Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives

in her life.”
    That gave me a brief moment of hope. If Saul had killed his wife, wouldn’t he try to convince me that she’d been ailing for some time? Then again, maybe not. Maybe he believed it was more important right now to impress me with his “honesty.”
    He tried again. “Lena, if I was a killer, do you think I’d be stupid enough you bring you to Purity and actually let you live at my house? Wouldn’t I try to stay as far away from the police as possible?”
    Staying far away from the police was exactly what Saul had done for years. He’d left Salt Lake and moved to Purity, where the populace had lived outside the law for more than one hundred years. He might have stayed there, too, except for the land grab Solomon Royal and the Circle of Elders made on his house. Maybe he thought my investigation could somehow prevent that, so was willing to take the chance.
    Which raised another point. “Tell me something, Saul. Would the women’s situation in Purity bother you half as much if the Circle of Elders wasn’t trying to get your house?”
    He didn’t answer right away, but when he did, it wasn’t convincing. “The one thing has nothing to do with the other. But the real question, Lena, is—do you still trust me enough to go back to Purity with me, or do you want me to turn around and drive you to Virginia’s? Your wish is my command. It’s all up to you.”
    I didn’t have to think about it. Another thing Jimmy told me before we hung up was that Esther’s legal maneuvering had finally failed, and she was due to be extradited at the end of the week. Now that I’d seen firsthand how bad things really were for women in Purity, I couldn’t take the chance that Rebecca would be brought back to the Arizona Strip, where her father would probably try to find her another husband.
    “Take me to Purity,” I said.
    He pulled the truck onto the road. Neither of us said another word, just brooded on our respective paranoia until Purity raised its tar-papered head on the horizon. As we drove into the yard, the amount of activity in Prophet’s Park amazed us. What seemed like almost the entire roster of Purity’s male population was busily piling into cars and pickup trucks.
    Saul stuck his head out the window. “What’s going on?” he called to Earl Graff, whose swine-like face looked even redder than usual.
    “It’s Cynthia Royal! She ran away. Hellfire awaits her if she don’t come back.” The anger in his voice gave a clear indication of the hellfire he’d personally visit upon her if he found her.
    Alarmed, I tried to calm him. “Brother Earl, the girl is little more than a child, and her father recently died. She’s probably off crying somewhere.”
    Graff’s mean little eyes narrowed and he let fly a most unreligious epithet. “Oh, yeah? Well, the little bitch was supposed to marry me two hours ago, and I notice that she wasn’t crying too hard to run!”

Chapter 13
    Where was Davis?
    Purity’s new prophet had promised that he’d allow no girl under sixteen to be married, especially not by force. Could it be he didn’t know what was going on?
    Or was he lying dead in Paiute Canyon?
    “Drive to Davis’s house!” I yelled at Saul. “If he’s alive, he’ll put a stop to this!”
    “
If
he’s alive?” Saul gave me a startled look, but he took a hard left and wheeled through the mesquite grove as fast as he could without clipping a few trees. As soon as he’d reached Davis’s driveway, I saw that his Mercedes was gone.
    I jumped out of the truck anyway, hiked my skirts, and ran up the stairs. Apparently hearing the commotion, Sissy met me at the door.
    “Where’s Davis? Cynthia ran off, and the Circle of Elders is after her! Earl Graff says she’s supposed to marry him!”
    Sissy blanched. “Oh, no! Not Brother Earl!” She shook her head. “Brother Davis left for Salt Lake City last night. He needed to do some banking.”
    I left her standing on the porch and ran back to Saul.
    “Davis isn’t going to help us, so we’ll have to find her ourselves before Earl does.”
    For hours Saul and I drove around the perimeter of Purity in ever-widening circles, bumping dangerously over the desert itself. A couple of times we almost gullied out, but were able to rock the truck back and forth until we freed it. We searched the terrain for the slightest movement, but saw nothing other than a couple of antelope. It worried me. Although the high desert surrounding Purity was not