“I don’t know if I can help her. I’m afraid I might say the wrong thing.”

“She needs someone who understands what she’s been through.” Cathy’s gaze locked with Ruth Ann’s. She saw the realization in the other woman’s eyes.

“How did you know about me?” Ruth Ann asked.

“Know about…?”

“Don’t pretend with me, please. When you called me, I suspected you knew something, and just now, when you said what you did about Missy needing someone who understands what she’s been through, I knew for sure.”

“I don’t know anything about your past,” Cathy said. “It was Lorie. She picked up on some things you said a few years ago, and…well, she told me that you’d taken a special interest in the Whitmore girl’s rape case.”

“And here I thought I hid my feelings so well that no one would ever suspect anything.”

“Look, Ruth Ann, whatever did or didn’t happen to you is none of my business. I neither want nor need to know. The only reason I called you is because I hoped you could help Missy.”

“A long time ago, someone helped me,” Ruth Ann said. “I guess it’s past time for me to do the same. I’ll talk to Missy and do whatever I can to help her.”

Cathy grasped Ruth Ann’s hand. “Thank you.”

“Would you take me to her?”

“Come on. Her room is just down the hall.”

When they entered Missy’s room, they found her awake and restless, her slender young body curled into a trembling fetal ball.

“I thought you’d left and weren’t coming back.” Missy held out her hand to Cathy, who rushed forward and took the girl’s unsteady hand.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Cathy said.

“I don’t want to see anyone.” Missy looked at her visitor and turned away. “No, please, no.”

“What happened to you was not your fault,” Ruth Ann said in a soft voice as she approached Missy’s bed. “You’re not to blame. Do you hear me?”

“I am. He told me I wanted him to do what he did. He told me that I tempted him.”

Ruth Ann and Cathy exchanged glances, both of them consumed with sympathy for the abused child. And that’s what Missy was, just a girl of seventeen, close to the same age as their own children.

Missy cried quietly, her entire body shaking with the force of her almost-silent sobs.

Ruth Ann paused beside the bed. “What your father did to you was not your fault. He was sick, and what he did to you was wrong. Believe me, I understand how you feel.”

“How could you possibly understand?” Missy asked, her voice quavering with emotion.

Ruth Ann laid her hand gently on Missy’s back. “Because when I was a young girl, my father raped me repeatedly, from the time I was ten years old until the night he died.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Both Cathy and Ruth Ann accompanied Missy Hovater when she was taken to the sheriff’s office for questioning on Monday following Donnie Hovater’s death late Saturday night. The authorities had been unable to find a close relative. It seemed that Donnie Hovater had been an only child and his parents were deceased. Missy’s mother had been raised in a series of foster homes and had never known either of her parents. For all intents and purposes, Missy Hovater was alone in the world. ABI agent and head of the Fire and Brimstone Killer task force Wayne Morgan looked as if he’d rather eat glass than have to interrogate a young girl who had been brutalized by her father’s sick cruelty.

Camden Hendrix had shown up at the hospital yesterday afternoon, but Missy had been completely uncooperative. The only people she would talk to were Cathy and Ruth Ann, so they had acted as go-betweens for Missy’s lawyer. Cathy didn’t know what she had expected Cam Hendrix to look like, but certainly not the big, ruggedly handsome guy whose winning personality instantly put her at ease. Elliott Floyd had sung the man’s praises, filling her in on his reputation as one of the South’s premiere attorneys.

“He came from nothing. Literally. And now he’s filthy rich and famous, or at the very least notorious.” Elliott had chuckled. “He’s one of the most sought-after trial lawyers in the country, and his firm has even branched out into international law. He’s an advisor to Griffin Powell. I assume you’ve heard of him.”

Yes, she’d heard of the Griffin Powell, the mysterious former University of Tennessee quarterback who had disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after college graduation. The man had shown up ten years later, a billionaire philanthropist who established the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency, some said, as a front for his illegal businesses. But that was only one of many rumors about the wealthy mystery man.

Cathy also knew that Jack’s sister, Maleah, worked for the Powell Agency and that she had used her contacts in the agency to persuade former FBI profiler Derek Lawrence to help the Fire and Brimstone Killer task force. Free of charge.

They entered Mike Birkett’s office, she and Ruth Ann flanking Missy. The girl’s face went chalk white as soon as she saw Agent Morgan.

“Come on in, Missy.” Cam Hendrix stepped forward and pulled out a chair for his client. “Have a seat right here.” He glanced at Cathy and Ruth Ann. “Y’all sit on either side of her. I’ll stand.”

Jack, Mike, Derek Lawrence and two people Cathy had never seen before crowded into the small office, but all of them stood along the back wall, doing their best not to bring attention to themselves. Thankfully, Missy seemed oblivious to their presence.

“Miss Hovater, I intend to do this as quickly as possible,” Agent Morgan said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you about Saturday night and what you know about your father’s death.”

“About his murder,” Missy said.

“Yes, about his murder,” Morgan agreed. “Can you tell me exactly what happened that night? And please take your time.”

“Where do I start?” Missy placed her hands on the table, one hand folded over the other.

“Start wherever you’d like.”

She swallowed hard. “He came to my room, the way he always did. And he-we had sex.”

“Are you saying that your father raped you, that he forced you to have sex with him?” Cam Hendrix injected the question into the cross-examination process.

“Yes,” Missy replied.

“And this wasn’t the first time, was it?” Cam asked.

“No, my father had been raping me since I was twelve.”

“Miss Hovater, after your father left your room, what happened then?” Agent Morgan asked.

“Nothing. I just lay there for a long time.”

“Did you know when your father went outside?”

“I heard the doorbell ring.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t look at the clock.”

“When you heard the doorbell ring, what did you do?” Agent Morgan pulled out a chair and sat across from Missy. “Did you leave your room? Did you…?”

“No, not at first.” Missy eased her hands up and off the table. “But then I heard someone screaming.” She brought her clasped hands close to her body and held them over her midsection, just below her breasts. “I got out of bed and listened. I called for my father, but he didn’t answer.”

“What did you do then?”

“I put on my gown.”

“You changed out of your…?”

“I was still naked.”

Looking downright uncomfortable, Agent Morgan continued, “After you put on your gown, what did you do then?”

“I followed the sound of the screams and realized they were coming from outside. I went out onto the porch, and that’s when I saw him.”

“Saw who?”

“My father. He was on fire,” Missy said, her voice eerily calm. “I stood there and watched while he burned.”

“You didn’t cry out for help? You didn’t rush back into the house to call 911?”

“Isn’t it obvious that Missy was in shock?” Cam Hendrix said. “She could hardly have been expected to act in a rational manner.”