The Last Widow: The latest new 2019 crime thriller from the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author

by Karin Slaughter

The padlock clicked open. Dash opened the door. Sara held up her hand to shield the bright light. The sun was just over the peak. She had judged the time wrong, which meant that it had taken less than three hours of isolation to make her go insane.

  Dash raised his eyebrows at her sheet dress, but he kept his opinion to himself. “Dr. Earnshaw. I wondered if you’d like to join us for afternoon prayers.” He winked at her. “Participation is optional.”

  Sara would’ve bellowed “Ave Maria” at the top of her lungs if it got her out of this cramped room. She stepped down onto the log. The sentry gave her a curious look. His eyelids were droopy. Air whistled through his clogged nostrils. He was definitely coming down with something. Sara didn’t ask him if he was vaccinated. She wanted him to worry.

  “Doctor.” Dash indicated a second path that she hadn’t seen before. “We study by the river.”

  Sara picked her way down the path. His word choice was strangely formal, as if he’d learned to speak by listening to phonographs of Franklin Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats. In different circumstances, she would wonder if English was his first language.

  Sara felt a tug at the hem of her dress. She’d managed to snag herself in a thicket of catbrier.

  “Allow me.” Dash reached down to help.

  Sara tore the material away from the thorny weed. She casually turned her head to the left, trying to locate the greenhouse. The sun was at a different angle. There would be no telltale flare off the glass.

  She asked Dash, “What’s his name? The guy outside of my door.”

  “Lance.”

  “Lance?” Sara laughed. Lance was the name of a guy who tied balloon animals in the park, not a militiaman with an AR-15.

  Dash said, “I’m assuming that’s not your only question?”

  He seemed to want her to talk, so she talked. “Did they find more bodies?”

  Dash didn’t answer.

  “At Emory.” Sara turned to look at him. “The last I saw on the news, there were eighteen dead, fifty wounded.”

  “Deaths were up to twenty-one as of a few minutes ago. I’ll have to get back to you on the unfortunate survivors.” He didn’t seem bothered by the numbers. Nor did he seem bothered that he’d given Sara proof that he was in contact with the outside world.

  There had to be a phone or tablet in the Camp with internet access.

  Dash said, “My apologies, miss. I almost forgot. I brought you something.”

  Sara turned around again. He was pulling an apple out of his sling. Sara didn’t take it. She was starving, but she was suspicious.

  “I’m not the snake, though you could certainly make a case for being Eve in that attire.” He took a small bite near the stem to prove it wasn’t tainted. “By my estimation, you haven’t eaten a meal in twenty hours.”

  More time had passed than that. Sara took the apple. Instead of continuing down the path, she stood in place, taking as big a bite as she could. Taste flooded her mouth. This was not the irradiated produce from her local grocery store. Sara had forgotten what a real apple was supposed to taste like.

  Dash said, “We can get you some cheese if you like. I assume you aren’t eating our meals because you’re a vegetarian.”

  Sara had no idea why he’d made this assumption, but she said, “Cheese would be good. Beans, lentils, peas. Anything you can muster.”

  “I’ll tell Gwen to pass it on to the kitchen. Your requested medical supplies should arrive soon.” Dash was watching her carefully. “I sent one of my men to pick them up. He should be back in a few hours.”

  Sara nodded, wondering if that meant they were a few hours away from Atlanta or a few hours away from the motel. She told Dash, “I meant what I said before. Those children need a hospital.”

  “It won’t be your concern for much longer.” He indicated the path ahead. “Please.”

  Sara finished the apple as she walked. She considered his words. Was Dash referring to his false promise of letting her leave, or was there a clock ticking down on what he had planned next? Sara furiously scanned the woods around her for the greenhouse. The next was connected in some way to what they were hiding underneath the tent. There was another path parallel to the one she was on. If Sara managed to sneak out of her cabin, she could go to the greenhouse. Lance would probably fall asleep at some point. Sara looked for markers she could follow in the dark. She was so intent on strategizing that she didn’t notice what was twenty feet in front of her.

