“Stay here.”
“If I promise not to get in the way…?”
“As it is, Mike is going to chew my ass out for bringing you with me.” When she looked at him pleadingly, tears in her eyes, he heaved a heavy sigh. “Just keep your distance and don’t say or do anything. Understand?”
“Yes.” She got out and followed him.
At the edge of the driveway, he paused when he saw Mike, who from the looks of him had also come straight out of his bed. It was only then that Cathy checked the time. She glanced down at her wristwatch and noted that it was 1:48.
Mike threw up his hand and motioned to Jack. Then, when he saw Cathy, he frowned. While Jack walked toward his boss, she stayed at the end of the driveway but scanned the yard and the front of the house. Suddenly her heart leapt into her throat. Missy Hovater sat on the porch steps, her eyes glazed over as if she were in shock. A slender redheaded paramedic stood over her, talking to her. Cathy eased back out into the street and went around several vehicles, doing her best not to get in the way as she circled around and entered the yard from the other side. Everything maternal within her wanted to reach out to Missy, but what could she possibly do that the medic couldn’t?
She managed to get close enough to hear what the young man was saying to Missy and yet was still far enough away not to be intrusive.
“Miss Hovater, please let us help you. You’re in shock, and unless—”
“Don’t touch me,” Missy cried. “I’m contaminated!”
“Please, miss, just let me put this blanket around your shoulders to keep you warm.” He held the blanket out to show her.
“Get away from me!”
Another medic, a little older, approached and pulled the young man aside. “We’ll have to sedate her and take her to the hospital. Trying to talk to her isn’t working.”
“Wait!” Cathy called out to them before she realized what she was doing.
Both men turned to her. “Who are you?” the older guy asked.
“I’m Cathy Cantrell. I’m a friend of the family. Missy knows me. Please let me talk to her.”
The two men exchanged concerned glances. Then the older medic said, “Go ahead, ma’am. See what you can do.”
Cathy took the blanket from the young medic, walked over to Missy and sat down beside her. “Missy, may I put this blanket around your shoulders?”
Missy looked at her, a blank expression in her eyes. She nodded. “All right, Mrs. Cantrell.”
Cathy draped the lightweight blanket around the girl, then curved her arm over her shoulders and held her. “You’re not alone, Missy. I’m here. I’ll help you get through this.”
Missy turned and looked directly at Cathy. “He’s dead.”
Cathy took a deep breath and glanced at the older medic, who nodded his head. “Yes, darling, he’s dead.” She gently stroked Missy’s back, massaging her soothingly.
“I’m glad he’s dead.” Missy trembled uncontrollably. “I’ve thought about killing him so many times, but I just couldn’t work up the courage to do it.”
Cathy’s breath tightened in her throat. My God! Had Missy just confessed to killing her father?
Chapter Twenty-seven
Cathy rode in the ambulance with Missy, holding her hand all the way to the hospital. Dunmore General was a county facility with an excellent emergency room and a small psychiatric unit. From her home to the hospital, Missy clung to Cathy’s hand as if it were a lifeline. She kept talking, often incoherently, about her father. Some of her ramblings made sense, some didn’t. But from what Cathy could make out, Donnie Hovater had not been the man everyone believed him to be. His daughter’s accusations painted a very ugly picture of the minister.
“I begged him not to,” Missy kept saying over and over again. “He wouldn’t stop. I hated it. I hated him. I’m glad he’s dead.”
“Hush, sweetie, hush.” Cathy had known that with every word she spoke, Missy cast suspicion on herself, not just as her father’s murderer but as the Fire and Brimstone Killer. She didn’t believe this battered little girl was capable of such brutality, but when pushed beyond the limits of endurance, everyone was capable of just about anything.
The doctor admitted Missy to the psychiatric unit of Dunmore General after an initial examination and a brief questioning by Mike and Jack. But when the nurse started to wheel Missy away, she screamed for Cathy not to leave her. With the attending physician’s permission, Cathy was allowed to