Free The Dollmaker by Amanda Stevens Page A

the night alone in a hospital, and I don’t see any reason to start now.”
    “But, Mama, I’m fine. There’s no point in wearing yourself out.”
    “Claire, terrible things can happen in a place like this.” Lucille’s eyes, small and unblinking, were dead serious. She sat in a chair next to the bed, shoes kicked off, feet propped on the mattress. Her toenails were painted bright red. The lacquer matched the lipstick she’d reapplied after her last cigarette, but the crimson had already started to bleed into the deep crevices around her mouth, giving her a grotesque appearance in the harsh lighting.
    “Nothing is going to happen to me in the hospital, Mama.”
    “You don’t know that. You’re at their mercy once they get you all doped up on morphine.”
    “They didn’t give me any morphine.”
    “Well, they gave you something for pain, didn’t they?” Lucille brushed stray ashes off the front of her T-shirt. “I ever tell you what happened to my cousin Corinne?”
    “She got a staph infection from a contaminated needle.”
    “That’s right, she did. The nurse dropped the syringe on the floor, picked it up and stuck it right in Corinne’s arm. Didn’t bother to wipe it off or nothing. Took twenty years, but that infection finally killed her.” Lucille’s birdlike eyes gleamed knowingly. “Now don’t you think Corinne wished someone had been watching out for her that day?”
    “Yes, Mama.”
    Lucille nodded in satisfaction. “You just close your eyes and get some rest. You don’t need to worry about a thing. I’ll be right here all night if you need me.”
    Twenty minutes later, she was snoring softly, her head thrown back against the chair, mouth open. Claire wanted to wake her and send her home, but Lucille would swear she wasn’t a bit sleepy, she was just resting her eyes.
    Turning off the light, Claire sat in the dark for a while, trying to sort through her emotions. Her nerves vibrated like a taut rubber band as the antiseptic walls closed in on her. A nurse had brought her something for the pain after Charlotte left, but the medication wasn’t working.
    Slipping out of bed, Claire walked over to the window to watch the storm. Thunder rumbled overhead and the rain came down hard, blurring the city lights like a soft-focus filter.
    And then just like that it was over. The storm moved farther inland, the rain stopped and moonlight broke through the clouds. The dripping treetops glistened and the lights from passing cars painted the glossy streets with misty streaks of color.
    After the rain, ditches and backyards would come alive with the sounds of crickets and frogs, but inside Claire’s hospital room, all was silent except for Lucille’s soft snoring.
    Climbing back in bed, Claire reached for the remote to the TV. Turning down the volume, she surfed until she finally found a cable news channel. She watched images from a car bombing in the Middle East and a mud slide in Southern California, but her attention was caught by the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen.
    An Amber alert was in effect for a seven-year-old Alabama girl who’d been missing for nearly a week. The FBI and local authorities were still combing a wooded area near her home, but so far no trace of the child or her abductor had turned up. No eyewitnesses had come forward; no one had seen anything. It was as if the little girl had gotten off the school bus one afternoon and disappeared into thin air.
    Claire watched the scroll until the broadcast finally switched to a video feed from Linden, Alabama. They ran footage of the search, an interview with the local sheriff and a tearful plea from the mother for her daughter’s safe return.
    “That poor woman.”
    Claire hadn’t realized that her mother was awake, but when she turned her head, she saw the sheen of her eyes in the light from the television screen. Some of Lucille’s hair had come loose from the bun, and the strands coiled around her face like tiny gold