  Michelle Spivey was walking up the path. Instead of continuing straight toward Sara, she took a fork to Sara’s left.

  Toward the general direction of the greenhouse.

  Sara slowed her pace. Her eyes followed Michelle. The woman must have known that Sara was there, but she didn’t look up from the ground. She was limping. Her skin was pale, almost ghost-like. She was wearing the same homespun dress as the rest of the women. Her hand was pressed to her lower abdomen. She was clearly in a lot of pain. There was a sentry behind her, a young man with a rifle. He was floating his hand along the tops of an elderberry bush. He was barely giving Michelle any of his attention. There was no need to. Even from ten yards away, Sara could tell that Michelle was very sick.

  She told Dash, “She should be resting. She’s septic. The bacteria in her blood is going to kill her.”

  “She’ll rest when she’s finished.”

  Sara didn’t ask what Michelle was expected to finish. What she knew was that the infectious disease specialist had not been abducted and dragged into the mountains to stop a measles outbreak. Michelle was here to do whatever they were doing in the greenhouse. Her contribution was so invaluable that Dash had risked taking her to the hospital to save her life.

  Which meant that Michelle was close to completing whatever project she had started. Otherwise, they would’ve kept her in bed and given her time to recover.

  It won’t be your concern for much longer.

  “Daddy?” The fifteen-year-old with the wary eye was standing with her hands on her hips. “Mama says hurry.”

  Dash chuckled. “She’s old enough to start nagging me.”

  Sara hurled the apple core into the forest. She tried to adjust the knot in her dress. The tree canopy had cleared at the river. The sun was brutal overhead. The problem with auburn hair was that it came with skin that lent itself to self-immolation. She could already feel her bare shoulder starting to burn.

  She added sunscreen to the list of things she missed.

  The temperature dropped slightly as she reached the riverbank. All of Dash’s children but Adriel were sitting in a circle. Gwen was on a wooden stool in the center. She was reading aloud from the Bible in her lap.

  “‘From there, Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking up the path, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, chanting—’”

  Gwen looked up, frowning at Sara.

  Sara frowned back. She wasn’t sure why this woman would choose this particular moment to tell her daughters a story about bad little children being mauled to death by bears. They had already lost two of their friends. Their sister lay seriously ill in the bunkhouse.

  Dash said, “I don’t think we’ve all been properly introduced. Girls, this is Dr. Earnshaw. Dr. Earnshaw, meet”—he pointed as he went around the circle—“Esther, Charity, Edna, Grace, Hannah and Joy.”

  Joy was the oldest, her wary-eyed stare a stark contrast to her name.

  “Hello.” Sara had to wad up the back of the sheet so she could sit on the ground. She smiled, reminding herself that she couldn’t punish these children for having awful parents. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

  Grace, who was around nine or ten years old, said, “Mama told us you were married.”

  “I was.” Sara looked at Gwen, but her head was down as she silently studied her Bible.

  Another child asked, “Did you have a big wedding?”

  Sara had married Jeffrey in the backyard of her parents’ house. Her mother had stood in stony silence, furious th
at they weren’t in a church. “We went downtown to the courthouse. A judge married us.”

  Even Joy seemed disappointed. Sara didn’t know if this was because they had been taught that marriage was the only thing that gave them validation as women or because they were girls and weddings were romantic, dreamy affairs.

  “I’ll tell you another story.” Sara shifted, trying to get a lump of material out from under her ass. “There’s something called a White Coat Ceremony in medical school. That’s the first time you wear your lab coat. You take an oath promising to always help people.” Sara chose not to dwell on that fact. “It’s a very big deal. My entire family was there. We had a party afterward at my aunt’s house. My mother made a toast, then my father, then my aunt. I was tipsy by the end. It was the first time I drank real champagne.”

  Grace asked, “Was your husband there?”

