“Did you speak to her?”
He touched the tip of the sharp scissors with his fingers as his eyes got a faraway look. “I walked behind her several blocks. I was mad at her at first. She’d messed up my plans. And then she tripped and fell in the ditch. She started to cry, and it broke my heart. I went to her. My little broken doll. And when I touched her, she looked up and reached out to me. When I took her hand, it was one of the sweetest moments of my life. She collapsed in my arms.”
“That was kind of you.” She struggled to keep her voice even as she remembered Kara’s autopsy pictures.
He looked at her hopefully. “I was nice to Kara. I even had a name for her. It was Felicity. Even though she’d been bad, I was nice.”
“What happened?”
“I carried her to my van. So sweet. She settled in, and I hurried around to turn on the engine and the heater. She looked so cold.”
She wasn’t found for another five days, but she’d been dead less than forty hours when discovered. “It must have been hard to let her go.”
“At first I drove to her dorm and parked. But when I looked at her sleeping face, she looked so sweet. Tears came to my eyes.”
“You couldn’t just leave her for someone else, could you?”
He looked away and turned back toward his worktable. “No. I couldn’t. So I took her back to my apartment. I laid her on one of the couches in the back and sat with her.”
She twisted her hand in the left cuff and watched with growing desperation as the threads holding the strap together loosened. As he turned, she froze. “How long did she sleep?”
“Overnight.”
“And when she woke up?”
“She was cranky. In such a bad little mood. And I realized then that I missed seeing her sleep. She was such an angel when she slept. I used to love to watch my sisters sleep. So peaceful.”
“What did you do when she awoke?”
“I gave her a drugged soda.”
“She was missing for several days.”
“While she was sleeping, I cleaned her clothes. Applied makeup. I’m good with makeup.”
“You prepare the bodies for funerals. Makeup is a part of that.”
“It’s not easy making the dead look alive. But I’m one of the best.” He opened and closed the scissors quickly. “By the time she started to awake, she was perfect.”
“And then you gave her a little bit more medicine to help her nerves.”
“Not a lot. Just a little. She fell asleep, and I snuggled next to her on the bed.”
“She was found dead.”
“I fell asleep beside her, and when I woke up, she was awake and trying to leave me. She started screaming. Yelling. I hate yelling. I forced more drugs into her. She choked and gagged; she was so terrified. To this day, I regret losing my temper.” He shook his head. “At first, when she went still, I was relieved. She was my perfect girl again. She lay so still in my arms. A real doll. I couldn’t resist her. She was so beautiful. So I took her back to the bed. We laid together all day and the next night. Taking her virginity was beautiful.”
Tessa tried to hide her revulsion. “Did you plan to overdose her?”
His face tightened with regret. “No. That was a terrible accident. I thought I was just settling her nerves with a few more pills. I loved her so much when she was quiet.”
“When did you realize she was dead?”
“Early on the fourth morning. I panicked.” He looked at her as if he needed her to understand. “I took her to the woods. But I didn’t just dump her. I couldn’t just discard her like trash. She meant so much to me. So I leaned her against a tree. I wanted to preserve her dignity.”
“But that wasn’t enough to make you feel better. You’d killed her, and nothing was going to make that right.”
“I didn’t want to hurt her.”
If she could keep him talking, she might be able to reach him and make him see this was wrong. And if she couldn’t reach him, then she was at least buying time. “You set the fire the morning she was found.”
“I was feeling guilty. Lost. The fires calm me. They always have.”
“Knox knew you’d set the fire, didn’t he?”
“He’d been consumed with finding Kara, like everyone else in town. He never linked her to me.”
“But the fire told him you were upset about something.”
“Yes. I was trying to stay calm. Trying to be good. But Kara was dead, and I knew it would mean trouble.”
“Did Knox confront you after Kara was found?”
“He came by the funeral home that night. He was upset and so angry. He was ready to arrest me when I broke down crying. I was so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I told him she took the drugs on her own. It was all a terrible accident.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she struggled to keep her voice calm. “And Diane, why did you change her?”
“You four were part of a set. I wanted her to be perfect forever. Like Kara, but better. You see, I can work for hours to make it perfect, but it can be destroyed with the swipe of a cloth. When the other funeral attendant and I picked Kara up from the medical examiner, she was clean. There were no traces of the pretty little doll I created. It was as if she never existed. It broke my heart to see my work washed away.”
“So you saw to it that Diane’s would never fade.” She avoided the word mutilate, knowing she walked a razor-thin line with this killer. “The work you did on her was very detailed.”
He nodded. “I’ve worked hard to perfect my craft. It was important that I get it exactly right.”
“All that work, and you killed her. Was her overdose an accident as well?”
He closed his eyes, his face tightening with regret. “No. I am ashamed to say I was seduced by the stillness. I loved her so much when she allowed me to pose her and play with her.”
“I don’t understand.” Her chest tightened as she tried not to imagine the last moments of Diane’s life.
“A doll doesn’t move,” he said simply. “She merely is there for me. All of me. Unconditionally. She is all mine.”
Every instinct in her body demanded she twist her hand in the strap. The muscles in her body begged her to rip her hands from the restraints and get free. She wanted to run to the door. Scream for help. But she couldn’t surrender to impulse. Like Dakota, she had to lock away her fears until she could find the right moment to escape. “Who wasn’t there for you?” She spoke softly, as if soothing a small child.
The question sharpened his gaze. “What are you saying? That my family didn’t love me? My mother and father loved me. My sisters loved me. They just didn’t know me.”
“I know they loved you,” she said shifting course. “But their not understanding you must have been so painful.”