by Mary Burton
Terrified of what she might discover when she awoke, she hesitated, praying it was a dream. But as tempting as sleep was, she knew this was real. Summoning her courage, she opened her eyes, wincing against the bright light. Again, she tried to raise her arms, but this time realized they were not paralyzed but strapped at her side. She was in a chair akin to what she’d have found in a dentist’s office.
As her mind cleared, she focused on a stainless-steel table laid out with surgical instruments similar to the medical examiner’s office.
“Good, you’re awake.” His voice was soft, soothing, and calm. “I didn’t want to rush you. I thought you’d need the rest.”
She stared for a moment, willing her mind to calm. “Let me go.”
The man came around the side of her chair and smoothed his hand over her hair. “Certainly. All in due time.”
“Why?”
His smile was so soft and pleasant. “Oh, don’t look so upset, Serenity. You’re with me now, and you are safe.”
Panic clawed, making it hard to remain calm. “I’m not Serenity. I’m Dr. Tessa McGowan.”
He shook his head. “Out there you may be, but in my world you’re Serenity. My perfect doll.”
“I’m not a doll. I’m a woman.”
He stepped back from her. “If you keep scrunching up your face, those wrinkles will stick. Didn’t your mother tell you that?”
“I know you from Terrance Dillon’s funeral.”
“I took care of him as well as Kara and Diane. They didn’t send me Elena. I just found out they’re going to cremate her, but then that’s not such a terrible loss. She ruined her face, destroyed all my beautiful work.”
Beautiful work. She struggled to remain calm. “She got away from you.”
He stepped back, frowning. “Almost. Not quite. I’ll be more careful with you.”
She twisted her hands in the bindings. A part of her wanted to scream and rant, but she could already tell by his reaction to Elena that he didn’t respond well to harsh tones. “I remember you,” she lied as she struggled to place him.
“You do?” He took a step toward her.
She suppressed a flinch. “You were kind. It was a terrible time for me when my mother died.”
“I knew you were upset. Like a broken little doll. I wanted to take you in my arms that day and tell you it would be all right, but I couldn’t. There were too many people. But I kept up with you all these years.”
“You spoke to me,” she lied.
“I was there.”
“Maybe we didn’t speak, but our connection was so strong.”
“Yes.”
It was the utter calmness of his voice that made her want to scream. He was way past insane. And he was going to kill her if she didn’t figure a way out of here.
DeLuca reached for the scissors. “This won’t hurt.”
Tessa tensed and tried to edge away. “Why are you changing me?”
He glanced at the shiny tip of the scissors. “Don’t be scared. You see, I have to cut off your hair. That’s the first step.”
“Before you cut my hair,” she said, quickly, “tell me about the dolls.”
“The dolls?”
“The ones you’ve made. I saw Diane. The work on her face was so detailed. Fascinating. Elena ruined herself. I know that and can’t judge you on that work. But I know you’ve been practicing on other girls.”
He looked pleased as he gently stroked her face with the back of his hand. “They don’t matter. Only you matter.”
“Who were they?”
“Whores. Just whores.”
“I have a hit on DeLuca’s phone,” Andrews said. “A rookie mistake to leave it on at a time like this.”
Behind the wheel of his car, Sharp pushed the accelerator. “Where is it?”
Andrews tapped computer keys. “Very near the funeral home.”
Sharp drove through a red light and raced down the center street, his lights flashing. When he turned the corner toward DeLuca’s, he cut the lights and slowed as the brick funeral home came into view. “I don’t see any activity outside.”
Keys tapped in the background. “Is there a building across the street?” asked Andrews.
Sharp looked and confirmed the building.
More keys tapped. “The building has been vacant for over eighteen months, but DeLuca purchased it six months ago.”
Sharp got out of his vehicle and drew his weapon.
As he moved toward the building, a Jeep rolled around the corner and parked behind him. McLean jumped out with practiced ease, his weapon drawn.
“McLean is here.”
“Roger that.”
Ending the call, Sharp glanced at McLean. “Tessa’s inside. I’m not waiting.”
McLean’s face hardened with a resolve that Sharp hadn’t seen since the battlefield. “Let’s go.”
Tessa flinched when DeLuca ran his fingers through the strands of her hair. His touch was gentle, but she knew his plans involved pain and destruction. “It really is pretty,” he said. “And I’m tempted to keep it, but dolls don’t have real hair.”
“Some do.” She struggled to keep her voice light and her racing heart calm. As he turned toward his instrument table, she glanced at her hand restraints and saw that the buckle on the left side was slightly askew. She thought about Elena’s dislocated thumb and the marks on her wrist. She’d been in this same chair and found a way to free her hands. It was possible.
She twisted both her wrists as DeLuca studied a collection of scissors and razors. She didn’t want him thinking about surgical tools.
“Why did you choose Kara first?” she asked.
“I didn’t. I chose you first.” He turned and smiled at her.
“I don’t understand.”
“I wanted you first. I slipped a sedative in your beer and was waiting for you to drink it. But you took only a couple of sips before you and Kara started to fight. You stormed off, and I followed you. I was afraid the drugs would take hold, and I didn’t want you simply collapsing on the sidewalk.”
