Instantly, both sisters had their hands up in the air.
“Oh, my, what is going on?” Shelly exclaimed.
“Hands up, lady. I’m sorry you had to come in here at the wrong time, but that doll belongs to me and I intend to have it.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Anna tried to persuade the woman.
“I’ve waited for twenty years to get my hands on that doll. I’m not about to give up now when I’m this close.”
“Twenty years? Hasn’t it been in your mother’s cellar this whole time? Why not just ask her for it, or take it when she wasn’t looking?” Belle wondered.
“She kept that thing locked up tight, didn’t want anyone touching it, let alone seeing it. Especially me.”
Belle took a cautious step forward.
“Watch it.” The gun swung toward her.
Instinctively, Belle froze in place.
“But why? What could be so special about this doll? I mean, I realize it’s worth a lot of money, but is it worth killing your own mother?” Anna accused.
The room went uncomfortably silent.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Anna pressed the subject.
“For years, I assumed I needed her. I kept her around, hoping that she’d someday be willing to fix what she did, to put things right. At the very least, I hoped she’d show that doll to me.” She waved a gun at Belle. “And now, you’re going to show me where it is.”
“What were you hoping Cora was going to fix?” Anna asked, trying to buy time.
“Nothing you could ever even understand, now stop your stalling and show me where it is,” she screamed, her face turning nearly purple from rage.
“Is this all because you were kidnapped as a child?”
There was a pause and Anna wondered for a moment if the woman was going to burst into tears. Instead, purple rage turned into hysterical laughter.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You hold some sort of grudge against your mother for what happened. Maybe you even thought she loved that doll more than you.”
The laughter died, and Candy narrowed her eyes at them. “You have no idea.”
“Is that why you used your kidnapper’s name, Kasey Hawkins, to check into the hotel in town? Was it your final way of saying those events shaped your life forever? You wanted to remind your mother of what happened before you killed her?”
“That isn’t it at all.”
“It’s not?” Anna questioned.
“You are walking on thin ice, little lady.”
“Then what is it? Why use your kidnapper’s name instead of your own?”
She smirked. “You really want to know?”
Both sister’s nodded.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter since you’ll all be dead soon. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
“Tell us,” Belle insisted.
“I am Kasey Hawkins.”
CHAPTER 16
* * *
There was a sudden audible puff of air as Harlem materialized through the wall. “Girls, Candy Danvers is Kasey Hawkins,” he announced. Suddenly realizing there were two other people in the room, one of them holding a gun, he paused. He was too late.
Belle glanced up at Harlem out of the corner of her eye. “I’m confused. What do you mean you are Kasey Hawkins? She died twenty years ago from a heart attack.”
Kasey nodded. “You’re right, she did die, but so did little . . . sweet . . . Candy Danvers,” she punctuated the words with a mocking tone.
Belle glanced up at Harlem again, seeking any kind of explanation. He could only nod his silent agreement. This was exactly what he had learned, and what he feared. It was why he rushed back home.
“That Danvers woman, she did something to me, something to her daughter. I never figured out quite what it was. All I know is, I was out on the boat with the kid when I suddenly started having severe chest pains. I doubled over on the deck, wondering what had happened. I blacked out and the next thing I knew—”
“You woke up inside this body?” Belle finished the thought for her, hardly able to believe it.
“That’s right. Somehow, I had been transferred from my old body to this one,” her face was a twisted picture of disgust.
“But, why would Cora do that?”
“I have no idea. She refused to tell me what had happened, and refused to release me from this form. All I knew was the doll had something to do with it. I spent my entire life trying to get answers, trying to get my hands on that doll once and for all.”
“If you really are Kasey, then why wait all this time to take action?”
“Like I said. Since Coraline was the one who did this to me, I assumed she was some sort of witch who could get me out of it as well. Unfortunately, as soon as she had a chance, Coraline sent me off to a private military school, someplace where they could keep me in check most of my life. I never came back, even for holidays. She knew I wasn’t really Candy and wasn’t even interested in pretending.”
“That’s why she always said I don’t have a daughter,” Belle realized.
“I’ve worked and worked to find a solution, even hired that bumbling idiot of a salesman to try and get the doll. But now is my chance. I can finally figure out exactly what that woman did to me and how I can escape this prison of a body once and for all.” She turned the gun on Belle, taking a step closer. “Now, show me where the doll is before I lose my patience.”
“Here I am,” came a squeaky and delighted voice—not unlike a little girl. Spinning around, Kasey let out a frightened shout as she spotted the antique doll sitting on the counter behind her.
It hadn’t been there before.
Girlish laughter filled the air, all coming from the doll. The lights dimmed and blacked out, shutting the windowless room into darkness.
A shot went wild in the dark. Something shattered.
A small blueish figure materialized, like ethereal smoke, in the shape of a woman. She went on laughing the entire time, the sound of her voice suddenly more mature. Her hands moved forward and found their home inside Kasey’s chest, clasping her heart.
More shots went off, flying wild, accompanied by screaming.
Suddenly, the figure vanished in a puff of mist and blue sparkles.
When the lights came back up, everyone gasped.
Laying in the middle of the floor was Kasey. She was dead.
The antique doll on the counter was also missing its head. It had been shattered by a bullet.
CHAPTER 17
* * *
“So, you’re saying that the antique doll was Candy Danvers?” Belle asked, swirling her coffee as she, Harlem, and Anna sat around the kitchen table in the apartment the next morning. A plate of strawberry muffins sat on a plate between them, still warm from the oven.
