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“I’ll take a look at what you’ve got, but I’m not promising anything.”
“Fair enough. You don’t like what you see, you walk away and that’s that. We don’t mention it again.” She gathered up her purse and stood. “Give me a call when you decide something. Or better yet, drop by the Monteleone on Saturday night. Graydon Losier is making an appearance at Lee’s fund-raiser. I’ll see that you get an introduction.”
She started toward the door, then turned back. “One other thing I forgot to mention.” She leaned over the table to slowly grind out her cigarette. “I’ve been hearing some talk around town. Claire and Alex Girard…they’ve split up. Not that you give a shit about your ex-wife, right, Dave?”
Two
The Dollmaker had been working steadily ever since he returned home from New Orleans a few hours ago, but he wasn’t happy with his progress. For one thing, the smile was all wrong. The shape of the jaw, the angle of the nose…everything about her eluded him tonight.
His hand tightened on the knife, but instead of slicing away the offending features as he usually did, he took a step back from his work and drew a calming breath. He was letting anger and fear interfere with his concentration, and for him that could be a very dangerous thing. He needed to get his emotions under control before he did something rash. Something he might live to regret.
He sucked in more air, but the breathing exercises weren’t working this time. The voice inside his head kept needling him.
She’s gone, you fool! And it’s all your fault. You lost her!
“I didn’t lose her,” he muttered. “She was taken.”
Because you were so careless!
He couldn’t deny that. Leaving her alone had been imprudent, to say the least, but he’d been called away on an emergency and hadn’t taken the time to lock her up before he rushed out. When he came home hours later, she was missing.
Snatched in broad daylight from her home.
A part of him wanted to appreciate the irony even as his conscience continued to berate him. He’d flown under the radar of the local authorities and even the FBI for so long, he’d become too complacent, even a bit reckless at times. It had all been so easy until now, and he wondered if he should regard this as a test. How he conducted himself could be crucial.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “I know where she is. I’ll get her back.”
By this time tomorrow she would be home where she belonged. In the meantime, he had plenty to do to keep busy.
With an effort, he relaxed his grip on the knife. Everything would be okay if he just kept his cool. After all, there was no way now that she could be traced back to him. He’d seen to that. And even if someone came sniffing around, he wouldn’t draw attention. He’d learned at an early age the advantage of maintaining a low profile. Nothing in his appearance or lifestyle would ever arouse suspicion. He even wore contacts in addition to his glasses to subdue the color of his blue eyes so they wouldn’t be remembered. He was the very epitome of decorum.
Everything was fine. The party would go off without a hitch. All he had to do was close his eyes and remember Maddy’s face.
If only it were that simple. But even with the old photograph he’d squirreled away years ago, he’d always had a difficult time reconstructing her winsome features.
Not that he wasn’t talented enough. He was quite gifted, in fact, and he’d learned from a master. But for the Maddy doll and for the others in his private collection, each and every detail had to be perfect. Such precision could be maddening without a live model, but he wouldn’t give up. Couldn’t give up. For Maddy’s sake, he had to keep trying. He owed her that much.
Closing his eyes, he waited for the shivering to pass, and then, wielding the sculptor’s knife as precisely as a scalpel, he set to work remolding the delicate features one sliver at a time until the lovely little face seemed to take on a life of its own.
“You’re in there,” he whispered. “I can feel you….”
He kept at it for a long time, refusing to stop even when his fingers became so cramped that every stroke of the blade was agony. Clay molds and sketches cluttered the studio, and as the evening hours turned into early morning, the disorder subtly wore on his nerves. Even the orchid he’d placed on the corner of his worktable drooped from neglect, and that wasn’t like him.
Ever since the doll had been stolen, his regimen had been severely disrupted. Normally he nurtured his orchids just as he pampered himself. He was accustomed to showering several times a day when his schedule permitted, and he kept his clothes pristine, his hair trimmed just so. He strove for nothing less than perfection in his personal appearance and in his surroundings. But until he had her back—one way or another—he wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep, much less indulge himself in his time-consuming routine.