She remembered being angry. And then dizzy. Distracted.
“I wanted to help you. I wanted us to get to know each other better. I was right behind you when you left. I saw you start to stagger as you stepped into the street. And then the car hit you. So many people were around you, I couldn’t help you.”
All these years, she thought she’d been distracted and stupid. “So you went back for Kara.”
“I returned to the house just as she stumbled out the back door. She couldn’t have gotten drunk that fast, and then I realized she must have picked up your cup.”
“Did you speak to her?”
He touched the tip of the sharp scissors with his fingers as his eyes got a faraway look. “I walked behind her several blocks. I was mad at her at first. She’d messed up my plans. And then she tripped and fell in the ditch. She started to cry, and it broke my heart. I went to her. My little broken doll. And when I touched her, she looked up and reached out to me. When I took her hand, it was one of the sweetest moments of my life. She collapsed in my arms.”
“That was kind of you.” She struggled to keep her voice even as she remembered Kara’s autopsy pictures.
He looked at her hopefully. “I was nice to Kara. I even had a name for her. It was Felicity. Even though she’d been bad, I was nice.”
“What happened?”
“I carried her to my van. So sweet. She settled in, and I hurried around to turn on the engine and the heater. She looked so cold.”
She wasn’t found for another five days, but she’d been dead less than forty hours when discovered. “It must have been hard to let her go.”
“At first I drove to her dorm and parked. But when I looked at her sleeping face, she looked so sweet. Tears came to my eyes.”
“You couldn’t just leave her for someone else, could you?”
He looked away and turned back toward his worktable. “No. I couldn’t. So I took
her back to my apartment. I laid her on one of the couches in the back and sat with her.”
She twisted her hand in the left cuff and watched with growing desperation as the threads holding the strap together loosened. As he turned, she froze. “How long did she sleep?”
“Overnight.”
“And when she woke up?”
“She was cranky. In such a bad little mood. And I realized then that I missed seeing her sleep. She was such an angel when she slept. I used to love to watch my sisters sleep. So peaceful.”
“What did you do when she awoke?”
“I gave her a drugged soda.”
“She was missing for several days.”
“While she was sleeping, I cleaned her clothes. Applied makeup. I’m good with makeup.”
“You prepare the bodies for funerals. Makeup is a part of that.”
“It’s not easy making the dead look alive. But I’m one of the best.” He opened and closed the scissors quickly. “By the time she started to awake, she was perfect.”
“And then you gave her a little bit more medicine to help her nerves.”
“Not a lot. Just a little. She fell asleep, and I snuggled next to her on the bed.”
“She was found dead.”
“I fell asleep beside her, and when I woke up, she was awake and trying to leave me. She started screaming. Yelling. I hate yelling. I forced more drugs into her. She choked and gagged; she was so terrified. To this day, I regret losing my temper.” He shook his head. “At first, when she went still, I was relieved. She was my perfect girl again. She lay so still in my arms. A real doll. I couldn’t resist her. She was so beautiful. So I took her back to the bed. We laid together all day and the next night. Taking her virginity was beautiful.”
Tessa tried to hide her revulsion. “Did you plan to overdose her?”
His face tightened with regret. “No. That was a terrible accident. I thought I was just settling her nerves with a few more pills. I loved her so much when she was quiet.”
“When did you realize she was dead?”
“Early on the fourth morning. I panicked.” He looked at her as if he needed her to understand. “I took her to the woods. But I didn’t just dump her. I couldn’t just discard her like trash. She meant so much to me. So I leaned her against a tree. I wanted to preserve her dignity.”
“But that wasn’t enough to make you feel better. You’d killed her, and nothing was going to make that right.”
“I didn’t want to hurt her.”
If she could keep him talking, she might be able to reach him and make him see this was wrong. And if she couldn’t reach him, then she was at least buying time. “You set the fire the morning she was found.”
“I was feeling guilty. Lost. The fires calm me. They always have.”
“Knox knew you’d set the fire, didn’t he?”
“He’d been consumed with finding Kara, like everyone else in town. He never linked her to me.”
“But the fire told him you were upset about something.”
“Yes. I was trying to stay calm. Trying to be good. But Kara was dead, and I knew it would mean trouble.”
“Did Knox confront you after Kara was found?”
“He came by the funeral home that night. He was upset and so angry. He was ready to arrest me when I broke down crying. I was so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I told him she took the drugs on her own. It was all a terrible accident.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she struggled to keep her voice calm. “And Diane, why did you change her?”
“You four were part of a set. I wanted her to be perfect forever. Like Kara, but better. You see, I can work for hours to make it perfect, but it can be destroyed with the swipe of a cloth. When the other funeral attendant and I picked Kara up from the medical examiner, she was clean. There were no traces of the pretty little doll I created. It was as if she never existed. It broke my heart to see my work washed away.”
“So you saw to it that Diane’s would never fade.” She avoided the word mutilate, knowing she walked a razor-thin line with this killer. “The work you did on her was very detailed.”
