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So you would think, at least. “I told everything I know.”
“So all you remember is being cold and hungry and locked in an attic?” Detective Bennett raised a suspicious blonde eyebrow.
“Yes.” And those memories had haunted her dreams every night those first few months after she had returned home.
“And you have no idea how you and Thomas escaped?”
“No.” All she remembered was being scared as footsteps sounded on the stairs and then the next thing she knew she and Tommy were walking down a road, and someone was stopping to ask if they were okay.
“My sister has answered your questions. Look at her, she should be home resting. Come on, Clara; we’re leaving,” Naomi stood, tugging on Clara’s arm as she did so.
“Wait, just look at this.”
Jonathon thrust the picture at her, and she took it without thinking.
And immediately wished she hadn’t.
With the photo clutched in her hand, she sunk back down into her seat.
“That was low,” Naomi growled at the detectives as she saw what Clara clutched in her hands.
“I’m sorry.” Jonathon did indeed sound contrite. “I don’t want to upset your sister, but those children deserve justice, and so does she.”
Clara couldn’t tear her gaze from the photo. Two little blonde children sat side by side on a park bench. A boy and a girl. Each had a doll perched on their lap. The dolls resembled the children, or perhaps it was the other way around, and the children resembled the dolls.
The children were dead.
They’d been murdered by the Doll Killers.
Without saying a word, Jonathon lay two other pictures down in front of her.
Against her will, her hand moved to pick them up.
Unfortunately, they showed exactly what she thought they would.
“Clara, don’t; they're trying to manipulate you,” Naomi protested.
She knew that and yet still she couldn’t take her eyes off the smiling little faces. The children were alive in these pictures, their happy little faces full of energy and life. “How old?” she asked, her voice sounding hollow and shaky and nothing like she usually sounded.
“Eight and seven,” Jonathon answered softly.
“Names?”
“Clara, don’t torture yourself,” Naomi begged.
“Lottie Hatcher and Paul Owen.”
Two more children killed by the same people who would have ended her life if she hadn’t escaped. Or by someone depraved enough to want to copy the crimes.
Jonathon laid another two pictures down on the table, and another two beaming little children looked up at her.
“That’s Lindsey Peters and Kent Mason; they're both eight. They’ve been missing almost a month.”
A month. To a child, it felt more like a year. She knew. Just like she knew what it was like to be trapped and praying that someone would come and find you, save you, only no one ever came. Onlythem.
“Do you see now, Clara, why we need to know anything you can tell us?”
Squeezing her eyes close, Clara responded, “I'm sorry, I don’t know anything else.”