He stepped away from his workbench and studied the doll’s features yet again. Better. Almost there…but not quite…
Something was missing.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that hung on the wall across the room, and froze, arrested as he always was by the sight of his own reflection. The man who stared back at him still seemed a stranger. Brownish-blond curls. Blue eyes rimmed with thick lashes. A rather weak jawline, but the mouth was good and the complexion was to die for. Not a single blemish or mole to mar his smooth skin. No morning shadow, either. He almost looked airbrushed.
But his new glasses would take some getting used to. They gave him a bookish air that wasn’t to his liking, but for now the look suited his purposes.
Unable to resist, he walked over to the mirror for a closer scrutiny. Turning first one way then the other, he frowned. His nose was still not right, but the cartilage was too weak for another surgery. He supposed he would have to make do with what he had.
He removed his glasses because his eyes looked bluer without them, and when he smiled a certain way, his dimples flashed sweetly. He’d practiced that smile for years.
Yes, when he smiled in just that way, he could almost catch a glimpse of her….
“You’re in there,” he whispered to his reflection. “I can feel you.”
He lifted the blade to his face, the compulsion to peel away the flesh until he found what he needed almost irresistible. After all, he was no stranger to the knife. His body had been carved and mutilated so badly that his distaste for his own appearance sometimes forced him to use a sponge and gloves to clean himself in the shower. But no matter how often he washed, he couldn’t scrub away the scars. He couldn’t rinse away the memories.
“Why did you have to die?” he whispered.
Because you let me.
His voice became petulant. “But I was just a child.”
You should have found a way to stop him.
“I’ve stopped him now.”
Too late.
“It’s not too late. You’re not dead. You’re just…hiding.”
Then come and find me.
He leaned closer, searching and searching his reflection until the ringing of his cell phone jarred him. He didn’t want to answer it. He hated disturbances while he worked, but his concentration was already broken. Fetching the phone from his jacket pocket, he checked the caller ID and, recognizing the number of the nursing home, didn’t bother to answer.
Tossing the phone aside, he returned to the unfinished doll and placed a gentle hand on her sculpted head. “I have to go out for a while, but I’ll be back soon, I promise.”
Leaving the door to the studio open, he hurried up the steps to the kitchen to fix a tray. He toasted bread and poured a bowl of cereal, then, once he had the dishes and silverware arranged just so, carried everything back down the steps and placed the tray on his worktable while he unlocked and slid open a hidden compartment in one wall. He bent down to peer inside.
The lights were out. He couldn’t see anything in the shadowy room, but he knew she was already awake because he could hear her whimpers. The sound irritated him. So did her persistence.
I want to go home.
She must have said it a hundred times already. They all did. And his answer was always the same.
You can’t go home. Not until after the party.
Slipping the tray through the opening, he waited a moment, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but when she didn’t appear, he shut the compartment and locked it without a word, then hung the key on a peg near the door.
If he’d learned anything in the past seven years it was that even the most stubborn girl would eventually eat when she got hungry.
Three
The dark clouds piling up over the Gulf of Mexico brought an early twilight to the city, but Claire Doucett barely noticed the sporadic raindrops that splashed against her cotton blouse as she hurried along the sidewalk. Her gaze was fastened on a group of teenage girls in front of her, and as they stopped to admire something in a shop window, she paused, too, her heart beating a painful staccato inside her chest. Their backs were to her, but when the one in the middle turned just so…dear God, she looked like Ruby.
At least the way Claire imagined her daughter would look at fourteen. The way she appeared in the age-progressed photo created by a forensic artist at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
She would be tall like her dad, but with Claire’s thin stature and her grandmother Lucille’s golden ringlets.
The girl in front of her shook her head and her blond curls shifted against her narrow back. She wore shorts and flip-flops, and her legs were long and tanned and gorgeous. Her laughter drifted back to Claire, sending a fine chill along her spine, and her heart started to beat even harder. There was something so sweet and innocent and familiar about that sound.
Claire closed her eyes and tried to conjure Ruby’s laugh. It was getting harder and harder to do. After seven years, the memories were sometimes elusive.
But, no, there it was…the image of a two-year-old Ruby at the zoo, tugging on Claire’s hand as she laughed up at her. “Bears, Mama!”
