The Whispering Room Read online

  Dear Reader,

  You’ve seen the news reports from post-Katrina New Orleans. A police force in shambles. The breakdown of law and order. Citizens cowering in their homes after dark. The old and infirm preyed upon by roving bands of thugs.

  For Detective Evangeline Theroux, it’s just another day in the Big Easy…until death becomes personal.

  A body covered in snake bites is found in an abandoned house in the Lower Ninth Ward. A connection to a notorious child killer is eventually uncovered. Throw in a Pandora’s box of family secrets, murder and insanity, and you’ve only scratched the surface of Evangeline’s story.

  Known as the Ghoul Girl because of the cold and emotionless way she approaches even the most gruesome crime scenes, Evangeline has worked hard to be accepted as an equal by her male colleagues. She’s aloof, analytical and tenacious—traits that are sometimes at war with her Southern upbringing.

  On a personal level, she’s a grieving widow and a single mother, the sister of an ex-con and the daughter of a couple whose forty-year marriage is disintegrating. But more important, Evangeline Theroux is a fighter. A survivor. A woman who will not go quietly into the night.

  And for me, the writer, she is a character who refuses to say goodbye.

  Welcome to her world.

  Amanda Stevens

  Also by

  Amanda Stevens

  THE DEVIL’S FOOTPRINTS

  THE DOLLMAKER

  Amanda Stevens

  The Whispering Room

  For Pat and Lefty

  And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

  —Mark 16:17, 18

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  One

  July, 1976

  The swamp bustled with the sounds of a summer morning. Mosquitoes buzzed in the shade, mockingbirds trilled from the pecan trees and in the distance, an outboard motor chugged toward the oyster beds and the shallow fishing waters of the Atchafalaya Basin.

  But the house was quiet.

  Too quiet, Nella Prather thought uneasily as she walked up the gravel driveway.

  Something black and sinewy slithered through the grass, and she gave it a wide berth as she headed across the yard to the porch.

  Slowly she climbed the steps and knocked on the screen door. When she didn’t get an answer, she cupped her hands to the sides of her face and peered inside.

  The interior was so dark she couldn’t see anything beyond the shadowy front hallway, nor could she hear so much as a whisper from any of the children.

  That’s strange.

  Her cousin’s five offspring ranged in ages from eight years all the way down to thirteen months. With their blond curls and wide blue eyes, they looked like perfect little angels.

  But even angelic children made some racket.

  Despite the silence, the family had to be home. It was still early, and Mary Alice’s old station wagon was parked under the carport. They lived too far out in the country to walk to town or even to the nearest neighbor.

  Besides, Mary Alice rarely left the house. She’d converted the back sunporch to a classroom so that she could homeschool the two older children, Ruth and Rebecca. If they were out there now, she mightn’t have heard the knock, Nella decided.

  But she hesitated to call out in case the boys—Joseph, Matthew and baby Jacob—were still sleeping.

  Turning, she glanced out over the bayou, where the lily pads were bursting with purple blooms. The air smelled of mimosa, moss and the wet green lichen that grew on the bark of the cypress trees lining the banks.

  It was beautiful out here. So calm and peaceful. And yet apprehension fluttered in Nella’s heart.

  Where are the children?

  Except for an overturned tricycle in the dense shade of a cedar tree and a tiny, forgotten sneaker at the top of the steps, the place looked immaculate. Baskets of ferns hung from the porch rafters, and the lawn was painted with patches of red and yellow four-o’clocks and pink peonies.

  Nella couldn’t imagine how her cousin managed to keep everything so orderly, especially now that her husband had left her. According to Nella’s mother, he’d just up and walked out months ago, leaving Mary Alice to fend for herself and the children.

  Thank goodness she had a small inheritance from her father to fall back on, but that wouldn’t last long, what with feeding and clothing five little ones. Nella worried how her cousin would cope once the money ran out.

  I should have come sooner. She’s my own flesh and blood, and I couldn’t be bothered to drive out here and lend a helping hand.

  But she and Mary Alice hadn’t been close in years, not since the summer Nella had come home from her first year at LSU to find her cousin engaged to Charles Lemay, a dark, taciturn man fifteen years her senior.

  Charles was extremely handsome, Nella would give him that. And she supposed there were some who might even consider him charming. But the way he’d flattered and cajoled and later browbeat a besotted Mary Alice had disgusted Nella.

  And then the babies had started coming, some barely a year apart. Throughout her pregnancies, even the difficult ones, Mary Alice had worked like a dog caring for the house and children and making sure her husband was properly pampered.

  Charles had put the family on a rigid schedule—dinner on the table by six and bedtime at eight, except on nights when they all attended church service together.

  His church, naturally.

