Broken Dolls

By Tristan Olson

From the author of A God for Thieves and Blood of the Green Children comes the much-anticipated third book in The Unseen series...
Detective Alize Bidarte’s world was thrown into turmoil when a vampire assassin exposed her to the Unseen with an actual fireball. Since then, Alize has counted on Jack Severn to help her understand and survive as she’s explored this strange parallel society.
When Jack is linked to an otherwise routine suicide, Alize realizes that once again a case is more than it seems and justice will require her to bend—and even break—the rules to find the killer. As she digs further into the case she’ll discover more of the Unseen world layered within our own and realize that the worst monsters don’t always have fangs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tristan Olson
• