6 #2
“Your grandfather was a great man,” their father said.
It was what Tean thought of as his church voice: serious, thick with emotion, meant—Tean suspected—to sound like a patriarch.
“I want you boys to know that your grandfather had a testimony of the gospel. That’s his legacy to us.
He knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and that he had restored the true church of Jesus Christ. He raised his children to know it.
And I want you to know that I have a testimony of the gospel too.
” He stopped now, as though overcome with emotion.
His hand tightened around Tean’s. “I love you all so much.”
“We love you too, Dad,” Seth said quietly.
Corom and Tim nodded. Amos reached across the table to touch their dad’s arm.
“What funeral home are we using?” Tean asked.
Tim blinked. Amos frowned.
Tean’s dad, still holding on to him, patted Tean’s hand with his free one.
“You boys know your grandfather didn’t talk about his feelings a lot.
He grew up in a different time, and it wasn’t always easy for him.
But I want you to know that when I was eight years old, your grandfather said if I didn’t know the church was true for myself, I shouldn’t get baptized, because there wasn’t any point in it.
And he believed it, too. He loved the church.
And he loved the Lord. And he was a faithful servant. ”
“Amen,” Amos said.
Corom and Tim gave their little nods again.
Seth didn’t do anything.
“Amos,” their father said, “I want to invite you to share your testimony now too.”
Amos sat back. He didn’t say anything for a second. Then he said, “Uh, yeah, okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Tean said. “If you tell me which funeral home we’re using, I can start making some calls.”
“You don’t need to worry about that,” their father said. He swung Tean’s hand gently. “It’ll all get done.”
“I know the church is true—” Amos began.
“It won’t get done if we don’t start making some phone calls,” Tean said. “Is the body still at the hospital?”
“I understand you’re worried about your grandfather,” their father said.
His eyes were wet again. “You’re so responsible, Tean.
I love that about you. But right now, I want to share this sacred time with my sons.
It means so much to me that you’re here.
The Savior taught us an important lesson when he reminded Martha to focus on the one good thing, and not all the little things that really aren’t important in the big picture.
” He smiled then: soft, almost sweet. “You can stop worrying and just be here right now. Amos, go ahead.”
“I know the church is true,” Amos began again, “and I know Jesus is our savior and that He died for our sins. I know President—”
Tean produced his phone from a pocket, murmured, “Excuse me,” and headed for the door.
Outside, the air smelled like frozen concrete, and the cold was a relief: washing over heated cheeks, down the back of his neck. He could breathe again.
After a moment, he opened the notes Amy had sent.
It consisted of a single text file and a collection of photos, mostly sentence fragments that looked like jottings, shorthand, anything she might have used to capture an idea or impression before it was gone. Disappointment made Tean’s stomach sink.
He shared the attachments with Jem and texted Amy: Where’s the rest of it?
She wrote back a moment later: That’s everything I have.
And then another text followed: If she had anything else, it was on her phone.
Which meant it was lost, because the pack of killers had taken her phone, and if there was a backup, no one knew where it was or how to get to it.
Tean checked the pictures first. There were photos of the four members of the pack—several photos, actually, which Tean suspected River had acquired from social media sites and, more interestingly, high school yearbooks.
Three of the people he had met in person: Kai, the leader, with his dishwater blond hair and his dead eyes; Zeb, his second-in-command, a big man with a scar on his cheek; and Tess, her dark hair tinted red and elaborate makeup.
The fourth man was named Reed Conklin, and Tean spent longer on his photo.
He had encountered Reed before, but only when the man had been wearing a wolf mask; he hadn’t even learned his name until the initial spate of the official investigation.
In the photo, which appeared to be from Instagram, he was White, with short hair, dark eyes, and jug ears.
A tribal tattoo on his arm had been done in cheap ink that already looked more green than black.
River had apparently saved any image containing the members of the pack.
Some, Tean glanced at only briefly—photos, for example, that showcased Kai and the others at the UFO campground they had run in the Uinta Basin.
These, Tean guessed, had been posted to social media by visitors to the campground, as part of documenting their vacation.
An action shot of Kai working on a side-by-side.
A candid of Zeb settling a restless horse.
Tess on the porch of the campground office, feet up as she read a book.
Other photos were more interesting, though, because they seemed genuinely personal, and Tean found himself wondering where River had found them.
Social media again? Family members? Friends?
There was one of Zeb and Reed, both men shirtless, sitting in webbed lawn chairs with tackle boxes at their feet.
There was one of Kai that had been taken from behind as he looked into a mirror, his face puffy and, in that single moment, unguarded.
Another showed Tess at some sort of Halloween party—she wore a non-regulation nurse’s uniform and fishnet stockings, and her hair was a mile high, which meant it had to be a wig that even the drag queens at Rainbow House would have loved.
She was surrounded by women in equally ridiculous getups.
In another, Zeb flinched as someone stitched up the cut to his cheek that would eventually become his defining scar.
In another, Reed was bottom up in the back of a truck, apparently asleep and surrounded by beer cans.
Nothing that told Tean anything. Nothing, as far as he could see, to make someone want to kill River Jordan.
He scanned through the notes, trying to get a sense of any underlying organization or system.
As far as he could tell, though, it seemed like a jumble.
Some sections of notes were clumped together, focused on a single person from the pack.
There was a block of text about Tess, for example.
It might have been helpful, except the notes were so disconnected that it was hard to tell what was meaningful and what wasn’t.
Attention-seeking was an interesting insight into her personality, sure.
But did he need to know things like foot surgery or helps neighbor – can’t get out much?
Maybe that last bit was meaningful; it certainly made Tean wonder how a woman who helped a disabled neighbor ended up as part of a pack of murderers.
In other places, the information seemed more useful—the section of notes about Zeb, for example, corroborated Tean’s suspicions that Zeb had been sexually abused by his older stepbrother, Rydel.
This, in turn, had led to Zeb and Kai and the others killing Rydel.
Tean didn’t know much about Reed. River’s notes suggested he was a skilled hunter and tracker and that he had some sort of military experience, although it seemed even River hadn’t been able to track down where or when.
The notes on Kai were the most extensive—and the most difficult to follow.
Kai was the leader. Kai was the one who had convinced Zeb and Reed and Tess to go along with his plans to murder Rydel Owens.
More than murder. They had tortured him.
And then they had hunted down River and killed her too.
They would have killed Tean. They would have killed two children. And all of it was because of Kai.