Even as a toddler, Ruby had been such a happy child. Sweet and tenderhearted, and yet so willful and stubborn at times that Claire’s patience had been sorely tested.
“That child would argue with a fence post,” Claire’s mother used to say with an exaggerated sigh.
“Yes, and I wonder who she gets that from,” Claire would counter.
Secretly, Claire had been grateful that her daughter inherited more of Lucille’s disposition than hers. Claire was too much like her moody father, although she hoped to God she never succumbed to the same demons that had driven him to suicide when she was just a baby.
Even in her deepest despair after Ruby’s kidnapping, Claire had never contemplated taking her own life, and for one good reason—she’d never given up hope that her daughter would someday come home to her. The flame had grown dimmer with each passing year, but on days like today, the glimpse of a familiar face on a crowded street could rekindle her faith, and she’d find herself indulging in the same old fantasy.
Ruby was still alive and she’d been happy and healthy all these years. A childless couple had seen her riding her bike on the sidewalk that day and had been enchanted by her blond curls and sunny smile.
They’d taken her home with them, loved her as if she was their very own, and in time, Ruby had responded to their kindness and affection. In time, she’d adjusted to her new home, and for the past seven years, she’d led a perfectly normal life. Maybe she no longer even remembered her real family. Her real mother.
Claire blinked back unexpected tears.
The fantasy was just that. Nothing more than a wishful daydream that had helped sustain her through some of her darkest days. And the girl on the street in front of her wasn’t Ruby. The likelihood of her daughter still being alive was miniscule. To even consider for a moment that Ruby might have been in New Orleans all this time, that fate would have miraculously brought them together on this very street, was ludicrous.
And yet…
Claire whispered her daughter’s name. The sound slipped through her lips as a plea.
The girl turned, as if responding to the soft entreaty, and Claire saw her clearly for the first time. The girl’s face split into a broad smile, and Claire’s breath caught. Everything around her seemed to still. The noise from the street faded, and the palm fronds and banana trees in a nearby courtyard stood motionless in the heat, as if nature itself was holding a breath.
And then Claire exhaled in a painful rush. It wasn’t Ruby. Of course it wasn’t Ruby. But for that one fleeting moment when their gazes touched, Claire had a glimpse of what it might be like to see her daughter’s face again after all these years.
The girl’s attention moved past her and she waved at someone behind Claire. Someone who had called out her name.
Megan. The girl’s name was Megan. Not Ruby.
Claire glanced at her reflection in a store window, saw the pinched look on her face, the whitened knuckles where her hand gripped her purse strap, and slowly she let out another breath.
Ruby was dead and she wasn’t coming back. She’d been taken from the sidewalk in front of their home while riding her bike, the victim of an abduction that had never been solved. Claire knew the statistics. Her daughter had probably been dead within the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours after she’d been grabbed, her body discarded in some remote field or shallow grave, where she had been lying all these years. Alone.
Claire put a hand to her mouth. Tears scalded her eyes, but she held them back as she scoured the street in front of her. The girl and her friends had scurried beneath an awning to get out of the drizzle. Claire deliberately turned and started walking in the opposite direction.
“Did you hear about the body they found in the Quarter?” Charlotte LeBlanc asked casually when she and Claire met a few minutes later at their designated rendezvous.
“I saw it on the local news before I left the house this morning. Do the police know who did it?”
Claire’s sister was an assistant D.A. for Orleans Parish and usually had an open pipeline to the police department, but she shook her head. “They think it was probably drug-related. So far they haven’t even been able to identify the body. Poor bastard was sliced up pretty bad. All his fingers were missing.”
Claire shuddered. “I don’t know how you do it, dealing with that kind of violence on a daily basis. I think it would start to get to me after a while.”
“I think it would, too, but I’m not you. And someone has to keep the baddies off the street.” Charlotte snapped open her umbrella as the drizzle turned into a full-fledged shower and the gray clouds over the Gulf vibrated with lightning. Within a matter of moments the city was soaked and dripping, and as they walked along Decatur, Charlotte tried to hold the umbrella over both of them.
“Here, let me,” Claire said as she took the handle. “I’m taller.”
