CHAPTER NINE
What Jenna saw when Liza pushed the studio door open wasn't reassuring at all. Two life-sized mannequins stood in the center of the large, cluttered space, posed as if caught mid-dance—one male, one female. Their blank, featureless faces seemed to be looking back at her with eyeless scrutiny.
“Meet Fred and Ginger,” Liza said, her tone wry as she gestured toward the figures. “They’ve been my studio companions for at least a decade.”
Jenna circled the mannequins slowly, taking in every detail.
Unlike the Marjory mannequin, with its disturbingly realistic face, these were standard artist’s figures—faceless, hairless, unclothed, and with visible fiberglass joints.
Their posed stance was elegant but artificial, caught in what looked like a ballroom dance step, hands clasped together.
“This is what you meant,” Jenna said, “about me not being reassured.”
“I figured mannequins might be a trigger after what you saw today.” Liza moved past her to adjust the female figure’s arm position slightly. “They’re just tools for me, though. Models that never complain about holding a pose.”
Jenna’s gaze shifted beyond the mannequins to several works-in-progress positioned around the studio. A half-finished sculpture of two dancers, clearly modeled after Fred and Ginger, stood on a worktable. Another piece showed a solitary figure emerging from what appeared to be water.
“You use them as models for your sculptures,” Jenna observed.
“Among other things. They’re invaluable for getting proportions right, studying how fabric would hang on a human form.”
Jenna stepped closer to the male mannequin, noting the quality of the construction, the smooth surface of the fiberglass. “They’re high-end. Not department store display models.”
“No, they’re museum quality.” Liza leaned against her workbench, arms folded.
“That is, they’re used to re-create historical figures for museums. That’s how I knew right away what you were dealing with at the Powells’.
The mannequin in their kitchen was made by Amberson Museum Figures. Same as Fred and Ginger here.”
“You recognized the manufacturer?”
“It wasn’t just a guess when I told you that earlier today,” Liza confirmed. “I knew because I’ve had these two for years. Bought them just before Amberson went out of business about ten years ago.”
“That’s quite a coincidence.”
“Is it?” Liza asked, her eyebrows lifting slightly.
“Amberson was the best in the business. Anyone who wanted quality mannequins would have gone to them. Museums, universities, research facilities, artists like me.” She ran a hand along the female mannequin’s arm.
“I’ve spent so many hours with these two, I almost think of them as friends. ”
Jenna watched Liza’s face carefully, searching for signs of deception. “Tell me more about the mannequin at the Powells’. How was that face created?”
“The face would have been made with a silicone mask,” Liza explained, moving toward a shelf stacked with materials.
She pulled down a clear container of what looked like thick, translucent gel.
“Something like this, but flesh-toned. You would sculpt the likeness in clay first, then make a plaster mold of that sculpture. Pour the silicone into the mold, let it set, and you’ve got a flexible mask that holds incredible detail. ”
“Silicone?”
“Right. Silicone is perfect for capturing minute details—pores, wrinkles, subtle asymmetries in the face. It stretches, so once you’ve created it, you can slip it over the mannequin’s blank head. It fits like a second skin.”
Jenna tried to suppress a shudder as she imagined the process of creating Marjory’s likeness. “And the rest of the visible skin?”
“The hands, maybe the neck if it was visible? That would be simpler—just flesh-toned latex stretched over the frame.” Liza demonstrated with a strip of thin, pliable material.
“No need for the same level of detail. Our brains focus on faces, recognize individuality there. The rest just needs to look human enough at a glance.”
The technical explanation, delivered with such casual expertise, sent another chill through Jenna. Liza caught her expression and set down the materials.
“Look,” she said, spreading her arms wide, “search my studio. Every inch. You won’t find a clay sculpture of Marjory’s head, or a mold made from such a sculpture. No silicone mask with her likeness. Nothing.”
Jenna did look, methodically examining worktables, shelves, and storage bins. She found soft clay pieces in various states of completion, molds made from sculptor's plaster, but nothing resembling Marjory Powell or any human face.
“Whoever created that mannequin has serious skill,” Liza continued as Jenna searched. “I’m actually envious. The craftsmanship required to capture a likeness that precisely—it’s impressive work.”
