The Dollmaker. Amanda Stevens

      Angelette’s gaze flashed to the door again. Dave wondered if she was expecting someone. Her nerves were right beneath the surface and he couldn’t help wondering why. “This conversation is going to stay between us, right?”

      “Sure.”

      She waited a moment longer, then slid the empty glass aside. “Have you been following the Losier case?”

      “The murdered Tulane student? Hard not to. Her picture’s been plastered all over the news for weeks.” Nina Losier’s girl-next-door looks had captured the public’s attention, but after nearly a month with no arrests and nothing new to report, media interest was starting to wane. A sure sign the investigation was going nowhere. Dave had learned that lesson the hard way.

      Angelette blew a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth. “The father is looking to hire a P.I. I told him about you.”

      “Since when does NOPD recommend a private dick for an active investigation?”

      “Since it’s not my case.” She grinned, but her eyes were sober as she gazed across the table at him. “Let’s just say the official investigation has run into some problems.”

      “What kind of problems?”

      “There’s a lot about this case that hasn’t been released to the public. Nina Losier was from a wealthy family in Baton Rouge. Her father has a lot of political clout and NOPD has been pressured to keep certain aspects of the investigation out of the news.”

      “Like what?”

      “Like the fact that when Nina wasn’t in class, she sometimes danced at a strip club on Bourbon Street. The Gold Medallion.” Angelette paused. “That’s where Renee Savaria worked, isn’t it?”

      Dave suddenly realized how badly he wanted a drink. It hit him like that sometimes. Everything would be going along fine, and then bam. A face, a memory…even a name could smash his control all to hell.

      The Savaria homicide was the last case he’d worked before his resignation. He’d been knee-deep in the investigation when his daughter went missing. Snatched in broad daylight as she rode her new bicycle up and down the sidewalk in front of their home.

      Images were already flashing in Dave’s head. The kind of visions that had made him reach for a bottle—or his gun—on more sleepless nights than he cared to remember.

      Ruby had been seven when she was taken. Just seven years old.

      “If Nina Losier comes from the kind of background you say she does, how’d she end up stripping on Bourbon Street?”

      “You make it sound like she was an anomaly, but rich girls slumming to embarrass their powerful daddies is nothing new in this town.”

      “What about leads?”

      “One dead end after another, just like the Savaria case. I remember how frustrated you were back then. You told me once it was like beating your head against a stone wall. Then all of a sudden you turned up a new lead. You thought you were getting close to a breakthrough when Ruby went missing. Maybe you were getting a little too close.”

      For a moment Dave felt as if the air had been squeezed from his lungs. He’d never told anyone about those phone calls, not even Angelette. She couldn’t know about the missing page from the dead woman’s diary, either. No one knew about that except Dave and Renee Savaria’s murderer.

      He’d destroyed evidence in a homicide investigation in order to save his daughter’s life, but Ruby hadn’t been returned as promised. Instead, her trail had grown cold while Dave collaborated with a killer.

      A muscle in his jaw began to throb. Seven years and the guilt was still as fresh and deep as the day he’d answered Claire’s frantic phone call.

      Angelette’s eyes searched his face. “I always wondered if there was a link between Renee Savaria’s murder and Ruby’s kidnapping. I think you did, too.”

      Dave looked down at his hands. They weren’t trembling, but his fingers had curled so tight, his knuckles whitened. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. It’s all in the past.”

      “A guy like you lives in the past.”

      “Not anymore.”

      “I call bullshit on that.”

      Dave shrugged.

      “After you left, the active investigations on your desk fell through the cracks. Nobody wanted to get tainted by your bad karma. So the Savaria case has been sitting in the cold case files all this time, and the way I see it, that old unfinished business has been eating away at you for too damn long. Maybe it’s time for a little closure.”

      Dave wanted to believe it was as simple as that, but Angelette never did anything without demanding something in return. “What are you really after, Angie?”

      “Nothing. I owe you one, that’s all.”

      “Now why don’t I believe you?”

      She looked hurt. “Hey, I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t exactly conducted myself like a Girl Scout in the past, but I’m still a cop and, believe it or not, I’d like to see justice done. Renee Savaria and Nina Losier got in over their heads at that club. Drugs, prostitution…God knows what else. But that doesn’t mean they deserved what happened to them. And your little girl sure as hell didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

      He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

      Angelette leaned toward him. “What if I tell you I can put a copy of the case file in your hands? Would you be willing to at least take a look?”

      “You sure you want to risk your career over this one?”

      “You let me worry about my career. I know what I’m doing. You game or not?”

      “I’ll take a look at what you’ve got, but I’m not promising anything.”

      “Fair enough. You don’t like what you see, you walk away and that’s that. We don’t mention it again.” She gathered up her purse and stood. “Give me a call when you decide something. Or better yet, drop by the Monteleone on Saturday night. Graydon Losier is making an appearance at Lee’s fund-raiser. I’ll see that you get an introduction.”

      She started toward the door, then turned back. “One other thing I forgot to mention.” She leaned over the table to slowly grind out her cigarette. “I’ve been hearing some talk around town. Claire and Alex Girard…they’ve split up. Not that you give a shit about your ex-wife, right, Dave?”

      Two

      The Dollmaker had been working steadily ever since he returned home from New Orleans a few hours ago, but he wasn’t happy with his progress. For one thing, the smile was all wrong. The shape of the jaw, the angle of the nose…everything about her eluded him tonight.

      His hand tightened on the knife, but instead of slicing away the offending features as he usually did, he took a step back from his work and drew a calming breath. He was letting anger and fear interfere with his concentration, and for him that could be a very dangerous thing. He needed to get his emotions under control before he did something rash. Something he might live to regret.

      He sucked in more air, but the breathing exercises weren’t working this time. The voice inside his head kept needling him.

      She’s gone, you fool! And it’s all your fault. You lost her!

      “I didn’t lose her,” he muttered. “She was taken.”

      Because you were so careless!

      He couldn’t deny that. Leaving her alone had been imprudent, to say the least, but he’d been called away on an emergency and hadn’t taken the time to lock her up before he rushed out. When he came home hours later, she was missing.

      Snatched