The Dollmaker

Their gazes dropped to Dave’s arm, to the red strawberry mark he had been born with and passed on to their daughter.

“Claire, are you saying that this doll artist had something to do with Ruby’s kidnapping?”

“I don’t think she’s the one who did it. But she may have been in contact with the person who did.”

Dave got up and went over to stare out at the bayou. The light outside was fading, and he heard the hoot of an owl from one of the oak trees. The call was eerie, lonely. A sound from his past.

He realized that his hands had started to tremble again, and he stuffed them in his pockets as he turned. “What do you expect me to do with this information?”

“I told you. I want you to find that doll for me.”

“And then what?”

She looked up at him, her eyes troubled. “What do you mean?”

“Our daughter is dead. It took me a long time to accept it, but now that I finally have, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to go digging up the past. I’ve spent a lot of time in some very dark places since Ruby disappeared. Places that look and feel a little too much like hell. I’m not that anxious to go back.”

She stood slowly. “What are you saying? You’re not going to help me?”

“What if you’re just using that doll as a smokescreen, Claire?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s your subconscious way of dealing with the divorce.”

“You think I’m making all this up to take my mind off my broken marriage?” Her tone was incredulous, her blue eyes angry and dark.

Dave turned back to stare out at the twilight.

Behind him, he heard Claire take a breath. “I should have known better than to come here. You weren’t there for our daughter seven years ago, and I don’t know why I thought anything would be different now. It’s always been about you, hasn’t it, Dave? What’s best for you?”

“You’re right,” he said wearily. “This is all about me.”

“Don’t do that.” She grabbed his arm, made him face her. “Don’t shut down like that. Not this time. This is too important, and some of us don’t have the luxury of running away when things get too tough.”

Her tone surprised him. “Is that what you think I did?”

“That’s what I know you did. All those nights when you were drinking yourself into one stupor after another, I was looking for our daughter…making phone calls, passing out flyers, connecting with all the national databanks. I did whatever I could, because running away wasn’t an option for me.”

“You don’t think I looked for Ruby? You don’t think I did everything humanly possible to find her?” He turned, stormed into the house and started grabbing up the boxes piled against one wall. He carried them out to the porch one by one and dropped them at Claire’s feet. “It’s all there. A paper trail of every lead I followed, no matter how small. And every time I came to a dead end, I had my heart ripped out all over again. So maybe you’ll cut me some slack if I’m not anxious to put you through that same torture.”

She lifted her chin, but her eyes were gleaming with tears. “That’s not your decision to make.”

“Maybe not. But I don’t have to be around when you get gutted.”

Her eyes looked stricken as she stared up at him. “I never should have come here.”

“No, you probably shouldn’t have. But you did, and now let’s just get this over with. All these years, you’ve blamed me for Ruby’s kidnapping, and now here’s your chance to finally get it off your chest. Come on, Claire. Just say it. I know you want to.”

“That’s not true. I never blamed you. I’m the one who was at the house when she was taken. I’m the one who let her ride her bicycle on the sidewalk that day.”

“And I’m the one who didn’t come home when he was supposed to. I’m the one who wasn’t there to protect her. You might as well say it, Claire, because it’s right there in your eyes. It has been from day one. And it’s not anything I haven’t told myself at least a million times since it happened.”

“You want me to say it, then here it is. You should have come home that day. You should have been there to protect our little girl, but instead you were with her.”

The bitterness in Claire’s voice was like a slap in the face. Dave took a step back. “I always figured you knew. Who told you?”

“She did.”

Dave closed his eyes briefly.

“That’s right,” Claire said. “That’s the kind of woman you took up with. You chose her over your own wife and child. And it wasn’t enough that my daughter was missing and I had to go through the worst kind of agony a mother could ever face. She had to call me up and tell me where you were at the exact moment Ruby was taken.”

“God, Claire…” Dave couldn’t bear to look at her. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I.”

“Not that this justifies what I did, but it didn’t mean anything—”

“Why do men always say that?” she asked in disgust. “It doesn’t make it better. It makes it so much worse, knowing that you were willing to throw away what we had over something that didn’t even mean anything to you. What kind of person does that?”

Dave didn’t answer, because he didn’t know what to say. Nothing was ever going to erase what he’d done. And nothing was ever going to change how Claire felt about him.

“You chose her over Ruby and me that day,” Claire said quietly.

“It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a conscious choice—”

“Did she hold a gun to your head?”

“Claire—”

“Then you made a choice. It’s as simple as that.”

“I made another choice that day, too. I left her to come back home to you.”

“But it was too late, wasn’t it? Ruby was already gone.”

He sat down heavily in the rocking chair and stared straight ahead. “I don’t know what to say to you. I could tell you that I’ve paid dearly for my mistakes, but somehow I don’t think that would make much difference.”

She shook her head sadly. “No, it wouldn’t. There’s nothing that will ever make things right. But even after everything I’ve said to you, I know deep down that Ruby’s kidnapping wasn’t your fault. No more than it was mine. Maybe you were right,” she said. “Maybe it is a mistake to start digging up the past. Because it seems like whatever you and I buried seven years ago still has the power to destroy us.”

Twenty-One

The cooling air smelled like flowers and wet dirt as Dave stood at the screen door and watched Claire’s car head down the gravel road toward the highway.

Her taillights flashed briefly as she neared a bend in the road, and then the sound of the engine faded in the twilight.

He told himself he should go after her, that he couldn’t leave things this way between them. He even went out to his truck, got in, turned on the ignition and backed out of the driveway. But instead of trying to catch Claire before she reached the highway, he turned in the opposite direction, and a few minutes later pulled into the parking lot of a dilapidated icehouse that sat on the edge of the bayou.

The place was dark and seedy and nearly empty. A country and western song played on the jukebox as a few customers sat at the tables, smoking and drinking, their faces reflecting a strange, bluish glow from the neon light that flashed outside the window.

Dave walked over to the bar and sat down.

“What’ll you have?”

“Give me a draft and a couple of bourbon shots. And here.” Dave fished in his pocket for his keys. “Take these and don’t give them back to me no matter what I say.”

The bartender tossed them into an old shoe box he kept underneath the bar. “Is there somebody you want me to call so you don’t have to walk home?”