“We’ll cover it.”
“Then it’s okay, I guess. You just talk to that funeral home, tell them we want our money back if the kid we buried wasn’t ours.” She stared off into the gloom of the living room, and her tone softened. “I know it ain’t Christian of me to say I didn’t like the child. God help me, but there it is. She was wrong in the head, and a liar, and I’m surprised she didn’t burn down the house around our ears one night just to pay us back for disciplining her.”
Her eyes cleared for a moment and she stopped weaving on the couch. “I know you think I’m just an old drunk, and maybe I am. Maybe I just don’t care anymore what people think about me. But I’m telling you the God-to-honest truth. That girl was crooked as a snake, warped inside, even as a youngster. Despite that, her daddy loved her to pieces, and I mourned her loss once. I don’t care to repeat the process. I think you should go.”
Baldwin stood, and Sam followed. “We’ll leave in a moment, ma’am. I’m afraid I will need to speak with Mr. Rousch first.”
“Told you, he’s asleep. He’ll kill me if I let you wake him up.”
“Since you say he loved his daughter, I think he’ll want to hear about this,” Sam said.
Mrs. Rousch stumbled to her feet, swaying alarmingly. “You can’t go back there, I said. Now leave!”
Baldwin ignored her and strode down the hall to the bedroom. Sam blocked Mrs. Rousch from following. The woman was drunk but stronger than she looked, and Sam had to force her back onto the couch.
Baldwin returned a moment later, his face pinched. He gestured for Sam to follow him, went out onto the front steps and pulled out his cell phone.
“Where are you going?” Mrs. Rousch yelled. They ignored her.
“What is it?” Sam asked.
“Mr. Rousch is dead. Has been for a while. I don’t know if she’s just addled in the brain from all the alcohol and actually believes he’s sleeping, or if she’s been covering it up.”
“How long has he been dead?”
“A year, maybe more. He’s pretty well mummified. You want to take a look?”
She sighed. No, she didn’t, but this was her job, her world. This wasn’t her first mummy. It happened more than people thought, a loved one passing away without any fanfare, or even a decent burial, because no one knew exactly what to do. Or they were planning to game the system, collect unemployment benefits or Social Security checks.
She went back inside, ignored a now sobbing, slurring Mrs. Rousch and walked down the hall to the master bedroom.
Clive Rousch was tucked up into the bed, the covers drawn back a bit from where Baldwin had checked on him, the desiccated skin of his face now exposed. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, as if he’d gone to sleep and had never woken up. Not gruesome, not horrible, but sad, so sad.
She snapped on a pair of purple nitrile gloves—old habits die hard; she always had a few pairs tucked into her purse—and did a quick external examination. The skin around his legs and arms flaked onto the sheets as she touched him. His right arm was drawn up, the wrist curled in on itself, an involuntary contracture of the muscles. Left-sided stroke, then. He would have suffered aphasia, language apraxia, paralysis. Baldwin was right. He’d been dead at least a year.
Helpless, paralyzed, unable to communicate, left to die in his bed.
Who was the real liar in this house?
Her heart tripped, and the edges of her vision began to darken.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four.
Pulling off the gloves, she stalked out onto the ramshackle porch, desperate for air. The night was warm and damp. She pulled in three breaths quickly, realized the symptoms of panic had passed as quickly as they’d started.
Baldwin spoke quickly into the phone and Sam stared back inside, swore she could hear Mrs. Rousch crying. She was torn between wanting to leave, to clear out immediately, and going back in to soothe the crazy old woman.
Poor Kaylie. Six years old and on the receiving end of so much hate and mistrust. Sam had wondered why, if she were alive, Kaylie wouldn’t have let her parents know. Now she understood, understood completely. She hadn’t been wanted, anyway.
It broke Sam’s heart to think of that lost little girl being taken from one hell and placed in another.
They had to find Kaylie, and find Rachel Stevens, now.
Xander slid out of the darkness behind the house, came to her side.
“There’s something back here you’re going to want to see.”
Chapter
36
THEY HEARD THE benevolent wail of a siren in the distance, and Sam knew the authorities were on their way to take Mr. Rousch to the morgue, and hopefully, take Mrs. Rousch to the hospital. Get her dried out, see if there was permanent brain damage from the years of alcohol abuse or if the old witch was just twisted naturally.
She was still in shock—how could a mother, even a stepmother, be so hateful toward a little girl?