Page 4 of The Hanging Dolls (Zoe Storm #1)

THREE

“I’ll have two Belgian waffles, two pork sausages, two eggs sunny side up and one chocolate milkshake.” Zoe placed her order with a bright smile.

The bony, tattooed waitress with piercings in her eyebrows and lips asked sarcastically, “Not two milkshakes?”

“I’m avoiding sugar.” Zoe joked as she tapped her tummy.

The waitress wasn’t amused. “I’ll be back.”

Zoe wiped her sunglasses and scanned her surroundings.

The drive from Seattle was over three hours long.

This was the first diner she came across when she entered the town, a small shed-like structure that was being encroached on by moss.

Rain tapped incessantly on the windows, the outside view a green blur.

Wind howled like it was traveling through a tunnel.

There were only three other patrons at the diner.

A burly man at the counter having a Coke.

An elderly couple sitting at the other end of the diner, eating their meal with a polished refinedness that almost seemed out of place in the diner.

The door opened with a ting and a tall man wearing a raincoat over his black suit entered.

As soon as he turned, Zoe’s lungs deflated.

He was tall with a body too hard and honed to be a shrink.

A light stubble dotted his scruffy jaw, and his heavy-lidded, calculating eyes that always looked down on the rest of the world would gleam with fascination when he found a challenging specimen.

When he spotted Zoe, he pushed his thick glasses up his aristocratic, Roman nose.

“Agent Storm.” He gave her a curt nod before sitting across from her.

“Dr. Wesley.” She mimicked his deep voice, which only made him glare at her. “Sorry, I thought I should lighten the mood.”

His thick lips twitched like he was trying not to smile as he shed his raincoat. “Perhaps we should prepare for our meeting with the detective. I tried contacting you, but you ignored my calls and emails.”

Zoe drummed her fingers on the table. “My phone’s dead.”

“You couldn’t charge it?”

“A dog ate my charger.” Right then, her phone pinged with a notification. Their eyes remained locked in a silent battle.

“You want to check that?” He clicked his tongue.

With pursed lips, she stole a glance at her phone. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”

Zoe was well-liked at work. Back in the Seattle office, she was in charge of all the holidays—from decorating the Christmas tree and organizing Secret Santa to the Fourth of July barbeque.

She knew what everyone liked—that child-like quality of carefree innocence.

A mind which had not been withered or eroded by years of stumbling across bodies of all ages and watching trust crack.

The nitty-gritty machinations of Zoe’s brain slipped right through to her mouth.

That’s what everyone believed. Everyone but Dr. Aiden Wesley. The genius shrink who watched her like she was a Christmas tree blinking out of sync, never once buying the show she was putting on.

“Anything in the case files stand out to you?” Zoe asked, unable to bear the thick silence between them.

His long fingers flicked the pages of a file, leisurely. “This is a rare occurrence. The last time someone went missing in Harborwood was around two decades ago. A small-knit community with low crime rates. My first thought was to consider the environmental factors.”

“What do you mean?”

“Floods and storms are a common occurrence here.” He pointed outside the window where the rain was battering against the glass.

“There was no ransom or obvious crime scene since Lily Baker just wandered away. So I considered the possibility of her getting trapped or injured but the weather was perfect that day and the locals searched the woods. Which brings me to the second possibility—an outsider.”

Zoe nodded. “Not a townie.”

He shrugged. “This town barely sees any violent crimes and everyone knows each other. At this stage, the possibility of a transient individual, some recent arrival or someone passing through, is more likely.”

She took a shuddery breath. An external perpetrator would be harder to track down. She peered out the window into the blur of green. There was a quiet fear that lurked beneath the beauty of the wilderness of Washington.

The door to the diner opened again and a man came in. His jawline stretched to a pointy chin, his dark hair shaven almost to the scalp and a large forehead.

He spotted Zoe and approached her. “Special Agent Zoe Storm?”

“And you must be Detective Scott Cohen.” She shook his hand. “Thank you for meeting me here. This is my associate, Dr. Aiden Wesley. He’s a criminal psychologist.”

They shook hands and just then the waitress arrived with the food and placed it in front of them.

Scott frowned. “You guys had a long drive?”

“This is just for me.” Zoe pulled the plates toward her and began tearing into the food with renewed hunger.

“Can I get you anything?” Scott turned to Aiden.

“I’ll order a coffee.”

“So hit me with it. What happened to Lily?” Zoe asked.

Scott stared at her, puzzled, and then shook his head vigorously.

“Right.” He retrieved a case file from his raincoat.

“Lily’s sister, Bella, reported her missing at around 4:30 p.m. four days ago on October 3.

She was getting Lily an ice cream and when she turned around Lily was gone. There were no reliable eyewitnesses.”

