Page 274 of Property of Whiskey

His mouth twists. “Depends which piece of paper you believed.”

Cold creeps along my arms. “What does that mean?”

“It means she gave us one name. Somebody claiming to be her guardian gave another.”

Whiskey finally speaks. “Who found her?”

Daddy looks at him.

Then at me.

“I did.”

Daddy’s voice gets quieter.

“She was barefoot. Had a nightgown on under a man’s coat that didn’t fit. Dirt all the way to her knees. Pupils blown so wide I thought she’d taken something.”

“Drugged?”

“I believed so.”

“Did you test her?”

“We tried.”

That word catches.

“Tried how?”

Daddy drags one palm over the worn tabletop. “She couldn’t stay awake. Kept coming in and out. Every time she came around, she asked if the door was locked.”

My stomach knots. “From who?”

“She wouldn’t say.”

“What did she say?”

Daddy looks at me. This is the part he doesn’t want to give me. I know before he opens his mouth.

“Blue room.”

The kitchen seems to shrink.

Whiskey’s boot shifts once beneath the table.

“What?”

“She kept talking about a blue room.”

Cider. The blue room. I think about Royal’s face at the clubhouse. About Cider carrying broken pieces of memories nobody has been able to put back in order.

Daddy keeps going.

“She said girls cried there at night. Said they weren’t supposed to cry loud because it made him angry.”

“Who?”

“She called him the Reverend.”