Pretty Stolen Dolls (13 page)

“No!” I argue, my entire body tensing. “I told her maybe. That it was possible.”

“Not what the media claims,” he snarls.

It’s then I read the headline on one of our local news stations.

Cold Case is on Fire as Police Link Alena Stevens to Missing Girls from Twelve Years Ago.

I close my eyes and attempt to burn away the image of Alena’s face next to mine and my sister’s. Swallowing, I blink my eyes back open and look at Stanton. “I can explain. They have to be related. You see, the doll from the window—”

He barks out a laugh and slams his hand on his desk, making me jerk from the impact. “They found the girl.”

They found the girl.

Sickness stirs in my stomach.

“Are you sure you want to see these?” Dad asks me, plonking a box on the table before us with a thud.

Our eyes meet and my gaze is firm. “Just show me.”

After lifting the lid, he nudges the box toward me. Mom reaches across from her chair next to me and squeezes my hand.

I’ve been home a week. Just one week. My old room was unchanged, left exactly as it was four years ago, just like Macy’s.

It was familiar, but strange. Comforting, but agonizing. Only part of me had returned, the other part was still there in that cell with my sister. My parents have been overjoyed at having me back, but I can see the way their eyes meet when I’m not looking. The questions dancing there on the tips of their tongues. The wondering about what happened to their two little girls. The unfairness that they’d only been given one daughter back instead of two.

The burning question in my own head: do they blame me?

I blame me.

With a loud exhaled sigh, I pick up the first newspaper cutting and my body tenses.

Sisters Still Missing—Community Fears for their Safety as Hunt Continues.

Macy smiles back at me from the image of her—so young and fresh faced.

She’s thirteen now. Four whole years had passed with us locked away, yet life went on.

Bo next door graduated college. The neighbors finally finished the extension on their house. Mom still worked at the diner and Dad at the garage.

Life went on…
without us.

I drop the page and pick up another.

Body of Missing Teen Emma Miles Discovered

The slain body of missing teen Emma Miles was discovered in the early hours of yesterday morning detectives confirm.

Emma Miles went missing three days ago from a carnival where she was enjoying a night out with friends.

It hasn’t been determined if this case is related to that of missing locals, Jade and Macy Phillips, who disappeared over a year ago and have yet to be found.

My hand shakes as the innocent eyes of the girl who lives inside me stares up at the shell of a person I’ve become. The memory of him smashing her face into the mirror is still vivid in my mind despite the time that’s passed.

“How many, Mom?”

She doesn’t need to ask what I’m referring to. She can sense it in my sorrowful tone.

“Four in total, but older. They didn’t know if they were related to your case. There were four girls until a year ago, and then none. The case went cold.” Her tone is tired as she flicks her weary gaze to me. She’s aged in the time I’ve been gone. Lines mar her forehead and crinkle her eyes.

I counted four too, and then there were no more, not since the night he took my virginity.

Would he start again now that I was gone?

I knock the box to the floor as I stumble to my feet and rush to the bathroom. Vomit spurts out of me and when my stomach is finally empty, I cry over the toilet bowl, wishing I could be washed away with the flush.

“Where?” Dillon shouts, jerking me from my past. “Where was she found?”

I blink away my daze and focus on Chief’s words.

“Alena Stevens went off with a boy she met at the mall. But after a day with this boy and realizing he wasn’t all he was cracked up to be, she came home.” His cold gaze finds mine.

A gasp leaves me in a rush. “He let her go? Benny let her go?”

Dillon places his palm on my knee to keep it from bouncing. “Just stop, Jade.”

I blink in confusion and my eyes dart back to Stanton. “I don’t understand. They’re related. I know these two cases are related!”

My partner squeezes my thigh to get me to shut up, but I can’t. Nothing makes sense. I just knew he’d taken the girl. Just like he’d taken me. He was back. Hunting for more dolls.

“I want your badge and gun. Not only are you off the homicide case,” Chief snaps, “you’re taking some administrative leave. I don’t want to see you until all this shit blows over. You made the whole department look like a bunch of incompetent fools letting a victimized woman trample all over both cases. Your ass is gone for the rest of the week.”

I remain still as a statue as his words wash over me.

Unrelated cases.

Off the case.

Administrative leave.

