The Judas Child by Carol O'Connell Read Free Book Online

remember any other accidents with kids?”
    “No, and something like that would’ve been a standout.” She flipped the page. “Now you’re not in this photo. It was taken after you went off to military school. And there she is again, just behind Susan, see? No scars on her face. So the accident probably happened after she left town.”
    She knew her son was drifting away again, sailing off on that familiar sea that fit so neatly in a whiskey glass. Ellen could smell it, almost taste it. But she could hardly lecture Rouge on booze. She had only stopped drinking after the crowning humiliation of her teenage son finding her dead drunk on the bathroom floor. “Rouge? You said she left town when she was in the fifth grade?”
    He stared at the page and nodded.
    “The schools are closed for Christmas vacation, but you could try the church. Father Domina might have kept the old attendance books. Could be worth a shot.” She ruffled his hair to get his attention. “I could help you. Tomorrow morning?”
    “Can’t. I have to work the first shift tomorrow.” Rouge stood up and dusted off his jeans. “They’re putting me on a plainclothes detail.” He was scanning the titles on the small bookshelf by the bed. “What happened to Susan’s diary?”
    “The police took it away. I don’t know if they ever returned it or not. We could check the other boxes in the attic if you like?” She turned back to the photograph of the choir. “It’s odd I can’t place this child.”
    Or perhaps it wasn’t. Apart from the eyes there was nothing remarkable about the little girl. She was in the middle range of everything—not the smallest or even the most plain.
    Rouge pulled a dust sheet away from the desk. A silver bracelet was lying on the faded green blotter. This was Susan’s last birthday gift from her father. Rouge picked it up. “I thought Dad said she lost this?”
    Lost it? Perhaps they should talk more about Susan’s death. What else might he have misunderstood in those days when his father was locked away in the study, when his mother lived in a bottle seven days out of seven. Or maybe the bracelet had been lost instead of stolen—and later found , not seized as evidence.
    “Those last few months, your sister was always losing something at choir practice.” And Ellen had found that strange. The children had always been so careful with their possessions. At the time, she had blamed the separation of the twins for the odd changes in her daughter’s behavior.
    Sometimes, late at night, Ellen played a morbid game of “What if ?” What if she had stood up to her husband and kept the twins in the same school? Then Rouge would have been with Susan on the day she was stolen. The twins had gone everywhere together, needing no one else’s company or conversation. Would Susan have lived, or would both of them have perished?
    She stared at the silver bracelet as Rouge slipped it into her hand. When had she seen it last? At the trial? Yes, the bracelet had been used as evidence. The police must have returned it to her husband. She imagined Bradly Kendall quietly walking into this room and carefully setting the small bit of jewelry on his daughter’s desk. And perhaps Brad had sat down on the bed and cried because the bracelet’s circle was so tiny it broke his heart.
    Ellen closed her hand over the piece of silver. “The police said this was found in the priest’s room.”
    “You mean Paul Marie’s room.” Rouge’s correction was unemotional, but pointed. Considering her son’s quiet ways, this was almost an argument. She had forgotten how much it irritated him when she referred to the child killer as a priest.
    But each time she thought of Paul Marie, she saw the trappings of the church, cassock and collar. The man had been so young when she last saw him, barely into his twenties when he stood beside the elder priest at Communion. Nothing interesting had been written on his face yet, no lines of character or