  Mary Alice had been raised Catholic, but Charles would never allow his wife and children to drive all the way into Houma to attend mass at St. Ann’s, where she’d received First Communion. Instead, they’d joined a rural, nondenominational congregation that met in an abandoned gas station near the highway.

  Nella had never gone to one of the prayer meetings, but she’d heard talk of snake-handling. Rumor had it one of the members had nearly died the year before when he’d been bitten by a pit viper.

  A chill wind swept over Nella, an early breeze from the storm clouds gathering out in the gulf. Or so she thought.

  But then she realized that the Spanish moss in the live oaks was completely still, the porch so silent she could hear the drone of a fly trapped on the inside of the screen door.

  The cold breath that blew down her back wasn’t the wind, she realized. It was dread.

  She pulled open the screen door, no longer concerned with whether or not she woke the boys. Something was wrong. She could feel it.

  “Hello? Anyone home?” The door creaked as it snapped shut behind her. “Mary Alice?”

  Nella’s flip-flops slapped against the old
hardwood floor as she walked down the long hallway, glancing first in the parlor, then hurrying through the dining room to the kitchen.

  She stood for a moment, gazing around in wonder. The room was pristine. Not a speck of dust or a crumb to be found anywhere.

  But there was another fly in the window and, mindful of the loathsome insect, Nella placed the basket of food she’d brought on the table and made sure it was covered before she walked out back to the enclosed porch.

  Here, the chalkboard was blank, the textbooks and lesson plans neatly stacked in the shelves. Nothing was out of place. No reason to think anything was amiss.

  And yet Nella’s trepidation deepened as she re traced her steps to the front of the house. Something drew her attention to the cramped room beneath the stairs. The door was closed, but she’d heard a sound…a whisper…

  A tremor of fear raced up her spine as she placed a hand on the knob. The door opened quietly and for a moment, Nella saw nothing inside.

  Then, as the door swung wider, a shaft of sunlight fell across a child sitting cross-legged on the floor.

  Head bowed, light haloing her golden hair, she cradled a doll in her arms as she rocked back and forth.

  Mary Alice’s daughters were only a year apart, and they looked so much alike that it was hard to tell one from the other.

  “Ruth?” Nella said softly.

  No answer.

  “Rebecca?”

  Only silence.

  “Where’s your mama?”

  The little girl looked up then, her blue eyes eerily serene.

  Slowly, she lifted a finger to her lips. “Shush. She’ll hear you.”

  The hair at the back of Nella’s neck lifted as she leaned down. She’d meant to offer comfort to the child, but when the doll moved in the little girl’s arms, Nella recoiled in shock.

  It wasn’t a doll, she realized in horror, but a newborn baby bundled in a towel and still bloody from the birth canal.

  She heard a thud against the floor upstairs and she whirled, more terrified than she’d ever been in her life. Something was so very wrong in this house.

  “I’ll be right back,” Nella whispered to the child. “You stay put, okay?”

  Heart hammering, she closed the door and started up the stairs.

  Mary Alice’s bedroom was right off the landing. The door was open, and as Nella reached the top of the stairs, she saw a bloody handprint on the wall outside the bedroom and a trail of wet footprints on the hardwood floor.

  But Mary Alice was nowhere to be seen.

  Nor were the other children.

  Trying to fight off a wave of panic, Nella followed the tracks to a room down the hallway. The door was ajar and she could see something moving against the wall. She couldn’t tell what it was at first, and then comprehension struck her so hard she staggered back, fist pressed to her mouth.

  Her stomach churned as she stared in horror at the shadow of a noose swinging back and forth against a sunny yellow wall.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone at the end of the hallway and she spun.

  One of the little girls stood in front of the window, and the sunlight spilling in made her seem nebulous and golden, like a ghost child.

  Without a sound, the girl started toward Nella.

  “Are you okay?” Nella called softly, trying not to frighten the child.

  When the girl didn’t answer, Nella said a little more urgently, “Where’s your mother?”

  The child wore a blue dress with a matching hair ribbon. She looked angelic and sweet and it was only when she drew closer that Nella saw the bloodstains all down the front of her dress.

  “Honey, are you hurt?”

  The little girl shook her head. “Jacob got it on me when he grabbed my dress.”

  “Is Jacob hurt?”

  “No, he doesn’t hurt. Not anymore.”

  Her soft voice was melodic, a tinkling bell, but the shock of her words stole Nella’s breath. “What do you mean?”

  The girl’s movements were so lethargic she seemed under a hypnotic spell. She stared up at Nella with the same eerie calm as her sister. “Jacob was bad. They were all bad. Mama said they had the evil in them just like my daddy. It wasn’t their fault, but they had to be saved just the same.”