  Sara smiled. “I hadn’t met him yet. But your mother did this, too. Right, Gwen? Nurses have their ceremony at the start of their clinical work?”

  Gwen inhaled deeply. She closed the Bible. She stood up. “I have work to do.”

  Dash didn’t seem bothered by her departure. He took Gwen’s place on the stool. He held out his arm and Joy sat in his lap. She leaned her head on his shoulder. He rested his hand on her hip.

  Sara watched the water spilling over the river rocks. She wasn’t comfortable seeing a fifteen-year-old girl sit in a grown man’s lap, even if that man was her father.

  Dash told Sara, “Gwen doesn’t like to talk about her time before.”

  “She should be proud. Graduating from nursing school is quite an accomplishment.”

  Dash patted his leg. Grace carefully crawled up to his knee. She tucked her fingers into his sling. He stroked her hair.

  Sara had to look away again. Maybe she was reading into it, but there was something unsettling about the way Dash touched his children.

  He said, “I think my daughters would tell you that working at home, taking care of your family, is quite an accomplishment, too.”

  “My mother would agree. She was very happy that she could choose that life for herself. Just like I was happy to choose something different.”

  Joy’s eyes were on Sara. The wariness had turned into curiosity. She didn’t seem embarrassed to be sitting in her father’s lap. Given their isolation on the compound and the infantilizing way they dressed, her maturity level could lag behind that of a typical fifteen-year-old.

  Still, something about the situation made Sara uneasy.

  Dash said, “Dr. Earnshaw, we live a simple life here with traditional roles. This is how the early Americans not only lived but thrived. Everyone is happier when they know what’s expected of them. Men do the work of men and women do the work of women. We don’t allow the modern world to interfere with our values.”

  Sara asked, “Did those solar panels on the bunkhouse come over on the Niña, the Pinta or the Santa María?”

  Dash gave a surprised laugh. He likely wasn’t used to being challenged, especially by a woman. He told the children, “Girls, those are the names of the ocean ships that brought the Pilgrims to the New World.”

  Sara chewed at the tip of her tongue. He had to know that the ships had been part of Christopher Columbus’s expedition from Spain. The Pilgrims arrived over one hundred years later. These were basic facts that almost every American child knew by the time they graduated elementary school. They were taught songs about it, forced to act it out in Thanksgiving plays.

  Dash said, “Some believe the Mayflower Compact was a covenant with God to advance Christianity in the New World.”

  Sara couldn’t wait to see where he was going with this.

  “In fact, the Compact was a social contract that bound the settlers to a standard set of laws and regulations.” Dash continued to absently stroke Grace’s hair. “That’s what we’ve set up here, Dr. Earnshaw. We are some of us Puritans, some of us settlers, others of us adventurers and tradesmen, but we are bound together by the belief in the same laws and regulations. That is the hallmark of a civil society.”

  At least he’d gotten his Wikipedia right. “The Pilgrims were on the King’s land, just like the land we’re on right now belongs to the federal government.”

  Dash smiled. “Are you trying to get me to confirm our location, Dr. Earnshaw?”

  Sara wanted to kick herself for being so clumsy. “The laws and regulations of the United States supersede whatever you’ve got going on inside your Camp. That’s the privilege and price you pay for citizenship. As my grandfather used to say: Don’t mess with the US Government. They won two wars and can print their own money.”

  Dash laughed. “Your grandfather sounds like my kind of man. But you should understand that we adhere to the original words in the Constitution. We do not interpret or amend. We follow the laws exactly as they were set down by the Framers.”

  “Then I assume you know that of the three criminal offenses listed in the Constitution, treason comes first. The Framers called for the death penalty against anyone who levies war against the United States.”

  “Thomas Jefferson told us that ‘a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical,’” Dash said. “The vast majority of the country agrees with what we’re doing here. We’re all patriots, Dr. Earnshaw. That’s what we call ourselves. The Invisible Patriot Army.”

  Army.

  Sara asked, “IPA? I’ve heard that abbreviation before.”

