Page 6 of South of Nowhere

She turned, was saying something about neighbors coming for dinner.

Shaw’s mind was on the letter. “Good,” he said.

Mary Dove laughed.

He raised an eyebrow.

“I just said that we’re not doing mushrooms because Kathy’s violently allergic to them. And you said, ‘Good.’ ”

“I mean good that you’re not serving them.”

His nieces—Dorion’s daughters—would have responded to his comeback as “lame.”

Which it certainly was.

Mary Dove gave him a questioning look but let the matter drop. She never pushed. If he wanted to talk to her about something, she knew he would. This was true about everyone in the Shaw family. Of course there were secrets. But if one clearly wanted them to remain hidden, none of the others pried.

It made for a curious but effective genre of familial harmony.

Setting down the coffee he’d lost all taste for, he stared at the letter, flipped through a dozen sheets below, but none were related to the “Margaret” note.

A secret half-sibling…

Mary Dove had been through a great deal in her marriage to Ashton Shaw. She was a talented, in-demand academic, researcher and physician; she’d supported his crusade against corrupt politicians and corporations; and she had endured, if not relished, the move to the Compound, where she, like the children, learned the art of survivalism.

It challenged her body, her spirit, her mind.

And ultimately his actions had left her a widow.

But in her heart, all the offspring knew, she believed in the same values and thought his decisions were the right ones. The couple was in unity, and always had been.

Or so it seemed.

Infidelity?

Beyond the pale.

Another two dozen sheets of paper.

Frustratingly, nothing.

All he knew was Margaret’s present age—mid- to late twenties. And probably Anglo, given the name, though an ethnic minority was certainly a possibility.

Why not give Ashton’s colleague in Berkeley her full name and relationship and number if there was nothing to hide?

And why not contact Shaw through his website, where people desperate to find missing loved ones left messages about rewards they were offering, which his business associates back in Florida, Teddy and Velma Bruin, monitored several times a day. They would have instantly forwarded notice.

What did she want?

Never speculate. Once you have sufficient facts, your process is analysis—not speculation.

Well, the sole answer was to go through the entire stack—now “only” seventeen or eighteen pounds of documents—one by one. Looking forMargaretor the wordsdaughterorgirlorchild.

He bent forward and began again, when he was interrupted by a text.

The first words were arresting.

Need help. Now.

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