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“Thanks.”
“You really want to find this killer?” Ronnie asked.
“More than anything,” Sharp said.
Both boys nodded. As they filed out of the funeral home, he caught sight of Tessa, who stood with a young girl by the ladies’ room. Her gaze locked on his, and she motioned for him to come over.
He weaved through the crowds. The girl beside Tessa was petite, not more than seventeen. She had sandy-brown hair skimming her shoulders. Pale skin made the flush in her cheeks all the brighter.
“Agent, this is Stephanie White. She and Terrance were dating.”
The girl looked up at Sharp but didn’t make eye contact with him. Tessa wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I know he looks like he could bite, but he won’t.”
Sharp eased back a bit and did his best to smile.
Tessa shot him a look as if to point out he still didn’t look approachable.
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for your loss, Stephanie. I really am.”
“He was a good guy.” Stephanie twisted a tissue in her hands until it was a tight spiral around her index finger.
“That’s what everyone is saying.” A sigh shuddered through him. “Stephanie, I’m here to get any kind of lead on the guy who stabbed Terrance, but I can’t do it without your help.”
She glanced up, her watery gaze so full of loss.
“I think Terrance made a delivery on Sunday night,” Stephanie said. “He recognized someone he wasn’t supposed to, and it got him killed.”
Tessa tightened her hold on the girl and whispered in her ear. The tissue in her hands tore in half.
“He texted me. At first I didn’t recognize the number. But he said it was Terrance.”
“What did he say?”
“That his ride had arrived.”
“What time was this?”
“Near midnight on Sunday night.” She shook her head. “I texted him right back, but he didn’t respond. I told him to leave. That whatever Jimmy had gotten him into was bad.”
“You knew his father was in town?”
“Terrance told me Jimmy started writing him, but he made me swear not to tell his grandmother. Mrs. Jones hates Jimmy.”
“What was his last text to you?”
“‘White van here. Got to go.’”
White van. Like the vehicle cruising around Diane’s town house.
“We never found any phone. Do you still have the text?”
“Yes.” She dug the phone out of her purse and showed him the number.
Sharp wrote it down. “And he’s never used this number before?”
“No.” She lowered the phone back in her purse. “Terrance was a great guy. He wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”
Tessa handed her more tissues. “You did a great job, Stephanie.”
He handed her a card and a pen. “Write your number on the back. When I find this killer, you’ll be one of my first calls.”
With a trembling hand she wrote out her information and handed it back. He gave her a fresh business card. “Call me if you think of anything else?”
She studied his name, her shoulders straightening with resolve. “I will.”
Stephanie looked up at Tessa. “Thank you.”
“You also have my number. Call if you need me.”
Nodding, she walked toward the front door. When she was out of sight, Sharp said, “Thanks. I don’t think she would have talked to me if not for you.”
“Can you blame her?”
He glanced at her, not sure if she was annoyed or not. “I’ll admit I’m not the most approachable.”
Laughter sparked in her gaze, and then she sobered. “Given what you do on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t surprise me that you’re so distant and angry. How do you do this year after year?”
“Someone has to give a shit. And I like what I do.”
She intertwined her fingers with his again, sending ripples of energy shooting through him. “I really get that now.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.”
Saying she understood the demands of the job was far different from living with it. They’d tried that once and failed.
“The inventory reports I read stated there was no phone in Terrance’s belongings,” Tessa said.
“I think the killer took it.”
“You’ll trace the number?”
“Andrews can, and with any luck it’ll lead us to this guy.”
The Dollmaker stood outside the church, watching the swarm of mourners who piled into their cars and lined up behind the long black hearse for the short trip to the cemetery.
He was surprised to see Serenity here. She didn’t know Terrance, but when he saw her approach that cop, he knew she had come here for him. Tessa was a sweet, sweet woman and out of a deep sense of loyalty was trying to fix her life with this cop. But it wasn’t fixable. They didn’t belong together. She just didn’t know it yet.
She belonged with him.
“Damn you, Harmony. You shouldn’t have run. You shouldn’t have been afraid. If you’d been patient, Serenity would have joined us, and the three of us could have been a family.”
He blamed himself for Harmony’s escape. For Terrance’s death. Both deaths were examples of his overconfidence. He’d planned this all so well, but he’d not allowed for mistakes. And he’d made two serious ones.
But no more mistakes could be tolerated. With the cop asking questions about his dolls, he had no choice.
He had another doll to make.
When Sharp received the text from Andrews requesting a meeting, he agreed immediately. Andrews played his cards close to the chest. Sharp arrived at the Shield offices just before one in the afternoon. He flashed his badge at the two guard stations and rode the elevator to the fifth floor, where he was escorted to the computer lab. Andrews sat behind a collection of screens, each with different images. The man seemed lost in thought.
Sharp cleared his throat. “Andrews.”
Andrews stared at a screen before finally turning around. “Let me buzz Bowman. He wants to hear my debrief.”
“Sure.”
Andrews dialed a number on his phone
console, relayed Sharp’s arrival, and replaced the receiver. “Bowman’s on his way.”
“I didn’t realize he’d taken a personal interest in this case.”
“Bowman and Shield both hate cold cases. I briefed them both on our earlier case discussion.”
“So why am I here?”
“There’s more data to consider.”
Before he could ask, the door opened and Bowman crossed to shake Sharp’s hand. His grip was firm and his gaze cutting and direct. “Thanks for coming, Agent Sharp.”
“I should be the one thanking you for taking on the case,” Sharp said.
“It’s been a month since the Shark case closed. I’ve already got an itch to close another. Andrews, fill Agent Sharp in on what you’ve found.”
“As you know, I planned to search all cold cases that might be linked to your sister’s as well as Diane Richardson’s case. I fed all the details into national and international databases.” He reached for the clicker of the overhead projector.
Bowman shook his head. “We don’t need to see Kara Benson’s crime scene photos.”
Sharp raised his chin. “Don’t change your methods on my behalf.”
Andrews reached for his clicker. “I’m going to show you the faces of three women found in three US cities over the last eight years. They were spread across the western part of the country and were prostitutes. Authorities weren’t overly concerned about solving their cases. I also did a computer search of all the media outlets for murdered women made out to look like dolls.”
Andrews clicked on the overhead. Sharp studied the screen. The women were all young, and each wore makeup resembling a doll as well as a wig. “One of the local media outlets in Denver quoted a detective’s briefing. He called this killer the Dollmaker, as you have, for obvious reasons. I did some digging into the case files of the three women. As I said, one victim was in Denver, one in Salt Lake City, and the third in Colorado Springs. There’s nearly no paperwork on the women’s backgrounds or forensic data from the cases. Two of the three women weren’t found for three weeks. These women lived on the margins. It took months for anyone to file missing persons reports on any of them.”
