The Whispering Room

Twenty-Nine

Evangeline was already on the phone by the time she reached her car. She called Nash first, then Mitchell, then Vaughn. By the time she hit Highway 90, she was on the phone with Sheriff Thibodaux in Torrence.

“I sent a deputy out there earlier to have a look around,” he said. “Everything was all clear. I’m just about to leave on a little trip, but I’ll swing by there before I take off. I see anything suspicious, I’ll give you call.”

Evangeline pressed the accelerator to the floor, but she was still a good forty-five minutes away. And the clock was ticking.

She had no idea what she would find at the Lemay house once she got there. Rebecca? Ruth?

Her sisters.

Her own flesh and blood.

And one of them wanted to kill her son.

It hit Evangeline then just how far she was willing to go to protect J.D. from their madness. One sister was innocent, the other guilty, but in order to save her son, she would kill them both if she had to.

Cell phone clutched in her hand, she sailed along sugarcane fields and through tunnels of willow trees with the sun at her back. Every now and then when the road curved, she could see sunlight dancing on the bayou and the graceful prance of herons through the swamp grass. It was a paradise of water lilies, buttercups and wild roses. Of gilded wings and rippling water. And into this paradise, evil came with blond hair and blue eyes.

What would she do if J.D. wasn’t at the house?

He could be anywhere. The swamp offered a million places to hide. She wouldn’t have a clue where to start looking.

But Nash would. This is what the FBI did best, he’d told her.

She wanted desperately to believe that, but with each passing moment…

Don’t. Don’t!

Her son would be fine. She would find him in time, and by nightfall he would be safely back in his own bed. Evangeline would stand guard over him night and day if she had to. She would never again let him out of her sight. He was so tiny and innocent….

She blinked away hot tears as her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. She would find him. She would.

The phone rang and she pressed it to her ear. “Yes.”

“This is Nash. Listen, I’ve got some news for you.”

Her heart bolted to her throat. “J.D.?”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. This is about Rebecca Lemay’s accomplice. We got a match on the prints you lifted from your car. They belong to a former psychiatric patient named Ellis Cooper. This guy sounds like a real nutcase. You be careful down there.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve already notified the sheriff in Torrence. He’ll provide backup if I need it.”

“Evangeline?”

“Yeah?”

“Hang in there. We’re going to find him.”

Her eyes burned with tears, but she had no time for emotion. No time for a breakdown. She had to find J.D. Nothing else mattered.

“I can’t lose him,” she whispered.

“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“I know, but he’s so little. So helpless…” She trailed off. “He’s all I’ve got.”

And at that moment, the revelation of how much she loved her son humbled and staggered her. And shamed her because she hadn’t realized it before.

She loved that little boy more than her own life. She would do anything to protect him. Anything. “We’ll find him,” Nash said again, and Evangeline tried to take comfort in the steadiness of his tone.

By the time she drove into Torrence, terror was a cold vise around her heart.

She parked in front of the police station and bolted inside.

The officer behind the front desk was on the phone, but he hung up the minute he saw Evangeline. “Detective Theroux?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve been expecting you. The sheriff called a little while ago on his way out of town. He said to tell you the place is all clear. He didn’t see hide nor hair of anyone out there.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Half an hour maybe. He also said to tell you he thinks you’re on a wild-goose chase.”

The last was shouted at Evangeline’s back as she raced back through the door.

Twenty minutes later, she turned off the main highway onto the gravel road. The shade of the forest seemed deep and oppressive, the whisper of wind through the leaves the worst kind of omen. But when she finally pulled into the clearing, the sight of the sheriff’s car filled her with hope. Maybe he’d come back for a second look.

Evangeline parked beside the squad car and got out. Checking her weapon, she clutched the grip in both hands as she slowly climbed the stairs. Opening the screen door with her foot, she quickly stepped inside and swept the air with her gun.

The house was quiet.

Too quiet.

She should be able to hear the creak and moan of the wooden floors as the sheriff moved through the house, but she heard no sound at all. Nothing but the drone of mosquitoes that swarmed through the broken windows and sagging screen door.

Evangeline swatted one from her eyelashes as she eased through the house. “Sheriff Thibodaux? You in here? It’s Detective Theroux.”

She hated to give away her position, but she also didn’t want a startled lawman shooting her. Retracing her steps into the front hall, she started up the stairs.

“Sheriff? I’m coming up.”

At the top of the stairs, she heard something in the front bedroom, and as she pushed open the door, a scream rose to her throat.

The sheriff lay on his back on the floor, his eyes open and staring. Yellow fluid oozed from a wound on his neck and another on his arm where the skin had split from the rapid swelling.

As Evangeline stepped into the room, she saw something slither across the floor and disappear into the shadows. She froze, her heart pounding fiercely, and then she took another careful step inside.

Kneeling beside Thibodaux, she felt his wrist. She couldn’t find a pulse, and she feared he’d gone into cardiac arrest.

A floorboard creaked out in the hallway, and she jumped to her feet. She edged back to the door, glanced out, and then realized too late that the danger was already in the room behind her.

She saw a movement out of the corner of eye. Before she could whirl, something slammed into the side of her head, and she dropped to her knees, then pitched face-first to the floor.