Cardwell Christmas Crime Scene & Secret of Deadman's Coulee
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B.J. Daniels
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Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1
DJ Justice opened the door to her apartment and froze. Nothing looked out of place and yet she took a step back. Her gaze went to the lock. There were scratches around the keyhole. The lock set was one of the first things she’d replaced when she’d rented the apartment.
She eased her hand into the large leather hobo bag that she always carried. Her palm fit smoothly around the grip of the weapon, loaded and ready to fire, as she slowly pushed open the door.
The apartment was small and sparsely furnished. She never stayed anywhere long, so she collected nothing of value that couldn’t fit into one suitcase. Spending years on the run as a child, she’d had to leave places in the middle of the night with only minutes to pack.
But that had changed over the past few years. She’d just begun to feel…safe. She liked her job, felt content here. She should have known it couldn’t last.
The door creaked open wider at the touch of her finger, and she quickly scanned the living area. Moving deeper into the apartment, she stepped to the open bathroom door and glanced in. Nothing amiss. At a glance she could see the bathtub, sink and toilet as well as the mirror on the medicine cabinet. The shower door was clear glass. Nothing behind it.
That left just the bedroom. As she stepped soundlessly toward it, she wanted to be wrong. And yet she knew someone had been here. But why break in unless he or she planned to take something?
Or leave something?
Like the time she’d found the bloody hatchet on the fire escape right outside her window when she was eleven. That message had been for her father, the blood from a chicken, he’d told her. Or maybe it hadn’t even been blood, he’d said. As if she hadn’t seen his fear. As if they hadn’t thrown everything they owned into suitcases and escaped in the middle of the night.
She moved to the open bedroom door. The room was small enough that there was sufficient room only for a bed and a simple nightstand with one shelf. The book she’d been reading the night before was on the nightstand, nothing else.
The double bed was made—just as she’d left it.
She started to turn away when she caught a glimmer of something out of the corner of her eye. Ice ran down her spine as she dropped the gun back into her shoulder bag and stepped closer. Something had been tucked between the pillows and duvet. Gingerly picking up the edge of the duvet, she peeled it back an inch at a time. DJ braced herself for something bloody and dismembered, her mind a hamster on a wheel, spinning wildly.
But what she found was more disturbing than blood and guts. As she uncovered part of it, she saw familiar blank eyes staring up at her. Her breath caught in her throat as tears stung her eyes.
“Trixie?” she whispered, voice breaking, as she stared at the small rag doll’s familiar face.
On the run with her father, she’d had little more than the clothes on her back except for the rag doll that had been her only companion since early childhood.
“We should throw this old thing away,” her father had said after a dog tore the doll from her hands once and he’d had to chase it down to retrieve what was left because she’d been so hysterical. “I’ll buy you another doll. A pretty one, not some stuffed fabric one,” he’d pleaded.
She’d been so upset that he’d relented and let her keep the doll she’d always known as Trixie. But she could tell that he would have been happier to get rid of the thing. She wondered if it brought him bad memories, since it was clear that the doll was handmade. Even the clothing. She liked to pretend that her mother had made it for her. If her mother hadn’t died in childbirth.
Was that why her father wished she didn’t care so much for the doll? Because it brought back the grief, the loss? That might explain why he had seemed to want nothing to do with anything from the past, including her doll. Not that she’d ever understood her father.
Life with him had been sparse and sporadic. He had somehow kept her fed and clothed and managed to get her into school—at least for a while until they were uprooted again. But the incident with the doll now made her wonder.
From as far back as she could remember, she’d believed that the doll with the sewn face and the dull, dark stitched eyes needed her as much as she needed it.
Now she half feared all she would find was Trixie’s dismembered head. But as she drew back the covers, she saw that the body was still intact. Someone had left it for her tucked under the covers almost…tenderly. With trembling fingers, she picked up the treasured rag doll, afraid something awful had been done to her that would spoil one of the few good memories she had of her childhood.