  “I like beer.” His smile didn’t falter. “Benjamin Franklin, another great patriot, wrote that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

  Franklin had actually been talking about French wine, but Sara didn’t correct him. She smoothed out the folds in her dress. She was sweating. Bugs were swarming around her face. Her skin was burning in the sun. It was still better than being confined in the cabin.

  She asked, “You ever notice how George Clooney never goes around telling people how handsome he is?”

  Dash raised his eyebrows, expectant.

  “It makes me curious—if you’re really a patriot, do you have to put it in your name?”

  Dash chuckled, shaking his head. “I wonder, Dr. Earnshaw, if I was a writer, how would I describe you in a book?”

  Sara had read books by men like Dash. He would list the color of her hair, the size of her breasts and the shape of her ass. “Are you writing a book? A manifesto?”

  “I should.” His jocularity was gone. “What we are doing up here, what I have created, must be replicated if our people are to survive. The world will need a blueprint to follow after the pillars fall.”

  “What pillars?”

  “Dash!” Lance’s panicked scream broke the moment.

  Instinctively, Sara was on her feet. The man looked as if he was on the verge of hysteria. He was running toward them, rifle gripped between his hands, mouth wide open.

  He screamed, “Tommy fell! It’s really bad. His leg is all—” He stopped a few feet away, bending at the waist to catch his breath. “It was during the drill. His leg—” Lance shook his head, unable to put words to the image. “Gwen says bring the doctor right now.”

  Dash studied Lance. He had not moved. Neither had his girls. Joy waited until he patted her on the leg like a dog, then got down from his lap.

  He told Sara, “I hope you don’t mind joining me?”

  For the first time since she’d met this sadist, Sara was actually willing to go with him. She wanted to see this place where Tommy was doing drills.

  Dash kept to his usual pace as they walked through the forest. Lance rushed ahead, almost frenzied. He stumbled over a fallen log. His rifle flew out of his hands. He tried to stand up, but fell again.

  “Steady, brother.” Dash picked up the rifle. He wiped off the dirt. He handed it back to Lance. “Deep breath.”

  Lance’s inhalation was shallow. His breath smelled sour when he exhaled.

  “Good man.” Dash p
atted his shoulder, then continued up the path.

  He was clever. Sara had to give him that. She used the same technique in the emergency room. Trauma tended to heighten emotions. When everyone was freaking out, being calm instantly put you in a place of authority.

  “This way, please.” Dash was leading them away from the greenhouse, over the hill to what Sara had assumed was the main compound.

  She could hear a siren wailing in the distance. Then she realized it wasn’t a siren. Someone was screaming at that blood-curdling pitch that could only be achieved by being in excruciating, life-threatening pain.

  Sara started to run toward the sound. The path opened up onto another clearing. It was twice the size of the other one. More cabins, more women cooking on open fires, but she didn’t stop to count the number of people or take in her surroundings. She lifted her dress and ran as hard as she could toward the wailing man.

  There was an open structure at the crest of the hill. It was massive, but incomplete. Only the framing existed. Wood studs for walls, plywood on the floors, open stairs, safety railings. Two stories high. The second level was no more than a balcony that ringed the open floor below. There was no roof, no Sheetrock or siding. Two layered tarps served as a ceiling. The material on the bottom one was in the familiar, thermal-blocking silver. The top was dark green to help the structure blend into the forest.

  A group of men stood in a circle at the base of the stairs. They were dressed in black tactical gear with padded vests. Sara looked up as she entered the building, because that’s what it was—they had mocked up an actual building. The span of one tarp wasn’t enough to cover the space. There were eight large pieces patched together. The surface area was roughly fifty yards square, half of a football field. The walls and floor were spattered with various colors of paint, probably from paintball guns. There were paper targets representing security guards. Muddy footprints showed where men had run in and out of the building.

  Sara could think of only one reason to mock up a structure in this manner, and that was to practice taking over the building, possibly killing or kidnapping the people inside.

  Drills.