the hospital to check on Jacob.” With that, Carl stood and lumbered over to us. “Either one of you know any more about his condition?”
“He’s unconscious,” Max said. “They’ve got him in the ICU.”
Carl didn’t seem to react one way or the other to that, showing no alarm.
“One last thing,” I said, and he gave me a quizzical look. “Show me the sole of one of your boots.”
Carl blinked hard and gave his head an exasperated shake, but he picked up one leg and displayed his boot, the sole side up. I took my phone out and pulled up the photo I’d taken of the blood stain from the ranch. The patterns didn’t match. “Okay, like I said, don’t go far,” I reminded him.
At that, Carl sauntered toward the reception area and the door.
After he was out of earshot, I asked Max if Jacob had awakened at any point, if he’d said anything to the doctors or nurses. The news wasn’t good.
“Not a word.”
Twelve
Officer Conroy drove the squad car, Naomi seated beside him. She hadn’t wanted to leave Jeremy at the police station, but the pushy blonde at the dispatch desk had refused to let her take him. Kellie promised that the social worker would be there any minute, and that one of Jacob’s sisters and her husband was on her way to pick up the baby. Naomi considered arguing the point. Since she’d been the one to rescue Jeremy, she thought she should be the one to watch over him. But then Naomi worried that Officer Conroy and that Kellie woman might think her insistence odd. Maybe odd enough to mention her strange behavior to Clara. Naomi didn’t want that. I just want Jacob to know I was there for him and his baby boy, she thought.
As the car snaked through Alber, Naomi looked out the window at the sprawling houses where the townsfolk had lived before the big shake-up, when the feds came in and made arrests prompting many of the men to flee out of fear that they, too, might be arrested. Before that, Alber had been a good place to live; they had good lives. Naomi, when she allowed herself to think about it, held the prophet responsible for what had happened. It was considered a sin to criticize their religious leader. Emil Barstow ruled, by the teaching of Elijah’s People, through revelations from God. But Naomi suspected that the prophet had become too old and susceptible to manipulation. The men in town who coveted young, underage brides used their influence with him to get what they wanted, and it had ruined them all.
“I’m sorry you had to see what you did out there at the ranch today, Mrs. Jefferies,” Officer Conroy said, his thin lips pulled in a straight line. The young man looked pale, as if the coming winter had already faded him. “Seeing what you did? That must have been pretty terrible.”
Naomi thought about the bodies at the Johanssons’: Little Benjamin, his head covered in blood; the two bumps under the sheet that were Anna and Sybille. Blood. Blood on the sheet. And all around Jacob on the kitchen floor, his throat cut. She shuddered slightly when she recalled the raspy sound of his breathing, the air sucking in through the slit in his throat, the red foam that came out when he exhaled.
“It was awful, Officer Conroy,” Naomi agreed. “It was like… Well… It’s something I’ll never forget.”
Suddenly, Naomi couldn’t go on. She could feel Conroy look over at her sympathetically, expecting her to continue, but she stopped talking. She gave him a weary smile and turned away.
A few minutes in the car and they were on the highway, heading to the ranch. She tried to think of something to say to the young officer, just innocent conversation, but couldn’t. Instead, as they drew closer, she watched the bison grazing in the fields, the mammoth, lumbering animals with their thick hides and curved horns. The bison had their shaggy, dark brown winter coats on their backs and shoulders.
“You know, there’s a frost coming tonight,” Conroy remarked.
“Yes,” Naomi answered. “In fact, I raise bees, and I was supposed to winterize my hives this morning. I still need to do that.”
“Bees, huh?” he asked. “I bet that’s interesting.”
Naomi looked at the small silver watch on her wrist, a tenth anniversary gift from Abe. It was shortly before noon.
“May I use your phone, Officer Conroy?” she asked.
“Sure.” He picked it up from the console between