“Good luck keeping that promise,” Hazard muttered.

  “Sorry, Clyde,” Somers said. “But you’re still a minor, and we’ve got to make sure somebody’s taking care of you.”

  “But they are taking care of me. Brother Jeshua and the rest, they are. I won’t do nothing bad. Honest, I won’t.”

  “We’ll see,” Somers said.

  Tucking his chin, Clyde curled up against the glass, his eyes on the horizon.

  “Can you tell us where you think Sister Sarah might have gone?”

  But they rolled the rest of the way to the farmhouse in silence.

  The farmhouse itself, to Hazard’s surprise, managed to look even worse than the 1970s retro-porn design of Walden’s home in town. The farmhouse was white, two-story, with a wraparound porch and a swing. But the eastern wall was missing, and blackened bones of joists and framing protruded between shredded tarps. The roof pitched too sharply towards the missing wall, and Hazard realized the house was still in the process of falling down.

  As the Interceptor came to a stop, the farmhouse door opened, and Brother Jesse emerged. The wiry man hustled towards the SUV, his lank, greasy hair stirred by the spring breeze. Hazard didn’t wait for Jesse to tell them to leave; he got out of the car and met the wiry man halfway to the house, with Somers and Lazarus at his side.

  “Turn around. Turn around and get off this land. It’s private property, and we don’t want you here.”

  “You don’t own this property,” Hazard said, scanning the fields, purposefully looking over Jesse’s head. “Where’s somebody important?”

  The thin man balled his fists. “Go! Get out of here before I call the police. Real cops. Somebody who will do his job.”

  “You go on and do that,” Hazard said, pushing past the man and catching him with his shoulder on purpose. Jesse flopped backward, smacking ass-down on the gravel. “Stay right there.”

  Jesse howled. No words, just a jackal howl that followed Hazard up to the porch.

  When he knocked, the door swung open, and Sister Naomi’s wrinkled face was set in disapproval. “You didn’t need to hurt him.”

  “He’s not hurt.”

  “You wounded his pride. That’s a fragile thing.” Naomi’s eyes, brown under a cloudy scuttle, flicked across Hazard. “Especially in a man.”

  “Only small men.”

  “You’d better be careful of that handsome partner of yours, then.”

  “He’s not so small. Trust me.”

  To Hazard’s surprise, a smile flickered at the corner of Sister Naomi’s mouth. “He’s going to keep on wailing, you know.”

  “It’s good for the lungs.”

  “He did have a rather nasty cold this winter.”

  In spite of himself, now Hazard found himself smiling. Just a touch. Just a dark little glimmer at this old woman who had surprised him twice now.

  “Why don’t you come in?”

  Beckoning to Somers and Clyde, Hazard watched them skirt the fallen Brother Jesse, and then the three of them entered the farmhouse. It was dark, even with sunlight flapping through the ripped tarps, and Hazard realized there was no electricity. No running water, either. No heat, unless maybe a fireplace was working. Or maybe they’d brought a generator. Or a kerosene furnace. He eyed Sister Naomi as she led them into the front room. She had to be seventy. With lines like that on her face, with those cataracts, she might have been closer to eighty. Eighty, without heat or a toilet or a refrigerator. Eighty and tough enough that she probably picked her teeth with a railroad spike.

  They sat in what must have once been the living room, where an aquamarine velour sofa moldered. It squished when Hazard sat, although the fabric felt dry, and it let off an invisible cloud that smelled like wet socks. Across from the sofa, Sister Naomi took a spindle-backed chair. Behind her, on the wall, hung a portrait of John Oscar Walden. It looked like it had been taken at one of those mall studios, with the light on Walden’s face like a vaseline smear.

  “How are you, Sister Naomi?” Somers asked.

  “No one’s been murdered today.” Her face spasmed. “Oh God. Have they?”

  “Not yet,” Hazard said.

  “You brought Lazarus with you. That was very kind of you. We prayed for you, Lazarus. We knew you’d be returned to us.”

