Page 44 of The Truth

And the man from the FBI. He was looking for someone; her father insisted on it. He said… why else would that man be inValue? At the very hospital where her father and brother worked?

Why would Reverend Riordan be there, too?

Dinah pushed to her feet, stepping into the dim hallway. Judah was still in his room, crying as he threw his things into a box. He looked, and acted, so much younger than what he was. Broken and afraid. It was easy to see why the police had believed him when he had lied about his age, playing the part of some lost, innocent boy when the Nebraska church was raided that night.

Judah’s friends had all been arrested. But Judah had walked away; the police had believed their mama when she’d said Judah was younger than what he was. When she’d given the police Nathanial’s birth certificate that night instead. Nathanial had been dead ten years, then. But he’d been born five years after Judah. And Judah always did what Mama told him, always said exactly what she said to say. Their father and Hezekiah had been away from home that night.

Somehow, the feds had never foundthem.

Until now. Until now.

And that FBI guy, Agent Lake, the one Dinah had spoken to herself that night in Nebraska. The blond, beautiful one. He had been kind, but… so terrifying. And now he washere.

And he wasn’tleaving.He’d been at the barbecue. He’d been at the hospital. Her father had seen him, himself. And the redheaded woman. Adonijah’s twin.

She was in Value now, too.

Her father was panicking. If that woman saw Hezekiah, she might recognize him. And she’d been at the diner today. With Agent Lake, and a pregnant woman. She’d looked right at Dinah and asked if they had ever met before.

What were they supposed to do?

She didn’t want her younger brother to go to jail. Judah would die there. She did not want them to find her brother now. She just didn’t. Fear for Judah made her want to vomit.

She stepped into the room. Judah paused for a moment and looked at her. She just looked at him. He was so young. Only twenty-three. And so scared. So small. He was sosmall.Weak. Her father said he was one of thebrokenones sometimes, too. “Where did Father say we are we going?”

He didn’t look up. “Colorado, again. For a few months, to throw them off the trail. Then Wyoming, maybe. Heard there’s a factory hiring in Masterson County now. He said… he said I had to get a job now too. Since this is my fault. I can’t just stay home taking care of the place for Mama now. I have to work, bring in money. Since what I… took… that day is almost gone.”

Father Rei had given Judah a backpack, made it look like one a teenager would carry. Inside it had been all of the church’s important treasures, documents. Including the money. Judah had buried that bag that day.

He’d gone back and gotten it later, right before they had fled Nebraska.

That money… Judah had told them Father Rei had said to use it, to protect the church canonical papers. That kind of thing.

Her father had used it to buy groceries, instead.

Judah named the towns, not Della, not Evalyn, not Garrett. New ones. But still in the same area. Where the rest of the Holy Ones her father was always going on about had once been planning to live.

He wanted to be one of the Holy Ones more than anything.

But maybe she didn’twantto be one of theHoly Ones.

Maybe she wanted to benormal.To have a real life, like the women she knew in Value. Maybe she’d just like to wear a pair of jeans once in a while, to let her hair down. Or evencut it off.It got so heavy. Maybe she wanted to wear makeup sometimes, too.

Was it so wrong?

Here in Texas, she had feltfree.She hadn’t had to stay home with her mother all the time. She’d felt so free and alive here. She was even making real friends. Not just… church friends. “I don’t want to go. I want to stayhere,Judah. I do.”

Judah just looked at her. “You don’t have a choice.”

Her hands curled into fists. “We could stay. The two of us. You could get a job here, and I make good tips. I’ll be thirty in three years, Judah. I am an adult. And so are you.”

He shook his head. “No, we can’t. Father says we can’t. We have to leave.”

“Is this about you, or about what you took?”

The records. She’d seen them before.

Father Rei’s books, too. Judah hadn’t just taken the backpack he’d been given by Father Rei. He had taken Father Rei’sjournals,too. With… all of his prophecies and the lists of what the True Hope Lifers were supposed to do.

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