The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices.

Missouri, 1955. Loretta Davenport has led an isolated life as a young mother and a wife to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. They’re the picture of domestic tranquility until a local girl is murdered and Loretta begins receiving messages from beyond. Pete dismisses them as delusions of a fevered female imagination. Loretta knows they’re real―and frightening.

Defying Pete’s demands, Loretta finds an encouraging supporter in parapsychologist Dr. Curtis Hansen. He sees a woman with a rare gift, more blessing than curse. With Dr. Hansen’s help, Loretta’s life opens up to an empowering new purpose. But for Pete, the God-fearing image he’s worked so hard to cultivate is under threat. No longer in control of his dutiful wife, he sees the Devil at work.

As Loretta’s powers grow stronger and the pleading spirits beckon, Pete is determined to deliver his wife from evil. To solve the mysteries of the dead, Loretta must first save herself.

Excerpt

Excerpt from THE DEVIL AND MRS. DAVENPORT by Paulette Kennedy @2024 Published by Lake Union Publishing March 5, 2024.

Loretta stood in front of the police station doors for a long moment. There would be no going back after this. Her fears crowded around her. They might think she was a deluded crackpot. Or worse yet—that she had something to do with Darcy’s murder. If she was arrested, what would Pete and the kids do?

“Are you okay?” Dora asked, nudging Loretta’s elbow. “Shouldn’t we go in now?”

Loretta stiffened. The cold air whisked around them. “Maybe I should talk to a lawyer first.

Just in case they think I had something to do with this.”

Dora frowned. “I know you didn’t.”

“But that won’t matter to them. This looks suspicious, doesn’t it? My coming in here with information out of the blue.”

“But you don’t know that much. Not really. Besides, you’re just a housewife. And you’re meeker than a mouse. No one would ever think you were a murderer.”

Just a housewife. Loretta’s face fell. Dora’s chiding hit close to the bone. It reminded her of the smooth, beautiful girls she’d known in high school, who’d teased her for her hand-knitted sweaters, her homely looks, and her shyness.

“Come on,” Dora pleaded, tugging on Loretta’s coat sleeve. “The worst they’ll do is ask you a few questions, just like they did with me. I lost my sister. She’s never coming back. Please?”

Loretta nodded. “All right. But if things turn and they arrest me, promise me you’ll go to my husband. He works at Bethel University. Peter Davenport. He’ll know what to do.”

“I promise. Now get brave, and let’s go in. It’s freezing out here.”

Dora swung open the door and ushered Loretta inside, following after her. The lobby was too bright—garishly lit with fluorescent lights. A gray-haired woman sat pecking away behind the Lshaped front desk, pince-nez glasses perched on the end of her bulbous nose like an afterthought. She looked up at their entrance. “May I help you?”

Dora stepped forward. “I’m Darcy Hayes’s sister. Dora. Maybe you remember me? I was here in September.”

The secretary, whose name badge read NANCY FOSTER, sucked on her teeth with a hiss and nodded. “Yes. I remember. So sorry. How is your mother doing?”

“Not well. But the reason why we came in is because Mrs. Davenport, this lady right here, has a lead on Darcy’s case.”

“Oh?”

Loretta’s palms itched and sweated. She clenched her fists until she could feel the bite of her nails in her palm. The pain calmed her. Gave her focus. “Yes. I’m Loretta Davenport. I have some new information that might be useful.”

“All right.” Nancy Foster stood, removing her glasses. “I’ll go get a detective. The two of you can wait in that room, over there.” She motioned to a room with a tiny window centered in the door.

“That’s the same room where they talked to me,” Dora said.

Loretta followed Dora into the room, which held a table, three chairs, and a water cooler stacked with paper cone cups. Another door stood opposite the first. The only thing on the wall was a large mirror that reflected Dora’s and Loretta’s images.

“It’s not really a mirror,” Dora whispered. “It’s a one-sided window, so the other cops can see in, and watch.”

“You probably shouldn’t have told me that,” Loretta said. “I’m nervous enough as it is.”

“I watch Dragnet. That’s how I know these things.”

A few moments later, the door on the other side of the room opened. A middle-aged man dressed in plain clothes entered, carrying a manila folder, his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. “Richard Eames, Myrna Grove PD. I’m the lead detective on the Hayes case.” He flashed his badge at them, then quickly pocketed it again. “Please sit down, ladies. Can I get you some water?”

“No thank you.” Loretta sat, her spine rigid, her pocketbook balanced on her lap. Dora sat next to her, slouching in the chair as if she had done this a thousand times.

“Nancy said you had a tip for us?”

