Ellie tilted the map toward her when George had finished writing on it. “These two were really close to Willard Gray’s cabin.”
“What do you think the connection between Gray and the fires is?” Daisy asked, tilting her head to see the map at a different angle, as if the answer would jump out at her if she only looked at it in the right way. “We’ve already agreed that he couldn’t have been the arsonist, since more than half of the fires were after his death.”
“Could he have witnessed something?” Lou reached to tap the cluster of numbers closest to Gray’s cabin.
Rory hummed, but it was an unconvinced sound. “Would someone really have committed murder to hide burning down a few sheds? Seems like overkill to me.”
When Lou snorted, everyone looked at her. “Overkill? To commit murder? Never mind.”
Glancing at her watch, Rory rose abruptly, gathering the sheets of paper holding her notes. “I have to go open the shop.”
“We should probably get going, as well.” Ellie and George rose, followed by Lou.
“Can I get some pictures of the timeline?” Daisy asked, turning off the recording on her phone and opening the camera app. When Lou held up the notepad and flipped to the first sheet, Daisy took a picture and then nodded for Lou to turn the page. Once she had taken photos of all three sheets containing parts of the timeline, she gave Lou a smile of thanks. When Daisy held up her phone to George, he slid the map in front of her so she could get a shot of that, too.
“Oh!” As she lowered the phone after taking the picture, she realized what had seemed so strange. The dent was gone. Her fingers ran over the too-smooth surface, finding nothing. Her eyebrows drew together. It had to be her phone; it had all her stuff on it. But how did a dent just disappear?
“Daisy?” Lou’s voice drew her out of her confused thoughts. “You okay?”
“Sure.” She forced a smile. If she tried to explain, she was going to sound completely paranoid. Nodding toward the notes in Rory’s hand, Daisy asked, “Would you mind leaving those? Chris would probably like to see them.”
In response, Rory held the stack of paper toward Daisy.
“Thanks.”
She followed the last of her guests to the front door and ushered them into the entry as everyone said their good-byes. After securing the locks behind them, Daisy headed for the study, trying to understand how the dent in her phone could have just disappeared—unless there’d never been a dent in the first place, and she’d just imagined it. Why, though? Why would she remember a nonexistent dent? Was her brain that scattered, that unreliable? If she was wrong about that, what else could she have been wrong about?
Shoving the unanswerable question out of her mind, Daisy decided to do some doll research and stop obsessing.
As she waited for her laptop to boot up, she settled into her chair, resisting the urge to spin. That would just lead to more thinking about Chris and phones and dead guys and fires and the call she had to make that afternoon. Since her phone appointment was at one p.m., she had just over three hours to finish her research and list the dolls for sale.
It struck her how full her day was, and she realized that it must be how most people’s regular schedules were. Normally, she had to search for things to do to fill the days between Chris’s visits and her dad’s time between jobs. Daisy decided she liked being busy. Time flew, and she didn’t spend as many hours fighting off things she didn’t want in her head.
Pulling up an Internet browser window, she forced herself to go to the antique doll site she’d been looking at earlier. The lure of other, more entertaining and less profitable web pages called to her, but she was determined to get some work done. To give her motivation, she opened the box and carefully extracted one of the dolls, placing it on the desk to the left of her computer. Pulling out the second, Daisy laid it on her right. She started to look away from the second doll but then did a double take, leaning closer to the thing’s face.
“Are those…teeth?” she muttered. “That is so creepy. Great. Now I know this one can bite.”
Dragging her brain away from the mental image of an army of attacking zombie dolls, Daisy turned back to her computer screen. Having them staring at her—and one baring its two little teeth—was definitely giving her incentive to get them listed and sold.
*
Tyler leaned his head against the cool glass, eyeing the frozen meal options and trying to work up some enthusiasm. It was hard to care what he’d have for his solitary meal that night though, when his dad would be out doing what he needed to do.
His huff of annoyance made a foggy spot on the door. He’d caused the mess. Tyler should be allowed to help clean it up, but his dad insisted on treating him like he was still a kid.