Once Gone (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #1)

Chapter 16

"Do you feel kind of out of place?" Bill asked.

"Yeah," Riley said. "And I'm sure we both look it, too."

A seemingly random mix of dolls and people were seated in the leather-upholstered furniture of the ostentatious hotel lobby. The people—mostly women, but a few men—were drinking tea and coffee and chatting with one another. Dolls of sundry types, both male and female, sat among them like perfectly behaved children. Riley thought it looked like some bizarre kind of family reunion in which none of the children were real.

Riley couldn't help staring at the odd scene. With no more leads to follow, she and Bill had decided to come here, to this doll convention, hoping she might stumble upon some lead, however remote.

"Are you two registered?" he asked

Riley turned to see a security guard eyeing Bill's jacket, undoubtedly having detected his concealed weapon. The guard held his hand near his own holstered gun.

She thought that with this many people around, the guard had good reason to worry. A crazed shooter really could wreak havoc in a place like this.

Bill flashed his badge. "FBI," he said.

The guard chuckled.

"Can't say I'm surprised," he said.

"Why not?" Riley asked.

The guard shook his head.

"Because this is just about the weirdest bunch of people I ever saw in one place."

"Yeah," Bill agreed. "And they're not even all people."

The guard shrugged and replied, "You can bet that somebody here has done something they shouldn't have."

The man jerked his head to one side then the other, scanning the room.

"I'll be glad when it's all over." Then he strode away, looking wary and alert.

As she wandered with Bill into an adjoining hallway, Riley wasn't sure what the guard was so worried about. Generally speaking, the attendees looked more eccentric than menacing. The women in view ranged from young to elderly. Some were stern and dour looking, while others seemed open and friendly.

"Tell me again what you hope to find out here," Bill muttered.

"I'm not sure," Riley admitted.

"Maybe you're making too much of the whole doll thing," he said, clearly unhappy to be here. "Blackwell was creepy about dolls, but he wasn't the perp. And yesterday we learned that the first victim didn't even like dolls."

Riley didn't reply. Bill might well be right. But when he had showed her a brochure announcing this convention and show, she somehow couldn't help following through. She wanted to make another try.

The men Riley saw tended to look bookish and professorial, most of them wearing glasses and more than a few of them sporting goatees. None of them appeared quite capable of murder. She passed a seated woman who was lovingly rocking a baby doll in her arms and singing a lullaby. A little farther on, an elderly woman was carrying on a rapt conversation with a life-sized monkey doll.

Okay, Riley thought, so there is a little bit of weirdness going on.

Bill pulled the brochure out of his jacket pocket and browsed it as they walked along.

"Anything interesting happening?" Riley asked him.

"Just talks, lectures, workshops—that kind of thing. Some big manufacturers are here to bring store owners up to date on trends and crazes. And there are some folks who seem to have gotten famous in the whole doll scene. They're giving talks of one kind or another."