“Get away from me!”

Another medic, a little older, approached and pulled the young man aside. “We’ll have to sedate her and take her to the hospital. Trying to talk to her isn’t working.”

“Wait!” Cathy called out to them before she realized what she was doing.

Both men turned to her. “Who are you?” the older guy asked.

“I’m Cathy Cantrell. I’m a friend of the family. Missy knows me. Please let me talk to her.”

The two men exchanged concerned glances. Then the older medic said, “Go ahead, ma’am. See what you can do.”

Cathy took the blanket from the young medic, walked over to Missy and sat down beside her. “Missy, may I put this blanket around your shoulders?”

Missy looked at her, a blank expression in her eyes. She nodded. “All right, Mrs. Cantrell.”

Cathy draped the lightweight blanket around the girl, then curved her arm over her shoulders and held her. “You’re not alone, Missy. I’m here. I’ll help you get through this.”

Missy turned and looked directly at Cathy. “He’s dead.”

Cathy took a deep breath and glanced at the older medic, who nodded his head. “Yes, darling, he’s dead.” She gently stroked Missy’s back, massaging her soothingly.

“I’m glad he’s dead.” Missy trembled uncontrollably. “I’ve thought about killing him so many times, but I just couldn’t work up the courage to do it.”

Cathy’s breath tightened in her throat. My God! Had Missy just confessed to killing her father?

Chapter Twenty-seven

Cathy rode in the ambulance with Missy, holding her hand all the way to the hospital. Dunmore General was a county facility with an excellent emergency room and a small psychiatric unit. From her home to the hospital, Missy clung to Cathy’s hand as if it were a lifeline. She kept talking, often incoherently, about her father. Some of her ramblings made sense, some didn’t. But from what Cathy could make out, Donnie Hovater had not been the man everyone believed him to be. His daughter’s accusations painted a very ugly picture of the minister.

“I begged him not to,” Missy kept saying over and over again. “He wouldn’t stop. I hated it. I hated him. I’m glad he’s dead.”

“Hush, sweetie, hush.” Cathy had known that with every word she spoke, Missy cast suspicion on herself, not just as her father’s murderer but as the Fire and Brimstone Killer. She didn’t believe this battered little girl was capable of such brutality, but when pushed beyond the limits of endurance, everyone was capable of just about anything.

The doctor admitted Missy to the psychiatric unit of Dunmore General after an initial examination and a brief questioning by Mike and Jack. But when the nurse started to wheel Missy away, she screamed for Cathy not to leave her. With the attending physician’s permission, Cathy was allowed to go with Missy.

Jack accompanied them, but once Missy was settled, he left the room after giving Cathy a quick good-bye kiss.

“How much trouble are you in for taking me to the murder scene with you tonight?” she asked as he started to close the door.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“I’m sorry. I know I promised to stay out of the way, but when I saw Missy and realized what bad shape she was in, I knew I had to do something.”

“It’s okay, honey. Mike didn’t take more than a couple of inches off my hide. And you did what you had to do, what’s your nature to do. You comforted a young girl in pain.”

“Do you have to go?”

“Yeah, I need to get back to the scene of the crime,” Jack explained. “Mike’s called in the task force, so the ABI unit could arrive at any time.”

“Missy did not kill her father.”

“Let’s hope not,” Jack said. “I hate to leave you here, but I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Jack had left several hours ago, and Cathy had been sitting at Missy’s bedside ever since. She stood up and slipped out of the room while Missy slept. For nearly an hour after Missy fell asleep, she had continued to clasp Cathy’s hand, and whenever Cathy moved, Missy’s eyelids fluttered in a fretful manner.

Cathy went straight to the nurse’s station and asked where she could go to use her cell phone.

“There’s a small waiting room down the hall on your right. You can use your phone there or use the hospital phone that’s provided for visitors.”

The waiting area was a room approximately twelve by twelve with one vinyl sofa and half a dozen chairs. Cathy slumped down on the sofa, opened her shoulder bag and retrieved her phone. She dialed Jack’s number. He answered on the fourth ring.

“Hey, honey, how’s it going?” he asked.

“Missy is finally sleeping. They had to give her another injection about an hour ago,” Cathy said. “Are you still at the crime scene?”

“No, we finished up there about half an hour ago and left it to the CSI team from the state. Morgan is calling a task-force meeting for eight o’clock, so we’re going over the preliminary evidence on the Hovater case right now.”

“Can you tell me if there is any evidence against Missy?”

“Honey, you know I can’t-”

“I know. Sorry I asked. I’m just so worried about her. If half of what she’s been saying is true, Donnie raped her repeatedly for years.” Cathy drew in a shaky breath, doing her best not to cry.

“Cathy?”

“Hmm?”

“Call Elliott Floyd and either have him or someone he recommends handle the legal stuff for Missy,” Jack said.

“You think she’ll need a lawyer?”

“Do it as a precaution. After all, she practically confessed in front of witnesses. Even if it turns out that there is no physical evidence against her, she’ll be questioned, and for that alone, a good lawyer at her side won’t hurt.”

“I’ll call Elliott at six,” Cathy said as she checked her watch. Ten till five. But first she had to make another phone call.

“As soon as the task-force meeting ends, I’ll try to get away and come by the hospital to pick you up. If you’re ready to leave before I get there, call Lorie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry, honey. I’m used to giving orders. I know you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.”

“I am, but I kind of like your being concerned about me. Shows you care.”

“Oh, I care. I care a whole hell of a lot.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah, honey?”

“Donnie was the killer’s fifth victim. Y’all have to find this person and stop him before he kills again.”

“We’re trying.”

As soon as they said their good-byes, Cathy sat there and stared at her phone, wondering if she should make the call she wanted to make. After all, she didn’t know for certain that Lorie’s suspicions had any basis in fact. Just because Lorie had told Cathy that she suspected Ruth Ann had been sexually abused as a young girl didn’t mean she actually had been.

“Do you remember when the Whitmore girl was raped by her uncle a few years back?” Lorie had asked Cathy. “Well, Ruth Ann took an unusual interest in the case. She even went to court every day during the trial. And from some of the offhand comments she made, I put two and two together and came up with the obvious-that she’d been a victim of abuse when she was a kid.”

If Ruth Ann had been sexually abused as a young girl, who better to help Missy than another survivor? But what if she made the phone call and Lorie was wrong about her cousin’s wife?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

She would wait until 5:45 to call Ruth Ann, and then at six she’d phone Elliott. In the meantime, she decided to go downstairs to the twenty-four-hour snack bar and get a cup of coffee and maybe a candy bar out of the machines.

Derek Lawrence had arrived before the others. And after being told about the things Missy Hovater had said at the scene and later in the ER, both times with witnesses present, and her reaction to her father’s murder, he’d immediately put together a scenario with Missy as the killer.