  Nella drew a ragged breath, trying desperately not to let the horror of the moment overwhelm her. “Where are they?”

  “Shush.” The child put a tiny finger to her lips, mimicking her sister. “It’s still here.”

  “What is?”

  “The evil. Can’t you feel it?”

  Nella’s heart flailed like a trapped bird inside her chest as she stole a glance over her shoulder. Somewhere down that long hallway, a floorboard creaked.

  Had someone come up behind her? The other girl?

  For a moment, Nella could have sworn she saw something hovering at the top of the stairs. A giant shadow that was there one moment, gone the next.

  The child’s gaze was transfixed, as if she could see something that Nella could not.

  It was all Nella could do not to snatch the child up and run screaming from the house. Something terrible lurked in those shadowy rooms, in the beguiling depths of that little girl’s wide blue eyes.

  She bent and put her hands on the child’s arms. “Where are your brothers? You have to tell me so that I can help them.”

  The little girl’s gaze strayed to the room where the noose swung in a draft. “Mama carried them down to the swamp.”

  Oh, dear God. “Can you take me to them?”

  “I have to find my sissy first.”

  She reached for Nella’s hand. Her tiny fingers were warm, but the fear that slid down Nella’s spine was ice cold.

  Together they descended the steps, and Nella opened the door beneath the staircase.

  The other girl was gone, but the baby lay wriggling on the floor. Nella reached for the tiny body.

  I have to get them out of here. Lord, please help me save them….

  But when she glanced over her shoulder, the hallway behind her was empty.

  Ruth and Rebecca Lemay had vanished.

  Two

  Present day

  There is no odor in the world like that of rotting human flesh, Detective Evangeline Theroux thought as she climbed out of the car.

  The scent hung heavy on the hot, sticky air, an insidious perfume that stole her breath and turned her stomach. It was all she could do to stifle her gag reflex.

  A group of uniformed officers stood in the overgrown front yard of the deserted house and Evangeline could feel their eyes on her. It was like they could smell her weakness and were anticipating with relish a mortifying display.

  Jerks.

  As if she would ever give them the satisfaction.

  A female police detective wasn’t much of an anomaly these days, but there were those in the New Orleans PD who still clung to their good-ol’-boy mentality. Evangeline was accustomed to hostile scrutiny from some of her male colleagues, and she knew better than to give them any unnecessary ammunition.

  Turning away from those condescending glances, she swallowed hard, though she pretended to survey her surroundings—a ghost street in the Lower Ninth Ward. A no-man’s-land of abandoned vehicles and tumbledown houses that served as an enclave for the city’s crack merchants and the homeless.

  This was the section of New Orleans hit hardest by the floodwaters, and it was also the last neighborhood in the city to be rebuilt. Some referred to it as the “bad” side of the Industrial Canal because of the crime rate. Others called it Cutthroat City.

  Her late husband, Johnny, had once called it home.

  Evangeline mopped her brow as she waited for Mitchell Hebert to get out of the car. The swampy heat was not helping her queasy stomach. Earlier, clouds had drifted in from the gulf, bringing a cool breeze and a quick shower, but now the purplish banks had given way to a robin’s-egg-blue sky. At ten-thirty on a June morning, the temperature was already in the high n
ineties and the steam rising from the drying puddles felt like a sauna.

  “You smell that?” Mitchell asked as he climbed out of the car. “That’s dead-body smell.”

  “You think?”

  The older detective eyed her suspiciously. “You don’t look so hot this morning.”

  That was an understatement if she’d ever heard one. Evangeline had been up half the night with the baby, and she looked and felt like a hundred miles of bad road. But lack of sleep was the least of her problems. With the impending anniversary of Johnny’s death, she was finding it harder and harder to emerge from the dark cloud that had hovered over her since the funeral.

  A year ago, her life had been as close to perfect as she could imagine, and now it lay in ruins, the joy and sunlight replaced by a cold, gray loneliness. Happiness was a concept she barely remembered. Now she awakened each morning to the stark reality of a future without Johnny. Sometimes she felt so hopeless and lost, she had to pull the covers over her head and weep before somehow mustering the strength to swing her legs over the side of the bed and begin another day without him.

  But Evangeline’s lifestyle didn’t allow for a breakdown. She was a cop and a single mother. She had her and Johnny’s son to think about, plus all the responsibilities that her job entailed. Lives were on the line. She couldn’t afford the luxury of wallowing in despair, no matter how much she might wish to.

  Mitchell was still sizing her up. “You’re not gonna faint or something, are you?”

  She gave him a thin smile. “Have you ever known me to faint?”

  “And that, in a nutshell, is your problem, girl.”

  “I didn’t realize I had a problem.”