Amanda Stevens - The Dollmaker

“I just had a long talk with Lily Devereaux about the doll I saw in the window the other day. Alex, she said a man Mignon didn’t know brought that doll into the shop. He told her that a child had died, and he wanted to get rid of the doll because it was too painful a reminder.”

Alex felt the ache in his chest sharpen. “You think he was talking about Ruby?”

“I don’t know. But I’m convinced the doll is connected to her kidnapping and now to Mignon Bujold’s murder. Lily told me that the doll had been sculpted by an artist named Savannah Sweete. She specializes in portrait dolls and her work is very detailed. Lily said the doll I saw in the window that day had a tiny strawberry birthmark painted on her left arm, just like the one Ruby had. That can’t be a coincidence, Alex. Even you have to see that now.”

“It still doesn’t prove that the doll is connected to Mignon Bujold’s murder. You’re jumping to an awful lot of conclusions. And I don’t deal in coincidences when I investigate a crime, I deal in facts.”

“Okay, fact one—that doll looks exactly like Ruby, right down to the birthmark on her arm and the dress she was wearing when she disappeared. Fact two—nobody could have sculpted and painted her so perfectly from a picture. The birthmark was too tiny to show up in a photograph. Whoever made that doll had to have seen Ruby in person at some time or another. And three—a few days after Mignon Bujold bought that doll from a stranger, she turns up dead. There’s a pattern here, Alex. An undeniable connection. You have to reopen Ruby’s case.”

“For your information, Ruby’s case has never been closed. As far as NOPD is concerned, it’s still an ongoing investigation.”

“Then put some manpower on it,” Claire said desperately. “I know you have the clout to do it.”

Alex massaged his pounding forehead. “Go home, Claire. Go home and let me do my job.”

“But that’s just it. Will you do your job?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You never wanted to believe that the doll looked like Ruby. You never wanted to believe there was a connection to her kidnapping. Even now, after everything I just told you, you still don’t want to believe me. You refuse to keep an open mind, and I have to wonder if you’re the best person to investigate this case.”

“That’s not for you to decide. And thanks for your faith in me, by the way.”

“I’m not trying to insult you. I know you’re a good cop. I don’t think you would deliberately do anything to sabotage an investigation, but I also know you don’t want to see me hurt. I’m afraid of what you might do to protect me. But you don’t need to worry about me. I can handle the truth. What I can’t deal with is you keeping something from me.”

His gaze broke from hers and he looked off down the alley toward the street. A hush fell over the crowd gathered in front of the shop as the coroner’s assistants wheeled the portable gurney through the front door and loaded the body into the back of a van.

If they were lucky, the autopsy would tell them how Mignon Bujold had died and approximately when. But it was the why that worried Alex. Why had she become a target? Because the doll had crossed her path?

His gaze moved back to Claire. Her eyes looked very blue even in the shade, and her lips—lips that he had kissed over and over in a desperate attempt to obliterate her past—trembled ever so slightly with emotion. He couldn’t look her in the eye so he glanced away again.

“You need to go home,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“This is a police matter. You’ll just get in the way if you stay here.”

“What about the doll?”

“What about it?”

“Do you believe me now?”

“What I believe is that you’re so desperate, you’ve convinced yourself that a doll is somehow the answer to all your prayers. You need to let it go. If there’s a connection, we’ll find it.”

“I’m not giving up on this,” she said stubbornly. “I don’t care what you say.”

He hardened his voice. “Then I’m going to give you fair warning. If you interfere in any way in this investigation, I’ll treat you just like I would anyone else. I’ll toss your ass in jail and throw away the key.”

Claire lifted her shoulders. “You do what you have to do, Alex. Because that’s what I intend to do, too.”

She turned and started walking back toward the street. Alex called after her, but she kept going. He wanted to stop her, but he couldn’t. The weight of the photograph—and his own guilt—held him back. He leaned heavily against the wall and let his head drop back against the smooth, worn brick.

Water lilies undulated in the Sea Ray ’s wake as Dave cut back the engines and drifted toward the dock where Marsilius sat in a lawn chair, his face shielded by the brim of a straw hat. Dave had taken the boat out just after lunch and stayed until almost sunset.

Dropping anchor a few miles from shore, he’d set the rods and spun out the lines, then sat under a cloudless sky and waited for the fish to bite. After a couple of hours, the ice bins were lined with spotted bass, crappie and bream, all gutted and cleaned and waiting for the frying pan or the freezer. After he put away the rods, he’d cranked up the engines and made a run down to Vermillion Bay. The afternoon had been hot and sunny, the water as calm as a mirror, but by the time he headed back, clouds were already gathering in the west and he could smell the rain.

Tossing a line to Marsilius, Dave took the other and slipped the loop over a metal cleat bolted into the wooden dock. He was shirtless and he could feel the prickle of sunburn along his back and shoulders as he bent to his work.

“Someone’s waiting up at the house to see you,” Marsilius told him once they had the boat secured.

Dave jumped up on the dock. “Who is it, a client?”

“It’s Claire.”

Even after seeing her the other night, Dave found the sound of her name came as a shock. He turned and stared at the water, his heart pounding.

On the other side of the bayou, an old black man sat under a willow tree, fishing off the bank with a cane pole. Two little boys threw rocks and shells into the water nearby, scaring off the bream that had come to the surface to feed near the water lilies. The old man didn’t seem to mind. He sat puffing on a pipe, his eyes glued to the cork bobber floating among the lily pads.

“Dave, did you hear me?”

“I heard you, old man. What does she want?”

Marsilius shrugged, but his eyes were curious beneath the brim of his straw hat. “She didn’t say, I didn’t ask.”

“She must have told you something.”

He took off the hat and fanned his face. “All I know is she came into the bait shop looking for you. I told her you took the boat out, but I expected you back directly. She asked if I thought it would be okay for her to wait at your place. I said sure, didn’t see no harm in that.”

“Did you let her in?”

“I offered to, but she said she’d just as soon wait outside. But she must be getting pretty hot up there on that porch, Dave. You better go on up there and see what she wants.”

Dave resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder at the house. It was a strange feeling knowing that Claire was up there waiting for him. He had a picture in his mind of her in a yellow dress, sitting in the swing on her grandmother’s front porch. “There you are,” she’d say breathlessly as he slowly climbed the porch steps. “I was beginning to worry you weren’t coming.”

“You weren’t worried. You’re not the kind of girl who gets stood up.”

“Why do you say that?”