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

by Karin Slaughter

  Actually, anytime Sara made an effort especially for Will, he was happy.

  She told Grace, “I wore a regular dress, but it had pretty little flowers stitched here,” she indicated the neckline. “He likes—liked—me to wear my hair down, so I left it on my shoulders even though it was very hot outside. And I wore high heels that pinched my toes.”

  “How high?” the question had rushed out of Joy’s mouth. She blushed. “I mean, because you’re tall. Men don’t like that. Is what I hear.”

  “The right men do,” Sara told her, a lesson that had been hard-learned during her teen years as she’d waited for the boys to catch up to her height. “And the right man isn’t intimidated by a woman who’s comfortable with who she is.”

  “Amen.” Dash had freed his hand from the sling so he could cut his steak. The knife was long with a serrated blade.

  Sara wondered if they counted the silverware when the table was cleared.

  Grace said, “I want to wear a white dress to my wedding, with flowers and horses.”

  Joy rolled her eyes.

  “And ice cream.” Grace giggled.

  Dash said, “You’ll get ice cream tonight.”

  There was a chorus of cheers.

  He told Sara, “We’re having a celebration to mark the completion of our greatest achievement.”

  His sly smile said he knew that he had her attention.

  He said, “Tomorrow is a very important day for us.”

  Sara did not give him the satisfaction of asking the obvious question.

  “Little ones, listen to Daddy.” Dash jabbed his fork into the potato. “You must put us all in your thoughts tonight. Enjoy the celebration and the ice cream, but understand that what we are about to embark on is a serious mission. Everything we’ve been working toward for the last three years comes down to tomorrow.”

  Three years?

  He said, “Daddy and his men are going to go out into the wicked world, and we’re going to remind them what the Framers of the Constitution had in mind when they sat down and wrote that glorious document.”

  Grace said, “One nation under God.”

  “Exactly,” Dash confirmed, though the line was from the Pledge of Allegiance, not the Constitution. “The country needs to be shocked back into its senses. It is time to send the message. We have gotten so far off track that the white man doesn’t know his place anymore.”

  He forked a mound of potato into his mouth. Obviously, he wasn’t finished with his speech, but he wasn’t content to play the game without Sara.

  She cleared her throat. “What kind of message?”

  He took his time drinking from the glass of water. “The Message will make it clear that the white man will not be conquered. Not by any other race. Not by a certain type of woman. Not by anyone or anything.”

  Sara waited for the real Dash to make his appearance. She saw the early indications in his cheekbones, which got sharper, and his skin, which blanched with zeal.

  He told Sara, “Those people, those mongrels, are trying to breed us out of existence. They’re infiltrating our culture with their music and their easy morals. They’re taking advantage of our women. Selling them a false bill of goods about who they are, where their place is in society.”

  “Like Michelle,” Edna said.

  “Yes!” Dash slammed his fist into the table. The mask had fully dropped. “Michelle is a living example of the kind of woman whose selfish and hedonistic choices are destroying the natural order. They have to be made an example of. Witches used to be burned in this country.”

  Wrong again. No witches were burned during the Salem trials. They were either hanged or pressed to death.

  “It’s a man’s job to decide what’s best for his family.” Dash banged the table again. “Just look at what got us here. White men wielding white power have protected white society for thousands of years.”

  Sara bit her lip so that she would not antagonize him.

  Dash seemed to take note of her reticence. He wiped his mouth with one of the cloth napkins. He slipped back into character, smiling at Sara. “I’m not racist. I’m for my race. I’m not sexist. I’m for my gender.” He shrugged, as if the logic held up. “The white man is being pushed aside. Our benevolence, our generosity, is leading us to the brink of extinction. We ceded too many rights to women, to the negro and the brown man. We dangled the hope of opportunity, and they took too much for their own advantage.”

