Page 82 of The Chain House

“But no one told Sal Batise what to do,” Nancy went on. “And that was one of many times he made it known who was in charge on that ranch. But Minks … he was a cold-blooded killer. A psychopath, sociopath, all those things, but you didn’t fuck with his books, you know?”

Jennifer nodded like she knew, like she’d known even back then when she’d seen the worn paperback on the wooden bench inside the Kitchen House and taken it. She’d been only days into her stay and had thought it more of a free library grab, until she’d witnessed Minks’s tirade that day and feared for her life should she admit to taking it. And so that book stayed hidden under her bed with all her drawings until the night they’d fled, and she’d taken it with her then, as well, hiding it in the waistband of her pants and keeping it there until the police pulled them out of the closet.

Jennifer fidgeted in her seat, under Nancy’s watchful gaze, and for a moment she wondered if Nancy knew she had it.

But Nancy continued on: “Minks was a monster.”

“He still is a monster.”

Nancy held up a finger, like, let me finish, and said, “But he wasn’t without his feelings. Throwing a fit like he did that day, over that book, like he was a child. A grown man acting like a child. I was with him that night. And he told me … it wasn’t so much about the book itself, he was a fan of The Lord of the Flies, he’d read it multiple times, and often liked to be Ralph, you know, from the book, but that book was special to him because it had come from Mr. Mosby.”

“Who was Mr. Mosby?” Jennifer asked, although the name seemed familiar.

“I don’t know. When I asked, all Minks said was, the only man who ever showed him love. Apparently that’s who gave him that book.”

Jennifer let that sink in. “Nancy, do you have any idea where Justice Minks might be hiding right now? Where he might be keeping Beth Hawthorne captive?”

“I don’t.”

“Are you afraid to tell me, or you truly don’t know?”

She smirked. “I’m not afraid of anything anymore. But I will say, if it’s possible to admire someone twenty years your junior, I admire you. For what you did. What you’re doing.”

“But you can’t help me?”

“I believe I already have,” Nancy said. “All puzzles have pieces, Jennifer, and the putting of them together gains momentum as more of the picture comes to light.”

Feeling a sudden need to speak to Sam so he could relay all this to the FBI, Jennifer slowly pushed away from the partition, gave the guard a glance, and then said to Nancy, “I’ve got to go. Thank you …”

“No,” Nancy said. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“I’ll be dead before sunrise.”

Jennifer couldn’t tell if she was joking, so she said nothing. Or maybe she would be dead before sunrise, because the walls have ears and this entire monstrosity had spun a web much wider than she knew. But whether she was being sarcastic in thanking her, Jennifer didn’t know. Before Jennifer pushed her chair back in, she asked: “Why was Justice Minks allowed to come and go as he pleased from the Freedom Ranch?”

“There’s an exception to every rule, Jennifer,” Nancy said. “Sal Batise was a man of many sins, but murder, firsthand, to my knowledge, was never one of them. And a man who needs people murdered but is unable to do so himself, needs a man who is capable of murder.”

“Where did Minks go?” Jennifer asked. “Whenever he left the Freedom Ranch, where would he go?”

“Home to his wife,” Nancy said matter-of-factly.

Jennifer blinked. “But marriage was not allowed.”

“Exceptions to every rule.”

“But you were … and the other girls …”

“Yes,” Nancy said, and Jennifer could tell she’d just read her mind. “I was intimate with Justice Minks, just as I was with Sal Batise, just as we all were with each other on the Freedom Ranch. We were completely broken of our chains.” She let out a quick laugh again. “You think a man like Minks was beyond adultery?”

“Of course not,” Jennifer said, feeling suddenly foolish now.

But then Nancy said, “Would you believe, and he told us this quite openly, that he’d never even screwed his wife? His own wife?”

“Why not?”

“Because she wouldn’t have him,” Nancy said. “She didn’t love him in that way, he told us. Sad, almost. And get this, he of such noble character, would never force a woman to love him like that. That’s how he said it, like that. He’d never force himself on a woman. So, he fucked us. Me and the other two, us Angels,” she said, her words dripping with facetiousness. “We figured he was lying, anyway, about having a wife, and if that was the case, who really knew where he went when he wasn’t on the Freedom Ranch?”