Page 67 of The Dollmaker

“Kids get upset over stupid things,” Holly said.

“Yeah. Maybe if we hadn’t fought, she wouldn’t be dead.”

“You can’t play that game.”

“I suppose.”

Tessa turned the page, staring at a picture of herself with Stanford. His thick dark hair skimmed his shoulders, and he looked wild and dangerous. He’d been the boy she’d had a crush on. It was a lifetime ago. The past.

“You’re staring pretty hard at Stanford,” Holly said.

“I guess. I wonder what I ever saw in him.”

“He’s nothing like Sharp,” Holly said.

“That’s a good thing.”

“Is it?” Holly asked. “He’s a different person now. We both know Dakota’s a little crazy when he’s got a murder case, and that’s almost all the time.”

“It’s what he does for a living. He’ll always have a murder case on his desk. And after seeing Diane’s body and this other kid I autopsied the other day, I can see why he does get a little obsessed.”

The pages creaked as they turned. A packet of photos fell out. They were still in the drugstore envelope. “I don’t remember these,” Tessa said.

“They might have been the ones Mom found after you were hit. She was so scared you wouldn’t wake up that first night. She couldn’t sleep, and when she found the camera and film in your backpack, she drove them straight to the drugstore just to keep busy. When she came back to the hospital, you were awake. She tried to give them to you later, but you didn’t want to see them,” Holly said.

Tessa folded back the flap and pulled out the pictures. For a moment, she didn’t speak.

It was an image of Kara, Diane, Elena, and herself, taken by a girl from their dorm hall as they left for the Halloween party. Three of them were dressed as dolls. Kara was wearing her red dress.

“Kara’s not wearing makeup,” Tessa said, more to herself.

“Elena said she was wearing a lot when they found her. Find her. Ask her. I bet that is something she never forgot.”

She looked at Diane’s face and outfit. Her cheeks were stained with a bright blush. Painted freckles dotted her face. And her lips were painted in a bright red.

Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at the image. Dear God. She looked the same as she had days ago in the park.

When Sharp arrived back at his apartment, jazz music echoed from inside.

He glanced into the kitchen and saw the back door was propped open; McLean was standing by a grill. He crossed the room and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Twisting the top off, he took a long pull. “McLean.”

“Heard you pull up,” he said as he drank from his beer and flipped the second of two steaks. “Tossed one on the grill for you. Figured with the case, you aren’t eating.”

The air was cool and the sky so clear, the stars shone bright and crisp.

McLean swigged his beer as he flipped a steak. “You like your steak rare, as I remember.”

“Good memory.” He swirled his bottle as a cold breeze cut across the small fenced-in backyard. “How’d the job interview go today at Shield Security?”

“I bet I have a job offer in a day or two.”

“Always confident.”

“Of course.” McLean turned the steaks again. “Any luck with your tattooed victim?”

“Spoke to the victim’s parents and her ex-boyfriend. Everyone is shocked. No one really picked up on the fact she was missing for weeks.”

“What about friends? Or coworkers?”

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