  The girls were all looking up at their father as if he was delivering the Sermon on the Mount. To Sara, it sounded more like Neo-Nazi pop-psychology. Dash had stumbled upon one of the many vulnerabilities in the contact hypothesis. Levels of prejudice were generally reduced when reasonable people shared interpersonal contact. It was hard to hold on to a stereotype about an entire race when you were face to face with an individual who disproved your prejudice. One of the biggest obstacles to success was the denial of the opposing group’s equal status to your own.

  “Dr. Earnshaw.” Dash put down his fork. He rested his elbows on the table. “You are a woman of science. You understand from your history books that every major leap in history, from the Industrial Revolution to the Digital Age to the Internet Age to whatever comes next, was made possible by white men.”

  Sara could think of multiple facts to contradict him, but there was no use arguing with a person who would not accept basic truths—another hindrance to the contact hypothesis.

  “Even our mastery of technology is a double-edged sword. Jobs that men do are becoming obsolete.” Dash pointed his finger at Sara. “The number one occupation for men without college degrees is driving vehicles. What’s going to happen when self-driving cars and trucks take over the roads? Technology, innovation, education. White men are being deprived of the dignity of a paycheck. When women control the purse strings, men are demoralized. They turn to alcohol and pills. They leave their families, abandon their children. We cannot let that happen.”

  Sara guessed respecting and appreciating your wife was not an option.

  Dash wasn’t finished. “American politicians have spent the last two hundred years trying to accommodate and appease the black and brown man. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent—they all do it. We give the mongrels schools and they want white schools. We let them ride the bus and they want to sit in the front. We pay them to entertain us and they try to shove their opinions down our damn throats.”

  “Daddy,” Grace whispered, as if swearing was the worst of his crimes.

  “Accommodate, accommodate, accommodate.” Dash had started banging the table again. “There’s not enough clean water and air and food to go around. Not everybody can live in a nice house with a big TV. Letting the mongrels wrongly believe that they are entitled to what the white man has is exactly why we are at this inflection point. We cannot let them take our power.”

  Another loophole in the contact hypothesis—the fear of competition.

  He said, “This is why the Framers of the Constitution specified the right to bear arms in the Second Amendment. So we can take up arms and tell the government that they are wrong. White men were the only men endowed with those rights. Our lives are the only lives that matter.”

  Sara bit her lip. The Framers had not written the Second Amendment. They had devised the process by which the Constitution could be amended.

  He said, “The focus of our government has at its own peril turned away from nurturing the white family. It’s basic economics. If you take care of us, then everything else will fall into place. There are enough scraps for the rest of them. You’re a doctor. You know the scientific facts. Superior genetics preordained the white man to lead the tribes of the world. We cannot allow ourselves to become relegated to second- or even third-class citizens.”

  Sara could not let that one go. Medical history was riddled with this crackpot nonsense. The study of humors, blood-letting, phrenology, female hysteria. None of it was harmless. The so-called science of the American eugenics
movement had inspired the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Will’s severe dyslexia was the type of disability that would have qualified him for forced sterilization or outright murder.

  She told Dash, “It would really suck to be treated like a minority, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’re making fun, but you’re hitting my point exactly. White women with their abortion and their birth control and their careers are choosing their own selfish desires over the propagation of the race. Miscegenation, inter-breeding mongrels, whatever you want to call it. Every problem this country faces can be boiled down to the coming doom of the Great Replacement.”

  His eyes glowed as he said the words. Sara could see where a person as angry as Dash, as isolated and alienated, would think of his philosophy of hatred as the solution to their problems.

  It’s not your fault, brother. It’s everybody else.

  “My ladies.” Dash made sure his girls were paying attention. “Listen carefully, because this is the most important lesson that Daddy will ever teach you. The races fall into a pyramid. The white man is always at the top, then as his subordinate you will find the white woman, who need only serve one master. Below, you have your various races. Not every person on this earth is equal.”

  “That truth isn’t self-evident?” Sara invoked the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence. “I thought all men were created equal?”

