For three weeks, my daughter’s phone went silent, and every message I sent stayed unread. When I arrived at her farmhouse, my son-in-law blocked the porch with a fake smile. “She’s visiting friends,” he lied. Then I heard crying from the chicken coop.

The feed supplier recognized Marianne’s name. He pulled the farm account and mentioned deliveries sized for twelve thousand hens. Emily’s most recent certified report listed eight thousand.

Marianne repeated the number.

Emily shut her eyes. “Don’t call anyone else.”

“Why?”

“Because every person you alert becomes another person Travis can blame.”

Later Darlene appeared at the motel carrying soup wrapped in a towel. She had no purse, no coat, and no car keys. Marianne blocked the doorway.

Darlene looked past her. “I’m sorry about her hair.”

Not the lock. Not the hunger. The hair.

Emily came from the bathroom with a bandage around her wrist. “Did he move the pullets?”

Darlene answered without thinking. “North house.”

Then she pressed her lips together. Travis had told the clinic and church that no birds had been moved recently. Darlene knew otherwise.

Marianne asked how she had reached the motel. Darlene said she walked from the grocery store after Travis dropped her there, then refused to explain why he controlled her keys.

Emily accepted the soup and set it untouched on the dresser.

“You should leave before he notices,” she said.

Darlene’s eyes filled, but her voice stayed flat. “You think that coop was the worst thing on the farm.”

“Wasn’t it?” Marianne asked.