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Once inside, she kicked off her shoes and groaned at her own kitchen. It had nothing on Clark Powell’s kitchen, but even so. After all her cleaning, the last thing she wanted to do was her own chores, but Mother said godliness was next to cleanliness. ’Course Ruby had no idea if that was true. She didn’t read the Good Book as often as she ought to, but she did attend church and prayed daily.
“Mama, can I go play?”
“Yeah, baby. For a minute. It’ll be too dark before long. Don’t get too close to the crick, now, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lula bolted out the back door and into the backyard, where Ruby had made her a sandbox. She watched from the kitchen window. Innocent, sweet Lula.
She went to work on the stack of dishes in the sink, peeping through the window to keep an eye on her. Once the last dish was in the drainer, she yawned and stretched her back. Padding to her room, she pulled the day’s cash from her purse, and with nerves humming skimmed a hundred-dollar bill from the top and shoved it under her mattress then put the rest in an envelope and sealed it.
“Mama!” Lula hollered, and Ruby jumped as if she’d been caught with her hand in the till. Heart racing, she pasted a smile on her face.
“Baby, don’t be scaring me like that.” She noticed Lula had something. “What’s that?”
“Him left it for me! Isn’t she sweet?” Lula handed Ruby the rag doll. Made of white cloth and button eyes. Hand-stitched red lips. Black hair made from yarn. She wore a silky floral dress. Ruby rubbed the material. Was that made of... A lump formed in her throat.
“Who is ‘him,’ baby?” she asked and turned the doll over, examining the other side.
“Him. I call him Him. Him leaves me stuff by the crick sometimes.”
Ruby’s blood chilled, and her hand touched the hollow in her throat. “Do you talk to Him?”
Lula shook her head. “No. But I seent Him. He waved to me from the trees. I can keep her, can’t I?”
Ruby rushed through the house and opened the back door, scanning the woods. She couldn’t see Him, but gooseflesh broke out on her skin and her pulse sounded like cotton swooshing in her ears.
She felt unseen eyes gazing in her direction, watching. Lurking. Prowling. Planning.
She swallowed hard, trying to shove down the feeling she’d experienced three separate times in the past two weeks. Eyes prying.
Inching backward into the house, she closed and locked the door. Lula sat at the kitchen table with a ponytail holder and juice box.
Lula would have no idea when the mystery man had left her the items. No point asking. Except... “Baby, remember the day Mommy couldn’t find her silkies and asked if you’d taken them?” Lula loved anything satiny or silky soft. Slips. Undergarments. She had no boundaries.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did he leave you stuff that day?”
“Yes, ma’am. Mama, I didn’t take your silkies.”
“No...no, I know you didn’t,” she murmured. “Can I see what he left for you?”
Nodding, Lula scrambled into her little bedroom and returned with a tube of watermelon lip gloss, a silver compact and a half-eaten bag of Skittles.
Ruby’s head buzzed and the room shifted.
Atta wore watermelon lip gloss, and she always had a family-size bag of Skittles in her car, even in summer. Those two things might be coincidences, but the compact was not.
Ruby had given Atta the compact as a birthday present last year.
Adrenaline raced through her veins, and she clutched the doll tighter. “You can never take any more trinkets from Him. Do you understand?” The need to escape, to flee, overwhelmed her. Mother. Mother would know what to do.
“But why?”
“Because Him is a bad man.” Whoever Him was, he had taken things from Atta. Maybe even her life. Why was Him giving her daughter gifts?
And why had Him fashioned the doll’s dress out of Ruby’s undergarments?
John hated the coroner’s office. From when he worked homicide to when he had to fly here and identify Callie. Same sterile, cold air. Stainless steel slabs and tools. He’d never been comfortable in these places.
