Page 51 of The Truth

And just like that, the man of her dreams bent down and kissed her on the mouth. Just a chaste peck, they were in his church, after all, but… her whole world shifted right then.

Talk about a realwhammy.She was going to have to tell Hala that the love-whammy wasn’t that painful at all.

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The backpack was heavierthan she expected. Covered in dirt, wrapped in thick plastic, and sealed inside a black trash bag, it sat in the passenger seat like a second presence—silent, ominous, undeniable. Dinah had brushed most of the loose soil from it before leaving the barn, but it still smelled like dust and rot and old wood.

She’d put Judah in his bed, and told him to rest for the next few hours. They were supposed to be packing, but she knew… Judah was leaving.

Dinah was going to make sure of it.

Her brother was going to escape this hell they lived in. Judah was going to have alife.All she wanted for him was for him to be safe and happy.

And then… she was going to do what she had to do. Enough was enough.

She’d told her mother she had to pick up her check at the diner before she could leave. And she had told her mother she was bringing Judah with her—that she’d drive her brother to Idaho. To give her father a break from Judah and so that she had someone to help her watch for road signs.

Dinah was going to drive Judah to the airport later tonight. He had enough money… and Dinah had an older, widowed friend from the church in Nebraska who lived in Oregon now. She’d called Joanna as soon as she could. Joanna was going to let Judah stay with her, until he found a job and got on his feet.

She’d agreed to look after Judah. She’d known him before, when they’d been children and Joanna had watched over them as a babysitter. She would take care of him for Dinah.

Dinah would send money when she could.

But for now…Valuewas where Dinah was going to makeherlife. And her father wasn’t going to stop her any longer.

She had her cell phone next to her. She was ready to call the sheriff herself if she had to. Beg for help.

Dinah was going to do whatever she had to do. She had hugged her mother and told her good-bye, to drive safely, and that Dinah loved her. She meant it—she loved her mother, but she would not ever become her.

Her mother had never been soft and loving with her children. Not once, even when they’d been small, or when Nathanial had died. Dinah… didn’t know if her mother had ever truly loved her children. Her mother had never once said it.

A few hours were going to make all the difference.

She loved her mother. But… she did not respect her. And no matter what she had to do, she wasn’t going tobecomeher. She was not going to marry a man just because her father said she had to.

Dinah would run clear to Mexico if it meant escaping Jeremiah Holmes.

More than anything, she didn’t want this horrible kind oflife.

She couldn’t live this way any longer. She justwouldn’t.

Dinah gripped the wheel tighter and turned the car toward the church at the edge of town.

She didn’t know what would happen next.

Because what her father had done—what Hezekiah and Jeremiah had helped cover up—it wasn’t just a moral sin. It was a legal one. And she had the proof now, wrapped in plastic on the seat beside her.

‘He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.’But what about the father who did the smiting? She asked herself that as she drove. Did the Bible ever talk about thefatherwho hurt his children?

The church lot was empty except for a single truck she recognized easily enough. He was there; just like the woman who had answered the phone at the Hiller Ranch had said he would be. Dinah parked near the edge of the gravel and killed the engine.

She climbed out, the trash bag in her hand now. It represented her… hope. Her escape.

The only real way she had tofix this.

She’d looked in that smallest book after she’d dug the bag out of the ground while Judah had been sleeping. The green one. And seennames.Prices.

Dinah knew what they meant.

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