that little whippersnapper. I can keep this?” I nodded. She stuffed it in her skirt pocket, and changed the subject. “Mrs. Stevens has twenty-seven dollars for you from sales last week. She’ll be bringing it today.”
“That’s right fine,” I said. “I need some gas for the truck and a few groceries.”
My heart felt inexplicably lighter when the next car pulled up, and two other women, including Old Lady Stevens, climbed out with loads of stuff to display. I helped set up extra tables, and it was only when I drove away in my truck, much later in the day, that it all came back to me. My family hadn’t abandoned me. And—John had known, had always known. And he hadn’t told me. He had lied to me directly and for years. Suddenly I realized that my safety from the colonel had come at a much higher price than I had ever realized. And that John had spent our entire lives hiding the truth from me. Using lies to control me.
After the morning in the vegetable stand, I drove into town and went to the library. It wasn’t my regular day, but everything was different and off schedule this week, and I had books to turn in, even the nonfiction books that I wouldn’t have time to read, not now that I had a temporary job. Kristy was off and so I made it quick, answering e-mails from some repeat customers, including a spa in town that purchased my cucumber cream for facials, took some new orders for herbs, vinegars, and infused oils, and had the payment money sent to the group PayPal account owned by Old Lady Stevens, who used to be in the church but had broken away some years before John and I did. She handled all the churchwomen’s (and my) noncash Internet financial transactions. She gave us cash when we sold something online, and when we needed to buy something, we gave her cash and she did the paying. It was handy for us “off the griders.” I did some more research on PsyLED, but didn’t learn much more than I had already.
I sent Rick LaFleur an e-mail, telling him that I had information, possibly pertaining to the case. He sent one right back, asking for a meeting out on I-75 outside of Knoxville. In a hotel. A business meeting. In a hotel! I’d never been in a hotel.
Excitement fluttered under my breastbone, displacing the disquiet that had settled there from the conversation with Sister Erasmus. I checked out and drove sedately to the hotel. It was called the Hampton Inn and Suites, Knoxville North. And it was amazing. There was shiny stone on the floor and carpet all over—and not handmade rag rugs, but big carpets made on commercial looms. It wound through the lobby and down the halls, perfectly woven. When I finished goggling, I asked for directions to the room and gave my name. I was given a little plastic card, like a credit card. I had no idea what to do with it, but I accepted it and the directions that came with it. I had ridden in elevators before, at the hospital where Priss went when she had trouble birthing her baby. I went to see her baby boy, looking through the windows into the nursery. After hours. When no one from the church might catch me there. So I knew how to get to the fourth floor, and followed directions to the suite at the end, where I knocked to be let in.
Tandy opened the door, his reddish eyes perplexed, until he looked down, to see the plastic card in my hand. Smiling, he left the room, closing the door behind him. “The room key works like this,” he said softly, taking the