Page 13 of Girl, Sought

‘Looks like it. Someone like Eleanor would never leave a noticeable gap like this.’

Reeves looked queasy. Probably wishing he was back on traffic duty. ‘What if it was out for cleaning or something?’

Ella nodded at Eleanor’s tools on her desk. ‘She did her own maintenance, by the looks of things. I think our perp took whatever was here. To assert dominance.’

‘Dominance? Over dolls?’ Reeves asked.

‘No, it's bigger than that. This whole display, it's a power trip. He's proving he can infiltrate his victim's most private sanctum, violate their prized possessions. This is ownership.’

Ella's eyes drifted back to the gaping hole in Eleanor's prized display. The negative space screamed at her, taunting. Daring her to fill in the blanks.

‘Looks like we’ve got some serious digging to do,’ Luca said. ‘Maybe we ought to head to the precinct. The sooner we look into Eleanor’s life, the more chance we’ve got of catching him before another body joins the pile.’

Reeves jumped in. ‘Wait a minute, you think this could just be number one? Of how many?’

The odds of this being a one-off homicide were higher than zero but still low, so Ella kept that optimism on lock. She could feel the certainty of this progressing to a serial case in her bones. This was just the overture. Her maestro of death had a full symphony in mind.

‘If I was a betting woman, I’d put six figures on it. Killers like this don’t go to these lengths without a long-term plan in mind, and once they get a taste of that power, they’ll do anything to feel it again.’

Reeves looked ready to hurl, but he squared his shoulders and nodded. 'Then we better get hunting.'

Ella took one final sweep of the room and committed every detail to memory. The empty spot in the display case nagged at her like a missing tooth. Their unsub hadn't just staged a murder - he'd curated it, right down to selecting his own souvenir. As much as she hated to admit it, this guy had balls and brains in equal measure, and that combination made for difficult capture.

‘You want to stay here until forensics arrive?’ she asked Reeves.

‘Yeah. You guys get set up at the precinct. The receptionist will show you your office.’

‘Thanks. Make sure the CSI team get photos of everything in this room, especially the positioning of the body. And tell them to inspect the inside of the case with the missing doll. Our guy could have gotten sloppy and left a print in there.’

'Will do.' Reeves looked relieved to have concrete tasks to focus on. Anything to avoid staring at Eleanor's painted face.

‘Let’s go, Hawkins. We’ve got a doll maker to find.’

CHAPTER SIX

Barely 3PM and dusk had already descended.

The traffic light outside the bedroom window painted the wall red. Again. And again. The same as it had for the eight years he'd lived in this end of town. He could probably keep time by it. Mark the minutes. Count the endless procession of cars heading to the naval base. That's what life had been - a string of cycling lights and small routines.

Until Eleanor.

The Collector stared at the doll in the cabinet like a newborn, seeing the world for the first time. Because, in a way, he was. Reborn in the wake of Eleanor's death, baptized in the intoxicating power of taking a life and making it his own.

The doll – apparently named Margaret according to Eleanor’s records – sat in the glass cabinet that he’d erected for this purpose. Powder-blue dress. Perfect rosebud mouth. Those arsenic-laced grey-blue eyes staring right at him. The pride of Eleanor Calloway's collection, now his. The crack in her hip didn't matter. The German adhesive would arrive tomorrow.

The room was a mess of empty boxes. The cabinet installation had taken hours, but it had to be perfect. Climate controls. Proper lighting. A lot of money for someone living in a place where sirens never stopped wailing, but worth it. You couldn't put perfection in some IKEA display case.

He caught his reflection in the glass. The eyes that stared back from the glass weren't the same ones he'd worn his whole life. These eyes had seen things. Done things. Created things.

Eleanor Calloway had owned this doll but never possessed it. Not really. Possession meant understanding. Meant transformation. The way the doll transformed him just by existing in his space, elevating this rat-trap apartment into something approaching sacred.

The building's pipes groaned. Somewhere upstairs, the meth-head couple started their morning screaming match right on schedule. But their voices seemed distant now, like background noise in a movie about someone else's life.

That old life - the cubicle, the Excel sheets, the frozen dinners eaten over the sink - felt like a cocoon he'd finally shed. The old life sloughed away like dead skin. Forty years as a background character in his own story.

Margaret's eyes caught the traffic light. Red glinted off that ancient German glass. The way she watched him - not like a doll at all. More like she recognized something in him. Something that had always been there, waiting.

He ran a hand along the glass one last time, then turned to gather his things. Eleanor Calloway and her doll was just the first of many. There were other collectors out there that needed to pay the same price.

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