CHAPTER TWO
Jake’s phone call had been oddly cryptic and urgent. “Something unusual,” he’d said. Considering the cases they’d recently dealt with, unusual seemed to be becoming the norm.
She stepped out of the car, straightened her uniform, and walked up the neat concrete path to the front door. Before she could knock, the door swung open. Jake stood in the threshold, his typical unruffled manner replaced by something Jenna rarely saw in him—uncertainty.
“Thanks for coming so quickly,” he said, voice low. He searched her face, no doubt noting the shadows beneath her eyes. “Any luck out at the farm?”
Jenna found it a comfort that Jake knew all about her ongoing search for Piper. She’d also told him about her lucid dreams back in June, making him one of three people—including Jenna herself—who knew the truth about her gift—if she could call it that.
“Another false lead,” she replied, the words sounding all too familiar in her own ears. “The house I found wasn’t quite right. And no one there recognized Piper’s photo.”
Jake nodded, knowing better than to offer empty reassurances. In the two years they’d worked together, he’d learned when her sister was a topic for conversation and when it wasn’t. This wasn’t the time.
“So what’s this situation that couldn’t wait?” Jenna asked, glancing past him into the house.
“It’s...” Jake hesitated, running a hand through his sandy hair.
“Harry Powell’s wife seems to have gone missing, but …
that’s not all. It’s not like anything we’ve dealt with before.
Nothing I’ve ever seen, either here or even back when I was a cop in Kansas City. Better if you see it for yourself.”
He stepped aside to let her in. Jenna followed Jake through to the living room, where a man in his fifties sat on the edge of a beige sofa. His hands were clasped tightly, and his eyes darted up at their entrance with a desperate hope that quickly faded when he saw Jenna.
Officer Maria Delgado sat beside him, her notepad open but mostly empty. She gave Jenna a subtle nod, her expression conveying that this was no ordinary case.
“Mr. Powell, this is Sheriff Graves,” Jake said.
Harry Powell stood quickly, nearly stumbling in his haste. “Have you found her? Have you found Marjory?”
Jenna recognized him vaguely—a face she’d seen around town, perhaps at community events or the grocery store, but never someone she’d had reason to speak with directly.
“I’ve just arrived, Mr. Powell,” she said, keeping her voice level, professional. “I don’t have any updates for you yet. Are you saying your wife is missing?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know.” His words tumbled out, colliding with each other. “She’s not here, but there’s—there’s something else. Something I found.”
“Why don’t you sit back down?” Jenna suggested, noticing the slight tremor in his hands. “Officer Delgado will stay with you while Deputy Hawkins shows me what you found.”
Harry sank back onto the sofa, his shoulders slumping with a defeat that seemed to age him another decade. “Please hurry.”
Jake led Jenna through a formal dining room and pushed open a swinging door into the kitchen. Officer Mike Donovan stood with his back to them, cell-phone camera raised, photographing something Jenna couldn’t yet see from her angle.
“Mike,” she acknowledged.
He looked up, lowering the camera. “Sheriff. Glad you’re here. This one’s sure ... different.”
He stepped aside, giving Jenna her first clear view of what sat at the kitchen table.
She froze in place when she saw it—the thing that was obviously not alive but not like anything she’d seen before.
The mannequin was posed in perfect stillness, hands wrapped around a white coffee mug, eyes staring vacantly at the center of the table.
It wore a navy blazer over a cream-colored blouse, styled auburn hair falling in soft waves.
“Jesus,” Jenna whispered.
“That was my reaction too,” Jake said quietly.
Jenna approached slowly, circling the table, each step sinking her further into disbelief.
The mannequin had been well-designed and carefully posed.
The face was crafted with unsettling precision—not the blank, idealized features of a department store mannequin, but of a specific woman, rendered with disturbing attention to detail.
“My God,” Jenna whispered.
“That was my reaction too,” Jake said quietly.
Jenna continued to circle, studying the mannequin. This was not some prank-store novelty; it was professional work, custom-crafted.
