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“Okay.” Jimmy had been gone so long, his voice in her ear startled her. “I called Mary Ellen’s phone and got voice mail. Called her husband, and he’s in Baton Rouge with the kids. He’ll be back in a couple hours. Said she told him she didn’t have any plans tonight. She intended to pick out clothes for tomorrow night’s visitation and would be waiting up for him when he gets home.”
“So maybe she ran out of milk. Maybe she went shopping for a new outfit.”
Would either have required Landry to take off work to accompany her? Alia could see him agreeing; after all, Mary Ellen was the last of his family. But she couldn’t imagine Mary Ellen asking. In the most trying week of her life, she’d made so few requests of him.
Alia slowed to a stop when chairs blocked her way and found herself facing the doll again. Whichever niece owned it must have intended to take it to their grandparents’ house, then forgotten it. With her free hand, Alia picked it up, and a soft-cover book that had been leaning against it flopped onto the seat. Propping the doll in the crook of her arm, she picked up the book with the perfect curls and sky-blue eyes on the cover and opened it. On the left page was written in painstaking lettering: “This book belongs to Faith Davison.” On the right, the story began:
My name is Marie Clarice, and I’m ten years old.
Alia sank into the chair. I’m ten years old.
Mary Ellen was ten when the abuse began.
Her voice hollow, her hold on the doll so tight Marie Clarice would have protested if she could, Alia asked, “You have your notes there, Jimmy?”
“Yeah. I told you I’d be working late.”
“How old is Faith Davison?”
“Hang on a minute... Uh, she’s nine. Gonna be ten in...two weeks.” His voice turned sharp. “Didn’t Landry say they started molesting the girls when they turned ten?”
“We were wondering why now. After all these years, why punish Jeremiah and the others now. Because Faith was about to turn ten. Because he had a brand-new victim to torment. She couldn’t stand the idea of her daughter going through what she did. She had to stop it.”
“She— You mean Mary Ellen? You think she’s the killer?” He sounded both incredulous and thoughtful. “I can see that. Her mother didn’t protect her. That’s why she killed her first. Then her dad, then the old lady. Once the immediate family was dead, then she could take care of the others.”
“But why not—” Alia had to gulp in air to finish the question. “Why not kill Landry when she killed their parents? Why go on to the friends, then come back to him?”
“Because she truly loves him. Maybe she thought she could spare him. Maybe she didn’t blame him because he was just a kid, too. Then he went and told their secret to you. The police were involved, it was going to become public, she would become a suspect.”
People would know what she had done. Probably more important to Mary Ellen, Alia thought, they would know what had been done to her. Did she think if she killed Landry, the problem would go away? The police would forget his claims? The ugliness would sink back into the past and stay there?
Dear God, she couldn’t kill Landry. He was her brother. She loved him. Alia loved him, and he’d done nothing wrong. What safety Mary Ellen had found as a teenager had been thanks to him!
And Miss Viola. And if they were right—which Alia’s gut said they were—Mary Ellen had killed Miss Viola.
“Where would she take him?” Jimmy asked.
Too many people around his apartment. Too much mess to use her own home. Too damn big a city to narrow down the choices. Then, suddenly, the answer was there. “Where it all started.”
Jimmy swore as the sound of a scraping chair came over the line. “I’ll meet you at the admiral’s house. Don’t you go inside without me, Alia. You understand? You wait until—”
She ended the call. Still clutching the doll and book, she started toward the steps. By the time she reached them, she was running.
* * *
Landry had always given himself credit for being a good judge of character. Between his adolescence and years working behind the bar, he’d thought he had a pretty good handle on people. He’d thought the one person he knew best in the entire world was his sister.
He’d been so damn wrong.
He shifted, the thick layers of duct tape keeping him from moving more than an inch or two in any direction. His shoulders ached from being pulled back so sharply, and his head hurt from the contact with a small marble statue that had stood next to his mother’s jewelry case for as long as he could remember. Blood trickled down the back of his neck, a tickle that would have been annoying under any other circumstances.