He nodded. “I’ve worked hard to perfect my craft. It was important that I get it exactly right.”
“All that work, and you killed her. Was her overdose an accident as well?”
He closed his eyes, his face tightening with regret. “No. I am ashamed to say I was seduced by the stillness. I loved her so much when she allowed me to pose her and play with her.”
“I don’t understand.” Her chest tightened as she tried not to imagine the last moments of Diane’s life.
“A doll doesn’t move,” he said simply. “She merely is there for me. All of me. Unconditionally. She is all mine.”
Every instinct in her body demanded she twist her hand in the strap. The muscles in her body begged her to rip her hands from the restraints and get free. She wanted to run to the door. Scream for help. But she couldn’t surrender to impulse. Like Dakota, she had to lock away her fears until she could find the right moment to escape. “Who wasn’t there for you?” She spoke softly, as if soothing a small child.
The question sharpened his gaze. “What are you saying? That my family didn’t love me? My mother and father loved me. My sisters loved me. They just didn’t know me.”
“I know they loved you,” she said shifting course. “But their not understanding you must have been so painful.”
“I saw the fear in my sisters’ eyes. They started locking their doors at night. I just wanted to watch them sleep. Do you know how much it hurt me when I discovered they were locking me out?”
“I spoke to your sister Carol to tell her about your father’s death. She said your mother saw you eight years ago. Did you try to go home?”
“I wanted to see Mom. But when she looked at me, she was terrified. It broke my heart.”
“That’s when you killed the woman in Denver, right?”
He pressed his fingers to his temples. “Questions, questions. You sound like a doctor. A know-it-all.”
“I don’t know it all, but I want to. I want to understand you.” She forced a smile that she prayed looked friendly. “I just want to be there for the real you. I mean, we are going to spend more time together.”
He studied her, his gaze narrowing as he slowly shook his head. “No, you’re trying to get into my head.” He set aside the scissors and reached for a straight razor. “It’s what women do. They twist your thoughts, and they confuse you. Say one thing. Do another. Dolls don’t do that. They are what they are.”
“I’m not like that.” She feared that desperation was creeping into her tone.
“No, you are lying. My father used to say all the time how my mother would get in his head. She drove him crazy with her complaints about me: ‘Robbie is staring at the girls again. Robbie stole more matches. There was a fire today.’ But my father wouldn’t listen to her. He was kind to me despite all her complaining. I loved her, and all she could do was talk about the bad things. I thought things had changed while I was away, but I saw for myself eight years ago she still hated me. A mother shouldn’t hate her son.”
“What were some of the good things you remember about your mother? There must be happy memories.” She needed to keep him calm and talking.
Absently he studied the light gleaming on the scissors. “I loved my mother. I loved my sisters. I just wanted to be close to them. They didn’t understand.”
“Your mother loved you. You were her flesh and blood.”
“She didn’t. I know it. That’s why I set the fires. I wanted to burn away the pain.”
“The fires weren’t your fault.”
“Dad didn’t like what I did, but he tried to understand. He kept telling me the anger would go away, so he was always covering up for me.”
She hesitated before she said his real name. “It’s okay, Robbie.”
He tensed at the sound of his name. “No one’s called me that in a long time.�
��
“Did your father help you change your name?”
“He knew how it was done. He had a new name for me. He brought me to Virginia. Got me the job at the funeral home. It was all fine for a long time.”
“Until Kara.”
His grip tightened around the scissors. “She was an accident. I told you that.”
And Knox had covered it up. “He figured out you killed Terrance.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Stupid and sloppy on my part. I didn’t mean to hurt the boy. It was never part of the plan. Knox came by the funeral home early, and he saw my van. He looked in the back. He never really trusted me and was always checking up on me. He saw the boy.”
“But he didn’t tell.”
“I begged him not to. I told him it wasn’t my fault. He just stood there staring at me, and I thought he would. I thought that was it for me.
“But he just shook his head and left. When he showed up at Roger Benson’s funeral, I thought he’d tell then. But he never did. He was too afraid.”
“He must have loved you very much.”
“I thought so.”
But Knox sent his files to Agent Sharp. He knew Sharp would figure out the trail to the DNA evidence hidden in the old arson case.
“Why kill Terrance?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
“He saw my face. He said he wouldn’t tell, but I couldn’t take that risk. I had Destiny to think about.” His eyes darkened. “I was truly sorry about his death.” He looked at her, his eyes filled with anguish. “I tried to make his death quick. Painless.”
The overhead lamp glinted off the blade. Fear twisted inside her. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Oh, no, Serenity,” he rushed to say. “You aren’t going to die. You’ll be my masterpiece, and we’ll be together for a very long time. Now that we know each other, you can keep calling me Robbie. I like the sound of my name when you say it.”
He reached for a fistful of her hair and sheared it off with the scissors. He stood back for a moment holding the thick clump of hair like a trophy. “It must feel freeing to have all that gone.”
The jagged edges of her hair brushed her cheeks. “Please don’t do this, Robbie. You don’t have to change me to make me love you.”