  “He’s not a sack of flour,” Hazard said. “And he’s not being returned. He’s a minor without a guardian. He’s sure as hell not coming back to you.” Somers knocked his leg, and Hazard bit off the rest of what he was about to say. What he wanted to say. Needed to say.

  Sister Naomi’s gaze settled on Hazard, and he found his skin prickling under those cloudy eyes. When she spoke, her voice was soft. “I raised myself in anger against you yesterday. I’m sorry for that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Will you forgive me?”

  “For yelling at me?” Hazard shifted, and the sofa squished and squirted and remained, as far as he could tell, dry to his touch. “You’d had a shock. And I wasn’t going easy on you.”

  “I shouldn’t have said what I did. I shouldn’t have acted as I did. I’m sorry.”

  She sat, her hands clasped in front of her, waiting. Like she could wait out the clock. Like you could wind that clock a hundred times, a thousand, and she’d just sit there waiting. Hell, she might even smile while she did.

  “We want to ask you about those girls,” Hazard said.

  Sister Naomi nodded.

  To Hazard’s relief, Somers picked up the questioning.

  “What can you tell us about Peyton Laflamme?”

  “Who?”

  “Sister Hagar.”

  Sister Naomi’s mouth puckered, a thousand new wrinkles digging out around it. “Why do you ask?”

  “Did you know that she ran away?”

  “I wasn’t sure if she had a family.”

  “No. She ran away from you. From this group.”

  “That’s impossible. Sister Hagar had her troubles, but she never would have—” Sister Naomi’s mouth puckered again.

  “What kind of troubles?” Hazard said.

  “She’s in distress. She heard about what happened to Brother Jeshua, and her faith is shaken. She will return.”

  “What kind of troubles?”

  Sister Naomi, perched in the spindle-back chair, could have waited out a century.

  “She tried to take Sister Sarah with her,” Somers said. “They had some sort of fight.”

  “They were close as sisters.”

  “Sisters fight all the time. The man, the satellite installer, did you know he got into a fight with Mr. Walden?”

  “Yes. I told you so, didn’t I? I told you that Brother Jeshua cast the seed upon his heart, and the cares of the world strangled it. He cares for money, for the flesh, for the desires of the flesh. He watched the girls with lascivious eyes.”

  “Every man under twenty-five watches with lascivious eyes,” Hazard said, “and most of the older ones do too. My partner is telling you that Rex Kolosik got into a fistfight with John Walden on the day Walden was killed. Kolosik was also meeting Peyton and Britney, the girls you call Hagar and Sarah, to take them away from here. Britney had a change of heart, but Peyton didn’t. That’s why we’re asking about them.”

  Tenting her hands, Sister Naomi rocked forward. “You think one of them did this.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “So the girls plan their flight. When they leave that morning, they don’t intend to return. Brother Jeshua has an encounter with this man, Kolosik. Sister Sarah returns to the fold. Sister Hagar chooses the fleshpots of Egypt.”

  “The what?”

  Somers made a cutting gesture to silence Hazard.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Sister Naomi said. “When did they kill Brother Jeshua? Saturday morning? Impossible; you just told me that he got into a fight with this man, Kolosik. After? Also impossible. Sister Hagar went with Kolosik. And Sister Sarah, by your own account, returned because she intended to remain. She wouldn’t have come back to harm Brother Jeshua.”

  “Unless she thought harming him was part of the plan,” Hazard said. “Unless she cast herself as a second Judas.”

  Those words hit home. The color leached out of Sister Naomi’s wrinkled face, and she touched both hands to her throat. “You couldn’t—you don’t know—”

  “Peyton told us that Britney had talked about this idea before,” Somers said. “She told us that Britney was obsessed with the idea of a second Judas. She believed someone would have to betray Brother Jeshua before he could rise again.”

  “And on the third day, the angel of the Lord rolled away the stone covering the tomb.”

  “Sister Naomi, we’ve also heard that Sister Sarah had fought with Walden. One time, at least, the argument became very heated.”

  “And the woman thinking he was the gardener asked where they had laid him.”

  “Sister Naomi.”

  “I will give you to eat of the tree of life.”

