Chapter Nine
“Your doll is so pretty.” Alice reached out a hand to stroke one blond braid of the two-foot-tall doll Billy had presented to Roxanne that morning.
Roxanne couldn’t bear to look at the garish toy.
Alice looked more like a doll to her, with shiny black hair and gold-flecked brown eyes set in a perfect, heart-shaped face.
Alice stuck out her lower lip. “Billy never gave me a doll.”
“You can have her,” Roxanne said. “I don’t want her.”
“That’s not very nice,” Alice said. She slid onto the twin bed beside Roxanne.
The two girls shared a bedroom in the nondescript house on a quiet suburban street.
It looked like a lot of other bedrooms Roxanne had been in, with two twin beds covered in matching floral coverlets, a fluffy pink rug between the beds.
Except the windows of this room were boarded up, and the door had double locks on the outside.
The door was locked now, Billy gone who knew where.
Roxanne sometimes wished he would never come back, except that would probably mean she and Alice would starve, locked in here.
Roxanne merely scowled at Alice. When she had first arrived here, she had thought of Alice as her friend. Alice comforted her when she cried and told her everything would be all right. She had shared food with Roxanne and encouraged her to cooperate with Billy, to keep him from getting angry.
But early on, Roxanne had realized she and Alice didn’t see their situation at all the same way.
From the first hour in this awful house, Roxanne had been looking for a way to escape, whereas Alice reacted with horror at the very thought.
“We can’t leave Billy!” she protested the first time Roxanne whispered to her about trying to escape.
And then Alice began to tattle to Billy whenever Roxanne did anything “wrong.” She caught Roxanne tugging at the edge of the boards over their bedroom windows and immediately reported to Billy.
Billy had responded by locking Roxanne in a closet.
She didn’t know how long she was in there, cowering in the dark before Billy let her out.
The punishment hadn’t taught her to stop trying to escape, but it had reinforced the idea of keeping any attempts to herself.
Alice was staring at the doll again. “We could undo her braids and comb out her hair,” she said. Alice liked to comb hair. She often insisted on brushing Roxanne’s hair, running the brush through it until Roxanne’s head ached.
“You can comb her hair if you like,” Roxanne said.
Alice looked at her a long moment. It was so hard for Roxanne to figure out what was going on behind those placid amber eyes of hers. Then Alice slid off the bed and fetched the hairbrush. She picked up the doll and carried it to her bed and began undoing the elastic bands at the end of each braid.
Roxanne lay down and faced the wall. She imagined busting a hole through the drywall and running away. Would she find someone to help her, or would they send her back to Billy?
She fell asleep and woke later, to Billy shaking her shoulder.
He held the doll, its hair undone, a tangled mess about its shoulders.
Alice stood just behind him, nibbling at one thumbnail.
“Look at the mess you made,” he said. It was one of his favorite admonitions.
She and Alice were always making messes, whether it was failing to perfectly smooth their sheets when they made their beds or missing a spot when they washed dishes.
Roxanne sat up, rocketed from sleep to wary wakefulness. “I didn’t do anything,” she said.
“How did her hair get like this?” Billy demanded.
“Alice did it.”
She realized her mistake immediately. Over Billy’s shoulder, she could see Alice shaking her head.
Billy looked at Alice. “Did you mess up the doll’s hair?”
“No.” Alice shook her head. “Mary did it. She said she didn’t like the doll.”
Billy thrust the doll at Roxanne. “You’re going to spend the rest of the evening picking out these tangles and rebraiding her hair,” he said. “No supper for you until you do.”
Roxanne knew pleading or crying were useless. She laid the doll on the bed. “All right.”
“You must do what I tell you,” Billy said, something he preached often. “The doll is yours to look after. Just like I look after you.”
Roxanne said nothing. She would never treat even a doll the way Billy treated her. And one day, she would get out of here. She would escape.
All day Wednesday, Dalton thought about Roxanne. He had resisted calling her or asking his mom about her. That was a sure way to focus his mom’s attention on their fledgling friendship. After he was done with work, he planned to drop by the house and see for himself how Roxanne was doing.
After his last tour of the day, he washed the Jeep as usual, then drove the short distance to a gas station to fill the tank.
He was standing at the pump, watching the numbers click over when a beeping horn caught his attention.
He turned to see Aaron in his sheriff’s department SUV gliding by.
