The Only Child. Carolyn McSparren

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СКАЧАТЬ “Great. I’ve cast a couple of my favorites and one of the big toy companies is definitely interested in mass-producing them. I never planned to go commercial, but the money’s too good to pass up.”

      “Which ones did you pick?”

      “The Jeannette doll—you’ve already got one of her. Then a new one I don’t think you’ve seen. The Dulcy doll is the one right in front of Mr. MacMillan.”

      Sherry gasped and stared at MacMillan’s broad back.

      Molly saw him stiffen like a bird dog on point.

      Suddenly, he reached forward and grabbed the very doll she’d been talking about by its arm. He whirled to face them. As the doll swung, its right leg hit the edge of the table and shattered. Shards of bisque rained onto the table and floor. Without a word, MacMillan grasped the doll around its body and held it up so that both women could look into its face. Sherry moaned softly, “It can’t be.”

      Molly felt her scalp tighten. MacMillan’s face was stony, his eyes hard and flat.

      He threw the doll onto the table so hard that the crown of its head shattered. Two gray eyeballs flew out and rolled across the tile floor. Without a word he pushed past the two women, through the reception room and out the front door. They heard his footsteps as he ran up the path, heard his car door open then slam, the engine roar into life, and a moment later the gate alarm pealed as he drove into the road and away.

      As the sound died, Molly reached out and picked up the broken doll from the table. She cradled it in her arms and turned to Sherry. “What on earth just happened here?”

      Sherry sagged against the doorjamb as though her legs wouldn’t support her. “Molly, have you made any other dolls using that mold?”

      “I told you, that’s one of the two I cast in vinyl.”

      “Where is the other one?”

      “In the workroom. I haven’t finished painting her face yet.”

      “Go get her. Bring her here.”

      Molly opened her mouth as if to argue. Then shrugged and went out.

      A moment later, Molly returned from the workshop carrying a large doll loosely wrapped in brown paper. She unwrapped it and laid it naked on the table.

      Sherry gasped. “Oh, Lord, it’s uncanny!”

      “For Pete’s sake, Sherry, what?”

      “Remember I told you that Logan’s daughter-in-law took her baby and disappeared? The little girl was named Dulcy.”

      “Poor MacMillan! But I don’t think he heard me say her name. You and I were both whispering. And surely just a name wouldn’t be enough to set him off like that.”

      Sherry looked into Molly’s eyes. “Molly, that doll you call the Dulcy doll—that’s the spitting image of Logan’s Dulcy, the way she’d look now.”

      Molly felt the hackles rise on the back of her neck. “Noway.”

      But Sherry wasn’t listening to her. She was off in some reverie of her own. “Rick and Zoe loved that child so much. Why didn’t they recognize the doll, too? I did.”

      “They didn’t see her is why,” Molly said practically. “I was using my bathroom sink to cast the vinyl head while Rick finished plumbing the workshop. The Dulcy doll was there so I could refer to her if I needed to. I just got her dressed and back down to the workshop today.” She shook her head. “Specially for MacMillan and Zoe. My timing is as flawless as ever.”

      “My God, just think how awful it would be if they saw a thousand of her sitting around in some toy store next Christmas!”

      “Wouldn’t happen. These two are perfect likenesses, but if the company mass-produces them, I’ll give them a more generic prototype. The new doll won’t look like the little girl who disappeared.”

      “Molly—she did more than disappear. Dulcy MacMillan has been dead for two years.”

      Molly stared at Sherry.

      “That’s impossible! She was alive and well a year ago when I modeled the doll.”

      

      LOGAN MACMILLAN CAME to his senses five miles down the country road, barely in time to avoid a head-on collision with a pickup truck. He braked, swerved and wound up on the verge of a six-foot ditch. The other driver honked in irritation.

      After his breathing returned to normal, Logan turned off the engine, climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He picked up a softball-size stone from the shoulder and threw it underhand as hard and as far as he could. It splashed in a cow pond fifty feet away.

      Funny that he could still pitch. The last time he pitched to Jeremy, his son was ten. Logan had been home between jobs for a full four months that time.

      He wiped his muddy hands down the sides of his jacket and grimaced. He’d always been so certain that sooner or later he and Jeremy would be able to spend time together, to catch up on all those years they’d been apart. How wrong he’d been.

      He needed to hit something, so he punched the BMW with both fists hard enough to leave a dent. Pain radiated to his shoulders. His car insurance would probably skyrocket. The hell with it. He was beginning to feel a little better.

      He tore open his tie, and yanked at his collar until the button popped.

      Suddenly, his adrenaline bottomed out. He walked around to the driver’s side, slid in and turned on the ignition, then the heater. He had been in shock before and knew he was close again. As warm air flooded from the vents, he closed his eyes and fought for control. Much as he longed to put Molly Halliday and her dolls out of his mind he couldn’t. He’d have to drive back, apologize, pay for the doll and find out how she came to create such a bizarre likeness.

      He didn’t believe it was a coincidence that the doll named Dulcy was an exact likeness to the image the computer had made of how his granddaughter would have looked.

      If she had lived.

       CHAPTER TWO

      MOLLY STOOD under a steaming shower, scrubbed her hair and body, then let the water course over her shoulders until it started to chill. She could feel the tension in her knotted muscles begin to ease. All in all, this had been some afternoon. What had started out as a simple showing for Zoe MacMillan had deteriorated into a Greek tragedy with Zoe’s father, Logan, as the tragic hero. Molly didn’t understand what had happened, but she planned to, for her own peace of mind, if for no other reason. She toweled her hair, and because she still had to feed the animals in the chill evening September air, blew it dry—something she seldom took the time to do.

      She pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a teal blue turtleneck sweater, dug her windbreaker out from under a pile of flea-market clothes from which she intended to make dresses for her newest dolls and went out to the barn where Eeyore, the Sicilian donkey, and Maxie, her granddaughter’s pony, waited impatiently СКАЧАТЬ