Jenna completed her inspection of the studio and turned back to Liza. Despite her initial suspicions, she found herself believing her old friend. Nothing in the studio suggested Liza had created a replica of Marjory Powell. And yet...
“The mannequin being from the same manufacturer as yours is still troubling,” Jenna said.
“Amberson sold thousands of mannequins before they closed,” Liza replied.
“They’re all over the country—in museums, teaching hospitals, art studios.
” She hesitated. “I understand why you’re suspicious, Jenna.
I lied about where I was today. I’m having an affair with a married man.
Not exactly the behavior of an upstanding citizen. ”
Jenna nodded, unable to argue with that assessment. “I believe you didn’t create the mannequin, Liza. But something about this whole situation still doesn’t sit right.”
“Fair enough.” Liza walked her to the studio door. “For what it’s worth, I hope you find Marjory. Despite our falling out, I wouldn’t wish any harm on her.”
They parted with strained pleasantries, the easy camaraderie of their youth now obscured by adult complications. Jenna drove away from Liza’s property with her mind churning, processing everything she’d learned.
Once on the highway back to Trentville, she called Jake, putting him on speakerphone.
“Liza has mannequins in her studio,” she said without preamble when he answered. “Two of them. From the same manufacturer as the one in the Powells’ kitchen.”
“Well, that’s unsettling,” Jake replied, his voice tinny through the car speakers.
“She uses them as models.” Jenna sighed, watching the road unfurl before her headlights. “They have blank faces, and there’s no evidence in her studio of creating anything like the Marjory mannequin. Despite everything, my gut says she’s telling the truth about that.”
“But why the deception?”
“She admitted that she was having an affair with Chester Callen. It explains why she was at the Twilight Inn and why she lied about it. The whole thing leaves me unsettled, Jake.”
“The most disturbing thing is that Marjory’s still missing,” Jake said. “Mannequin aside, we have a woman who disappeared between appointments. No contact with family or work. That’s our real concern.”
“You’re right.” Jenna flicked on her turn signal, passing a slow-moving truck. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the Powells’ when Spelling’s team arrives.”
“Try to get some sleep,” Jake advised before they ended the call.
Jenna continued toward Trentville, her thoughts drifting between the mannequin in the Powells’ kitchen, the mannequins in Liza’s studio, and Marjory’s unexplained absence. There were too many strange connections, too many coincidences for her to make sense of yet.
As she drove through the darkness, she wondered if tonight’s sleep might bring dreams with some clue about what had happened to Marjory Powell.
***
Jenna found herself standing in a vast emptiness, a gloomy expanse.
No walls, no ceiling, no discernible floor beneath her feet—just endless gray space stretching in all directions.
The familiar disorientation washed over her, and she knew immediately: she was dreaming.
Not just dreaming, but lucid, aware of her consciousness even as it floated through this constructed reality.
These were the dreams where the dead came to her.
She turned slowly, surveying the void around her. Sometimes these dreams had settings—crime scenes, homes, woodlands. This stark emptiness was unusual, unsettling in its simplicity.
“Hello?” she called, her voice neither echoing nor seeming to travel at all. It simply existed, then vanished.
As if responding to her voice, something materialized in the distance—a shape, low to the ground.
Jenna moved toward it, the formless gray giving way as she approached.
The shape resolved into a human figure lying prone, covered entirely with a white sheet.
The stark white fabric stood out against the muted backdrop like a beacon, impossibly bright.
Jenna’s pulse quickened. In twenty years of these visitations, she’d learned that the dead rarely presented themselves peacefully. They came with urgency, with unfinished business, with wounds still raw.
She knelt beside the sheet-covered figure, hesitating only a moment before grasping the edge of the fabric. With a steady hand born of years of crime scene experience, she pulled it back.
Marjory Powell’s face was revealed, eyes closed as if in sleep. An oxygen mask covered her nose and mouth, the clear plastic fogging slightly with each shallow breath. Her skin had an unnatural pallor, her auburn hair arranged too perfectly around her face.
“Marjory,” Jenna whispered.
Marjory’s chest rose and fell once more, the mask clouding with condensation, then clearing. Then—nothing. The movement stopped. The mask remained clear. Jenna reached forward, about to check for a pulse, when a voice spoke from behind her.
