And yet Nella’s trepidation deepened as she retraced 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.