Cutler 02 - Secrets of the Morning

nor did the portrait. I had Jimmy at my side and could borrow freely from his strength.
    She sat back as soon as we entered and formed that crooked smile on her face, a face with pale skin so thin the bones of the skull within it could be clearly seen. It was like looking at the face of Death itself, but I didn't falter.
    "Well," she said. "Actually, I'm glad someone has come for you. It saves me the expense of having Luther take you to the train station in Lynchburg, and besides, Luther has more important things to do with his time."
    "Yes, you've made him into your convenient slave over the years, punished him and punished him and he's accepted it, but that's for you and Luther to live with. I won't leave here until I know what you did with my baby. Who came for her? Whom did you give her to? Why did you do that?" I added in a shrill tone and approached the desk.
    "I told you," she replied coldly. "The baby was too small. You wouldn't have been able to take care of it anyway. My sister did the right thing," she added and looked as if she were going to go back to her work and dismiss us.
    But I rushed up to the desk and slapped my hands over her precious papers.
    "What do you mean, your sister did the right thing? What right thing?"
    She glared up at me, unafraid, unmoved, her eyes filled with ice. She wasn't going to speak. But Jimmy came up by my side.
    "You better tell us everything," he said. "You had no right to do anything with her baby and if we have to, we'll go to the police and bring them here."
    "How dare . . ."
    "Look," he said, putting his hands on the desk and leaning over toward her, his patience on a leash. "I don't want us to stay here a minute longer than we have to, but we'll stay here until hell freezes over if you don't cooperate."
    My heart cheered to see someone finally speak to Miss Emily the way she should have been spoken to years and years ago.
    "You can be brought up on kidnapping charges, you know. Now, what's been done with the baby? Talk!" he said, slapping the desk so hard and unexpectedly that Miss Emily jumped in her seat.
    "I don't know who has the baby," she whined. "My sister made all the arrangements even before Eugenia," she said, spitting her words my way, "arrived. You will have to ask her."
    "And that's exactly what we will do," Jimmy said. "If you are lying and you knew, we will be back with the police to charge you as an accessory to a crime."
    "I don't lie," she said defiantly, her pencil-thin lips drawn so tightly I thought they would snap like rubber bands. Jimmy glared back at her a long moment and then straightened up.
    "Let's get out of here, Dawn," he said.
    "Yes, and good riddance," Miss Emily replied.
    Something exploded inside me. All the pain and anger I had held in, all I had shut up in my heart came pouring out. Every harsh and cutting word she had said to me, all the bitter food she had forced me to eat, the darkness she had shut me up in, and the way she had made me feel lower than the lowest form of life was finally regurgitated like the sour things they were.
    "Oh no, Miss Emily," I said slowly, walking around the desk toward her, "good riddance to you. Good riddance to your ugly, frustrated and hateful face. Good riddance to your religious hypocrisy, to your making everyone else feel evil and despicable while you are the most evil and despicable thing in this house. Good riddance to your miserly ways, except when it comes to yourself. Good riddance to your jealousy of everything soft and beautiful. Good riddance to your pretense of wanting everything clean while you yourself live in the muck and darkness of this coffin you call a home."
    I stood right beside her and looked down at her.
    "I have never in my life ever wanted to say goodbye to anything as much as I want to say goodbye to you. And do you know, Miss Emily, being here, living with you and seeing what you are has made me feel sorry for the devil, for when you die you are sure to go to hell and even Satan doesn't deserve something as horrid as you."
    I pivoted on my heels and left her sitting there with her mouth open, her eyes frozen wide with shock, looking like a corpse. Jimmy took my hand and smiled.
    "Momma would have sure loved to see and hear that," he said.
    "I'm sure she did," I replied as we marched out of the dark library.
    Just after we walked out the front door and down the steps of the portico toward Jimmy's car, I heard Charlotte call my name and turned to see her come running out