Chapter 17: Family Prayer Evening

I texted Luke the code.

"Potatoes."

Then I hit record on my phone and set it on the table beside the ham.

Through the door I could hear Brenda on the landline, in her warm, shaking, bake-sale voice.

"Pastor? It's Brenda. She came home. She's not herself. Please, can you and the elders come tonight? Seven o'clock. We need to pray over her."

She hung up and dialed again.

"I need everybody. Yes. The whole prayer circle. No, don't bring anything."

I pounded on the door with my good hand.

"Brenda. Unlock it."

"You're safe in there, sweetheart."

"I am not safe in a locked room."

"It's for your own good."

"I'm eighteen. You can't hold me anywhere."

"Then you can sit and think about what you said to your mother."

I took a breath.

I made my voice as flat as hers.

"I'm recording this. You've told me on tape that you've locked me in. Unlock the door or I call the sheriff and say it again."

Silence.

The brass key rattled in the lock.

Then it stopped.

She was standing right there, holding the knob, and I could hear her thinking.

The doorbell rang.

"Brenda Stovall," Luke's voice called. "Open this door."

It rang twice more.

She didn't move.

Then a second voice came through the front door, steady and low.

"Brenda. It's Odette."

Nobody on either side of the door moved.

"I'm not leaving without her," Odette said. "And I've got a deputy on the phone."

That did it.

The key turned.

The kitchen door swung open.

Brenda stood in the hall in her apron with her chin lifted, the key in her fist.

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