Broken Dolls (A Jefferson Winter Thriller) by James Carol

life, in other words.
    This photo froze her in a moment when she was at her best. It was taken in a restaurant and she was smiling as though she didn’t have a care. There was no indication that she was going to end up colliding head-on with her worst nightmare, and that her life would effectively be over.
    The photograph had been cropped to show Patricia Maynard’s face, making it difficult to tell what the occasion was. Maybe it was her birthday, maybe it was someone else’s birthday. It had been a celebration of some sort. You didn’t take photographs in a restaurant unless there was a reason you wanted to remember the occasion.
    Her hair was brunette, her eyes brown, and she was attractive. Not stop-the-traffic gorgeous like Templeton, but she would definitely make a man look twice. She was in good shape, healthy and a good weight, and she was wearing a blouse with the top two buttons undone to show off a glimpse of her cleavage and the tiniest tease of lace. Patricia Maynard had been a happy, confident, attractive woman who’d had her whole life ahead of her.
    The after photo had been taken by a police photographer and there was nothing rose-tinted about it whatsoever. This photograph was stark and brutal, and there wasn’t a hint of the confident, attractive woman Patricia Maynard had once been. Her eyes were puffy and red and shut tight, like she’d gone fifteen rounds in a boxing ring. The slackness in her face made me think of stroke victims.
    I went through the before and after photographs for the other three victims, the rose-tinted family shots and the cold, stark police shots. Sarah Flight, Margaret Smith, Caroline Brant. I pulled up the four after shots and arranged them in two neat rows. Sarah Flight and Margaret Smith were on the top row, Caroline Brant and Patricia Maynard were on the bottom. A prickle of excitement made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Laid out like that with their bald heads and their puffy boxer eyes, they could have been one person.
    I opened a new screen and pulled up the before photos and laid them out in the same configuration as the after photos. I saw the resemblance immediately. I’d missed it earlier because two of the victims had dyed their hair. Hatcher answered his phone on the second ring.
    ‘I’ve sent a car,’ he said. ‘It’ll be there in a few minutes.’
    ‘That’s great. I need the car, but I’m not coming in. Not this morning, anyway.’
    ‘What about the profile?’
    ‘I need to do some more work on it.’
    ‘What the hell are you talking about, Winter? You said it would be ready by this morning.’
    ‘Shut up and listen a second. I don’t have a profile for the unsub but I do have a profile for the next victim. Have you got a pen?’
    There was a rustle of paper and plastic on the other end of the line, then Hatcher was back. ‘Okay, fire away.’

11
    ‘You’re looking for a woman aged twenty-five to thirty-five.’ I kept it slow so Hatcher’s pen could keep up. ‘She’s going to be married, but there will be problems in the marriage. The husband will have had an affair. Possibly multiple affairs.’
    ‘I don’t know if you can make that assumption, Winter. The Flights’ marriage was sound. Granted there were problems in the other victims’ marriages, but the Flights were fine.’
    ‘Were they?’
    ‘We checked it out. They were as happy as Romeo and Juliet.’
    ‘Not the best example,’ I said.
    ‘My people are good. If there had been anything going on they would have found it.’
    ‘And you’re prepared to put your money where your mouth is?’
    ‘Are you serious?’
    ‘Let’s say twenty pounds. No, let’s make it interesting. How about fifty?’
    ‘That isn’t exactly ethical,’ said Hatcher.
    ‘Firstly, you haven’t said no. And secondly, that’s loser talk.’
    ‘Fine, I’ll be happy to take your money.’
    ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘The victim will be a brunette, brown eyes, and she’ll be attractive, too.