Miss Polly had a Dolly (Emma Frost #2) (20 page)

The woman was
often gone
for hours at a time. Josephine was left in
the darkness only accompanied by Django who was put in the room with her to
make sure she didn't try and escape.

Josephine no longer knew how long she had spent
in the cage in the woman's basement. And she was getting too tired to think
about it anymore. All she wanted to do was to sleep. The woman had hardly given
her any food, only a few crackers now and then that she fed her through the
bars. Josephine could feel that she was losing weight. Her arms had become very
thin and the skin on her stomach was drooping. Every day the woman would come
down to the basement and feel the skin on Josephine's arm. It reminded
Josephine of the story of Hansel and Gretel only it didn't seem like she wanted
Josephine to get fatter.

Josephine didn't understand it at all. If the
woman wanted to eat Josephine didn't she want her to be fat? Why didn't she
feed her then? It made no sense.

Josephine was too tired to even try and plead
with her anymore. The first days she had begged and pleaded for her to give her
more food, but the woman had pretended not to hear. She was good at that. Only
Django seemed to listen when Josephine spoke.

Josephine sighed in the darkness. She tried to
move to change position, but her body was aching all over. It was truly
painful. She was so tired of being in this cage, so tired of being afraid of
what was going to happen to her, so tired of lying awake all night listening to
her stomach growl, feeling the pain of hunger.

Django lifted his head and looked at her. Since
she had gotten skinnier Josephine was now able to put her arm out through the
bars and reach Django. She petted him on his head. He seemed to like that. They
had become quite good friends lately and as long as Josephine stayed put he was
very nice to her. As soon as she tried to shake the bars or scream or fiddle
with the lock, he would start growling and snapping his teeth at her. If she
behaved he was really nice. And since he was her only companion in this
godforsaken basement, Josephine tried to be good. She succeeded most of the
time.

Josephine heard a rattle behind the door and
knew the woman was unlocking it from the outside. She drew back her arm and
looked at the door opening with anxious eyes. The woman entered. She was
humming as usual.

Django got up on his feet and ran towards her
while wagging his tail. "Hi there, buddy. How are we doing today? Is she
behaving?" she asked patting his back.

Django made a satisfied grunt. The woman pulled
out a treat from her pocket and gave it to him. Josephine listened to the
crunching sound coming from his mouth as he ate the treat and wished so badly
that she could get one, too.

Mommy I'm so hungry. Please
come find me. Please help me.

Josephine knew her parents had to be searching
for her and for days she had thought about finding a way to communicate with
the outside world, but without any luck. She wished so badly that she was able
to tell the world where she was, to scream to people walking by in the street
outside of the house. But she had already tried. Screaming didn't get her
anywhere. It only made her unpopular with the old woman and Django.

The woman approached Josephine's cage and looked
at her like she was examining her.

"Give me your arm," she said.

Josephine obeyed and stuck out her arm between
the bars. The old woman felt it and pulled the skin. "Yes, yes. I think
you're right. It's looking good now, Django. I think she is ready for the next
step."

Josephine gasped as the woman pulled her loose
skin hard again. Then she smiled. "We're gonna peel all that skin of you
like you were a chicken, aren't we Django? Yes we are. All of this nice loose
skin will come right off once we get started, just you wait and see. And then
we're gonna stuff you like a bird. Yes. I think we are. To make you last
forever and ever. To make you stay beautiful forever. Isn't that wonderful…
baby doll
?"

We spent all
day and
most of the evening at the hospital in
Esbjerg, the town on the mainland closets to the island. Helle was stable they
told us, but not awake yet and they weren't expecting her to wake up any time
before tomorrow, but it might also take longer than that. Maybe even several
days. She had lost a lot of blood and they couldn't tell us yet if there had
been any damage to her brain.

Later they told us to go home and get a good
night's rest. There wasn't really much for us to do but wait and we might as
well do that at home. So we did. We took the ferry back to the island and made
it home before midnight. Maya and Victor were exhausted so I got them to bed
right away. My dad was sitting in the kitchen when I came back down.

"Can I get you anything?" I asked.

He was sitting with his head bowed. Now he
looked at me. I hated to see him like this.

"What do you say we grab a beer?" I
asked.

He nodded heavily. I opened the refrigerator and
pulled out two beers. We drank in silence for a little while. I put my hand on
top of his. He sipped his beer and swallowed. Then he looked at me.

"I just don't understand why," he
said. "You say this killer has many victims on his conscience, but why of
all the people in the world would he pick Helle?"

I shrugged. "Why would he pick the young
girl at the auditions? I think we all want an explanation, but maybe there
isn't one. Maybe he just picks his victims randomly, victims of
opportunity."

My dad sniffled and drank again. "Maybe
you're right."

"Can you think of any reason why anyone
would have anything against Helle?" I asked.

"Nah. You're right. She's just a nice lady
with a funny shop. Why would anyone want to harm her?"

My dad finished his beer then looked at me.
"That hit the spot. Do you mind me crashing here?"

"I was expecting you to. Take any room
upstairs."

He growled and got up. "I would have sworn
I'd never have to sleep in this awful house again, but I really don't want to
be alone tonight, you know?"

I smiled. "I know, Dad. You're always
welcome here."

