Page 34 of Little Dolls

Startled, the boy’s eyes snapped from his book to her, wary for a moment, but then he assessed her and decided she wasn't a threat. Wariness changed to shyness, and his pale cheeks heated.

“How old are you, young man?”

“Eight,” his voice was soft and sweet.

Beaming a mega smile at him, she responded, “That’s perfect. My little grandson is exactly your age. He’s coming to stay with me for a couple of weeks while his mom and dad go on a holiday; he loves to read, and I wanted to choose some books for him to read. Do you read a lot?”

Eager now, the boy replied, “Yes, I love reading.”

“Would you mind helping me pick out a few books that my grandson might like?”

He hesitated for a moment, probably replaying his parents’ warnings to never talk to strangers. But the fact that she looked like an old lady, and that he probably felt safe in the library, he quickly brushed his concerns aside and bounced to his feet. Following him, he hurried to some shelves and began pulling out books.

Fate was on her side today. The shelves he’d chosen were partially hidden from view, and close to one of the exits—again, as fate would have it, it was the quieter one. Carefully, she extracted the vial of sedatives and syringe from her purse.

“These are my favorites,” the boy was saying, holding out several books.

“That’s nice, dear,” she murmured as she pretended to reach for the books, instead jabbing him with the needle.

Startled, the boy dropped the books, and staggered backward, but before he could make a sound she had bundled him up in her arms and was hurrying out the door. Satisfied that no one had noticed, she buckled the boy into the backseat of her car. Should she be pulled over, she could always explain his heavy sleeping as sickness, whereas an unconscious child in the trunk could not be so easily accounted for. Taking off, careful to follow all road rules, she couldn’t wait to get her new little addition home.

* * * * *

8:17 P.M.

The couple before him looked destroyed.

Unfortunately, Jonathon knew what they were going through. He remembered when his parents had looked like that. That look had lasted a long time.

Eight-year-old Jimmy Wallander had been reported missing a little over two hours ago. However, his mother hadn’t laid eyes on him since around three when she’d picked him up from school and taken him to the library so she could work on a paper for school. She’d recently gone back to study to be a teacher, but between juggling work, a husband, an eight-year-old and an eight-month-old baby, she didn’t have a lot of time to complete her assignments, so she’d taken to going to the library after picking up her son from school. She’d settled Jimmy down with a book—apparently, the little boy loved to read and was happy to sit for hours with a favorite book—and gone to work. At six o’clock she had packed up her work and gone to collect her son, ready to go home and cook dinner.

Only her son was nowhere to be found.

No one still at the library remembered seeing the boy walk off with anyone, but given that they had almost a three-hour window where the boy could have been taken, they were organizing tracking down everyone who had been there during that time.

Given that the boy was between the ages of six and eight, and a blue-eyed blond, plus the fact that they knew the killers were in the market for a boy given they already had Katie Logan and they had killed their last two kidnap victims, he and Allina had been given the case. They’d had the couple brought to the station to be interviewed. The father had picked up the baby from daycare and rushed to the library upon hearing his son was missing. Jonathon had thought this neutral location might help; their home was going to be full of distracting memories, as was the library.

He assessed the couple through the window of the conference room they'd set them up in. Heather Wallander had been clutching her baby daughter the entire time. Clutching her so tightly, in fact, that the baby was fussing. Liam Wallander had been downing cup after cup of coffee. To Jonathon’s count, he’d already had eight.

“Ready?” Allina popped up beside him.

“Yep.”

“Was Clara disappointed you had to cancel your dinner plans?”

“Disappointed, but she understood. She wants these killers caught almost more than anyone else. I said I’d call her tomorrow to reschedule.”

Clara had been very sweet on the phone, assuring him she completely understood that if they were to date, sometimes his job was going to require him to have to cancel. She had been devastated, although in a resigned manner, to learn another child had been taken. Guilty, too, which he hadn’t liked. None of this was her fault. She was six when she was kidnapped, and her brain had done what it needed to do to protect her, and even if they'd found the original Doll Killers, that might not have stopped Thomas Karl from deciding to replicate the crimes. Clara had also seemed to understand that talking to the parents of the missing boy would be difficult for him even though he hadn’t said a word to her, or to anyone else, about his connection to this case.

“When we finish with the parents, I’ll swing by your place and pick up your sister-in-law’s case files,” he told his partner.

She waved him off. “That can wait. It’ll be late; you can get them another time.”

“No, Allina. Grace has waited long enough for someone to find her. We’re partners, and I hope friends, too. I want to do what I can to help you find her.” He wasn't going to let Allina brush him off. He understood the torment she and her family were stuck in, torn between wishing Grace was already dead, so she wasn't suffering, and praying she was alive and doing everything in their power to bring her home.

“Okay, thanks,” she gave a tight smile. “It’s just abduction cases bring it all back up, not that it ever really goes away. And murder cases, part of me always expects the body to be hers.”

“I know.” He patted her shoulder comfortingly. It was a wonder Allina had managed to stick with the job, given that every day was full of painful reminders of her sister-in-law. He wasn't sure he could do it. As horrible as it had been finding out Dora was dead, it had given him and his family closure. Allina’s family was trapped in limbo, unable to move on. “You can't give up hope; Grace is counting on you.”

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