Cupping the precious doll in her hands, DJ began to cry—for herself and for Trixie. The doll was in incredible shape for how old she was, not to mention what she must have been through over the years. DJ thought of her being lost, someone discarding her in a trash can as nothing more than junk and that awful feeling she’d had that she would never see her again.
So how had Trixie miraculously turned up again?
Heart in her throat, she looked closer at the doll.
Something was wrong.
The doll looked exactly like Trixie, but…She studied the handmade clothing. It looked as pristine as the doll. Maybe whoever had found it had washed it, taken care of it all these years…
For what possible purpose?
As happy as she’d been to see the doll again, now she realized how unlikely that was. Why would anyone care about some silly rag doll? And how could someone possibly know she was the one who’d lost it all those years ago?
After being her constant companion from as far back as she could remember, Trixie had been the worse for wear before DJ had misplaced her. The doll had spent too many years tucked under one of DJ’s chubby arms. So how—
With a jolt, she recalled the accident she’d had with the doll and the dog that had taken off with it all those years ago. The dog had ripped off one of Trixie’s legs. With DJ screaming for help, her father had chased down the dog, retrieved the leg and later, at her pleading, painstakingly sewn it back on with the only thread he could find, black.
Her fingers trembling, she lifted the dress hem and peered under the only slightly faded red pantaloons. With both shock and regret, she saw that there was no black thread. No seam where the leg had been reattached.
This wasn’t her doll.
It surprised her that at thirty-five, she could feel such loss for something she’d been missing for so many years.
She stared at the rag doll, now more confused than ever. Why would people break into her apartment to leave it for her? They had to have known that she’d owned one exactly like it. Wouldn’t they realize that she’d know the difference between hers and this one? Or was that the point?
DJ studied the doll more closely. She was right. This one and Trixie were almost identical, which meant that whoever had made them had made two. Why?
She’d never questioned before where her doll had come from. Trixie was in what few photographs she’d seen of her childhood, her doll locked under her arm almost like an extension of herself.
Like hers, this one looked more than thirty years old. The clothing was a little faded, the face even blanker than it had been all those years ago, but not worn and faded like Trixie had been when DJ had lost her.
DJ felt a chill. So who had left this for her?
Someone who’d had this doll—a doll that was identical to hers before Trixie’s accident. Someone who’d known there had been two identical dolls. Someone who knew this doll would be meaningful to her.
But why break in to leave it for her tucked under the covers? And why give it to her now? A life on the run had taught her one thing. The people who had left this wanted something from her. They could have mailed it with a note. Unless they had some reason to fear it could be traced back to them?
Regrettably, there was only one person she could ask, someone she hadn’t spoken to in seven years. Her father.
She took a couple of deep breaths as she walked back into the living room. She’d left the door open in case she had needed to get out fast, but now she moved to close and lock it.
With her back against the door, she stared at the apartment she’d come to love. She’d made a life for herself here, and just the thought of being forced to give it up—
She was considering what her intruder might want from her when she felt a prick and dropped the doll. Sucking on her bleeding finger, she stared down at the rag doll. The dress had gaped open in the back to expose a straight pin—and what looked like the corner of a photograph.
Carefully picking up the doll so it didn’t stick her again, she unpinned the photo and pulled it out. There were three people in the snapshot. A man and two women, one young, one older, all dark-haired. The young woman, the only one smiling, was holding a baby.
She flipped the photo over. Written in a hurried hand were the words: Your family.
What? She quickly turned the photograph back over and stared at the people pictured there.
She’d never seen any of them before, but there was something familiar about the smiling woman holding the baby. DJ realized with a start that the woman looked like her. But how was this possible if her mother had died in childbirth?
If it was true and these people were family…was it possible she was the baby in the photo? Why would her father have lied if that were the case? He knew how much she would have loved having family. He’d always said it was just the two of them. But what if that wasn’t true?
Still, she thought as she studied the photo, if it was true, wouldn’t they have contacted her? Then she realized they were contacting her now. But why wait all these years, and why do it like this?
The reason hit her hard. No one had wanted her to know the truth.
But someone had decided to tell her.
Or warn her, she thought with a shiver.
