Page 36 of Little Dolls

“No,” Heather answered in the merest hint of a whisper.

Jonathon hadn’t expected them to answer any differently than they had. All the families of the kidnapped children had said the same thing. None of them had noticed anyone targeting their child. It seemed that the killers simply picked a day and a location and then picked a child who just happened to be there and who fitted their requirements.

“Would Jimmy have spoken to a stranger if one approached him?” Allina asked.

“He knows about strangers, and he knows not to talk to one, but he’s eight. If someone approached him, and he didn’t see them as a threat, then he might.”

Liam seemed to be the designated answerer, which wasn't going to do them any good. He hadn’t been at the library; he wouldn’t have seen anything. They needed Heather to snap out of her daze long enough to answer some questions. If they could get a handle on how the abductor approached the children and gained their trust, thus allowing them to be removed from a public place without the child putting up a fuss, then it could help them tremendously.

“Mrs. Wallander,” Allina pulled her chair closer and clasped the woman’s hands in her own. “I know it’s tough, but Jimmy needs you to be strong a little longer, okay? We need you to tell us about the people from the library, whatever you can remember about them.”

“There were too many,” the woman protested dully.

“You don’t have to remember everyone, just tell us about the people you do remember. Try to think about who seemed like they fit in, who belonged, and who didn’t,” Allina encouraged.

“It was after school,” Heather began, “so there were a lot of parents with kids.”

“Anyone who stood out, maybe a woman who didn’t seem to be with a child?” Jonathon asked, aware that with Thomas dead they were most likely looking for his female partner.

Scrunching her eyes closed as she thought, she answered, “Not that I remember, but I wasn't really paying attention. I wanted to get as much work done on my paper as I could before I had to go home and get dinner started. I just settled Jimmy in the children’s area—we’ve been there plenty of times before so he already knew the rules.”

“What were the rules, Mrs. Wallander?” Allina asked

“He could talk to other kids, or a parent with a kid, but no one else. He wasn't allowed to leave the children’s area unless it was to come directly to me. He knew where I’d be, and he had to ask even if he needed to use the bathroom. Other than that, he was supposed to stay there and read. Helovesreading; he can do it for hours. Sometimes at home, I have to take his books off him to get him to go and play outdoors. It was the library, I thought he’d be safe,” Heather finished helplessly.

Allina dove straight into the next question before the woman had time to wallow, “Other than parents with kids, who else was there?”

“There were some older kids, high school and college age, but all were busy working on assignments, none of them were wandering about.”

Thinking that an elderly person might seem harmless enough to a child that they would disobey the never-talk-to-a-stranger rule, Jonathon prodded, “Anyone older? Fifties? Sixties? Seventies, maybe?”

Blue eyes widened. “Therewasan old lady. I remember because she walked so slowly around the whole library, it seemed like she was in pain. I considered getting up and asking her if I could find her book for her so she could sit down and take a break.”

That sounded like a genuine possibility. Disguising yourself as an old woman would be the perfect way to scout locations without seeming suspicious—no one suspected the kindly old grandmotherly type. Jonathon wondered if that was how Clara had been lured. Or perhaps, thinking of Clara’s insistence that the current crimes were committed by the same couple as the original ones, itwasone of the original Doll Killers, who would now be elderly.

“Can you give us a description of the woman?” Allina was asking.

“You think it was her?” Heather’s jaw went slack with surprise. “But she was just an old lady.”

“Would Jimmy have spoken to an old lady if one approached him?” Jonathon asked.

She nodded quickly. “Gray hair, glasses, wearing a dress, I remember thinking that a lot of elderly women always wear a dress even when the weather is so cold—not that there’s anything wrong with that. I mean I sometimes wear dresses in the winter myself. It’s just that you often see . . .”

Allina quickly cut off the woman’s rambling. “Anything else, Mrs. Wallander? Was she tall or short? How old did she appear to be?”

“Shortish, maybe a little under average. I would have thought seventies. That means … that means …” Heather Wallander’s blue eyes went glassy again, “that it’s the same people who were doing this before. When we were kids. They killed almost twenty children back then, and another four now. And they have my baby. They have my baby!” The last was repeated in a hysterical shriek, and she began to sob.

Liam made no move to comfort his wife, so Allina slipped from her chair and went to wrap her arms around the woman. Jonathon could see his family mirrored so closely in the Wallanders. Each parent blaming the other, each parent blaming themselves—that guilt and anger eating away at them until their relationship began to crumble. They may stay together, as his parents had, for the sake of the remaining child, but the love, the joy, the spark between them had been forever extinguished.

His family had all but crumbled under the pressure of Dora’s death, but there was still hope for the Wallander family. If they could just find Jimmy and bring him back alive, then this family still had a hope of healing.

February10th

1:00 A.M.

“You guys don’t have to come in with me. I'm really tired; I'm going to go straight to bed,” Clara told her brothers. “Naomi is staying with me, so I’ll really be okay.”

“Naomi needs sleep, too.” Dylan nudged Naomi aside as she fumbled with her keys at the door. “Have you even slept the last few nights?”

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