“Why are they taken there?”
Katy looked into her lap and spoke in the voice of a two-year-old. “To get punished.”
“Do they ever come back?”
Now Katy’s face held the sober concentration of a child given its first glimpse of human cruelty. “Never.”
Caitlin sensed she was on the verge of a revelation. All she could think about was a place described in Henry’s journals as the Bone Tree—a place where Indians and black men had been murdered for years, and dead bodies dumped to prevent their being found. “Who took Pooky to that tree?”
“I was always going to tell,” she said softly. “But I have to wait until Daddy passes. Then he can’t hurt me.”
“Katy—”
“Shh! He might hear us. Daddy can hear from miles away sometimes. You know … before Henry came and talked to me, all this was blank. Everything had fallen down Dr. Borgen’s hole. But then it started to come back. First the bathtub … Daddy killed Mama in the bath. Did you know that? I thought he was just talking to her—and he was. But later I figured it out. He was holding her head under the water while he talked.”
Every hair on Caitlin’s body was standing erect. She swallowed hard. She couldn’t find her voice.
“Then, when you called a few minutes ago,” Katy said, “I knew.”
“Knew what?”
The woman shook her head again. “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”
“What do you mean? Too late for what?”
Brody Royal’s daughter listed to the left in her chair. “For me. For Katy-Poo.”
“Katy,” Caitlin said firmly. “Whatever you were waiting to tell, you can tell me. Now. No one will hurt you anymore. I’ll make sure of that.”
The woman’s eyes rose and met Caitlin’s with conspiratorial slyness. “Will you promise not to tell?”
“Yes. I promise.”
A manicured fingernail rose to the red lips, its scarlet nail gleaming. “Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“Stick a needle in my eye.”
Katy looked right, then left, then finally spoke with the certitude of a courier who had carried a message through miles of bloody trenches. “Daddy did it.”
Caitlin’s heart thumped against her sternum. “Did what? What did Daddy do, Katy?”
The heavy-lidded eyes fluttered. “Like Jesus,” she whispered.
Like Jesus? Caitlin shivered again, though she didn’t know why. “Did your father kill Pooky, Katy?”
The woman nodded once more. “And Dr. Leland. He killed Mr. Henry,” she said softly. “And that colored nurse, too.”
At this, Caitlin’s voice deserted her again.
Katy was listing to the other side now; she looked as though she might fall out of the chair at any moment.
“Katy?” Caitlin said, coming to her feet.
Mrs. Regan opened her mouth, but no sound passed her lips. Then she went as limp as a rag doll and slid to the floor. Her head hit the carpet with a wooden thump.
Caitlin stared, momentarily paralyzed. Then she jumped down and felt for a carotid pulse. It was there, but very weak.
“Katy!” Caitlin shouted. “Katy Regan! Can you hear me?”
The woman gave no sign of having heard.
“How long have you been drinking? Did you take something?”
Katy groaned but formed no coherent words.
Crawling to her purse for her Treo, Caitlin heard a bang from the side of the house. Then heavy footsteps clunked up the hallway. She looked at her watch, and a bolt of fear shot through her. Randall Regan?
She got to her feet, instinctively looking for a place to hide. As she glanced toward the hall door, she saw a large brown pill bottle sitting on the fireplace hearth. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now it seemed the largest object in the room. The bottle had no lid, and it was empty.
“Who are you?” shouted a male voice. “What the hell’s happening here?”
Caitlin turned to see a tall, dark-haired man in his fifties kneeling beside Katy. In one glance Caitlin knew this was the man who had raped and murdered two former employees of Royal Insurance. God only knew what he’d done to Katy behind the locked doors of this house—or what he would do to Caitlin if he caught her.
“I think she took some pills,” Caitlin said, casting about for a lie that would buy the time she needed to escape. “See there?” She pointed to the empty bottle by the fireplace. “I was about to call 911.”
Regan’s eyes didn’t leave her for a second. “Who are you?”
He stood and took a step toward her.
Caitlin grabbed her purse off the floor, spilling out half its contents. Regan was still closing the space between them when she got her pistol out and held it in front of her.