The Only Child. Carolyn McSparren

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СКАЧАТЬ Let’s face it, most children look a good deal alike. Shortly after my divorce four years ago I decided I wanted to devote my life to creating dolls, and in the beginning I tried to find a mold that had the same expression and bone structure as the child I was working on, then I either added or subtracted material to make the doll as much like the child as possible. I still use that technique sometimes, but after a while it didn’t satisfy me. I took some sculpture classes and began to sculpt my own molds. The Dulcy doll is my fourth attempt at creating a portrait from scratch, and the only one I’m really proud of!”

      “That doesn’t explain…”

      “I know. It’s a rather long-winded way to the point, which is that I know Dulcy’s face intimately. In my mind I’ve touched the curve of her cheek, the angle of her eye socket. And I know the Dulcy doll is a perfect reproduction of the child I saw. I have a photographic memory for faces. I may not know where I met you or under what circumstances, but I remember your face. In Dulcy’s case, I remember the name, too. Usually I don’t.”

      “For the sake of argument, let’s say that you did see Dulcy somewhere in Memphis, heard someone call her name. She was not quite two when Tiffany ran away with her three years ago.”

      Molly relaxed. At least MacMillan was prepared to talk rationally to her now.

      “I’m sorry, but I can’t project change on the faces I see. I couldn’t sculpt the way you looked at twenty or the way you’ll look at ninety. The Dulcy I saw was that age, that shape, that size and called by that name. How many Dulcys do you think there are in the United States, Mr…Logan? A few thousand? There is something I don’t understand, by the way. If you haven’t seen your granddaughter since before she was two, why are you so sure that the child I sculpted looks the way she would look?”

      “Computer simulation.” Logan leaned forward. “How much did Sherry tell you?”

      “She filled me in on as much as she knows.”

      “She knows most of it. I guess I owe you an explanation for the rest.”

      Molly realized that even that small an admission had cost him dearly. It was clear that he wasn’t used to accounting to anyone.

      “When my daughter-in-law, Tiffany, ran away with Dulcy, she was out on bond awaiting sentencing for vehicular homicide. She was probably facing a sentence of five to eight years in prison. Even with good behavior, she’d have served two years, maybe more.”

      “Sherry told me about your son’s death.”

      A flash of pain crossed MacMillan’s face, but he continued stoically. “My son, Jeremy, wasn’t the only one killed in the wreck. Edward Valdez, a cardiologist, was changing a flat tire when Tiffany hit his car. His family is rich and prominent. They demanded the prosecutor go for the maximum sentence possible. No plea bargains, no lesser charge, no probation or credit for jail time served. They wanted Tiffany’s blood. They would have gotten it.”

      “Please, I know this is hard for you…” Molly reached a hand out to touch him. He drew back as though any physical contact would shatter his iron control.

      “I have told the story many times since Jeremy was killed, Mrs. Halliday.”

      “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

      “In an odd way it does. While I’m talking, I can almost convince myself that the entire thing happened to someone else. It’s only afterward that the full force of Jeremy’s death hits me again. Do you have children, Mrs. Halliday?”

      Molly nodded. “A daughter, a son-in-law and a granddaughter. I’d go nuts if anything happened to any of them.”

      “Unfortunately, I’ve remained sane. Madness might be easier. Did Sherry tell you that Jeremy was an alcoholic?”

      Molly nodded and felt a chill as she looked into his eyes, as flat and bleak as an Arctic ice floe.

      “My granddaughter, Dulcy, was not even two,” he continued. “Tiffany’s mother is dead, her father has remarried and lives in Spain. At the trial, her lawyer argued that since Tiffany grew up with a drunken mother and an absentee father…” He stopped speaking a moment and closed his eyes. “An absentee father,” he repeated, “she was not responsible. The jury looked at the size of her trust fund and were not impressed by his argument.”

      Molly wondered whose side Logan had been on. Most men would feel vengeful for the loss of an only son. She couldn’t tell from that careful voice, that stony face, what Logan felt about his daughter-in-law.

      “My wife, Sydney, and I were the obvious ones to take custody of Dulcy,” he went on. “Tiffany signed the custody papers willingly. We made plans to help her get her life back on track after she was paroled.”

      “Then why did she run away?”

      MacMillan sighed. “I can only guess. I think she couldn’t bear to face us or prison or the world or perhaps most of all, her own guilt. She was used to running away from problems that she couldn’t buy her way out of.”

      “But she didn’t leave Dulcy behind.”

      “No.”

      “You never suspected she planned to leave?”

      He shook his head. “She was very careful. All the time we were worrying about how she would survive her prison sentence, she was setting up the mechanism to disappear. She was to be sentenced on Monday. On Friday afternoon, Zoe was baby-sitting Dulcy at the store. When Tiffany came to pick her up, she’d been drinking again, and she and Zoe really got into it. Zoe didn’t want to let her have Dulcy, but couldn’t really stop her. In the end, Rick drove Dulcy and Tiffany home in Tiffany’s car while Zoe followed in theirs. Tiffany swore she wouldn’t drink or drive anymore that night. Zoe and Rick had to be content with that. It was the last time any of us saw either Tiffany or Dulcy. When she didn’t show up in court on Monday, the judge issued a warrant for her arrest, but she and Dulcy had simply vanished into thin air.”

      “The police couldn’t find her?”

      “They came up empty. We found she’d raided her trust fund, so she had plenty of cash with her. The private detective we hired traced her partway. He’s the one who discovered that Dulcy—” MacMillan’s voice broke. He cleared his throat and continued in that same cool way he had before.

      This time Molly wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t cool. He was being torn apart inside. She knew she couldn’t offer him sympathy. He’d hate it.

      “Why do you think the child is dead?”

      “I don’t think Dulcy is dead. I know she’s dead, dammit! Do you think that if I thought there was the slightest chance Dulcy was alive, I wouldn’t be combing the country—no—combing the planet, to find her?”

      Molly raised her hands. “Okay, let’s leave that for a minute.”

      He looked at her appraisingly. “You haven’t asked the usual question.”

      “Which is?”

      “Why Tiffany took the child when Dulcy would be better off with us.”

      “I can guess the answer to that one already.”

      “Because СКАЧАТЬ