“I . . . maybe.” Loretta fiddled with the clasp on her bag. Detective Eames didn’t seem the type to suffer fools, and Loretta felt quite foolish being there.

“She does,” Dora said, confidently. “Tell him what you saw, Mrs. Davenport.”

“I know this may sound ridiculous, Detective, but I have had visions about Darcy’s murder.”

Detective Eames tilted his head, raising one bushy, black eyebrow. “Come again?” “Visions.”

There was a long beat of silence. The detective studied her, his eyes boring into hers so intensely she had to look away. “Visions?”

“I . . . I see things. Get impressions. Sometimes they’re only vague feelings—notions. But with Darcy, I’ve had two visions that were so clear I almost felt as if I was there when she died, watching it happen.” Loretta’s fingers tightened on her purse strap. “I’ve been working with a psychologist to understand things more. He can vouch for me. Dr. Curtis Hansen.”

“I see,” the detective said with a slight smirk. “And what did you see in your visions?”

“I saw Darcy, being buried alive. There were two men with her, arguing. I couldn’t make out what they were saying—it was garbled. But one of them was very angry.”

He opened the folder and scratched inside with a pen. “Anything else? What did these men look like?”

“I . . . I couldn’t tell you. I never really saw them. They were only shadowy figures.”

The detective sighed, ceased writing, and leaned back in his chair.

He didn’t believe her. Loretta could see that much. Instead of frustrating her, though, his disbelief emboldened Loretta—made her want to prove herself. She sat up straighter, steeling her voice so it wouldn’t quaver. “I’m the one who called in the tip. The anonymous tip that led to the search party. I knew she was buried near the Finley. Because I could hear the mill and the river . . . in my vision.”

Eames nodded. “Interesting.”

Dora sat up, uncrossing her legs. “She does know things. At Darcy’s vigil, she told my mother about a mobile that hung over Darcy’s crib when she was a baby and described her nursery. She couldn’t have known that. There’s no way.”

Detective Eames sighed wearily. “I’ve seen this type of thing before, Miss Hayes. You’re vulnerable. Grieving. And this woman saw an opportunity. How much have you paid her?”

Loretta’s anger began to simmer, then, like a slow pot boiling. “I have not received one red cent from Dora, or her mother, sir. I wouldn’t take their money, even if they offered it. Dora came to me, wanting my help. That’s why I’m here.”

“Well. I’m a very busy man, Mrs. Davenport.” He steepled his fingers and peered at her. “I don’t have time for witchy nonsense. What you’ve told me today, even if it were true, won’t get us any closer to solving this case.”

“But it will! You’re only looking for one killer, and there are two!” Dora stood, her face blazing. “My sister deserves justice, and the way I see it, you all are just sitting on your asses and not doing a damn thing to solve her murder.”

Detective Eames stood, crossing his arms over his chest. “Please sit down, Miss Hayes. I understand you’re upset, but you must see our side of things. We have limited resources. Our investigation hasn’t turned up anything new. Until we have something concrete, our hands are

tied.”

“I know what you’re really saying. You’re saying my sister doesn’t matter. Well, she matters to me!”

Dora yanked open the door, storming out. Loretta followed her, murmuring an apology to Detective Eames and the stunned secretary. She caught up to Dora outside. She found her crumpled against the wall, beneath the blocky silver letters that read MYRNA GROVE POLICE DEPARTMENT, fists tangled in her hair as she banged her forehead steadily against the bricks. Her breath fogged the frigid air as she wailed. Loretta knelt next to her, gently easing her away from the wall. “Come on now. You’ll hurt yourself, doing that.”

“I don’t care! I don’t care about anything anymore.”

“That’s not true. You care about Darcy.”

“Darcy.”

The girl wilted into Loretta, and Loretta held her, rocking her gently as she cried. “There, there. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find out what happened to your sister, one way or the other.

I promise.”

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About the Author

Paulette Kennedy is the bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil, which received the prestigious HNS Review Editor’s Choice Award. She has had a lifelong obsession with the gothic. As a young girl, she spent her summers among the gravestones in her neighborhood cemetery, imagining all sorts of romantic stories for the people buried there. After her mother introduced her to the Brontës as a teenager, her affinity for fog-covered landscapes and haunted heroines only grew, inspiring her to become a writer. Originally from the Missouri Ozarks, she now lives with her family and a menagerie of rescue pets in sunny Southern California, where sometimes, on the very best days, the mountains are wreathed in fog.

Paulette’s next release is THE DEVIL AND MRS. DAVENPORT, a mid-century domestic gothic set in the Missouri Ozarks, about a housewife who develops psychic abilities after a viral illness, pitched as Shirley Jackson meets Sharp Objects. Coming March 2024 from Lake Union Publishing.