“What about surveillance?” Zoe asked with a stuffed mouth. “These waffles are good. Do you want some?”

“Uh… no, thanks. We rounded up sex offenders in the area. There are barely any. We put up missing person posters and we shared information with the sheriff’s office and WSP.

There have been no sightings.” Scott conveyed the information in a monotonous, matter-of-fact tone as if he had repeated it many times before.

Zoe let it percolate when she noticed the burly man by the counter raise his arm to answer his phone, revealing a tattoo on his arm.

“What about family? Any disputes?” Aiden asked.

“Both parents work at the fish processing plant and can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt them.” His impatient eyes tracked the food as it slowly disappeared from Zoe’s plate.

“And I’m guessing this is your first missing child case?”

Scott’s face hardened as he gave a curt nod. “For me, yes. The last missing person case in the town was in the eighties.”

Zoe chewed her food slowly, realizing she had inadvertently poked a raw wound.

She knew how these things worked. No one appreciated an outsider waltzing in and taking the reins on an operation.

But that is what the FBI often did. Before her deep undercover mission, she had hopped from one place to another, stepping on toes and bruising egos all over the country.

“We’ll start again.” She swallowed down her milkshake. “With the playground where she went missing from.”

“Look, I don’t mean to be an asshole but why did they send you ?” Scott asked flatly, his patience finally worn out.

Aiden explained. “In seven to nine percent of the cases, the perpetrator is someone known to the child, but not a family member—a babysitter, a family friend, a neighbor?—”

Scott shook his head, irritation flaring on his face. “The family doesn’t have any enemies. There have been no reports of suspicious neighbors. This is a safe community?—”

“And in one percent of cases, the abductor is a stranger. If that’s the case, this might not be their first time or last time. We need to build a psychological profile.”

A fleeting look of resignation before he turned to Zoe. “And what about you? Why you?”

“My sunny personality.” She bit her tongue, Simon’s warning ringing fresh in her ears. The two men watched her grimly. One puzzled and the other with a tinge of amusement.

She blinked, slurping the dregs of her milkshake.

“That couple behind you?” She tipped her chin and he followed suit.

“They don’t appear to be from Harborwood because they’re dressed in a completely different style.

Where most people around here have some kind of waterproof coat with them to shield them from the Washington weather, he has a wool coat.

He can’t be from the South, that would be much too warm, and the cut is expensive, so he’s likely from a big city with designer shops.

But they have been coming here for a very long time because the waitress knew their order.

So I am guessing that this diner means something to them.

It’s their little tradition. That man at the counter…

” Scott’s eyes followed. “He isn’t just some trucker passing by.

He likes the waitress because she ignores him and he keeps staring at her and tries to make conversation.

She’s upset with him, though, and that might be because he was involved in something illegal.

He has a tattoo on the left side of his torso.

It was a serpent design with a trident, which is a gang’s signage, but it’s been covered with a tattoo of a date.

Perhaps he has left the gang and is trying to make an honest living, and the date indicates when he left prison.

” Zoe’s eyes swept over Scott. “ You were in AA or still are. That bronze plastic chip in your keychain. You get that when you finish one year of sobriety.”

Scott put the keys back in his pocket. “Fine. You notice things.”

Zoe bit her tongue. Her reflection was distorted in everyone’s eyes, even her sister Gina’s. They saw a chatty, effervescent woman who just noticed things. Reduced to an aspiring Sherlock with a badge and a gun.

“We should draw up a list of anyone who is new in town. Even if it’s some family member visiting,” Aiden said. “You think you can help with that?”

“Yeah, yeah. Chief Hunter at the station sure can. He’s involved with the community and can point you to the right resources.”

Zoe slammed her hands on the table. “Great. Why don’t Detective Cohen and I head to the playground, and, Dr. Wesley, you can go to the station?”

Aiden opened his mouth as if to protest but his shoulders fell as he nodded. “Sure. I’ll just finish my coffee and head over.”

Scott’s eyes bounced between them. “Weather’s going to get worse if we don’t hurry.”

Zoe left a bill on the table. On her way out, she looked over her shoulder, catching the interaction between the waitress and the man.

As the waitress walked past him, he gripped her wrist, forcing her to face him.

Her expression switched from defiant to fearful.

He whispered something through gritted teeth and the waitress wrenched her hand free—an angry red bruise marring her pale skin.

Her other hand mindlessly flew to her neck and Zoe noticed purple fingerprints on the sides of her throat.

The waitress lifted the collar of her shirt to hide them and nodded at the man.

The man’s smile was satisfying and cruel.

Zoe clenched her jaw. A hot swoop of rage flicked over her stomach. Her vision tunneled on the man.

“Agent Storm? You ready?” Scott asked.

“Yes.” Zoe beamed, making a mental note of the man’s license plate number as they left.