My dad grunted and left the room. I still had
way too much adrenalin in my blood to be able to sleep so I pulled a second
beer from the refrigerator. I went into the living room and grabbed my computer.
I started researching the bowtie killer. Using what my ex-boyfriend once taught
me, I hacked into the Danish police force's central database and found all the
files and cases and went through them one after the other.
[P1]
 
He had killed many over
the years, but mostly younger women and teenage girls. Not one of them had been
older like Helle. It surprised me, but then again it could just be a
coincidence. I scrolled through the notes the two officers working on the case
had written and then stopped. A particular sentence stuck out to me. One of the
theories the police were working with was that the killer was some kind of
stalker of the TV show Shooting Stars
.
They based the theory on the fact that most of the killings happened on the
last night the TV show was in town or right after they had left town. That
caused the police conclude that someone was following the TV show around
killing people in its tail.

I looked up and drank some more of my beer.
Hadn't anyone thought about the fact that it might be
someone connected to the TV show instead?
I thought to myself. There
were hundreds of people working on a show like this. One of them could easily
be a psychopath. Sick people were everywhere and often a guy like this, a true
psychopath, was brilliant at hiding, at blending into a crowd. At least that
was what I had read.

I returned to my computer and tried a new
approach. I knew my dad was going to hate me for this, but I did it anyway. I
hacked my way into Helle's computer in her shop and started going through her
stuff. A lot of it was personal and I promised myself to never tell my dad
about anything I encountered in there.

I checked her emails to see if anyone had
contacted her in the last couple of days, maybe someone from the TV show, but
found nothing. I moved on to check her Internet browsing history the last few
days. She had been visiting a lot of pages about dolls, then Facebook, some
news websites where she mostly read stuff about royalty and celebrities. Then
there were literally hundreds of pages where she had read about the
disappearance of Josephine Gyldenstjerne,
the
lost Countess
, as they had named her. It wasn't so strange that she
would be interested in that case since she naturally saw many similarities with
her own story. I sighed and leaned back into the couch. I pulled the laptop
onto my chest and found a way into Helle's web-bank by guessing her password,
which happened to be
dollbaby
. I
drank the rest of my beer and almost dropped it when the page opened up and I
saw how much money she had in her account.

I stared at it for a long time to make sure I
wasn't mistaken. Then I closed the lid of the computer and brought it with me
up the stairs. As I turned off the light and lay under the covers, I knew I was
going to have to break my promise to myself.

I had printed
everything out
for my dad to see when he got down the
next morning. I knew it was a little much for him after what he had been
through the day before, but I had to show him. I couldn't know this and not tell
him. Why she had chosen to keep it a secret from my dad was her business, she
probably had her reasons, but there was no way I could keep this from him. The
damage was done.

I was still bent over the stove making scrambled
eggs when I heard a grunt behind my back. I turned and smiled.

"Good morning, Dad."

"Humph. Where are the kids?"

"They've left for school. It's
Monday."

I poured him some coffee and placed it in front
of him. He grunted something that was probably supposed to be a
thank you
. My dad had never been a morning
person and today less than ever.

"Any news about Helle?" I asked.

He shook his head. "They promised they
would call if she woke up. I slept with the damn phone next to my head all
night. Now I have the worst headache. I'm not so sure these things are healthy
for you."

"Here have some orange juice," I said
and poured him a glass. "I'm also making eggs."

 My dad shook his head and growled. He
drank the juice. "I'm not hungry, but thanks. I'd like to get to the
hospital as soon as possible. I want to be there when she wakes up. They said
it was going to be today."

"Dad, they said it
might
be today. There is a
difference."

He grunted dissatisfied. "Whatever."

I put the papers on the table in front of him.

"What's that?" he said.

I sat down with my coffee cup in my hand.
"Look, Dad. I know you're going through a lot of stuff right now, but I
did some research last night and I think there are some things you need to know
about Helle."

He looked startled. "Like what?"

I took out a piece of paper and pointed at the
number on top showing the total amount of money on her account. My dad whistled
impressed. He took it from my hand and looked again. "That's a lot of
money."

"It's Helle's bank account."

My dad laughed. "No. It can't be. You must
be mistaken."

"I hacked into her bank account last night
and this is what I found."

"You hacked into her banking account? Why
on earth would you do such an awful thing?"

"I was checking out her personal stuff to
make sure she hadn't spoken to someone or chatted with someone that might be
the killer."

"But still. Emma. She is my girlfriend.
You're not allowed to do something like that. It's private. Besides, why her
bank account? I can understand her email and things like that, but her
bank?"

 I blushed. He was right. I had no
explanation. I had been curious, that was all, but it was no excuse. I felt bad
and tried not to show it. "It doesn't matter. The fact is I did it and I
can't help wondering where she got all those millions from. Haven't you ever wondered
where she gets her money from? I mean it's definitely not the small shop
downtown. If anything, she's only losing money on that."

He shrugged. "Maybe she inherited the
money, maybe she won the lottery or maybe she got it in the divorce from her
ex. Who knows?"

"Maybe. Was he rich?"

"Not that I know of." My dad sipped
his coffee. "I'm sure there is a perfectly good explanation to all of
this," my dad said and got up from the chair.

"I'm sure there is. And it's none of my
business, I know that."

I put my coffee cup in the sink and looked at my
dad. He suddenly seemed so old. Maybe it was just the sadness in his eyes. I
was overwhelmed with guilt. Should I have kept quiet about this after all? No,
done was done. My dad needed to know this. He deserved to know, and even if it
turned out to be nothing at all, I still wanted him to know. After all, it was
going to come out anyway once the police started investigating her to see if
there was any motive for attacking her. This was a good motive. Money was
always a good motive.

"Do you want me to take you to the hospital
to see her today?" I asked.

My dad nodded. "That would be nice,
thanks."