Page 75 of The Witch’s Orchard

The sun is long gone now, and the crows are beginning to scream.

“This is a weird place,” I say with a dark, breathy laugh.

AJ shrugs.

“Did you think about going anywhere else after college?” I ask.

“Nah,” he says. “I like it here. I came back every weekend even when I was in school.”

“You like being a cop?”

He nods. We sit together for a little while and think about our sameness, our differentness, as we listen to the crows.

Eventually I say, “I need to refresh my brain on all of this. It’s getting too twisted up in my head. So… let me lay it out for you. Pretend you’ve never heard any of this before.”

“Sure,” he says. “Tabula rasa.”

I go to the fridge and pour two glasses of milk, bring them back, get situated.

I take a long drink, then put the milk on the table, lean my head back against the couch, and close my eyes.

“Jessica Hoyle,” I say. “Taken in May. Olivia Jacobs, taken in July, brought back two weeks later. Molly Andrews, taken just after, early August. The kidnapper must’ve been local, right?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the kidnappings took place over three months, with awareness and paranoia ramping up all the time. If there’d been a suspicious stranger in town, anywhere near where the girls were taken, people would’ve noticed.”

“Okay.”

“Also, the applehead dolls. Only mountain people know about those dolls. People from Appalachia, so most likely here. A local. But where did he take them?”

AJ shakes his head. No idea.

“What about the clothes?” I ask. “That dress Molly was wearing? Where did it come from?”

AJ clicks around on his laptop, looking at the case file, I assume.

“Hmm. No brand. Looks like it was all custom-tailored, I guess. Special-ordered?”

“Or homemade,” I say. “Like the doll clothes my granny used to make for me when I was little.”

“Hard to imagine you playing with dolls,” AJ says with a smile.

“Only child,” I say. As if that explains it all. As if that tells the story of how I didn’t mother my dolls but befriended them, treated them like siblings. I think about Honey in the driveway and decide to push the topic elsewhere.

“Molly was a replacement,” I say. “She was replacing Olivia. Nicole—Olivia’s big sister—said that everyone believes Olivia was brought back because she was ‘defective,’ but it’s not impossible that Olivia could’ve got away on her own and that afterward she was too difficult to snatch again. Easier to pick a new target.”

“But to take a kid from her own home?” AJ says, his hand on his chin while he rubs his lower lip in thought.

“Are we sure she was taken from her home, though?” I say.

“Yeah,” AJ says. “Of course she was. Max—”

“Was in another room, sitting next to his teacher, banging away on a piano. His mom was out back in the garden. Max said he went outside to play after his piano lesson, so Molly was alone in the house for who knows how long.”

I picture the house on that day. The back dining room where the piano sat. The little front room where Molly was watchingSnow White. The maze of hallways between them. I can almost hear the clunky playing ofMoonlight Sonatadrifting through the house. Picture the front door swinging open, picture the shadow of the person standing there, blocking the sunshine.

“Who might’ve been in the neighborhood that day?” I ask. “You said you live down the lane, right?”