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Some people are chuckling, but I need to defuse this situation.
I put a hand on Shep’s arm. “Shep.”
His eyes snaps to me. When he sees my gaze, he comes back to himself.
“Let me go with him. I want to talk to my fiancé.”
Shep is incredulous. “Your…what now?”
“It was an arrangement. Not my choice. I never made it to the altar. I ran away, that’s why he’s here. But I want to go back and talk to the man. To get some closure. I’ll be back, I promise.”
Shep crosses his arms in front of his chest. Uncle Merle is yapping on the phone with someone.
“No. No. No. No way,” Shep is saying.
“Shep.”
“No fucking way you’re going back there.”
“I have to.”
“I’ll go with you then,” he says.
“You have a business to run,” I protest.
“Jesus, just go!”
I whirl around and I see Tamira gesturing at us. “The two of you go, I can handle it. Geez. Just get your drama out of here, you’re scaring the customers.”
Chapter Sixteen
Shep
At the compound, it’s just as Jane has described it.
Only way creepier.
I feel like I’m going into the belly of the beast.
But I’m not scared.
I’m pissed that my Jane had to grow up like this.
I have noticed this tall concrete wall in the middle of the woods just outside of the city limits. I must have driven by it a hundred times between my house and Pops’s house up on the hill, but I always assumed it was some kind of secretive manufacturing plant or something.
I never imagined what I’m seeing now: about a dozen small, shabby cottages laid out a circle. A long, concrete structure on one side of the circle, and a large greenhouse on the other side.
“Past the greenhouse is the farm. The dining hall and kitchen open up to the field, so everybody can cook what we harvest right away.”
“Makes sense,” I say. But what the hell am I saying? None of this makes sense. Women are approaching us, talking enthusiastically to Jane, as if they’re welcoming her back home. They’re all sporting very long hair like Jane, but long, modest dresses and work boots. Nobody is wearing makeup. Like the women, the men all look like they’re wearing homemade clothes.
We walk down a path that runs by the cottages toward a long concrete structure.
“That long building is where we worship and have school,” she says.
As we walk, I noticed Uncle Merle is walking behind us and a gang of pasty farm boys are walking in front of us and behind us. One of those guys patted me down as we entered the compound. I don’t like this one bit.
“You’re speaking in present tense, Jane,” I say.
