“Raining. But not an epic storm like the others. So if we’re looking at weather as a trigger . . .” She trails off thoughtfully, shaking her head.
“The thing is,” Barnes notes after a moment, “these other three women went missing a few days after big storms had passed. Not before or during. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
“Maybe. But probably not. Maybe he lives here. Maybe he’s escalating. He came across Julia, and she fit the bill, and he didn’t want to wait until he left town again.”
“That would make sense. But there are probably others. I think we should take a look at recent weather events and see if there are missing persons or homicide cases that happened around the same time.”
“Dammit.” Rowan disconnects the call without leaving yet another message for Rick.
She probably shouldn’t be surprised that he hasn’t picked up his cell phone, yet somehow she expected him to.
Aware that he’ll probably delete her voice mail messages without even listening, she decides to send him a one--word text message. Maybe he won’t reply, but at least he won’t be able to miss it.
Coward.
It feels good typing it, and even better after she sends it zooming through cyberspace.
Her phone vibrates a moment later with an incoming text, but it isn’t from him.
Not now, her sister Noreen has written in response to the frantic Can you talk? text Rowan sent her a few minutes ago.
Just leaving court. Will call you in 10, her sister adds.
Cell phone clutched in her hand, Rowan paces back across the kitchen to the open package on the counter.
It’s a snow globe. That’s what he sent her today.
Not the store--bought kind like the one her kids bought her, with the built--in music box that plays “Winter Wonderland.”
This one, which came wrapped in layers of yellowed fourteen-year--old newspaper dated November thirtieth, is crudely homemade from a glass jar that sits upside down. A pair of tiny figurines are glued upright to the inside of the lid, submerged in water and glittery fake snow.
She immediately recognized them as Polly Pocket dolls.
Katie had a whole collection when she was little, and Rowan spent hours crawling around playing with her. Each doll was about the size of her pinky finger and came with a name and personality.
The two dolls in the snow globe are glued together in a ghoulishly sodden and stiff embrace, faces locked in a plastic kiss, surrounded by swirling snow when you shake the jar.
The female has long red hair; the male is blond.
Rowan doesn’t remember the name of the red--haired girl doll, but there were only a few boy Polly Pockets, and Katie owned this one. Rowan clearly recalls that her daughter got him for Christmas one year from Noreen and Kevin, along with a bunch of other Polly Pockets. By that time they’d been living in Mundy’s Landing for a few years and neither Katie nor Noreen grasped the name’s significance. But it didn’t escape Rowan then and it certainly doesn’t escape her now.
The doll’s name is Rick.
Mick was as pleasantly surprised not to find his mother waiting at the bus stop today as he was yesterday when he beat her to the house—-even on foot—-after dropping the gift at Brianna’s house.
Mom had no idea that he hadn’t taken the late bus home after practice yesterday, but he fully expected her to be there to meet him on this sunny afternoon, maybe with Doofus on a leash and definitely with a million questions.
Maybe she’s already figured out that he’d lied about having to go to school early this morning to take a test. But that’s the least of his worries right now. So is the fact that he seems to have misplaced his good down jacket.