The Whispering Room

Twenty-Two

A woman leaned over the railing of J.D.’s crib. She was on the opposite side from the door, away from the night-light, and for a moment she seemed no more than a ghostly outline that blended seamlessly into the shadows.

Evangeline blinked, praying the mirage would disappear even as she gripped her weapon in both hands and took aim. Her heart hammered so hard she could scarcely breathe, but her finger on the trigger was steady.

“Move away from the crib!”

Slowly, the woman looked up, but she didn’t step away or even straighten. Her face was hidden by a cowl of blond hair that fell forward from a center part. There was something strange and otherworldly about her featureless visage, and Evangeline felt the coldest kind of dread settle in the pit of her stomach.

“Step back,” she said, “before I blow your fucking head off.”

The woman’s hands were inside the crib, and as she straightened, she lifted J.D. over the rail and held him in front of her. “There, there,” she crooned.

Panic exploded in Evangeline’s chest. She wanted desperately to keep a clear head, but even after hearing the woman’s voice coming from the baby monitor, she had never expected to find anything like this. She didn’t know what to do. Terror had momentarily disabled all her training and common sense.

Think, Evangeline. For God’s sakes, use your head.

Okay, options.

Without a clear shot, the gun was useless. Besides, she would never dare chance even a warning shot with the baby so close. Nor could she risk trying to get to the phone. Any sudden move might set the woman off.

So at the moment, there were no options, Evangeline quickly concluded. She and J.D. were at this person’s mercy.

The baby roused and whimpered, then dropped his little head against the woman’s shoulder as she began to massage his back. She hummed the music-box tune, and the haunting melody sent a chill up Evangeline’s already frozen spine.

“Please,” she whispered. “Just give me the baby and leave. I don’t know who you are or what you want….” Her voice cracked and she took a moment to get herself under control. “Just put him down and walk away.”

“You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not going to hurt him. I would never do that.”

“Prove it,” Evangeline pleaded. “Give him to me.”

As she took a step into the room, the woman eased farther back into the shadows. “Not yet.” Her hand continued to make circles on J.D.’s back. He sniveled in his sleep, and she held him even closer then kissed the top of his head. “Put your gun on the dresser and move back to the door.”

When Evangeline hesitated, the woman said, “Please, just do as I say. Guns are so dangerous. If anything were to happen to this precious baby, you’d never be able to live with yourself.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll do anything you say. Just please don’t hurt him.” Evangeline put the gun on the dresser and then stepped back into the doorway.

The woman moved over to the window and the nebulous silhouette that had been almost invisible in the shadows took on a real form in the glow of moonlight that seeped in through the glass. She was only a few steps away, and Evangeline wondered if she could rush her and grab J.D. before she had time to hurt him.

It was a chance she wasn’t willing to take. Not yet.

Evangeline scrutinized the intruder. She was pale and thin, and she wore a plain, dark skirt, shapeless cardigan and tennis shoes. With her free hand, she pushed one side of her long, thick hair from her face, and it tumbled in a tangled, blond mess over one shoulder.

“What do you want?” Evangeline asked in a calm, reasonable tone. “Tell me so we can end this.”

“I have a story to tell you.”

Evangeline swallowed. “Okay. But why don’t you put the baby in the crib. We can talk in the other room.”

She smiled over the top of J.D.’s head. “I think it would be better if we talk in here.”

“We might wake up the baby. You don’t want to do that.”

“But without the baby, you won’t listen to me. And if you don’t know the whole story, you won’t be able to understand. So far, you’ve only heard her side.”

“Her?”

“My sister.” She looked up and the light from the window caught her in such a way that Evangeline saw another face, also thin and pale, but more refined. More elegant.

The resemblance in that moment was so uncanny, she didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it right off.

“You’re Rebecca,” she said softly. “And Lena Saunders is your sister, Ruth.”

Why hadn’t the woman told her the truth? Evangeline wondered. Why pretend she was someone else? Lena Saunders and Ruth Lemay were one and the same. And now Evangeline stood facing Rebecca Lemay. What kind of strange game were the sisters playing with her?

Rebecca Lemay nuzzled the top of J.D.’s head and drew a deep breath, as if trying to drink in the very essence of the sleeping child.

And Evangeline went weak in the knees. Dear God.

According to Lena Saunders—Ruth Lemay—this was a woman who, as a child, had helped her mother murder one of their young brothers. This was a woman who, as an adult, had killed at least three men in cold blood.

And now she held Evangeline’s sleeping son in her arms. Her cheek was against the baby’s head as she rocked him back and forth.