  He wagged his finger in her direction. “You don’t want to argue the Constitution with me, Dr. Earnshaw.”

  Sara held back a pained sigh. Dash was a stupid man’s idea of how a smart man sounded. And his philosophy didn’t matter. His noxious racism and sexism and xenophobia did not matter. What mattered was the greenhouse, the Structure, the Message he was planning to send.

  Everything we’ve been working toward for the last three years comes down to tomorrow.

  Sara asked, “What are you going to do about it?”

  “The Message, that’s what we’re doing about it. There will be great sacrifices, and I always mourn the loss of life, but we have got to accept losses if we are going to make true and meaningful change. The enablers, the mongrels, they grow like weeds and periodically, we have to cut them down.” Dash shook his head. “It’s terribly sad, but it’s the natural order of things. Sometimes you have to cut back a rosebush to make a beautiful flower.”

  Sara felt the threat behind his flowery language. “How many lives will be lost?”

  “Multitudes. So many will be dead that I doubt historians will be able to tally a final number.” Dash retrieved his fork and knife. He cut into the steak. “I’ll tell you what, Dr. Earnshaw. I am a man of my word. I said you’ll be freed and I meant it. We’ll need a witness to the Message. I think an articulate, thoughtful lady such as yourself will make a persuasive argument on our behalf.”

  Sara tried not to fixate on the fact that the defining trait of a witness was survival.

  Was he giving her false hope?

  Joy asked, “Daddy, when will we know if the Message worked?”

  “You’ll know when you know.” This came from Gwen. She was standing behind Edna, her fingers digging into the girl’s shoulders. Her dour demeanor put a look of trepidation on her children’s faces. “I want these plates cleaned or no one will get ice cream tonight.”

  The girls obediently picked up their spoons and started to eat.

  Gwen wrung her hands in her apron as she sat down. She was eating the same food as the girls, but on a plate instead of in a bowl. Sara noticed a rash on her hands. She had managed to rub the skin raw with her apron.

  Sara hated the thought of talking to Gwen, but she asked, “Is Benjamin any better?”

  Gwen’s lips snapped into a straight line. She was no longer trying to hide the hostility she clearly felt toward Sara. “The Lord will decide his fate.”

  “I might need to adjust his medications.” Sara offered, “I can re-examine all of the children. I’d be happy to help wash them down, change sheets, anything to make them more comfortable. I’m sure you’re tired.”

  “I’m not tired.” Gwen picked up her spoon. “You will return to your cabin where you belong.”

  Dash said, “I’ve told Dr. Earnshaw that she can spend as much time as she likes inside the bunkhouse.”

  Gwen’s fist tightened around the spoon. Her eyes locked with Dash’s.

  Was she jealous?

  Dash said, “Gwendolyn, let’s remember that Dr. Earnshaw is a guest here. We should make use of any help she offers.”

  His tone was enough to send Gwen into an angry silence. She shoveled food into her mouth so quickly that the sauce dripped down her chin. Her children absorbed her mood. Some of them looked like they wanted to cry. Grace’s bottom lip started to tremble.

  Sara gave in to a desire to punish Gwen for the misery she brought. “Girls, you know how I met my husband. Do you know how your mother met your father? I bet it’s a very romantic story.”

  Gwen’s spoon hovered between the plate and her mouth.

  Sara felt regret warm her face. The question was meant to be shitty, but the math made it cruel. Joy was fifteen. Gwen was in her early thirties. Dash had passed forty a few years ago.

  “Well.” Dash adjusted his sling, though judging by the way he’d moved his arms, he no longer needed it. “That’s a funny question, isn’t it, my little ladies?”

  The girls silently waited. They had clearly never heard the answer before.

  Dash said, “We were high school sweethearts. What do you think of that?”

  Grace gave a dramatically long sigh. To a young girl, the idea was romantic, but she wasn’t considering the age difference. The only way Dash would’ve been in high school at the same time as Gwen was if he was working on the staff. There was nothing romantic about statutory rape.

