Then motion at the door on the fourth floor caught my attention. Ms. Netty stood in the open doorway, flames already catching her clothes and hair. Before I could do more than cry out, she spread her arms and fell forward—just as Alice had done so many decades before.
I turned the kids into me, shielding them from the end of Netty’s suffering.
“Ma’am!” someone called, pulling gently at my arm, helping me to my feet. “Ma’am, you need to come with me.”
As the firefighter dragged me away, I stared at the conflagration consuming Dawes House, the carriage house. They were already collapsing in upon themselves as the structures weakened and gave way. I craned my neck around the fire equipment, straining to see what was happening, hoping that at any moment, Whit would emerge unscathed, that he would pull us into his arms and tell us it was over, that everything would be fine now. Even as Henry and Addie and I were loaded into the ambulances and treated for shock and smoke inhalation, Isearched for him, insisting that they keep the ambulance door open for just a few more minutes.
But he never came.
“We need to take you to the hospital now, ma’am,” one of the paramedics said gently.
As we drove away, I stared out the back window, tears streaming silently down my cheeks, watching the flames dance like a million little rejoicing devils, and mourned the dreams that died along with the family I’d always wanted, thought I finally had.
As we turned the corner, I closed my eyes and focused on the tug at the center of my chest, praying it was real and not a manifestation of hope that refused to die.
Chapter twenty-six
Isat on a chair in the hospital room where Henry and Addie slept, the sedatives the doctors had given them allowing them at least a little relief from the horrors of their new reality.
I pulled the blanket wrapped around my shoulders a little tighter and stared at Henry’s face, wondering how I’d never noticed the resemblance to Whit before. Tears stung my eyes, blurring my vision, and I blinked them away, not wanting the children to see me crying if they should wake up.
A quiet creak of the door opening brought my head around. For one joyful heartbeat, I expected to see Whit standing there, but it was the doctor, wearing that “poor Zellie” look I’d hoped to never see again.
“Have you heard from my husband?” I asked. But I knew the answer before she shook her head.
“I’m so sorry,” she told me. “But I do have some good news for you. All your tests came back okay. The baby is fine despite the puncture wound to your abdomen and the cracked rib. You were very lucky.”
I forced a grateful smile, not betraying the fact that the wounds she’d spoken of were already mostly healed. “Thank you.”
She took a deep breath, clearly stalling the delivery of something else she needed to say, before announcing, “The police have arrived. They want to speak with you about what happened. And, when you’re ready, they will need you to identify the bodies.”
I glanced at Henry and Addie. “I can do that now while they’re sleeping,” I told her. “I want to be here when they’re awake.”
An hour later, I’d given my statement to the police, explaining the blood all over my clothes, my arms, my face, were the result of escaping from the murderous cult that had been living at Dawes House. Given the body they’d found in the basement wall, the story wasn’t even questioned. The fire? An accident that started in the struggle. They seemed to accept the facts much easier than I’d anticipated.
Then I was led to the basement of the hospital, to the morgue where several bodies lay covered by sheets. The first they revealed was Netty. But the others, burned almost beyond recognition, were harder to identify. The women were all there—Iris, June, Pearlie, Merilee. I was able to determine which was which based on what I could make out about their height, a wedding band, a strand of hair that was somehow untouched. My dagger was no longer lodged in Chase’s skull, but the hole in the top of his head made his identification easy. Billy Wayne with his broken neck. I held my breath as the attendant peeled back the next sheet and let it out on a harsh sigh of relief.
“That’s Junior Johnson,” I told the attendant who was taking notes, then turned to the final three bodies.
Three.
I wrapped my arms around myself as they pulled back the sheet on the next slab. “Earl Forester.”
“We have a Carter Dean listed as a resident,” the attendant said, checking his notes.
I turned with dread toward the final two bodies. “You won’t find him,” I announced, my voice flat. “He left town with my boss, Dottie Shay, before anything happened at Dawes House.”
The attendant checked off another name on the tablet he carried. “Well, that’s all then. Thank you, Mrs. Proffitt.”
My head snapped up. “What?”
He nodded at one of the remaining bodies. “That’s just bones the firefighters found at the bottom of a well in the basement of the main house.”
No wonder I’d been drawn to that stupid well.
“You’ll probably discover that they’re old,” I told him, suddenly certain I knew who it was. “It’s most likely one of the former residents. A woman named Eliza Dawes Proffitt. She drowned.”
He scribbled it down. “Thanks. We’ll look into that. If they bring in anyone else, we’ll be in touch.”