Aaron raised a single finger in salute as he rolled past the gas station.
Dalton finished filling the Jeep’s tank, then headed in the direction Aaron had been traveling. He spotted his brother parked near the soccer fields and pulled in across the street.
Aaron looked up from his laptop and rolled down the window as Dalton approached. “Let me in,” Dalton said.
The door unlocked and Dalton moved aside a satchel full of paperwork and books and sat. The radio crackled softly with murmured conversation. “What do you know about the break-in at Roxanne’s place yesterday evening?” Dalton asked.
“The creepy doll? Nothing really.”
“Do you think William Ledger broke in and put that doll there?” Dalton asked.
“Maybe. Or someone who knew him and the kidnapping story.” Aaron gave him a hard look. “What has Roxanne said about it?”
“Not much. I haven’t talked to her since I dropped her off at Mom and Dad’s last night. But I know she thinks it was Ledger. No one else really knew about the doll.”
Aaron said nothing. The chatter on the radio had ceased and the two brothers sat in silence, though Aaron kept his gaze on Dalton, who couldn’t stop himself from fidgeting. Was this another interrogation technique Aaron had learned in cop college?
“You okay with Roxanne staying with Mom and Dad?” Aaron finally asked.
“It was my idea.”
“It’s probably as safe a place for her as any,” Aaron said. “We’re making regular patrols by the house. If there’s any trouble, we’ll move her to a safe house—as much to protect Mom and Dad as to safeguard her.”
Dalton’s stomach hurt. “You don’t really think they’re in danger, do you?”
Aaron’s scowl made him look almost menacing. “I’ve read Ledger’s file. He’s not a nice guy.”
Dalton nodded. Even the little he had read online made that clear. But the whole situation felt so unreal. The doll was unsettling, but its appearance hadn’t felt life-threatening. “Has the department had any luck tracking down Alice?” he asked.
“The other girl who was held captive with Roxanne?” Aaron asked.
“Yeah. She knew about the doll.”
“I don’t think we’ve looked for her. Why would she threaten Roxanne?”
“I don’t know.” Dalton raked one hand through his hair. “I’m just trying to think of anyone else who would have done this. What about Debra Percy?”
“The woman who was flying the drone off County Road 3? What about her?”
“She’s been acting strange. Almost stalking Roxanne.”
Aaron nodded. “Roxanne hasn’t mentioned her—that I know of. But I can do a little checking.”
“Thanks.” Maybe it was time for Dalton to do some digging, too.
“I know you helped us out when you dug up background info on Mira’s stalker,” Aaron said. “But stay out of this. We’re doing everything we can to figure this out and protect Roxanne.”
“I believe you,” Dalton said. But the sheriff’s department had a whole town full of people to protect.
He only had Roxanne. Thinking about her hurt wounded him.
He wasn’t ready to examine those feelings too closely, but digging around on the computer didn’t require a lot of emotion.
He had a talent and there was no reason he shouldn’t use it.
Roxanne spent her first morning with the Ameses focused on work.
Concentrating on code kept her thoughts from the fear-induced spiral that had kept her tossing and turning all night.
One of the many things she liked about her job was the distraction from her thoughts that it provided.
What seemed tedious to some was a welcome escape to her.
But by four o’clock she was done for the day and stared aimlessly out the window at the sunny lawn and distant peaks.
She kept replaying the events of yesterday evening.
That horrible doll, and all the memories it had brought to the surface.
Not that she would ever forget what had happened to her, but she had gotten good at not dwelling on that time.
She would rather focus on the future, but whoever was tormenting her now—Ledger or someone who knew his secrets—kept dragging her back into the mire of her past.
A gentle tapping on the door interrupted her thoughts. She turned in her chair. “Come in.”
Diane eased open the door. “Are you busy working?” she asked.
“No, I’m done for the day. I didn’t realize you were home. I didn’t hear a car.”
“I walked to work today.” She patted her hips. “Trying to fight the middle-aged spread.”
Roxanne thought she hardly looked old enough to be the mother of four grown children, but she wasn’t good at flattery, so kept silent. “Would you like to come downstairs for a bit?” Diane asked. “I could use some help in the kitchen.”
“Of course.” Roxanne stood. “Mrs. Ames, I’m so sorry I didn’t offer.”
She waved away the apology. “Call me Diane. And really, I need the company more than the help.”