“They’re here.” Felicity jumped away from the window and let the curtain fall back into place. “What do we say? What do we do?”

“Don’t do anything other than say hello,” John Earl advised. “She’ll probably want to go to her room, and she may not want to interact with any of us, other than your mother, for a while.”

“I think bringing that girl into our home is a mistake,” Faye Long said.

“Grandmother, how unchristian of you.” Felicity glowered at Faye.

“I think it’s awful what Missy’s father did to her,” Charity said. “I don’t blame her if she did kill him.”

“We’ll have no more talk like that,” John Earl told his elder daughter.

“Did she ever tell you what was going on?” Felicity skewered her sister with her sharp glare. “You two are friends, and friends tell each other secrets. If Missy really is the Fire and Brimstone Killer, maybe she’ll confess to you.”

“Oh, shut up!” Charity shook her head in disgust. “Don’t you dare say stuff like that to Missy.” She looked to her father. “Daddy, warn Felicity that she’d better behave herself.”

Before John Earl could caution his younger daughter, she answered her sister. “I’ll behave. I like Missy. But I have to admit that I don’t know why Mother was willing to give up her craft room to make Missy a room of her own when I’ve been having to share a room with you all my life.”

Charity glared at Felicity, who promptly stuck her tongue out at her sister.

The back door opened, and Ruth Ann called, “We’re home.”

John Earl took a deep breath, gave both of his daughters a quick be-on-your-best-behavior glance and prepared himself for the first day of their new life.

Ruth Ann led Missy into the family room, her arm around the girl’s slender shoulders. Everyone waited, barely breathing, all of them wanting to put Missy at ease.

“Welcome to our home,” John Earl said. Then quickly added, “Welcome to your new home.”

With a wide, deer-in-the-headlights look in her eyes, Missy glanced quickly from John Earl to Faye, who forced a smile and nodded, to Felicity and finally to Charity.

“Hi, Missy.” Felicity lifted her hand and waved.

“We’re glad you’re going to be staying with us,” Charity said.

“Missy’s had a rather tiring morning,” Ruth Ann told them. “I think she’d like to go to her room and rest for a while before lunch.”

“Certainly, certainly.” John Earl recognized that desperately lost and frightened expression on Missy’s face. He remembered only too well that same look on Ruth Ann’s face shortly after her father died in the fire that had destroyed her home.

As soon as Ruth Ann escorted Missy through the family room and into the hall that led to her former craft room at the back of the house, everyone else released the anxious breaths they’d been holding.

“Boy, she looks like a zombie,” Felicity said.

“If you’d gone through what she has, you’d look pretty rough yourself,” Charity told her.

“Girls, keep your voices down,” John Earl told them. “Sound carries down the hall, and you do not want Missy to hear you talking about her.”

Felicity shrugged. “If show time is over, I’m going outside to sit in the gazebo and listen to my iPod.”

“Lunch will be ready in about an hour,” Faye reminded them. “Sitting down to our first meal with that pitiful child will be an ordeal for all of us. I still say it was a mistake for Ruth Ann to-”

“Mother!” Ruth Ann stood in the doorway, a hostile scowl on her face. “I’m ashamed of you.” Her gaze scanned the others in the room, going from one to another and then settling back on her mother. “Missy prefers to have lunch in her room. I’ll fix her a tray after we’ve eaten.” She fanned her hands in a shooing manner. “Go on about your normal routines. Keeping things as normal as possible will be good for Missy, and it will certainly make the transition easier on all of us.”

John Earl went over and kissed his wife on the cheek. “Erin has been handling things at the office, but I should head on down there soon. I think I’ll skip lunch. I had a big breakfast this morning.”

“You go ahead, dear,” she told him. “And take Erin some of those oatmeal raisin cookies I made last night. I know she likes them.”

“I’ll bag up a few on my way out the door.”

John Earl was using a busy schedule as an excuse to leave, but he knew that Ruth Ann was better equipped than he was to help their daughters and her mother adjust to the new situation. After all, they were all women, and women understood one another in ways men never could.

Punishing Donnie Hovater for his many sins had given her great satisfaction. Of all those whom God had chosen for her to destroy, none was as worthy of the Lord’s fiery wrath than the man who had repeatedly raped his own daughter. She knew now that, without any doubt, he had been evil personified.

She knew evil. She was a product of evil, and yet, through God’s gracious and forgiving love, she was blameless. God’s Son had atoned for her sins when He died on the Cross, and even those such as she, born from sin, born in sin, were washed clean and would be allowed into the eternal sanctuary of heaven. She would sit at the right hand of God. She would be blessed among the saved, for she had done the Lord’s bidding while here on earth.

“What, Lord? Yes, I hear You. I know my work is not done. There are others who must be punished. I believe I know the name of the man You have chosen for Your angel of death to visit next.”

She closed her Bible and placed her hand atop it where it rested in her lap. Breathing in the fresh, sweet outdoor air surrounding her, she recalled the genuine pleasure she had known as she had watched Donnie Hovater writhe in agony and scream for mercy. He had burned quickly, his cries for help going unheeded. Had he, in those final moments of his life, repented of his sins, or had he gone to the hereafter an unrepentant soul?

Did it truly matter? She believed that there was no atonement for men such as he. His evil had been too great, the damage he had inflicted unforgivable.

“Yes, Lord,” she whispered, a feeling of power encompassing her as she allowed her Savior to send the Holy Ghost into her heart and mind and body, to fill her with the strength of His righteousness.

Quietly, reverently, she recited the words from the first book of Revelations, the words God had placed on her lips. “ And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.’”

She closed her eyes, smiled, and continued talking to God, plotting the demise of another blasphemous false prophet.

Chapter Twenty-nine

During the weeks since Donnie Hovater’s murder, life had returned to normal for almost everyone in Dunmore, even for Cathy to some extent. But the normalcy was shadowed by doubts and fears and the ever-present certainty that it was only a matter of time before the Fire and Brimstone Killer struck again. Personally, Cathy felt a little guilty for being so happy. Jack spent every weeknight with her, and Seth spent weekends. And last Saturday, the three of them had shared the entire day together. Jack had borrowed Mike’s boat, and they’d gone to the river. She had been amazed at how well her two guys had gotten along. But why shouldn’t they, when they were so much alike?

But there was a problem with the way her son seemed to be bonding with Jack-how long before Jack figured out that Seth was his son? Lorie kept telling her that she needed to tell them both the truth sooner rather than later.

“I need more time,” she’d told her best friend. “I need to be sure about Jack, about our relationship.”

“Don’t put it off until it’s too late,” Lorie had said. “You don’t want either of them finding out some other way.”