He glances in the direction I’m staring, then leans over to whisper in my ear. “Heard he was so drunk when he left our place the other night that he fell down his own stairs.”

Deck laughs.

I stroke my neck, wondering what Clan has done to displease the others. The net is closing in.

CHAPTER 43

Deck wants to meet with the Fathers after the fellowship gathering.

“Are you going to tell them about our move?” I don’t want to bother him, am afraid it will cost me, but I can’t stop the question from spilling out. I need to know what he’s planning, at least as much as he’ll tell me.

He kisses my forehead. “Everything I do from this day forward is about making the move smooth.”

I lean into him. “Do you need me to stay?”

“It’s probably better if you don’t.”

I pull back, studying him. “Why not?”

“You look tired,” he says, brushing my cheek. “That’s all.”

That’s how I find myself walking home alone and noticing for the first time that I’m moving like a woman who’s expecting. I am five and a half months pregnant.

There is no longer any outfit that can hide my condition.

I’m tempted to jog. To see if it’s still possible. To see how fast I can move.

A car pulls up, driving slow enough to roll alongside me. I look over. Kris is behind the wheel of the blue Chevy Impala with Florida plates, the same one I spotted outside unit 6 of the Purple Saucer. It’s a nice car, or at least it was. A rear panel has been replaced with a sheet of black metal, and rust rims the wheel wells.

“Need a ride?” he asks. He’s wearing a soft-looking tie-dyed shirt, its blues and greens and purples faded by age and sun. His curling hair and impish smile are as attractive as ever, but the lust I felt for him is no longer there.

I lean in, looking for evidence of Stanley Lily in his features and build. It’s impossible to say, as eroded as Stanley is. I glance around to see who’s watching us before opening the passenger door and sliding in. “Thanks. Remember where I live?”

“You want to go straight home?”

“It’s closer than Siesta Key.” I shouldn’t be in this car. Eyes are always watching me.

He laughs. “True enough.”

He drops a relaxed hand on my shoulder. “You won’t believe Siesta Key once you get there. It’s beautiful. If it was a different life, I’d drive there right this second, just take off.”

“With me?”

Smile lines bloom beyond the edges of his sunglasses. “If you like.”

He starts driving. I don’t have a plan. I don’t even really have interview questions. It just feels good to be with him. The attention. The freedom.

“Take a right here,” I find myself saying. Mrs. Grant didn’t exactly pinpoint where Paulie’s home had been. Lilydale isn’t that large, though, and there can’t be an abundance of abandoned Baptist churches around.

The Sunday traffic is slow on this warm, bright day. We cruise through the sleepy neighborhoods I’m familiar with, then toward the edges of town, where the houses are mismatched and in need of paint, kids and dogs playing in the yards. The south side of town looks like a whole different realm from Mill Street.

We locate the church in under fifteen minutes. “Pull in here,” I say.

Kris does. “This place should be condemned.”

He’s right. The single-story square of a church was charming in the not-too-distant past, judging by the prim, smug-looking white paint protecting its exterior. But now, “Nixon for President” posters are choking the entrance (Ursula would feel vindicated), and red paint has been poured across the front stairs. The glass is busted out of the windows, and the bushes are overgrown, the grass a wrestling tangle of weeds.

“Seems like it could be a nice area,” I say. “If it was kept up better.”

Kris throws a cursory glance around the landscape. Most every house here looks abandoned; black licks at the windows of many, suggesting they’ve had a fire; and the block is oddly quiet. It’s a ghost town on the edge of Lilydale.

“If you say so.”

I’m watching him. “Any of this look familiar?”

He glances around again. “Nah.”

“This church used to be where Paulie’s house was.”

His expression doesn’t change, but his hands grip the steering wheel tighter. “I don’t remember it.”

I feel sad. It’s not that I expected him to recognize his childhood neighborhood, but . . . he doesn’t seem to know anything about Lilydale or the life that Paulie lived here, hasn’t since I’ve met him. Regina told me to trust my gut, and it’s telling me that Kris is not Paulie.

Because Deck is.

CHAPTER 44

I immediately dismiss the ridiculous idea. Ronald and Barbara couldn’t possibly have suddenly introduced a new child, not with the attention Paulie’s disappearance got. The whole town would have had to be in on something like that. Of course, Deck being Paulie would explain why they wanted my baby in Lilydale so bad. If Virginia Aandeg was raped, Deck’s irrefutable resemblance to his father means she was raped by Ronald Schmidt, not Sad Stanley.

And my baby—Deck’s baby—would be blood evidence of this crime.

I start laughing.

“What is it?” Kris asked.

I become very aware that I’m in a car with a stranger, on the edge of town, and I haven’t told anybody where I’ve gone. Maybe I should be watched at all times. The laughter doubles until I can’t breathe and tears are streaming out of my eyes. Kris watches my hysteria grow, but he lets it happen, driving steadily until I’m wrung dry.

“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my face. The emptiness feels good.

“No problemo,” he says.

I don’t think Deck is Paulie, not really, but I no longer think Kris is the real Paulie Aandeg, either. He knows nothing about Paulie’s life, nothing that you couldn’t find in the paper other than the smallpox scar, and for all I know, that detail was included in an article in a different newspaper. I want to ask him why he’s impersonating the abducted child, but instead I say, “That’s okay that you don’t remember that house.” I paraphrase what he told me when we first met at Tuck’s Cafe. “I heard that a big shock can wipe out memory.”

I rub my hands across my face and through my hair, still not used to the short length. I’m exhausted. “Please, just take me home.”

He turns the car around. We say little on the drive, exchange cursory goodbyes after he pulls up to my house. Once inside, I swallow a Valium and lie down with Slow Henry. I might have slept the afternoon away if Deck hadn’t appeared, shaking me gently.

“Joan! Wake up.”

It takes a while to dig my way out of the dream. It had featured a boy in a sailor suit, leading me to a river. I’m disoriented, unsure where I am at first.

I focus on Deck. “What is it?”

His expression is twisted, an ugly mix of scared and something I can’t identify. “Another boy’s been taken.”

My hand flies to my mouth. “Who?”