Page 83 of Bad Mother

Sienna let out a small chuff.

“It has to be somewhere near the middle, though, right?” he said. “All the states on the East Coast were founded first. We could tryeverything between twenty-five and thirty-five,” he suggested. Which sounded sort of hopeless, but what else did they have? Nothing.

“Okay, so the ten numbers between twenty-five and thirty-five, the number one, and then whatever this might represent,” he said, picking the doll up. “Can you think of a number the person named Dolly from his writings might represent?”

Sienna took her bottom lip between her teeth, looking down as she attempted to recall everything about Dolly, the drunk, large-breasted coworker. What had they been drinking? Beer... some sort of shots. Sienna shook her head. “Unless you can think of a number that goes along with checkers? I don’t recall him mentioning a number.”

“There are two colors, two players,” Gavin said. “Maybe the number two.”

“Possible.” But she could tell that he heard the tone in her voice saying that didn’t feel quite right.Anythingcould have pointed to the number two. He’d put Dolly in there for a specific reason.

Mirabelle looked back and forth between the two of them, clearly at a loss. She was at a disadvantage, though. She hadn’t read any of Danny’s letters. A mercy for her but one that did not help them now. Gavin stared down at the items again, clearly frustrated.

Sienna picked up the star and the doll. “Maybe a word combination,” she said, attempting to work some out aloud. “Star Checker Winner. Texas Winner Doll. Dolly Star—”

“Texas Dolly,” Gavin said. He raised his head, his eyes opening wider. “Texas Dolly.”

“What does that mean?” Sienna asked.

“It’s a poker hand. No, I mean...” He ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it. “Okay, no, I mean yes, but...” He took in a breath and blew it out. “Doyle Brunson, otherwise known as Texas Dolly, won the World Series of Poker in the seventies. He had a starting Texas Hold’em hand named after him.”

“What is it?”

“The 10-2. It’s a trash hand, but it worked out for him twice.”

“Ten, two?” Mirabelle repeated. “If you break each of those numbers into two digits, it’s... one zero, zero two,” she said, picking up the number one pin. “But even then, it’s still one digit short.”

Gavin was staring down at the items, his brow knitted. “No, I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s referring to me.”

“Why?” Sienna asked.

He raised his head and looked at her. “Because it’s the hand I was dealt when I won the series the first time. The Doyle Brunson, ten-two combo. And I played it.” His eyes went over her shoulder for a moment as he obviously recollected. “The flop was K-Q-ten, with two of diamonds and one spade. A two on the turn, and then, on the river, I spiked another ten for a runner-runner full house.” His eyes focused back on her, and though she had no idea what he’d just said, something inside told her he was onto something.I think it’s referring to me.

She picked up the number one pin. “You played it, and you won,” she said, pinning the pin on his shirt.

He glanced down at it and then back at her. “My first winning hand,” he said. “Ten, ten, ten, two, two.” He paused only briefly. “That’s too many digits, though, so”—he looked at the pin again, tapping it with his finger—“you have to remove the zeros to make it one, one, one, two, two.”

“Try it,” Sienna said, sucking in a quick breath.

They all raced over to the lock, and Gavin lifted it and put in the numbers. He met Sienna’s eyes again as he gave it a small pull, and it opened with a click. They both exhaled, and Gavin unhooked the lock and pushed the door open.

The room beyond was dark, the only light the dim illumination spilling in from the room they currently occupied. Gavin stepped forward, and Sienna and Mirabelle followed close behind. Sienna squinted, her eyes adjusting so that she could see that the ceilings were as tall as the first one, though there were windows on the second story of thisone, most of the glass gone. Sienna’s head turned as she looked at the walls. There was writing all over them, spray-painted as though someone had left graffiti in this room and only this room, but it was too dark beyond the doorway to see what it said.

“Congratulations, players,” came a voice from above. Startled, Sienna raised her head. A light clicked on in one of the open windows, and Danny was sitting on the ledge with one hip, his feet on the other side of the short wall as he stared down to the place where the three of them stood. He smiled slowly. “This is fun, isn’t it?”

Sienna did a quick sweep of the room, looking for something they could take cover under should he pull out a gun. But the room appeared somewhat small and empty, though it was mostly dark beyond where they stood. The best they could probably do was to run around the room in a zigzag pattern to make it hard to hit them. But that could only last so long. She looked up and met Danny’s eyes.

“Hello, Detective. You have no idea how happy I am that you’re here. I didn’t expect it. I took that job at the police station so I could monitor my game from the inside. Imagine my surprise when I heard your boss mention the new detective that would be coming to work for the department. Imagine my shock at hearingyourname, the girl Violet loved like a daughter, the one she’d raised instead of me.” He leaned forward very slightly, his head tilting as he looked upward as though in memory. “It doesn’t happen often... at least not for me. Being given that final card to complete a winning hand...” He smiled, and it managed to be both wistful and slightly sinister, his gaze landing on Gavin. “You know all about that, though, don’t you, Big Winner? Fortune smiling down upon you?” Before Gavin could answer, Danny went on. “I added you to my game board, Detective, even though I only had a month to rearrange the pieces. But I had to. I’d just been given the opportunity to take out three opponents in one fell swoop.” He swept his arm to the side as though sweeping the board from his perverse imagination.

“Danny,” Mirabelle said, stepping forward. “This isn’t a game, Danny. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. Let us out. Please. I tried, Danny. I tried to find you.”

“You didn’t try hard enough!” he said, raising his voice. “And then you stopped trying altogether.”

“Mom,” Gavin said softly, putting his hand on her arm, but she ignored him, continuing to appeal to Danny.

“I was scared,” she said. Sienna swallowed, looking back and forth between the two of them, the tension in the air so thick she couldfeelit vibrating around them.

“It wouldn’t have happened at all if you’d chosen me,” he said, his gaze going to Gavin and then returning to Mirabelle...Violet, but Sienna had never known her by that name and couldn’t think of her that way now. “Why didn’t you?” His voice broke slightly, but he seemed to catch himself, his back going straight and that same distant smile returning to his face. Before she could answer, he went on. “I hid in the cupboard in the playroom,” he said. “In case you wondered. Did you ever wonder, Violet? Did you ever weep when you thought about it? About how terrified I was. How I shook... about the moment he opened the door and found me there? The murderous look on his face. And he did murder me that day. Or close enough.” Sienna clutched Gavin’s hand in hers.

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