Wednesday, 10:00 a.m.

The county 4×4 pulled up in front of the gate at ten o'clock, and behind it came a white car Selah had never seen before, low, clean, with a seal on the door and red dust all the way up to the windows.

She was at the sewing-room window. She'd been sent up there at eight with a stack of pillowcases to hem and orders not to come down. At nine, Lavina had come up to tell her to put on her Sunday dress. Everyone knew they were coming. No one had told her who.

Deputy Corlett got out first. He looked at the house, the yard, the trailer, with the calm look he always had, the look of a man who knows every board of every house in Peniel. Out of the white car came a younger man in a light-blue shirt and khakis, a leather satchel slung across his chest. He wore glasses. He looked up at the three stories of the house, and Selah, from above, saw him swallow.