Once Gone (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1)

Chapter 34

Instead of finding his way back into a happier childhood, he'd trapped himself in an unreal world—a display that might be in some historical museum. A framed cross-stitch embroidery even hung on the living room wall. Riley stepped closer to look at it.

The little stitched x's made up the image of a woman in a long gown and holding a parasol. Beneath her were embroidered words ...

A Southern Belle is always

gracious

courteous

genteel ...

The list went on, but Riley didn't bother to read the rest. She got the message that mattered to her. The stitchery was nothing more wishful thinking. Obviously, this farm had never been a plantation. No so-called Southern belle had ever lived here, sipping sweet tea and ordering servants about.

Still, the fantasy must be dear to someone who lived here—or had lived here in the past. Maybe that someone had once bought a doll—a doll that represented a Southern belle in a storybook.

Listening for any sound, Riley moved quietly into the hallway. On one side, an arched doorway opened into a dining room. Her sense of being in a past time grew even stronger. Sunlight streamed in through lace curtains hanging over the windows. A table and chairs were positioned perfectly, as if awaiting a family dinner. But like everything else, the dining room looked as though it hadn't been used for a long time.

A large old-fashioned kitchen was on the other side of the hallway. There, too, everything was in its proper place, and there was no sign of recent use.

Ahead of her, at the end of the hall, was a closed door. As Riley moved in that direction, a cluster of framed photographs on the wall drew her attention. She examined them as she edged by. They appeared to be ordinary family photos, some black and white, some in color. They reached far back in time—perhaps as long as a century.

They were just the sort of pictures one might find in any home—parents, elderly grandparents, children, and the dining room table laden with feasts of celebration. Many of the images were faded.

A picture that didn't look more than a couple of decades old appeared to be a boy's school picture—a cleaned-up student with a new haircut and a stiff, unfelt smile. The picture to the right of it was a woman hugging a girl in a frilly dress.

Then, with a slight shock, Riley noticed that the girl and the boy had exactly the same face. They were actually the same child. The girl with the woman wasn't a girl at all, but the schoolboy wearing a dress and a wig. Riley shuddered. The expression on the costumed boy's face told her that this was not a case of a harmless dress-up or comfortable cross-dressing. In this photograph, the child's smile was anguished, wretched—even angry and hateful.

The final snapshot showed the boy at about age ten. He was holding a doll. The woman stood behind the boy, smiling a smile that glowed with entirely misplaced, uncomprehending joy. Riley leaned closer to view the doll and gasped.

There it was—a doll that matched the picture on the book in the store. It was exactly the same, with long blond hair, bright blue eyes, roses, and pink ribbons. Years ago, the woman had given the boy this doll. She must have forced it upon him, expecting him to cherish and love it.

The tortured expression on the boy's face told the real story. He couldn't fake a smile this time. His face was knotted with disgust and self-loathing. This picture captured the moment when something broke apart in him, never to be made whole again. Right then and there, the image of the doll fastened itself onto his unhappy young imagination. He couldn't shake it off, not ever. It was an image that he was recreating with dead women.