Chill after chill swept over Evangeline. The scene before her seemed surreal. It couldn’t possibly be happening, and yet…it was.

Outside the window behind Rebecca Lemay, the sky darkened to cinder and Evangeline could see heat lightning in the distance. Her gaze lit on the weapon she’d placed on the dresser. It was so close and yet as useless as a severed limb.

“How did you get in here?” she asked.

“The girl who watches the baby…I saw her put the key underneath a rock by your front porch.”

So she’d used Jessie’s key to let herself into the house. Evangeline thought about the molted snakeskin she’d found, and her heart pounded even harder. “Have you been in here before?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rebecca said. “The only thing that matters now is that you hear my side of the story.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

Her cheek still rested on J.D.’s head as she cradled him snugly against her bosom. “It was a long time ago, but I still remember everything about that day. Mama was acting so strange. I didn’t understand why, but I sensed something bad was about to happen. For days, I’d had this awful tightness in my chest. It was like trying to breathe underwater. I even dreamed one night that I was drowning….” She cuddled J.D. even closer and he whimpered again in his sleep.

Please, Evangeline prayed. Please, please don’t hurt him.

“Mama hadn’t really been herself since Daddy left, but this was different. It was like…something had taken hold of her. Possessed her…” She paused to draw a long breath. “She started cleaning the house like a mad woman. I thought company might be coming, but we never had visitors. Even the church people stopped calling. Mama always kept a spotless home, but that day she scrubbed and mopped and dusted until every room sparkled. She worked at it for hours, on into the night. I could hear her downstairs after we’d put the boys to bed. Working and working. She and my sister. When I went down to see about them, they were on their hands and knees, scrubbing the same floor Mama had mopped that very afternoon. She didn’t even look up at me, but my sister told me to go on back to bed and leave them alone. They had work to do and I was too little to help.”

Her voice had gotten slightly higher as she told the story, and the years seemed to melt from her face so that Evangeline could see clearly the child from the photograph. A little girl whose innocence had been so fractured by her mother’s obsession that she was never going to be whole.

She was still looking at Evangeline, but her eyes were losing their focus as she slipped back into the past.

“I woke up just after dawn and my sister’s bed was empty. I figured she and Mama were still working. I got up and dressed. When I came out into the hallway, I heard a sound from Mama’s bedroom. Like a moan or a soft cry. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was scared to go in there and see, and yet I couldn’t stay away. I thought Mama might need me. So I eased down the hallway and opened her door.”

Evangeline stood motionless in the doorway. Their gazes made contact, but somehow she knew the woman couldn’t see her. Her features were slack and her voice had taken on the numb monotone of someone under hypnosis.

“The sheets were covered with blood. I thought Mama must have hurt herself and now she might be dying. But then I saw my sister at the foot of the bed. She had a doll in her arms, and I couldn’t understand why she would be playing house with Mama lying there hurt so bad. Then I heard the doll cry and I realized that it was a baby. Mama had just given birth. That seemed so strange to me because I didn’t even know she was…that way. I wanted to see the baby, but my sister said no. That would just make everything so much harder. She told me to go back to our room and close the door. She’d come get me when it was over.”

“When what was over?” Evangeline asked in a hushed voice. Because she knew. She already knew what was coming.

Rebecca Lemay fell silent for a moment, her face in silhouette as she half turned to the window. “When Mama…when it started, I didn’t understand what was happening at first. Not until I saw…” She trailed off on a deep shudder that racked her whole body. “Then all I could think about was saving that baby. So I took it downstairs and crawled into the whispering room.”

“What’s the whispering room?” Evangeline’s heart was still thudding against her chest.

“It was a little space underneath the stairs where Mama used to make us go when she needed some peace and quiet. We weren’t allowed to make any racket in there. All we could do was whisper. I stayed in there for a long time with the baby. Until all the screaming finally stopped.”

Until all the screaming stopped.

The taste of bile filled her mouth as she pictured that horrifying scene.

Rebecca Lemay took a step forward, her eyes wide and shimmering and childlike. “You understand what I’m telling you, don’t you? It didn’t happen like she said. It wasn’t me. It was her. My sister, Ruth. She was the one who always helped Mama take care of the boys.”

It took a moment for Evangeline to fully comprehend her meaning. “How did she help take care of them?”

“She dressed them in the morning and combed their hair for church and listened to their prayers at bedtime. She even read them Bible stories when Mama had the headache. She was Mama’s little helper. God’s little warrior. That’s what Mama always called her.”

“What else did she do?”

Rebecca Lemay’s eyes gleamed with madness.

“She helped Mama save them.”