Page 6 of The Hanging Dolls
“I’m avoiding sugar.” Zoe joked as she tapped her tummy.
The waitress wasn’t amused. “I’ll be back.”
Zoe wiped her sunglasses and scanned her surroundings. The drive from Seattle was over three hours long. This was the first diner she came across when she entered the town, a small shed-like structure that was being encroached on by moss. Rain tapped incessantly on the windows, the outside view a green blur. Wind howled like it was traveling through a tunnel. There were only three other patrons at the diner. A burly man at the counter having a Coke. An elderly couple sitting at the other end of the diner, eating their meal with a polished refinedness that almost seemed out of place in the diner.
The door opened with a ting and a tall man wearing a raincoat over his black suit entered. As soon as he turned, Zoe’s lungs deflated. He was tall with a body too hard and honed to be a shrink. A light stubble dotted his scruffy jaw, and hisheavy-lidded, calculating eyes that always looked down on the rest of the world would gleam with fascination when he found a challenging specimen. When he spotted Zoe, he pushed his thick glasses up his aristocratic, Roman nose.
“Agent Storm.” He gave her a curt nod before sitting across from her.
“Dr. Wesley.” She mimicked his deep voice, which only made him glare at her. “Sorry, I thought I should lighten the mood.”
His thick lips twitched like he was trying not to smile as he shed his raincoat. “Perhaps we should prepare for our meeting with the detective. I tried contacting you, but you ignored my calls and emails.”
Zoe drummed her fingers on the table. “My phone’s dead.”
“You couldn’t charge it?”
“A dog ate my charger.” Right then, her phone pinged with a notification. Their eyes remained locked in a silent battle.
“You want to check that?” He clicked his tongue.
With pursed lips, she stole a glance at her phone. “He’ll be here in five minutes.”
Zoe was well-liked at work. Back in the Seattle office, she was in charge of all the holidays—from decorating the Christmas tree and organizing Secret Santa to the Fourth of July barbeque. She knew what everyone liked—that child-like quality of carefree innocence. A mind which had not been withered or eroded by years of stumbling across bodies of all ages and watching trust crack. The nitty-gritty machinations of Zoe’s brain slipped right through to her mouth.
That’s what everyone believed. Everyone but Dr. Aiden Wesley. The genius shrink who watched her like she was a Christmas tree blinking out of sync, never once buying the show she was putting on.
“Anything in the case files stand out to you?” Zoe asked, unable to bear the thick silence between them.
His long fingers flicked the pages of a file, leisurely. “This is a rare occurrence. The last time someone went missing in Harborwood was around two decades ago. A small-knit community with low crime rates. My first thought was to consider the environmental factors.”
“What do you mean?”
“Floods and storms are a common occurrence here.” He pointed outside the window where the rain was battering against the glass. “There was no ransom or obvious crime scene since Lily Baker just wandered away. So I considered the possibility of her getting trapped or injured but the weather was perfect that day and the locals searched the woods. Which brings me to the second possibility—an outsider.”
Zoe nodded. “Not a townie.”
He shrugged. “This town barely sees any violent crimes and everyone knows each other. At this stage, the possibility of a transient individual, some recent arrival or someone passing through, is more likely.”
She took a shuddery breath. An external perpetrator would be harder to track down. She peered out the window into the blur of green. There was a quiet fear that lurked beneath the beauty of the wilderness of Washington.
The door to the diner opened again and a man came in. His jawline stretched to a pointy chin, his dark hair shaven almost to the scalp and a large forehead.
He spotted Zoe and approached her. “Special Agent Zoe Storm?”
“And you must be Detective Scott Cohen.” She shook his hand. “Thank you for meeting me here. This is my associate, Dr. Aiden Wesley. He’s a criminal psychologist.”
They shook hands and just then the waitress arrived with the food and placed it in front of them.
Scott frowned. “You guys had a long drive?”
“This is just for me.” Zoe pulled the plates toward her and began tearing into the food with renewed hunger.
“Can I get you anything?” Scott turned to Aiden.
“I’ll order a coffee.”
“So hit me with it. What happened to Lily?” Zoe asked.
