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This wasnotthe same room she’d been held captive in before.
She didn’t know what that meant, but she did know that it didn’t bode well for Jonathon finding her. He would be looking for her in a toy shop, but now she could be anywhere.
The children, she thought suddenly.
Katie Logan and Jimmy Wallander—they should be here somewhere.
Scanning the room, Clara couldn’t see them anywhere. Were they dead already? They shouldn’t be; they'd only been missing a few days, and the Doll Killers usually kept their victims for at least a month before killing them. But the killers had already changed several parts of their MO. They’d included Tommy; they’d raped Lindsey Peters and possibly Lottie Hatcher, they were using a different location, and maybe they'd decided to keep the children for a shorter amount of time before killing them.
Then her breath caught as she heard something behind her.
The Doll Killers were coming.
* * * * *
10:03 A.M.
Jonathon strode down the hospital hallway. “How is she?”
“She’s going to be okay,” Davis replied, scrubbing his hands down his face. “Knife nicked an artery. She lost a lot of blood, and they had to give her two transfusions. We all have the same blood type, so Dylan and I both donated. For a while, they couldn’t get her to stabilize, and they weren’t sure she was going to make it, but she made it through surgery, and she’s stable now. They moved her out of ICU about an hour ago.”
“Long-term prognosis?” Jonathon asked. He’d been so busy at Clara’s house, he hadn’t had a chance to call and get an update on Naomi. He’d assumed she was doing all right because he’d told Davis and Dylan, who had both accompanied Naomi in the ambulance, to call if anything happened to her and he hadn’t heard anything from either of them.
“She’s going to need a lot of physical therapy to get back full movement in her shoulder and strength in her arm,” Davis explained.
“She awake?”
“Dylan’s in with her right now; she’s supposed to be sleeping, but you know Naomi.”
Jonathon had only known her a few days, but he could already guess that keeping her still and quiet in a hospital bed was going to be a nearly impossible feat.
“She’s already talking about going home,” Davis continued. “At the moment, she’s still too weak to do anything about it, but give her a couple more hours, and she’s likely to be attempting to drive herself home.”
“Does she know about Clara?” he asked quietly. Every time he thought about Clara, he nearly had a heart attack. His mind would conjure up images of her alone, hurt, scared, and it was all he could do to hold it together.
“Yes. As soon as she woke up from surgery, she was asking about her. We had to tell her.”
From the look on Davis’ face, it didn’t look like that had gone down too well. “I need to talk to her, find out what she saw.”
“Do you know anything yet?” Davis asked, his green eyes so full of fear and desperation that Jonathon could barely stand to look at them.
“No, nothing yet. We’re assuming it’s the Doll Killers, and we’re doing everything we can to identify them,” he assured Clara’s brother. “Have you told your mother what’s going on? And Naomi’s family?”
“Dylan called Naomi’s family while she was in surgery. He called our mom too but she, uh,” Davis paused, anger flaring on his face, “She said that she’s too busy to come but that we can call her if they find Clara.”
Anger flared on his own face. What was wrong with the woman? Her only daughter was in the hands of a pair of serial killers, and she was too busy to come? “What about their dad? Naomi and Clara both spent time with him as kids, right? Wouldn’t he want to be here for them?”
“As far as I know, neither of the girls has had much to do with him since they graduated high school, but Dylan tried to call him, he didn’t get any answer. Let’s go see if Naomi is awake.”
Jonathon followed Davis into a nearby hospital room. The blinds were drawn, making the room dim. Dylan stood as the door opened, taking a step toward them and holding a finger to his lips. He needn’t have bothered trying to keep them quiet—Naomi was obviously awake, as her head lifted from the pillows as they entered. Her shoulder was heavily bandaged, her arm in a sling to help protect it. Bruises peeked out from underneath a white, square bandage on her temple, spreading down most of the right side of her face.
“Did you find Clara?” Naomi asked, her voice faint and hoarse.
“No, not yet,” he told her.
She struggled to push herself into a sitting position. “What time is it? How many hours has she been missing?”
“Stop.” Dylan put a hand on her good shoulder to try to keep her still. “Stop. Would you please stop moving,” he said when she continued her struggle. “I’ll elevate the bed, just stay still.”
