Free The Dollmaker's Daughters (Bo Bradley Mysteries, Book Five) by Abigail Padgett

restaurant down the hill from here in La Mesa. It's in a shopping center off Avocado. Donato's. My treat"
    "Let me check something," Bo said, stretching the phone cord to grab Janny Malcolm's case file from the recliner in the apartment's small living room. The foster parents' address was in Lemon Grove, a community west of Eva's high desert compound in Jamul and adjacent to La Mesa. "I'll meet you there at six-thirty," she agreed.
    The foster mother, Beverly Schroder, answered the phone immediately and said she'd welcome a visit from Bo. Janny, she said, had been crying for no apparent reason since they'd brought her home from the hospital. It had something to do with an old doll the girl brought with her when she arrived from another foster home two years ago.
    "I thought when she dug out that doll that it was, you know, part of her Goth costume," the woman told Bo. "The kids like to look bizarre, and the doll definitely helped with that. But it's more. It's become sick. She's obsessed with the thing, keeps carrying it around the house and laying it down on the couch or in a bookcase. A while ago I found it in the oven. I should never have allowed her to go to that Goblin place."
    "Is the oven gas or electric?" Bo asked before she could stop herself.
    "Electric. Why?"
    Bo chose not to share her thoughts about why a disturbed and terrified youngster might place a symbolic object in a gas chamber.
    "Um, it's just so unusual to find homes with gas stoves in San Diego," she dithered. "I've been thinking of moving and I was curious. Do you happen to have the name and phone number of Janny's friend Bran? I may need to speak with him as well."
    Beverly Schroder's tone was hesitant.
    "His name is Scott Bierbrauer and he still lives with his parents three blocks from here. We've known Scott and his family for years. We go to the same church, St. Olaf ’ s Lutheran. That's why we let Janny go out with him even though he's five years older than she is. He's a nice kid, has a good job with a computer company even though he dropped out of college after a year. I'm sure Scott doesn't have anything to do with whatever is bothering Janny."
    We'll see about that, Mrs. Schroder.
    "Perhaps you could give me his work and home phone numbers while I'm there," Bo insisted. "And in the meanti me try asking Janny to recite th e state capitals."
    "What?"
    "I told Janny at the hospital to try reciting something boring when she's feeling scared and nervous," Bo explained.
    "My husband will be home in about an hour," Bev Schroder stated in a voice that suggested she would not welcome Bo until then.
    "I look forward to meeting him," Bo answered. "I'll be there in an hour."
    The Schroders were going to be humorless and defensive. Bo rummaged through her closet for something which might reassure Lutherans, who in her view could be forgiven anything because in 1700 their denominational ancestors had ad mitted to the chorus of the L ü neberg, Germany, church a fifteen-year-old apprentice named Johann Sebastian Bach. A world without the Brandenburg Concertos was a world Bo did not care to contemplate.
    "Yes!" she said to a gray silk dress Estrella's sister had given Bo after wearing it once to a funeral. Un der a black wool blazer th e dress would whisper things about common sense and sane living. From a rack of earrings on her dresser Bo chose filigreed silver teardrops that had belonged to her mother. There was nothing to be done about her hair, which was already growing out in curly wisps from a short style chosen only three months ago. In subdued lighting, Bo decided, she'd look like an Irish farm girl on her way to enter a convent .
    "Come on, Molly," she called. "We're going to have Italian!"
    The Schroders' house was a two-story Craftsman, its stucco painted a fading pink. The street-level garage had been converted to a flat, probably for rental income. Bo sat with a sleeping Molly for a while in the Pathfinder as a damp wind blew through the