Page 5 of The Hanging Dolls (Zoe Storm #1)

FOUR

“How do you do it?” Aiden had asked, twirling a pen between his long fingers.

“Do what?” she asked, arching one eyebrow.

“Mold all that gunk into your brain so easily.”

“Gunk?”

“The violence, Storm. The violence you see every day.” His eyes sparkled with fascination.

Zoe scoffed. “Compartmentalization. Thought psychologists knew that concept.”

Aiden’s eyes softened, his mouth set in a grim line as he scribbled in his notepad.

Harborwood was a small town, nestled between two Native American Reservations, Hoh and Quinault tribes, just a stone’s throw from La Push beach.

Zoe followed Scott’s car as he led the way to the playground where Lily was last seen.

The car glided smoothly on vast country roads with the Pacific Ocean stretching into infinity on one side.

A thick layer of fog lingered on the horizon; the path was sprinkled with gas stations and casinos, sprawling farmlands with warehouses and billboards advertising services that Zoe deemed to be fraudulent.

Lose 100 pounds in 10 days! Zoe snickered.

She had never stayed in one place for long.

Even when she was a child, Rachel was always packing them up and moving them on every few years.

Zoe didn’t understand the loyalty people felt to their surroundings—how could a home be sacred if it was just bricks and mortar?

What joy was there in getting coffee from the same place every day?

Her roots were deeply entrenched in Gina and memories of Rachel. People, not places.

“Promise me. Promise me if anything happens, you will forget about it and move on.”

Zoe swallowed hard. It was one promise she had no intention of keeping.

The car twisted into muddier, bumpier roads, weaving through blocks of gray, bleak apartment buildings. Zoe tried to commit the town to memory, but it was clear they were far from the core. Scott found a parking spot and Zoe parked right behind him.

As she got out of the car, a shiver rolled through her.

She was used to the wind, having worked out of the Chicago office for years before transferring to Washington.

But while Chicago winds were cutting and brutal, blowing her hair in a tangled rope and looking to stir chaos, the ocean breeze had a silent power to it.

It seeped through her pores and chilled her to the bone.

A slow killer.

“You should buy some appropriate clothes.” Scott noted her shudder. “I thought you’d been in Washington for a while.”

She fell into step next to him. “Lakemore. Heard of it?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, anyone who follows football has. Were you on the Sharks case?”

“No. But I worked with the people who cracked that one. Only there for the summer though. It was warm.”

“Summers are getting drier.”

They came to the edge of the empty playground enclosed by a barbed fence.

It was misting lightly, and the ominous gray skies overhead threatened more showers.

The park looked deserted like it hadn’t been used in years—rusty swing sets, lopsided seesaws, dulled slides and a faded merry-go-round.

The sandbox was a bed of scattered leaves and dirt.

“When was the last time this was inspected?” Zoe wondered out loud.

“It’s a low-income area but everything’s solid,” Scott said defensively. “How long have you and Dr. Wesley known each other?”

“We worked closely on a case five years ago and since then our paths have crossed here and there.” She gave a nonchalant shrug but a sharp thread of unease pulled through her.

Zoe cleared her throat and that memory. She had looked at the surrounding area beforehand so that she was familiar.

Behind the playground was a labyrinth of ancient trees.

It was fall—other than the evergreens, the rest of the trees had a feathery barrenness to them.

The vegetation on the ground was sparse and spiny, looking half-dead.

In the distance, the mountain range was visible with snowy tips.

She pulled out a map from her backpack. She couldn’t rely on Google Maps as her cell phone didn’t always get reception out here. “So tell me where the ice cream truck was parked.”

Scott pinpointed a spot on the map, only ten feet from where they were standing.

Zoe looked around. “And one minute Lily was next to her and the next she disappeared?”

“It was a sunny day so a lot of kids and parents were around.”

“Playgrounds attract pedophiles too.”

“I looked into the registered sex offenders. But I don’t know how many closeted ones are hiding in plain sight.” Something in his own words disturbed him.

“What?”

A look of horror flashed across his face. “I just realized I might have come across whoever did this, maybe even exchanged words. It’s a small town, everyone knows everyone.”

Zoe cleared her throat. Behind her was the entrance to an apartment building and next to it a little coffee shop. “It might not necessarily be a townie like Aiden suggested. Did you check for surveillance in there?”

“Yeah, the café’s camera was set to stream so does not record, and the apartment building’s camera faces the building—not the street.”

Zoe rolled up the map and tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans. Her eyes narrowed to slits as she noticed something about the building.

“What do you see?” He saw the look on her face.

She hurried over to the building without replying. She threw a swift glance around the street. There was no one lurking around. Overhead, the clouds were beginning to circle. It was about to pour again .

She swung open the exterior door and entered the vestibule. The camera faced the interior door, not the exterior.

“See? It doesn’t offer a view of the street,” Scott said.

“No. It faces the interior door. Which is made of mirrored glass .”

Realization dawned and he squeezed his eyes close. “Damn. Reflection. All right. Let’s see what they have.”

He banged on the inner door until the security guard who was busy scrolling on his phone and bobbing his head to music suddenly looked up. With a scowl, the guard pressed a button to open the door. When Scott flashed his badge, his demeanor shifted and he wriggled on his squeaky chair.

“This is my associate from the FBI, Zoe Storm,” Scott said sternly. “Do you keep recordings of the security camera over there?”

“Yes.” He blinked wildly. “Why? What’s happened?”

“How long do you keep them for?”

“Two weeks.”

“We need to see the recording for the evening of October 3. Right now.” He placed an elbow on the reception desk.

“I… Maybe I should call my manag—” His hand hovered over the phone when Scott interrupted.

“This is regarding the disappearance of Lily Baker.”

The security guard’s face fell. His eyebrows pulled together and he nodded. “Of course. Follow me through to the back.”

Zoe and Scott exchanged a satisfied look. The guard led them to a dimly lit room with two monitors and a stack of files on a steel rack. He sat down at a computer and pulled up a file from the date. “Here you go. You can fast-forward or rewind it.” He wheeled himself out of the way.

Scott fast-forwarded the video to 4:30 p.m. and hit play. One corner of the parked ice cream truck was visible in the reflection. Zoe waited for a glimpse of the little girl and a few minutes later, she spotted Lily holding her sister’s hand.

Zoe held her breath—she didn’t know what to expect, what they would discover—but watching Lily in action, giggling and frolicking, thickened the saliva in her throat. While Bella, her teenage sister, searched for cash in her purse, Lily left her side.

They watched her run to the street, reaching the edge of the camera’s view, where only the trunk and taillights of a black car were visible.

Zoe held her breath. Within seconds, the car rolled away and Lily had vanished.

“Did she get in the car?” Scott said, his eyebrows pulling together.

“Possibly. We only have a partial view. But this means that she knew who it was. She willingly went to them.”

Scott kept replaying the video and clicked his tongue. “Damn it. It’s a reflection so the quality isn’t good enough to read the license plate. Wait, the FBI has software that can help, right?”

“The FBI has got everything,” Zoe boasted. “Let’s get a copy of this and I’ll send it over to my guys.”

“How long will it take?” he said, a hint of impatience in his voice.

“It’s a missing kid. I’ll make sure this gets priority,” she said. Butterflies swarmed in her stomach at the anticipation. They had traced who had pulled Lily away from her sister and this person obviously hadn’t come forward.

Maybe this was the abductor they were looking for.

Or the killer.