Page 101 of The Hanging Dolls

Ryan shifted uncomfortably and averted his gaze. He didn’t want to talk to them. He kept blinking like he was fighting back tears.

“Is Travis your dad?” she asked.

Silence.

She sighed and leaned her elbow on the roof of the car. “You have to cooperate, kid. You were caught with a missing girl in a basement. What did you expect me to do?”

Ryan looked at her. “I didn’t hurt her.”

“I haven’t told your father, but I bet someone here made the call.” She hitched her thumb at the clusters of people surrounding them. The news was going to spread like wildfire. But for just one moment, Zoe wanted to focus on the lightness coursing through her body.

They had saved Lucy. Reality washed over her, loosening all those tightly wound muscles.

“Why did you do it?” Aiden finally asked. All this time he had been watching Ryan, like he was trying to figure out what would be the best way to cut him open.

Ryan’s eyebrows pulled together like he was deep in thought. There was a cut on his lip. Zoe tried a different approach. “Who does the greenhouse belong to? Your dad?”

“My mom. She passed away a few years ago, so no one really takes care of it. I come here from time to time.”

“We have you on video stealing desserts from that bakery. There’s no way out of this.”

He opened his mouth but then an officer interjected. “Agent Storm? The victim is crying. Do you think you can help?”

“Stay with him,” Zoe muttered to Aiden and went to the ambulance where Lucy was strapped to a gurney with tears streaming down her face. She looked so tiny, Zoe just wanted to cradle her. “Lucy, I’m here. You’re safe now.”

“Where’s Mommy?” she asked, hiccups jolting her body.

“We have let her know, and she’s coming straight to the hospital.” Zoe ran a hand over her head, soothing her.

“I just want to go home.”

“You will.” Tears bubbled in Zoe’s eyes as she realized that the home Lucy would return to was about to change forever. Now that she was found alive, Zoe was obligated to inform the CPS of Carly’s crimes against her own daughter.

“We have to take you to the hospital to make sure you’re okay and that boy didn’t hurt you.”

“He didn’t hurt me.” Lucy was fading away, her blood pressure dropping.

“What’s happening to her?” Zoe asked the paramedic.

“She’s okay, it’s exhaustion and mental duress.” The paramedics checked her vitals. “But we should take her to the hospital right away.”

Zoe gave them the go-ahead. She hopped off the ambulance when she saw Aiden approaching. “What was Lucy doing with Ryan when you found them?” he asked.

“She was eating ice cream and he was just standing there. Why?”

He licked his lips and ran a hand through his hair. “Was she scared? At all?”

“Not until I pulled out the gun. For a moment. But why? We know he feeds them well and takes care of them before it’s lights out. That’s what he did with Lily.”

“Storm, Lucy is eleven years old.” Aiden’s voice was thick with frustration. “Even if she’s given all the toys and candy in the world, she’s not going to be relaxed in an underground bunkeraway from everything she knows. And there’s no way that that boy matches the profile.”

Zoe was puzzled. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

Aiden hesitated and then said something that made Zoe’s blood pound in her ears.

Zoe stared at the doors to Travis’s office. She still remembered the first time she’d burst through them. She almost expected to Scott to be in there again too. But in the last few days, the entire landscape of Harborwood PD had shifted.

And one last piece of the puzzle was yet to be slotted into place.