“I assume this resembles Marjory Powell?” Jenna asked, pulling her eyes away from the thing to look at Jake.
He nodded. “With eerie accuracy. Harry showed me her photo.”
“And it came from ...?”
“Harry found it here, just like this, when he got home from work.” Jake glanced back toward the living room. “Nothing disturbed, no signs of forced entry. Just... this. He said he couldn’t get in touch with Marjory. She’s not answering calls or texts.”
Jenna stared at the mannequin, then back at Jake. “You think this means foul play?”
“I don’t know what to think,” Jake admitted, the uncertainty in his voice echoing Jenna’s own. “But it’s definitely not your average case of a missing person.”
“Have we checked the house? The yard?”
“Mike and I did a preliminary sweep. Nothing obvious. No blood, no signs of struggle. Marjory’s car is missing, her purse and phone presumably with her.”
Jenna leaned closer to the mannequin’s face, studying the craftsmanship. The eyes were glass, hazel-colored, with fine details painted in to mimic the natural patterns of a human iris. The lips held the ghost of a smile, as if the figure had been caught in the middle of a pleasant thought.
“I need to talk to Harry,” she said, straightening up.
Back in the living room, Harry Powell had not moved from his spot on the sofa. His eyes fixed on Jenna as she entered.
“Mr. Powell,” she began, taking a seat in an armchair across from him. “I need you to tell me exactly what happened today. From the beginning.”
Harry swallowed hard. "I came home early.
The plant manager cut my hours again, the third time this month.
I wasn't supposed to be home until after five.
" His words came out mechanically, as if he'd already repeated this story multiple times.
"I expected the house to be empty. Marjory had showings scheduled all day. "
“What time did you arrive home?”
“Around two-thirty, quarter to three, maybe? I didn’t check the time exactly.”
“And what did you find when you got here?”
Harry’s eyes drifted toward the kitchen door, then quickly away. “I came in, hung up my jacket. I was hungry, so I went to the kitchen, and—” His voice broke. “She was just sitting there. Or, not her. That thing. Looking like her, wearing her clothes.”
“You’re certain those are her clothes?”
“Yes.” Harry nodded emphatically. “That’s her blazer, the one she calls her power suit. She wore it for important showings. That’s her blouse, her... everything.”
“Did you touch anything in the kitchen?”
“No. Well, not the... not that thing. I couldn’t. I called out for Marjory, checked the other rooms. Then I tried calling her cell phone.”
“And?”
“It went to voicemail. I called her office. Carol, the receptionist, said she’d been out showing properties all day.”
Jenna made notes as he spoke, though she was sure that Mike and Jake had already recorded most of these details. “Mr. Powell, what happened next?”
“I called 911. A few minutes later, before the police go here, the phone rang. It was Darla Fenwick, Marjory’s boss at Evergreen Realty. She wanted to know why Marjory hadn’t shown up for her three o’clock appointment at the Blackwell cottage. Said the clients had been waiting for twenty minutes.”
“And Marjory is usually punctual?”
“Always. Especially for showings. She’s the top agent at the firm. Never misses an appointment.”
Jenna leaned forward slightly. “Mr. Powell, I need to ask you something important. Do you know what Marjory was wearing when she left the house this morning?”
Harry’s brow furrowed. “I—I don’t know. I left for work after breakfast, around seven. She was still in her robe then, having coffee. I didn’t see her get dressed.”
“So it might have been these clothes or something different?”
“Could have been either.”
The answer settled heavily in Jenna’s mind.
If the mannequin wore the clothes Marjory had put on that morning, it suggested something had happened to her after she’d dressed for work.
If the mannequin had been dressed differently, that probably meant someone had gotten the clothes out of her wardrobe.
In either case, someone had been able to create, or commission, an exact replica of her face.
And that probably couldn’t have been done quickly, not with that kind of detail.
“Has Marjory received any threats recently? Any strange phone calls or emails? Anyone who might wish her harm?”
