Kent Wallace looked up from his computer, recognition smoothing the initial wariness from his features.“Sheriff Graves.Deputy Hawkins.What brings you two out here?”
Kent was somewhere in his fifties, with thinning hair and the perpetually tired expression of someone who'd seen every variety of human behavior his modest establishment could attract.He'd run the Twilight Inn for over a decade, inheriting it from his uncle.
“Kent,” Jenna told him.“We need your help with something.”
Jake pulled out his phone, called up the image of Vivian Crane, and set it on the counter.“Do you recognize this woman?Her name is Vivian Crane.”
Kent leaned forward, squinting at the screen.Recognition sparked in his eyes almost immediately.“Yeah, she's staying here.She looks older than she does in this photo, but I’m sure it’s her.She’s been here for a couple weeks now.”He frowned slightly.“But she's registered under a different name.Audrey Sanders.”
“What can you tell us about her?”
“She paid in cash for the first week,” Kent continued, “then used a credit card for the extension.One with that name, Sanders.”He hesitated, lowering his voice.“Maria—she does the housekeeping—she mentioned the woman's got some strange stuff in her room.Artwork or something.Said it gave her the creeps.”
“What kind of artwork?”Jenna asked.
Kent shrugged.“Drawings, paintings.Maria said they looked like children's book illustrations, but...”he paused, searching for the right words, “not the kind you'd want your kids to see.”
Jenna stepped closer to the counter.“Kent, this woman is a suspect in two murders.We need to see her room.”
The color drained from Kent's face.“Murders?Here in—”
“In Trentville,” Jake confirmed.“Claudia Kingsley here in Trentville, and another victim in Pinecrest.Rebecca Hartley.”
Kent's eyes widened in recognition of the names, both of which had made the local news.“Good God.And she's been staying here all this time?”
“We believe so,” Jenna said.“Which room is she in?”
“Twenty-three.”Kent hesitated only briefly before reaching for a master key.“End of the row.Opening it is against policy, but under the circumstances...”
“Thank you,” Jenna said.“This is official police business.We'll take full responsibility.”
They followed Kent out of the office and down the weathered walkway, past a series of identical doors.Jenna scanned the parking spaces, noting the absence of vehicles near room twenty-three.
“No car outside twenty-three,” she murmured to Jake.
“Could mean she's out,” he replied, his voice equally low.“Or that she's left for good.”
She asked Kent, “What was she driving?”
“A rental,” he replied.“I can check on it when we get back to the office.”
Kent stopped at the door marked “23” and inserted the key.“I should warn you, she's paid through the end of the week.She could return anytime.”
The lock clicked, and the door swung open on protesting hinges.The smell hit Jenna first—fixative spray, and something else, something chemical and sharp.Kent remained in the doorway as she and Jake stepped inside.
“My God,” Jake whispered.
The walls of the small room were covered with illustrations—taped, pinned, or simply stuck to every available surface.But these were no ordinary children's book drawings.In the center of each was a doll with a painted face, depicted in settings from the old Grimm’s fairy tales.
But these new drawings were even more twisted and violent than the original stories themselves—the doll watching as Hansel and Gretel burned a woman alive in an oven, her skin blistering and peeling.The doll perched on a bed as a wolf with a grandmother's bonnet tore into a girl in a red cloak, blood spraying across white sheets.The doll standing over Sleeping Beauty, not with a kiss but with a knife, poised to carve away her beauty while she slept.
The detailed work was remarkable.Each illustration was meticulously rendered, lovingly detailed in a way that made the horror worse.On a small desk by the window, art supplies were scattered—paintbrushes, pens, a palette stained with crimson and black.
“The doll,” Jenna said, moving closer to one illustration.“She calls it Loyalynne.”The name was written in flowing script at the bottom of several drawings.
Jake carefully examined a notebook on the desk, flipping through pages.“It's all here, Jenna.Her rejection letters from publishers.Notes about Rebecca Hartley and Claudia Kingsley.The focus group that rejected her book about this doll.”He looked up, his expression grim.“We’ve found her.”
Jenna felt the same certainty.“She's our killer.And she's still active.”
