“Set them up then, and they can run while you’re sleeping. You’ll have the results in the morning.”
She’d have argued, but she was too damn tired. Instead, she did as he suggested, and still her gaze was drawn back to the board. Back to Lois Gregg.
She could hear the way the woman’s son, a grown man, had sobbed. She could see the utter devastation on his face when he’d pleaded with her to tell him what he should do.
“Mom,” he’d said, the way she imagined a child would. Though over thirty he’d said “Mom” with a little boy’s helpless loss.
She knew Roarke had felt some of that same helplessness, that young boy’s lost grief, when he’d learned the mother he’d never known had been murdered. Dead for three decades. Still he grieved.
And just that afternoon, a grown woman had studied her with suspicion and resentment over a relationship with her mother.
What was it that bound the child, so inexorably, with the mother? Was it blood, she wondered, as she stripped down for bed? Was it imprinted in the womb or something learned and developed after birth?
Killers of women, lust killers, were often bred due to their unhealthy feelings or relationships with a mother figure. Just as she supposed saints were bred from healthy ones. Or all the normality of the human race between the extremes.
Had this killer hated his mother? Abused or been abused by her? Was he killing her now?
And thinking of mothers, she slipped into sleep to dream of her own.
It was the hair, golden hair, so shiny and pretty, so long and curly. She liked to touch it, though she knew she wasn’t supposed to. She liked to pet it, as she’d seen a boy pet a puppy dog once.
Nobody was home, and it was all quiet, the way she liked it best. When they were gone, the mommy and the daddy, nobody yelled or made scary noises or told her not to do everything she wanted to do.
Nobody slapped or hit.
She wasn’t supposed to go into the room where the mommy and daddy slept, or where the mommy sometimes brought other daddies to play on the bed without their clothes.
But t
here were so many things in there. Like the long golden hair, or the bright red hair, and the bottles that smelled like flowers.
She tiptoed toward the dresser, a thin girl in jeans that bagged and a yellow T-shirt that was stained with grape juice. Her ears were keen, as the ears of prey often were, and she listened carefully, prepared to dart out of the room at any moment.
Her fingers reached out and stroked the yellow curls of the wig. The pressure syringe tossed carelessly beside it didn’t interest her. She knew the mommy took medicine every day, sometimes more than once a day. Sometimes the medicine made her sleepy, sometimes it made her want to dance and dance. She was nicer when she wanted to dance; even though her laughing was scary, it was better than the yelling or the slapping.
There was a mirror over the dresser and she could just see the top half of her own face if she strained up high on her toes. Her hair was ugly brown and straight and short. It wasn’t pretty like the mommy’s play hair.
Unable to resist, she put the wig over her own hair. It fell all the way to her waist and made her feel pretty, made her feel happy.
There were all sorts of toys on the dresser, for painting faces with color. Once when the mommy had been in a good mood, she’d painted her lips and cheeks and said she’d looked like a little doll.
If she looked like a doll, maybe the mommy and daddy would like her better. They wouldn’t yell and hit, and she could go outside and play.
Humming to herself, she painted on lip dye, rubbing her lips together as she’d seen the mommy do. She brushed on cheek color and clumsily fit her feet inside the high-heeled shoes that were in front of the dresser. She teetered on them, but was able to see even more of her face.
“Like a little doll,” she said, pleased with the golden curls and the smears of color.
She began to use more, with enthusiasm, and was so intent on the game, on the fun, she failed to listen.
“You stupid little bitch!”
The scream had her stumbling back, tripping out of the shoes. She was already falling when the hand slapped across her face. It hurt where she banged her elbow, but even as the tears spurted out in response, the mommy was grabbing her by her sore arm and yanking her to her feet.
“I told you never to come in here. I told you never to touch my things.”
The mommy’s hands were white, so white, and painted red on the nails like they were bleeding. She used one to slap, and it stung the little painted cheek.
The girl opened her mouth to wail as the hand raised up to strike again.