Harry shook his head. “No, nothing like that. She sells houses. Everyone loves her.”
“Any unusual clients? Anyone who seemed overly interested in her personally rather than professionally?”
“She didn’t mention anyone.” Harry’s voice cracked. “What’s happening? Where is my wife?”
Jenna wished she had an answer for him. Instead, she said, “We’re going to do everything we can to find her, Mr. Powell. But right now, I need to preserve that scene in your kitchen for our investigation.”
Horror crept into his tone. “You mean that thing is staying there?”
“Just until we can properly document everything and do a sweep for prints, any other clues that might be here in your house. We don’t want to miss any evidence. Is there somewhere you can stay tonight? A friend or family member’s house?”
Harry’s shoulders slumped further. “My brother Hosmer lives a few blocks away. I can stay with him.”
“That would be best. Officer Delgado will help you pack whatever you need and drive you there.”
Maria nodded, gentle but professional. “Just a few essentials, Mr. Powell. We’ll need to leave most of the house undisturbed.”
Jenna stood. “We’ll call you the moment we know anything about Marjory’s whereabouts.”
Harry allowed Maria to help him up, his movements slow. With her help, he collected a few necessities from the bathroom and bedroom. When he and Maria were on their way out of the house, he paused and turned back to Jenna. “Sheriff? You will find her, won’t you?”
She felt the weight of his hope—of his fear. She’d seen that same desperate hope in her mother’s eyes for twenty years. She didn’t make promises she couldn’t keep.
“We’re going to do everything possible,” she said instead.
After Maria had led Harry outside, Jenna returned to the kitchen. Jake and Mike had set up proper crime scene protocols now, markers placed around the room, Mike methodically photographing every angle of the mannequin.
“What’s your take?” Jake asked, stepping closer to her.
“It’s unlike anything I’ve seen,” Jenna admitted, her voice low. “Either this is some elaborate prank gone wrong, or...” She didn’t finish the thought. They both knew what the alternative might be.
“Mannequins like this can’t be cheap or common,” Jake said. “The face alone would take skill and time to create.”
“And access to Marjory. Detailed photos at minimum.” Jenna circled the table again, studying the figure’s posture, the natural way its hands cupped the mug. “This isn’t random. It’s personal. Intimate, even.”
“Mike’s running the license plate from the security cam footage across the street. Marjory’s car left the driveway at 11:43 this morning. We’re trying to track its movements.”
Jenna nodded, but her focus remained on the mannequin. There was something deeply unsettling about its presence, beyond the obvious wrongness of finding it here. It wasn’t just a representation; it was a replacement. A perfect, silent substitute for a living, breathing woman.
“We need to canvass the neighborhood,” she said finally. “Find out if anyone saw or heard anything unusual today. Check traffic cameras, ATM withdrawals, credit card use. The usual missing persons protocol, plus...” She gestured at the mannequin. “Whatever this is.”
Jake nodded. “I’ll coordinate with Maria when she gets back from dropping off Harry. Mike’s almost done with the photos. Officer Baldry is on his way over here now.”
“Good.” Jenna moved closer to the mannequin, leaning in to study its face once more.
The craftsmanship was exquisite, down to the fine lines at the corners of the eyes, the subtle curve of the lips.
Someone had spent considerable time and resources creating this facsimile of Marjory Powell.
But why? And what had they done with the real Marjory?
The house fell quiet save for the soft click of Mike's camera.
Through the kitchen window, Jenna could see the sun beginning its descent, casting long shadows across the Powells' backyard.
A couple of hours had passed since Marjory missed her appointment.
Hours in which anything could have happened to her.
Jenna stared at the mannequin, its vacant eyes reflecting nothing back. In twenty years of law enforcement, she’d never encountered a scene like this. There was no protocol, no precedent to follow. The mannequin sat in silent mockery of their confusion, holding secrets it couldn’t tell.
What was she supposed to do with this? Where did she even begin?
The mannequin stared back, impassive and eternal, offering no answers.