“But, Chief…”

Dillon taps my thigh and shakes his head sadly at me. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”

Once we’re outside, the wind whips at my flesh and I welcome its icy lashing. “I could have sworn it was him,” I whisper, dropping my head in shame. With a firm grip, he drags me by the arm into his chest and I let him, collapsing against his body. His comforting me is a new revelation in our friendship but I can’t lie and say I don’t like it. I like it too much pressed up against his solid chest. Dillon’s warmth envelops me and I feel safe. For once in my life, I relax and let someone truly hold me. It’s the most peace I’ve felt in a long time.

He only keeps me there for a brief moment before pushing me toward my car. “Get the fuck out of here. Chief only did this to get you to take some time off for once.” He smiles to reassure me, but it doesn’t work. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten you still owe me a hundred bucks,” he teases in an attempt to lighten the mood, and I flip him off.

“Thank you for everything,” I murmur, almost inaudible, as I open my car door and slide into the seat.

He grabs the door before I can pull it closed. “We’ll get him eventually, Jade. They always fuck up, and when he does, I promise we’ll get him.”

I stare into the now empty tumbler and rattle it. When Bo gets home, I’m going to have to break the news to him. I fucked up. The very idea of confessing how my awful day had gone has bile rising in my throat.

I’d been so sure.

I’m still wallowing in my failure when I hear the front door open. My fiancé is noisy as he comes inside, his keys jangling along the way.

“Babe?”

He walks into the kitchen to see me sitting on the island, my legs dangling off the counter with a half-empty bottle of whiskey at my side. His eyes widen for a brief moment before he chucks his keys onto the counter and stalks over to me.

“Jesus, Jade,” he murmurs as he wraps his arms around me. “What happened?”

Emotion makes my throat ache. “Everything.”

He pulls me off the counter to my unstable feet. When I sway, he hugs me to him. His lips find the top of my head and he peppers kisses on my hair, attempting to soothe me. Thing is, I’m not feeling very soothed. Not at all like how Dillon had a funny way of calming me earlier today in the middle of my mental breakdown.

A shudder courses through me.

I’m doing it again.

Obsessing over Dillon’s newfound human appeal when I need to be present with my…fiancé. Another shiver passes through me.

“Come on,” he mutters. “Let’s get you to bed.”

He somehow wrangles me into the bedroom and begins peeling off my clothes. Bo is such a good man—so caring and protective. He’ll make a good husband one day.

To someone else.

The thought makes me feel sick inside.

He doesn’t want someone else, though. He wants me. I need to make myself want him too. As soon as he frees me of my jeans and I’m left in nothing but my panties, I attack him. A low, satisfied growl rumbles through him as I grip his hardening cock through his slacks.

“Fuck me, Bo.”

Our teeth clash together as he rips his clothes off in record time. He’ll lay me on the bed and be inside me by my next breath. He’ll whisper sweet nothings as he makes love to me. Sweet Bo is so predictable.

Just once I’d like for him to lose control and actually fuck me.

Like him?

My brain shuts down as I remember the first time I was fucked.

“On your stomach.”

His barked order startles me and I flinch, frowning at him in confusion. “Why?”

I’m worried he’ll go back to hurting me. For months now, he’s done these things to my body. He’s made me feel pleasure I was still too young to really know about. The very idea of him coming in here while in his darkened monster state makes me almost hysterical.

“Don’t question me,” he roars, “just do it.”

I scramble to heed his instruction at the dead tone of his warning. He’s naked and has never come to me like this before. It’s usually in the dead of night when he’s calm.

I’m still hopeful he’ll want me to love him.

I’ll never love him.

That he’ll call me his pretty little doll.

That he’ll put his mouth between my legs like he’s recently started doing and make my mind leave my cell for a brief moment.

“Such a pretty little doll,” he murmurs.

I relax at his words.

He slaps my butt with his palm, leaving a burn there and then he squeezes one cheek with such brutality it winds me.

He rustles with the other hand for something in his pocket, then drops a piece of paper at my face. Gripping my hair in a fist, he raises my head and makes me stare down at the image.

It’s a newspaper article about the anniversary of my and Macy’s disappearance. In the image is an old picture my daddy took. It’s of me and Macy. Bo from next door is butted up against me with an arm slung over my shoulder and his dog Toby lying at our feet as we lean against Dad’s flatbed truck.