Chapter 60

Sarra took out the Hannah doll from the guard who brought it to the door, grimacing at the idea that she called it the Hannah doll. Still that is what it was. A repression of Hannah. The dolls were all repressions of Brandon's murders. The one delivered with Lexi had been easy. It was the same doll Daniel Walters  had tried to sell Mrs Chadborne in Dallas. A reproduction rather than the real Benoit. A fake, like Lexi herself.

But this one Sarra thought, unwrapping the doll, didn't make any sense yet. Except for the obvious..Oil stains from having been in a car engine, there seemed to be nothing unusual about it.

Figure it out..Brian's words, but not referring to the dolls.

She tried to put him out of her mind and went back to all the dolls, one by one, taking them out and laying each one on the table. It made freakish kinda sense, the eye lids, the cracked legs, the mismatched blouse. Like a instruction Manuel for murder. Sarra wanted to cry as she touched them now. Their beauty, rarity, and quality all tainted by what they were being used to represent. She would never look at another fashion doll  without feeling sick to her stomach.

Figure it out.

She picked up the latest. No hairline fractures, no chips, no obvious repairs. As far as Sarra could confirm, the clothing was all the original. She was perfect. in fact, even better than the first doll., because of the mechanism. Only the Benoit's owned by Stephanie Larousse were reputed to be both this early and in such good condition.

She sat down at her laptop and typed in Larousse. She spent a few minutes reading their history, even though she knew the Larousse dolls hadn't been out of their home during Mrs Chadborne's lifetime, and certainly not for sale. The Larousse family held the collection privately for hundred years, showing only the select dolls at their pleasure to only a select audience.. Still...

One description matched the Doll was looking at. Dated 1867, with the bisque head breastplate, real hair, and the slight opened mouth smile doll collectors coveted. But what set it apart was the joints. The elbows and wrist were made so they can actually bend and pose. Sarra picked up the doll again, recalling the one wrist joint was a little loose.

The thought took her by surprise. Not even fully formed it whipped through her brain and left a knot in her throat. Loosen the cotter, take out the pin from the ball joint.....

She bit her lip. She stripped the dolls clothes and began dismembering the limbs, digging in each fragile joint like a surgeon whose misstep  could cost his life. As a general rule each chip or crack or mar on a doll dropped the price at a auction by about a thousand dollars. Evan would be mortified at what she was doing but__

There in the left wrist. A ball joint, and Sarra suddenly felt as if the temperature had dropped twenty degrees. The steel pin was missing. In it's place a tiny scroll of paper had been inserted.

It couldn't be. Yet she knew. She knew.

Heart racing, she held on the joint and groped for a pair of tweezers, then clamped them down on each end of the scroll. She tugged, lost the end. and squeezed it again, pulling until the scroll came free and the wrist joint dissolved in her hands.

Shaking, she unrolled the shred of paper. Her eyes blurred on the tiny, hand printed letters. "Go ahead Sarra Scream..