Chapter 38
Chapter
Thirty-Eight
My phone vibrates while I’m stacking empty coffee cups in the fellowship hall.
The message contains five words.
The page is in place.
I delete it, then glance toward the windows.
Nora stands beneath the overhang beside the sanctuary, an envelope in one hand and a yellowed piece of paper in the other. Rain blows past her, darkening the pavement and tapping against the metal roof.
Even from here, I can tell she understands this message is different.
The first was a summons.
This one is a command.
Trust and obey.
The runaway knows those words. All the boys do. They learned early that obedience brought rewards and resistance brought pain.
Nora folds the page and looks through the fellowship hall windows.
I lower my gaze and move another cup onto the stack.
She’s looking at people differently now. Pastor Whitfield. Dale. Pauline. The deputies and volunteers moving around the room. People she has known most of her life.
Maybe even me.
I wish she would stop.
The Loveless girls were never supposed to be targets. They had another purpose.
They were the voices.
Their music opened church doors, filled fellowship halls and brought families together. Where the Loveless Sisters went, people welcomed them. Trusted them. Introduced their children and offered places to stay.
The girls never understood how useful they were.
They weren’t supposed to.
The boys were the ones who were chosen.
Christian was different from all the others. His disappearance wasn’t chance, and it wasn’t merely an opportunity created by the family’s travels.
Christian was the reason the Loveless family mattered in the first place.
Nora looks away from the window and ducks into her car, probably to grab something.
For years, I believed the sisters would remain exactly what they had always been—an unfortunate part of a necessary decision. I never wanted to hurt them.
I still don’t.
But Nora watches. She listens. She remembers. Now she has Austin Donnelly helping her pull at threads that were supposed to remain buried.
Jeffrey Donnelly got too close.
Nora Loveless is getting closer.
Across the room, someone calls my name. I lift one hand to show I heard, then carry the cups toward the kitchen.
Homecoming is less than three weeks away. The Renshaws are coming, and too much has already been set in motion to stop now.
I don’t want Nora to force me into making another difficult choice.
But wanting has never mattered as much as obedience.