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again.
    Hearing their footsteps directly overhead, Theresa thought her heart would stop.
    “Shh, sweetheart,” she whispered to Elijah.
    Sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor, Theresa unzipped his fuzzy blue sleeper to check his diaper—a ragged shirt she had reclaimed from the clothes pile and tucked inside his plastic pants. She nudged his mouth with the makeshift nipple, which he accepted greedily.
    Crooning meaningless words in his ear, Theresa rocked him back and forth. His warm, solid little body nestled against her, and one tiny hand curled around her finger as he sucked.
    The root cellar was cold and musty-smelling. The Stewarts used it to store canned goods and other staples. Earlier residents of the camp had used it to hold everything from potatoes to mining gear.
    Elijah gave small grunts signifying baby contentment as he gulped down the mixture of reconstituted milk and blackberry wine Theresa had concocted for him. He had done nothing in the root cellar but eat and sleep, and for that Theresa blessed the intoxicating effects of the wine. Poor baby, she hoped it wouldn’t do him any harm. But even if it did, it couldn’t be as bad as what would happen to him if they were discovered.
    They would die.
    At first Theresa had been scared, so scared, that Elijah would cry and give their hiding place away. She remembered a story she had read once about a mother in the Old West who had been hiding with her children from marauding Indians. When the baby started to cry, the mother had suffocated him with her own hands rather than have him reveal their whereabouts and risk death for her and the other children.
    One life sacrificed for many. It had undoubtedly been the right thing to do.
    But Theresa knew she would never be able to sacrifice Elijah to save herself.
    Knew it, that is, until she heard her little sisters being herded into the front room with her mother. The girls were crying. Sally said something, her voice pleading. There was the sound of a blow.
    A few minutes later the screams began.
    In that instant Theresa faced a terrible truth: To save her own life she would sacrifice Elijah.
    Please, dear Lord, she prayed again as she had prayed every time she thought of her baby brother since confronting her own capacity for evil, please keep him quiet.
    Please don’t let either of us have to die .

6
     
    June 21, 1996
10 A.M .
    B OUNCE; THUD . Bounce, thud. Bounce, thud .
    The pony—Hero—trotted dutifully after his mates. On his back Lynn bounced into the air and smacked down against the saddle with a hideous repetition that made Chinese water torture seem kind by comparison.
    Bounce, thud. Bounce, thud .
    Oh, God, her butt hurt. The discomfort she had experienced yesterday was nothing compared to the pain she was feeling today.
    If the two extra-strength Tylenol tablets she had taken that morning were dulling anything, she didn’t even want to imagine what she would feel like without painkillers in her system.
    Doc Grandview’s Horse Liniment had proved useless too—except maybe as an insect repellent. If she were a bug the odor would certainly repel her. Twelve hours after she had massaged it into her aching muscles, the smell was still strong enough to make her wrinkle her nose when the wind blew a certain way.
    Worse, the slimy stuff was nearly impossible to wash off. Despite all her efforts with soap, a washcloth, and cold water, the skin of her thighs and butt still felt greasy and adhered to her jeans in a most unpleasant way.
    Would somebody please wake her up and tell her this was all just a hideous, horrible, very bad dream?
    “ Mother , you’re not keeping up.” Rory dropped back to ride beside her. Collegiate had offered riding lessons, for which Lynn had been paying through the nose all year. Obviously, they had taken. One glance told Lynn that Rory was experiencing none of the difficulties that plagued her mother. In fact, except for her obvious fear of being embarrassed by her parent,