Page 70 of The Dollmaker

“I saw Stanford Madison tonight,” he said. “Did you know he was dating Diane Richardson?”

“I did not know that.”

“Tell me about Madison,” Dakota said.

“I had kind of a crush on him in college. I told Kara. She thought it was sweet.” A memory rose out of the shadows. “I remember them at the Halloween party. They were kissing.” She frowned. “That must be why I left.”

Dakota studied her a beat. “Why didn’t you ever talk about him to me?”

“Because he was a college crush and a friend after my accident. He visited me a few times that semester I had to drop out, and then we lost touch.”

McLean rose and moved to the envelope Tessa brought. “Tell us about the pictures?” he asked.

Relieved to look away, she rose and laid the pictures out like playing cards. “They were all taken the night of the Halloween party. Kara wore a red dress. The rest of us were dressed as dolls.”

“Dolls,” Dakota said.

“Yes. It was kind of a lark at the time, but now that I look at them, I get chills.”

Dakota leaned forward and for a long moment stared at the images. “Did you run into anyone that night that you thought might be trouble? Was there anyone interested in Kara, you, or the other girls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did Knox ever interview you?” Dakota asked. “He said he talked to everyone who knew Kara.”

“He did. It was later, though. I was a junior in college, and he caught up to me as I was coming out of the library.”

“What did he ask you about?”

“He wanted to know about that night Kara vanished. I couldn’t tell him anything.”

“What else?”

“Did I notice if anyone was hanging around the dorm in the weeks before the party.”

“And?”

“No one that I remembered. But ...” A detail long forgotten focused. “Someone did send her flowers.”

“When?”

“A couple of weeks before the party.”

“Who sent them?”

“There wasn’t a card on the flowers. I remember they were purple irises and were in a pretty vase by our dorm room door.”

“How do you know they were for Kara?” McLean asked.

“I just assumed. I didn’t know anyone that would send me flowers.”

Dakota tapped his finger on the pictures, clearly struggling to control his anger over Kara’s unsolved murder.

“The point I need to make, Dakota, is that Holly remembers Elena Hayes at Kara’s funeral. Holly says that Elena and her sister found Kara on the road. They said when they found her, she had makeup on her face.”

“She remembers that specific detail?” Dakota challenged.

“She has a photographic memory. If Holly remembers, it happened.”

---