“That’s right. All these years, her spirit has been inside that doll, haunting it,” Harlem explained.
“Until a bullet shattered her head,” Anna confirmed, slicing her muffin in half and adding a little butter so it would melt into the crevices.
“Right. That released her spirit after all these years.”
“Then why didn’t Coraline just break the doll before?” Belle asked, still trying to understand all the weird voodoo involved.
“That releases the spirit that is housed inside. It would be sort of like killing her own daughter.”
Belle sipped her coffee, her third cup that morning. “Okay, maybe you should start at the beginning and explain it all to me again.”
Harlem nodded. “Alright, so the first thing Coraline did was make a white voodoo doll. At first, I assumed this was just to protect her daughter, but it wasn’t. It was a tool for transferring her daughter’s spirit from her real body to the antique.”
“But why do that at all? Why would you want your daughter trapped in some toy forever?”
“She didn’t. I assume her plan was to transfer her daughter back to her regular body once Kasey Hawkins was dead. A black voodoo doll with a nail through
the heart will do that.”
“But something went wrong?” Anna asked, taking her first bite of the muffin.
“It seems that, when Kasey died of the heart attack, her spirit went into the empty vessel of Candy’s body. Sort of a double transfer.”
“That’s horrible,” Anna sighed.
“Coraline probably spent all these years trying to figure out how to undo what she had done, to get Kasey out of Candy’s body and then Candy’s ghost back in. She just never figured it out and Kasey got impatient, decided to try and get the doll for herself.”
“That’s how Don Delta was involved. Kasey had tipped him off to the doll. That’s why I saw him getting into her car that night. He was reporting that he hadn’t been able to get the doll, but was also scared that he was going to get blamed for the murder.”
“Well, Dan finally tracked him down,” Belle noted. Chief Bronson had discovered Don Delta’s truck parked off in a nearby thicket of trees. Supposedly, the day of the murder he’d gone back to try one more time to talk Coraline Danvers into selling the doll. Instead, he had found her body. Realizing he might be implicated in the murder, he’d fled the scene. His wounded hand had accidentally started bleeding on the kitchen floor.
“There is still one thing I don’t completely understand,” Belle said.
“What’s that?”
“How did the doll end up here with me? Did Cora know she was going to die and mail it to me?”
“I’m not so sure,” Anna replied. She shivered at her next thought. “When I first found the cellar, I heard something moving around in the darkness. Then something rushed past me, brushing my legs. It ran up the stairs.”
Belle looked at her sister with interested eyes. “You’re saying that you think it was the doll?”
Anna bit her bottom lip. “I think so. I think the doll and her mother had plans if she died.”
“And she mailed herself in a package? Did she arrange for a mail pickup?”
“That’s my guess,” Anna said.
* * *
It was around a week later when Belle was working alone in the restaurant’s kitchen that there was a knock on the back door. Stopping her work, she answered it. An older woman stood outside the building with a box under her arms.
“Shelly? What are you doing here?”
“Morning, Belle. Do you mind if I come in for a moment? I have something to show you.”
Belle hesitated.
“I promise I don’t have a gun and I’m not going to threaten you,” she joked.
“Alright,” she agreed, motioning for her to come in. “I hope that you’re doing okay after everything that happened.”
“Oh, completely. I’ve never been held up at gun point before. Quite exciting, really,” she laughed. Setting the box on the table, Shelly lifted the lid. “Ta-da!”
Stepping forward, Belle peered inside and gasped. “It’s the doll.” She had to admit, she wasn’t glad to see the creepy thing back in her restaurant. However, she had to marvel at how pristine it looked.
“Yes, ma’am, it is. When Chief Bronson was done with it, I asked if he’d mind me taking her and doing a little work. As you know, I repair dolls in my spare time.”
Belle was in awe as she lifted the porcelain antique from the box. The head was in perfect condition, like it had never broken. “I had no idea you were this good.”
“Oh, thank you. Anyway, I thought I’d take the initiative of fixing her up for you. I know Cora left her in your care, and that means something special.”
“Why, thank you Shelly. This means a lot to me.” She brushed her hand through the doll’s hair. “It’ll be a nice way to honor and remember her.”
“Anyway, I better be on my way.”
“Wait, can’t I at least pay you for your services?”
“Nonsense, dear. It was a joy to work on her. Just think of it as my way of saying I’m sorry for the way I acted last week. This is your business and your theater. You can choose whatever films you want to play here.”
Belle couldn’t help but half-smile. “About that, Shelly. Why don’t you have your nephew send over a screener copy of the movie, and I can see if it’s a good fit for us?”
Instantly, the woman’s eyes brightened up. “Do you mean it?”
“I’ll at least look at it.”
“Oh, thank you, dear.”
“It’s no trouble,” Belle replied.
“Well, I’ll talk to him, for sure. Thanks so much, and I’ll see you later,” she said, walking out the door.
“Bye,” Belle waved, glad to have made another friend.
Turning back to look at the doll, she admired it one more time, but also cringed slightly at its spooky glazed eyes. “I’m glad there isn’t a ghost inside you anymore.” She patted the doll on the head.
Walking back toward the pantry, she continued her work of putting newly ordered food items away on the shelves. It was a few minutes later that she looked back out at the doll once more.
It was looking over its shoulder at her.
The only possible way it could be in that position was if it had turned its own head sideways to stare as Belle worked.
Blue-Eyed Doll Page 8