“Okay, but just make sure I’m covered. I’m wearing silk. Damn.” Charlotte swore as she stepped in a puddle. “And these shoes are brand-new.”
Claire glanced down at her sister’s high heels. The delicate footwear had obviously not been designed for wet weather, but certainly looked elegant and sophisticated on Charlotte’s dainty feet.
Claire felt a stab of envy. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d splurged on a pair of expensive shoes. As a matter of fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d enjoyed any indulgence whatsoever, but with her divorce nearly final, she had to keep her belt tightened. Now was not the time for extravagant purchases.
Although Charlotte would argue that designer shoes were not an extravagance, but a necessity. Image was everything and nothing screamed success like a good pair of shoes. Unless, of course, it was her gorgeous leather handbag, the one that had come with a four-figure price tag in roughly the same amount as Claire’s new central air-conditioning unit.
Her grandmother’s old house was going to be the death of her yet, Claire thought as she and Charlotte sidestepped crates of watermelons and cantaloupes stacked in front of a small grocery store. The old Uptown house was a classic money pit with the never-ending repairs and the exorbitant utility bills. Little wonder that she’d worn the same sandals and carried the same battered tote for two summers in a row. But then, an artist, as Charlotte teasingly called her, didn’t need to worry about her image the way an up-and-coming assistant D.A. did.
Claire wondered if any of the people they passed on the street would ever guess that she and Charlotte were sisters. They were so different in so many ways. They shared the same mother, but their looks and temperament had come from their respective fathers.
Charlotte was a petite brunette and as charming and vivacious as her handsome father, A. J. LeBlanc, who had sweet-talked his way into their mother’s heart and bed and then absconded with her life savings two days after she’d told him she was pregnant.
Charlotte’s abandonment issues aside, her father’s Creole heritage had blessed her with a honey-colored complexion and beautiful almond-shaped eyes the color of fine Burmese jade. Claire had always thought her sister resembled a porcelain figurine, but when she got angry, those green eyes would glitter like a knife blade.
In contrast, Claire was tall, thin and fair, an introvert whose propensity for brooding had come from her bookish father. William’s suicide, followed by A.J.’s betrayal, might have made some women a little gun-shy in the romance department, but not their mother, Lucille. A string of live-in lovers had followed, until her latest paramour, Hugh Voorhies, had swept her off her feet eight years ago. That was an endurance record for Lucille.
“Damn, Claire, pay attention, will you? I’m getting soaked.”
“Sorry.” Claire repositioned the umbrella to make sure that her sister was protected. The rain stirred a myriad of scents along the street—stale wine, flowers and damp brick. And from a restaurant doorway, spicy sausages and fresh-baked bread.
“I’m starving,” Charlotte grumbled. “Tell me again why we’re out walking in the rain instead of having an early dinner somewhere.”
“Because now that I’ve increased my hours at the gallery, I don’t have much time for shopping. Mama’s birthday is next week and I want us to get her something special.” Claire was a glassblower and shared a space in the Warehouse District with several other artisans. They took turns manning the gallery and using the studio and furnaces in the back, but because Claire needed the money, she’d started working additional shifts in the showroom.
“If time’s that tight, maybe we should just run into Canal Place and pick out a nice scarf or a bottle of perfume,” Charlotte said. “Or some gold earrings. Lucille loves jewelry.”
“Let me remind you that your idea of accessories is quite different from our mother’s.”
“You’re right. Better forget the gold earrings. Subtlety has never been Lucille’s strong suit.” Charlotte smiled and her eyes crinkled charmingly at the corners. Even with her hair all windblown and damp, she was still the most beautiful woman Claire had ever seen. “So what do you have in mind?”
“There’s a place on Chartres that has one of a kind dolls. I saw an ad for it in the paper recently.”
Charlotte made a face. “Please, not another doll! She already has forty gazillion lying around the house. She doesn’t need another one.”
“It isn’t a matter of need,” Claire gently chided. “It’s what she wants, and I think a fiftieth birthday warrants something special, don’t you?”
“Well, when you put it that way. I’ve got a little cash stashed away, but what about you? Now that you’re single again, money must be tight.”