  “Sister Naomi.” It was Clyde who spoke, his voice very small. “These two, they aren’t like the ones in Branson.”

  Pink rushed into her cheeks, and her gaze snapped once to Clyde and then back to Somers. “Ask what you want.”

  “Could you tell us about the girls?”

  The old woman thought for a moment. “Sister Hagar was here before me. Both of them were—Lazarus too.” The ginger boy blushed and bobbed his head. “But Sister Mary and Brother Jeshua have told me about them. And I can add what I’ve seen.”

  “That’s a good place to start.”

  “Do you know the story of Sarah and Hagar?”

  “I know,” Hazard said. “And it’s a cruel joke to call those girls by those names.”

  “It’s not a joke. And it’s not a choice, either. The names are revealed to Brother Jeshua. They tell us a truth about ourselves, about how we relate to each other.”

  “It’s sick.”

  “I don’t know the story,” Somers said. “Why don’t you fill me in?”

  “Sarah was Abraham’s wife,” Hazard said. “Hagar was her servant. When Sarah couldn’t get pregnant, she gave her servant to Abraham so he could impregnate her. Hagar had a child. Then Sarah got lucky, had a boy, and kicked Hagar and her son out into the desert to die.”

  “The original Real Housewives.”

  “Something like that.”

  “The details are mostly correct,” Sister Naomi said, “but the emotion behind it is not. Hagar was a chosen vessel, and from her came the seed of Abraham. But through Sarah came the covenant and the calling of Israel. Both women were adored by their husband. Both were raised up and blessed by God.”

  “That was a real comfort to the one that got thrown to the dogs.”

  “You mock everything that has meaning. That is a weakness.”

  Hazard’s breath knotted in his chest, but Somers tapped his leg, and he managed to keep quiet.

  “How does that apply to Peyton and Britney?”

  “Sister Sarah was chosen, but it was Sister Hagar who received Brother Jeshua’s blessing first. Then, when the time was right, they changed, and Sister Sarah received Brother Jeshua’s blessing.”

  “By blessing,” Hazard said, his breath still hot and tangled, “you mean his prick, right?”

  Sister Naomi face turned bright pink. “I don’t have to listen to this. I won’t listen to this.”

  “You do the talking,” Somers said. “Tell us about them. My partner will stay quiet.”

  “In silence is wisdom, thus sayeth the Preacher.”

  “Sister Naomi, we need your help. Tell us about the girls, please. Detective Hazard doesn’t need to add any more commentary.”

  “Like fuck,” Hazard muttered.

  Sister Naomi clucked and fussed and folded and re-folded her hands, but eventually the desire to talk must have won out because she said, “As I said, all that had happened by the time I joined the congregation. Lazarus might be able to tell you more.”

  The ginger boy shriveled under the sudden attention, shaking his head. “They didn’t tell me anything.”

  “What about their personalities?” Somers asked. “What were they like?”

  “Sister Sarah was very quiet. In some ways, they were more like Mary and Martha: the contemplative life and the active life. Sister Sarah loved meditation. She loved our hours of silent prayer, and the reading of the sacred books, and the quiet hours of basking in Brother Jeshua’s wisdom.”

  “Peyton implied that Britney had come from a rough background.”

  “That’s possible. We were not supposed to speak of our past lives, but Sister Sarah showed the signs of someone who had survived a difficult life. She was slow to trust. She—” Sister Naomi’s eyes softened, as though remembering. “She was always on the edge of flight. Always startled, as though the next sound, no matter how slight, would send her running. She was a child who had never been loved, I believe.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. The way she responded to the congregation, to Brother Jeshua. She was just so grateful for love.”

  “Did you ever see her lash out at anyone? Raise her voice? Argue?”

  “As well ask if I’ve seen a lily argue. Or a rose.”

  “A rose has thorns,” Hazard said.

  Naomi, lifting her chin, ignored him.

  “We were told that Sister Sarah did argue, however. Only recently, perhaps, but with Brother Jeshua.”