  Dash said, “Papa Martin introduced us. Isn’t that right, my darling?”

  Martin Novak.

  The bank robber was in his sixties. Dash would’ve been like a son to him. And then Novak’s son had married his underage daughter.

  “We were on a beach,” Dash told the girls, contradicting his high school story. “Your mother was walking along the water. The waves were lapping at her feet. The sun was behind her, and I thought it made her look like she was wearing a halo.” He winked at Sara. “She hasn’t taken it off since.”

  Sara swallowed what felt like a mouthful of glass. She asked Dash, “I’d like to go to the bunkhouse, if that’s okay?”

  Gwen’s spoon dropped onto her plate with a loud clatter.

  “That’s fine, Dr. Earnshaw.” Dash looked at Gwen as he spoke. “Joy, escort Dr. Earnshaw, please. Your mother and I have to talk through the plans for tonight’s celebration.”

  “Yes, Daddy.” Joy led the way to the bunkhouse, her head down, her eyes on her feet. Sara kept a few paces behind her. She felt disgusted by her own behavior. Gwen was fair game, but her daughters were innocent. Sara was not normally the type of person who deliberately hurt other people. Then again, she was not the sort of doctor who wished her patients dead.

  Which was no excuse for what had just happened. Sara thought about how to apologize to Joy. Of all the children, she would’ve been hyper aware of the implications.

  Before Sara could get a word out, Joy mumbled, “She’s worried.”

  Sara guessed she was referring to Gwen. “About Adriel?”

  Joy shook her head, but didn’t explain further.

  “You know,” Sara said. “I just realized that Benjamin is the only little boy I’ve seen on this side of the Camp. Are there more on the other side?”

  “Some little ones.” Joy was still keeping her voice low, though no one was close by. “Daddy sends them away when they turn twelve.”

  Sara nodded, her heart pounding, because she could think of only one reason why a grown man would send away all of the boys before they reached the age of puberty.

  He didn’t want the competition.

  Sara asked, “Do you know where they go?”
/>
  “Arizona, so they can train for the war.”

  Arizona. All the pieces that put Martin Novak into the frame were falling into place. Sara prayed that Will and Faith were finding the same clues. The bank robber was in custody, looking at spending the rest of his life in prison. If there was a deal to be made, now was the time.

  Joy stopped at the sink outside the bunkhouse. She turned on the water for Sara. “Are they going to die?”

  Sara understood she was talking about the eleven children in the bunkhouse. “I haven’t figured out what’s wrong, but I’m working on it.”

  Joy started to speak, but her face contorted in pain. She pressed her hand to her stomach. She leaned back against the shower stall. “My tummy hurts.”

  “Is it your period?”

  She blushed the shade of a tomato.

  “Sweetie, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s natural. It’s terrible, but it’s natural.” She rubbed Joy’s arm, trying to get a response. “I can give you some Advil for the pain.”

  “It’s not—” The sentence was interrupted by a torrent of vomit flooding out of her mouth.

  Sara jumped away, but not quickly enough to save her shoes. She looked toward the picnic table for Gwen, but the girl’s mother was angrily dressing down one of the cooking women. The younger girls sat at the table with their heads bowed, trying to disappear into the scenery.

  “Let’s go inside.” Sara helped Joy up the stairs. The bunkhouse was empty but for the sick children. Sara wondered where the three women had gone. She supposed they had taken their lunch breaks. The timing could work out for Sara. Joy was old enough to notice what was going on inside of the Camp.

  “Here.” Sara helped Joy climb onto an empty cot. She asked, “Can you tell me what’s hurting?”

  Joy clutched her stomach in response.

  Sara took the girl’s blood pressure, which was low, and her temperature, which was normal. She listened to Joy’s chest and bowels. She checked her pupils. The girl could barely keep her eyes open. Her throat clicked as she tried to swallow.

  Sara asked, “Did you have the measles before?”