The Dollmaker(The Forgotten Files #2)(57)
Vargas shook her head. “Spoken like a man.”
Would Tessa have liked flowers? She’d never struck him as the flowers type. But then he’d consistently read her wrong from the outset. He could recall dozens of details about her. The way she sang in the shower. How his T-shirts skimmed the top of her thighs as she was cooking breakfast. The feel of her rubbing the tension from his neck. She could make him so damn hard with just the simplest of touches. But did she like flowers?
“You like to receive flowers?” Sharp challenged.
“Sure.”
“Even if the guy is in the doghouse?”
“In that case, he would be required to give a very expensive bouquet.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I see that. It’s a wonder you got out of your marriage alive. I’d have killed you.”
“I’ve no doubt.”
Large green trash cans lined the back of the building, and each was piled high with rubbish. Removing latex gloves from his pocket, Sharp opened the first of three cans. The first trash can held dozens of rags covered in paint, thinner, balled-up newspapers, and brushes. They needed a search warrant for the inside of the building, but the garbage placed outside was fair game.
“I love it when people throw out evidence.” Vargas pulled on latex gloves.
“Maybe he doesn’t care or he assumed the trash man would carry it all away before we got here.”
“Figured wrong, didn’t he? By the way, I received the doll from Mike Bauer. Very creepy doll if you ask me. It looks like Diane Richardson. I’ve asked the forensic guys to go over it. But I’m not holding out hope. Bauer wiped it clean so he could give it to his daughter.”
“Doesn’t hurt to check.”
Vargas lifted a broken paintbrush from the can. “A man who has given up on his art?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
The second can was filled with blank canvases, unopened paints, and drop cloths. The last can was packed full of frameless canvases twisted into tight rolls. Sharp pulled out several and unrolled them.
“They’re all of Diane,” Vargas said.
The paintings contained exquisite detail and created an eerily lifelike rendering. In each, she stared at the artist with a direct, almost amused gaze. Diane had been a stunning woman.
Vargas dug deeper into the can, pulling out several canvases that had been shredded with a knife.
“He’s upset about something,” Sharp said.
“Losing her is too painful? He can’t bear to look at her anymore?”
“Maybe.” Sharp thought about the surveillance footage of Madison at Diane’s front door. “Or he was angry and aggravated with her and wanted to permanently mark her as his own.”
Frustration deepened her frown. “I’m having his cell records pulled as well as his credit card purchases.”
He glared at the pictures. What the hell was going on with this son of a bitch? “Right.”
“You look like you could eat nails,” she said.
Sharp met Vargas’s gaze. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a Halloween picture of Kara, Diane, Elena, and Tessa.
The extra focus on Kara this last week had torn open a lot of pent-up emotion. He drew in a breath and handed her the picture. “My sister is the one on the far left.”
Vargas dropped her gaze to the picture and studied it. “She looks like you. I bet she ran that gang.”
The image coaxed a small smile. “She was bossing everyone in the house from the day she could sit up.”
“Who are the girls?”
“Look closely at the brunette to her right. She’s only eighteen, but she didn’t change too much.”
“Diane Richardson.”
“Diane Emery then, but it looks like her. And the woman to her right is Elena Hayes.”
“Who I haven’t been able to speak directly to on the phone,” Vargas said. “She responded to my voice mail with a text, but she’s yet to call me back.” Vargas tapped Tessa’s face. “And the other woman is Tessa McGowan?”
“Yes.”
Vargas shook her head as she dropped her gaze back to the picture. “Ah, Tessa. The wife. Hence the flower discussion?”
“No.”
She laughed. “So you think Tessa might have had a grudge against these ladies?”
“What? No. That’s not what I’m saying at all.”
Vargas didn’t look convinced. “She knew the two victims. When’s the last time Tessa saw your sister?”
She was analyzing the case as he would have if he were on the outside. But he wasn’t on the outside. Sharp was dialed in completely. “The night Kara vanished. She tells me the two fought. Over Madison.”
“This Madison?” she said jabbing her thumb back at his building.
“Yes.”
“Was it some kind of love triangle? Do I smell motive?”
“No. You do not.” He ground out each word.
“Hey man, don’t shoot the messenger. I have to look at this from all angles.”
“Understood,” he said, cooling his anger. “A car hit Tessa shortly after she left that Halloween party. Her leg was badly broken, and she suffered a concussion. She was in the hospital for days. She couldn’t have hurt anyone.”