  Folding and refolding her hands, Sister Naomi said, “They were distant over the last week. We all could tell. She would leave the room when he came in. Her work suffered. Her prayers were filled with tears, and she did not speak at meals—even less than usual. But I never heard an argument.”

  Hazard glanced at Clyde. The ginger boy looked like he was trying to crawl inside his t-shirt, but he said, “She stays at the farm, not at the house.”

  Naomi’s cloudy gaze was surprisingly sharp. “This is true. If they argued at the house, I wouldn’t have known. This is a moot point, though. I know Sister Sarah. She would not harm anyone, let alone Brother Jeshua.”

  “Not even if she thought she was helping him?” Hazard said. “Not even if she did for him what no one else who loved him could do?”

  Sister Naomi shook her head. Then, touching the corners of her eyes, she turned away from him.

  “Tell us about Britney,” Somers said.

  “Ha,” Sister Naomi said, her voice thick. “Now there is a study in opposites. The active life and the contemplative life. Mary and Martha. Sister Sarah is a cool breeze, untroubled skies, a watered garden. Sister Hagar is . . .”

  “Dynamite in a doghouse,” Clyde whispered.

  To Hazard’s surprise, Naomi laughed. “Yes, something like that. She is always busy. Even in her prayers, she has a million things to say. My mother would have said that she prays so fast the angel’s quill never has a chance to dry up. She works hard. But she has trouble. She has never quite fit in.”

  “How so?”

  “She . . . she plays tricks. She’ll hide a book of scripture. She’ll leave the coop unlatched. She eats more than her share at mealtimes. She apologizes. Always. Often. And she means it. The remorse in her eyes is real. But . . . well, my mother would have said that the devil had painted her feet to make her dance.”

  A silence followed, broken by Clyde’s whispered statement: “She laughed.”

  “Yes,” Naomi said, her cloudy gaze thoughtful as she glanced at the boy again. “That too. She was always laughing. Too much laughter is a sin, but she didn’t seem to know how to stop.”

  “She doesn’t seem like a very religious sort of girl,” Somers said.

  “No. I suppose she may not. Not when you first meet her. But our congregation is a family. We are not all the same. Sister Hagar’s strengths are not my strengths. Or Lazarus’s strengths. And for all her flighty nature, she is devoted to Brother Jeshua and to our cause.”

  “She was,” Hazard said, “until she ran away.”

  Again, Naomi lifted her chin and ignored him.

  “Peyton’s mother was a very rich woman,” Somers said.

  “I see some of that in her,” Naomi said, nodding slowly. “I did not know it, but I can see it.”

  “For example?”

  “She seemed like a child who had been loved too much. Too much love sickens. It weakens. It is an impurity in the metal that the refiner’s fire must purge.”

  “Do you think Peyton was capable of violence?”

  Naomi hesitated. Then, when she spoke, her voice was too firm. “Against Brother Jeshua? Of course not.”

  “Sister Naomi, if we’re going to find out what happened, we need your help. We need the truth.”

  “The truth shall set you free,” Hazard said.

  Her milk-water gaze settled on Hazard, and she spoke slowly. “Yes. Yes, it will.” With effort, she pushed herself to her feet. “I have to attend to my labors, now. Lazarus, come with me—”

  “No,” Hazard said, latching onto the boy’s shirt. “He’s not going back with you.”

  “But I want to,” Clyde said. “They’re my family.”

  “I see,” Naomi said. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar. Speak not ill of the high powers, for they have been appointed by the Lord. Even the King of Tyre. Even the throne facing the north.”

  “We’d like to speak to the rest of your group.”

  “You may do as you wish, Detective. I will not stop you. The true disciples, as always, must bear the yoke with patience.” And with that, she shuffled out of the room. The tarps flapped in a sudden breeze, exposing razor-cut lines of sunlight, and the air carried a hint of stale smoke.

  “This whole place is a fucking madhouse,” Hazard said.

  Somers jerked his head towards the door. “Clyde, give us a minute.”

  Clyde, shoulders hiked up to his ears, scurried towards the door and lingered there, obviously unwilling to step outside and risk confronting Brother Jesse.