I squinted at the page, but the more I read, the less sure I was about this not being important. The first page was simply a form letter, explaining that these were the results of a DNA test on paternity for three children, Grace, Eliza, and Zina Carter—Joanna’s children. The letter recommended that Stephen, to whom the letter was addressed, read through everything before he came to any conclusions.
Each page after that was labeled with a different one of Joanna’s children’s names and contained two columns. One had a bunch of letters and numbers in it and the other column indicated whether or not the child and Stephen were a match. There were scientific explanations underneath each chart, but I have to admit, I couldn’t really follow them.
For Grace, one marker out of fifteen matched Stephen’s; for Eliza, there were two matches, and for Zina only one again. I had no idea if that was normal or not for any random group of people.
I’d already known that Grace wasn’t Stephen’s biological daughter. She was born when Joanna still lived with the FLDS and her father was Joanna’s ex-husband. The real question was why Grace had almost the same number of genetic marker matches with Stephen as the other two children. I wasn’t a scientist and knew nothing about genetics, but something was taking shape in my brain connected to the truth about Stephen’s brother Edward.
“Does this mean they’re not Stephen’s children, any of them?” asked Rebecca, tapping at the final page that said the results were all “negative.”
“I think so,” I said.
“Then who’s the father?”
I remembered then what Jennifer had said about the will being changed to benefit only Stephen’s own genetic children. I’d thought that was a dig at Sarah, through Talitha. But now it seemed clear it was about Joanna’s children, none of whom were genetically Stephen’s.
How had he ever begun to suspect it? Had he heard Joanna talking on the phone to the other man? Had he followed Joanna out of the compound when she went to visit Edward? She must have visited him plenty if she’d had two children with him. How close was he? Had she gone all the way down to Spanish Fork or had he found a closer way to keep in touch with her? It would have been easier for her if he had, even if it were only temporary, and a lie. A neighbor. Or a delivery man. Or . . .
And then the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. Mr. John Edwards, the kind gardener I’d met at the Perezes, the man who had taken over Joanna’s own position there, and who continued to send up flowers to her to enjoy here. I remembered his prominent nose, his wide shoulders without much height. I hadn’t thought then that he looked like Stephen, but bringing up the image in my mind and comparing it to the photograph of Stephen hanging just above the bed, I realized that John Edwards had to be Edward Carter, Stephen’s brother. He had to have planned all of this, not just Stephen’s murder, but Joanna’s first meeting with him, their marriage.
And Joanna, whom I had always thought innocent, had colluded with him. Were her premonitions just an act? Was there an evil mind at work behind her dreamy exterior or was she just a manipulated pawn, moved about between two men? I really had no idea, and I wasn’t sure that it mattered anymore.
My eyes were watering, and that was when I noticed that the smoke had been getting worse all this time. It couldn’t possibly have come from a minor food mishap in the kitchen. This was a real fire.
Suddenly, I remembered Joanna’s quoting Robert Frost’s poem, “Some say the world will end in fire.”
“Mom, what are you doing in here?” I looked up to see Kenneth standing in the doorway with Naomi. His nostrils flared. “We need to get everyone out of the house. Now.”
“Hurry, Mom!” Naomi said to Rebecca.
Rebecca looked up then and put the papers aside. “What’s happening?” She seemed frozen again, reverted to the child she had been when Stephen’s body had been found.
“It’s the house,” said Naomi, “It’s on fire and we need to get out of here.”
She herded her mother out the door and I followed close behind.
In the hallway, the smoke was worse. I had to assume that Edward Carter had set the fire, a last revenge against his brother, who had taken this property from him after the first fire killed their parents and changed both their lives forever. Whether Joanna had helped him, I didn’t know. But somehow she had known there was going to be a fire.
Naomi turned to Kenneth. “You get Talitha and check for any children who might still be upstairs. I’ll make sure our moms get out and we’ll look for any other kids on our way through the house.”
He nodded and they embraced but quickly separated again. Then Kenneth turned to me and put a hand on my back. “Mom, be careful.”