Page 90 of The Hanging Dolls
He assessed her but she kept a straight face before he gave in with a sigh. “Now Carly doesn’t want to be a mom, okay? Whenever I was over, Carly would make sure Lucy wasn’t in the house. But there were a lot of times she couldn’t. And Lucy… is a chatty, active, and nosy kid. Always asking questions. Always running around. Never sitting still in a room. You can’t just place her in front of a television and hope she’ll be busy for the hour. Carly used to complain to me that her… business was suffering.”
“Her prostitution business.”
“That’s right. She couldn’t always go to her client’s place because who would she leave Lucy with? She can’t afford babysitters and she doesn’t have any family. So she would always have clients over at her house. It was easier that way too. But most clients aren’t comfortable with a loud and curious child when they’re there to bang her mother. Also Lucy was at that stage where she’s needy and full of energy and Carly just didn’t have the bandwidth to handle her. One time Lucy was sick. She had the flu so she was in bed for a few days. Carly told me those days were the best days of her life.”
A hollowness opened inside Zoe’s chest. She knew what Carly had been doing. But the confirmation still made her ears want to bleed.
“She said it would be great if… Lucy stayed sick most of the time. She told me she was giving her this tea that kept Lucy at low energy most of the time.”
“Did she say anything else about this tea? What was in it?”
He puckered his lips and shrugged. “No. But I remember her taking her to the hospital because Lucy was gettingreallysick. She told me it was because she was giving her too much of that tea… Now can I leave? This information has to be worth something, right? She was poisoning her own kid!”
It was something else that Zoe had latched on to. Carly had taken Lucy to the hospital.
“You can’t leave. You’re under arrest.”
“We had a deal!” he screeched in protest, his bulky body shaking in ragged breaths.
“I lied and you’re an idiot.” She left the room, still buzzing with the revelation.
What if Lily and Tara had been taken to the hospital too? That could be the connection they had been searching for. Someone at the hospital would know—someone who decided totake matters into their own hands and dispense his twisted sense of justice.
The automatic doors whooshed closed behind her as Zoe approached the front desk, where a tired-looking receptionist tapped away at her computer.
“I’m looking for three patients who might have been brought in recently. Lily Baker, Tara Bennett, and Lucy Robinson,” Zoe said.
The receptionist looked up, her fingers still hovering over the keyboard. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t give out patient information unless you’re family.”
Zoe flattened her mouth. She didn’t have time for court orders. She leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. “I’m with the FBI. I need to know if they were brought in and when.”
The receptionist hesitated, her eyes flicking to Zoe’s badge, which she held out just long enough to confirm her credentials. Reluctantly, the woman began typing again, her eyes scanning the screen. After a moment, she nodded. “The names… it’s those girls, isn’t it?” Her eyes turned glassy. “The dead ones in the woods.”
“Yes, that’s why this is important. Please help us.”
She nodded, understanding. “There is no record of Tara Bennett checking in, at least in the last six months, but Lily Baker came in about three months ago and Lucy Robinson a month ago. They were both assigned to the same doctor—Dr. Parsons.”
Zoe’s heart skipped a beat. She remembered Dr. Parsons from when Scott was admitted after being attacked outside the police station. He was well into his seventies, with araspy smoker’s voice that somehow didn’t match his kind, grandfatherly demeanor.
“Where can I find Dr. Parsons?” she asked, a slight edge to her voice.
The receptionist pointed down the hall. “He should be making his rounds in the east wing.”
Zoe didn’t waste a second. She turned on her heel and marched down the corridor, her eyes scanning the sea of white coats. Finally, she spotted him—a stooped man with thinning white hair, talking softly to a nurse. His hands moved gently, guiding the nurse’s attention to a chart.
“Dr. Parsons,” Zoe called out.
He looked up, and a warm smile spread across his weathered face. “Oh, I remember you. The girl who likes hospitals. How’s your friend doing? Scott, that was his name, wasn’t it?”
Zoe forced a polite smile. “He’s doing great even though someone injured his faceagain. But I need to talk to you about Lily and Lucy. The names are familiar to you?”
Dr. Parsons’s smile faded slightly, and he glanced around as if to ensure no one else was listening. “Yes… those girls were in the news. Lily was killed, right?”
“Do you remember why they were brought in?”
He scratched his head, digging through his memory. “Lucy was more recent. She had presented with nausea and diarrhea. Her mother said she had bad takeout so we just put her on electrolytes and sent her away. But Lily…” He blinked vehemently, his mouth moving even though no words came out.
“What about Lily?”
