some things you said a few years ago, and…well, she told me that you’d taken a special interest in the Whitmore girl’s rape case.”
“And here I thought I hid my feelings so well that no one would ever suspect anything.”
“Look, Ruth Ann, whatever did or didn’t happen to you is none of my business. I neither want nor need to know. The only reason I called you is because I hoped you could help Missy.”
“A long time ago, someone helped me,” Ruth Ann said. “I guess it’s past time for me to do the same. I’ll talk to Missy and do whatever I can to help her.”
Cathy grasped Ruth Ann’s hand. “Thank you.”
“Would you take me to her?”
“Come on. Her room is just down the hall.”
When they entered Missy’s room, they found her awake and restless, her slender young body curled into a trembling fetal ball.
“I thought you’d left and weren’t coming back.” Missy held out her hand to Cathy, who rushed forward and took the girl’s unsteady hand.
“There’s someone here to see you,” Cathy said.
“I don’t want to see anyone.” Missy looked at her visitor and turned away. “No, please, no.”
“What happened to you was not your fault,” Ruth Ann said in a soft voice as she approached Missy’s bed. “You’re not to blame. Do you hear me?”
“I am. He told me I wanted him to do what he did. He told me that I tempted him.”
Ruth Ann and Cathy exchanged glances, both of them consumed with sympathy for the abused child. And that’s what Missy was, just a girl of seventeen, close to the same age as their own children.
Missy cried quietly, her entire body shaking with the force of her almost-silent sobs.
Ruth Ann paused beside the bed. “What your father did to you was not your fault. He was sick, and what he did to you was wrong. Believe me, I understand how you feel.”
“How could you possibly understand?” Missy asked, her voice quavering with emotion.
Ruth Ann laid her hand gently on Missy’s back. “Because when I was a young girl, my father raped me repeatedly, from the time I was ten years old until the night he died.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Both Cathy and Ruth Ann accompanied Missy Hovater when she was taken to the sheriff’s office for questioning on Monday following Donnie Hovater’s death late Saturday night. The authorities had been unable to find a close relative. It seemed that Donnie Hovater had been an only child and his parents were deceased. Missy’s mother had been raised in a series of foster homes and had never known either of her parents. For all intents and purposes, Missy Hovater was alone in the world. ABI agent and head of the Fire and Brimstone Killer task force Wayne Morgan looked as if he’d rather eat glass than have to interrogate a young girl who had been brutalized by her father’s sick cruelty.
Camden Hendrix had shown up at the hospital yesterday afternoon, but Missy had been completely uncooperative. The only people she would talk to were Cathy and Ruth Ann, so they had acted as go-betweens for Missy’s lawyer. Cathy didn’t know what she had expected Cam Hendrix to look like, but certainly not the big, ruggedly handsome guy whose winning personality instantly put her at ease. Elliott Floyd had sung the man’s praises, filling her in on his reputation as one of the South’s premiere attorneys.
“He came from nothing. Literally. And now he’s filthy rich and famous, or at the very least notorious.” Elliott had chuckled. “He’s one of the most sought-after trial lawyers in the country, and his firm has even branched out into international law. He’s an advisor to Griffin Powell. I assume you’ve heard of him.”
Yes, she’d heard of the Griffin Powell, the mysterious former University of Tennessee quarterback who had disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after college graduation. The man had shown up ten years later, a billionaire philanthropist who established the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency, some said, as a front for his illegal businesses. But that was only one of many rumors about the wealthy mystery man.
Cathy also knew that Jack’s sister, Maleah, worked for the Powell Agency and that she had used her contacts in the agency to persuade former FBI profiler Derek Lawrence to help the Fire and Brimstone Killer task force. Free of charge.
They entered Mike Birkett’s office, she and Ruth Ann flanking Missy. The girl’s face went chalk white as soon as she saw Agent Morgan.
“Come