Little Lost Dolls: An absolutely gripping crime thriller with a shocking twist (Detective Jo Fournier Book 7) by M.M. Chouinard

Author:M.M. Chouinard [Chouinard, M.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781837900695
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2023-05-03T18:30:00+00:00

Jo and Arnett followed Alicia the few hundred feet to where the neatly folded stack of clothes, along with a phone and a ring of keys, sat waiting on a table-like boulder. A canopy of tree branches had kept them relatively dry, but not unscathed. Jo pulled up a photo of Madison’s clothes for comparison purposes, now welcoming the déjà vu.

“Same exact configuration,” she said. “Either the killer placed them himself, or he directed them very exactly where to put everything.”

Sweeney went through the procedure of examining and bagging the belongings. Beige bra and underwear. Red tunic, plain except for a small bow placed to rest at the top of Naomie’s pregnant belly. Black maternity leggings. Black hooded cargo-style rain jacket. Trainers with socks stuffed in at the bottom of the boulder. Phone powered on.

When she’d finished, Jo and Arnett trudged silently through the mud back to the temporary command center. They ducked in under the tarps to get out of the rain and poured themselves cups of black coffee from the portable urn.

“I’m feeling like I’ve been thrown out of a car down the side of a steep hill,” Arnett said. “So much for our mobbed-up strip-club theory.”

Jo took a deep breath. “I’m not so sure we can toss it out just yet. From what we heard from the group of friends, Naomie was close to Madison, like a big sister. If Madison told her something she saw or something that happened, Naomie may have intervened on her behalf.”

“You think she was that stupid?” Arnett’s grimace was skeptical. “Why wouldn’t she just come to us?”

“It may have happened some time ago, long enough for her to think it wasn’t relevant. You’re right that Naomie seemed like a smart enough woman to know better than to keep something like that from us, but we’ve seen people hold back on worse for less. And Julia said something about Naomie thinking she could do anything, and mentioned before that Naomie was very big on keeping people’s secrets. I think we need to talk to Julia, find out more about that.”

Arnett’s face nodded, still skeptical. “Maybe, but it seems extremely unlikely. I think in light of all this we need to dust off our other theories.”

Jo nodded. “I agree it’s not the most likely possibility at this point. If I take a step back from this, like I was just discovering both scenes at once, I’d strongly lean toward a random serial killer snatching pregnant women. But if that’s right, it’s a pretty big coincidence that the two victims were close friends.”

Arnett scratched his chin. “How many pregnant women are out walking this time of year? Pretty shallow pool to dive into.”

“Good point,” she conceded. “But could he even have known she was pregnant just by sight? I don’t think her bump would have shown under her jacket.”

“He’d’ve had to know she was pregnant beforehand.”

“But the whole reason Naomie and Madison were friends was because they were pregnant, so less of a coincidence.” Jo tapped her thigh.

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