“I’m not there. I’m over here.”
Jenna spun around, rising to her feet in a fluid motion.
Standing just a few yards away was another figure—a mannequin like those in Liza’s studio, its fiberglass joints and limbs clearly visible, unclothed and artificial.
But where the head should have been blank and featureless, Marjory Powell’s face stared back at her, eyes open and alive, expression mobile and distressed.
This confirmed Jenna’s worst fear. If Marjory was appearing to her in a lucid dream, it could only mean one thing—Marjory was dead.
“You’re... gone?” Jenna asked, though she already knew the answer.
The Marjory-headed mannequin looked down at its own artificial limbs, lifting jointed hands in a gesture of confusion. “This isn’t right,” she said, her voice strangely distant yet clear. “This isn’t my body. I need to get back.”
“Back to where, Marjory? What happened to you?” Jenna took a step closer, careful to keep her voice gentle. The newly dead were often confused, disoriented. She’d learned to guide them slowly toward awareness.
“My body,” Marjory repeated, gesturing toward the figure on the ground. “That’s where I belong. Not in this... thing.” She looked down at her mannequin form again, horror crossing her features. “He put me in the wrong place.”
“Who did?” Jenna pressed. “Who did this to you?”
Marjory’s eyes focused suddenly, recognition dawning. “Sheriff Graves? What are you doing here?” Her gaze darted around the empty dreamscape. “What is this place? Where are we?”
“I’m trying to help you,” Jenna said. “Do you remember what happened? Who hurt you?”
“He didn’t mean me any harm,” Marjory said, her voice taking on a strangely defensive tone.
“He told me so. He just didn’t understand—I still have so much to live for.
” She reached toward the sheet-covered body on the ground, but her mannequin arms couldn’t quite extend far enough.
“I told him about Harry, about Kayla at college. I thought he understood.”
Jenna stepped closer, fighting back the frustration that often came with these fragmented conversations. The dead rarely gave straight answers, their memories clouded by trauma and the transition between states of being.
“Who is ‘he,’ Marjory? Can you tell me his name?”
The mannequin with Marjory’s face looked up, eyes suddenly clear and direct. “I wasn’t the first,” she said with startling clarity. “And I won’t be the last.”
“There were others before you?”
But Marjory’s attention had drifted again, her gaze fixed on her sheet-covered body. “I need to go back,” she whispered. “I don’t belong in this shell. I’m not a doll. I’m not a thing. I’m—”
Jenna jerked awake.
Her bedroom was dark, the digital clock on her nightstand showing 3:17 a.m. in harsh red numerals. She lay still, allowing her pulse to slow, processing what she'd seen.
It wasn’t just a nightmare. She knew the difference by now—had twenty years of experience separating ordinary dreams from these visitations. Marjory Powell was dead. And according to what she’d said, she wasn’t the killer’s first victim.
“I wasn’t the first. And I won’t be the last.”
And if Marjory wasn’t the first, it meant there was at least one other victim she and her colleagues didn’t know about yet. They were dealing with a serial offender, someone who had killed before and would strike again. The case had just become more urgent, more deadly than anyone had realized.
Jenna rolled onto her side, trying to recall any other details from the dream that might help identify the killer.
Marjory had said “he,” so they were looking for a man—one more reason not to suspect Liza, or Rebecca Ashcroft, for that matter.
She’d also said he “didn’t mean harm,” suggesting he might not view his actions as malicious—perhaps he even believed he was helping his victims somehow.
The mannequin connection was still the most disturbing element.
Marjory’s consciousness trapped in a mannequin body, desperate to return to her human form.
Was that symbolic of whatever the killer had done to her physical body?
Or merely her mind’s way of processing her death, given the mannequin left in her place?
She knew she wouldn’t learn anything more right now.
The lucid-dreams visitations never came twice in one night, as if the dead understood the toll they took on her.
Jenna sighed and closed her eyes, knowing she needed to rest before morning.
Colonel Spelling’s team would arrive early.
Somewhere out there, a killer was perhaps already selecting his next victim.
As sleep began to reclaim her, Marjory’s words followed her down into darkness: “I wasn’t the first. And I won’t be the last.”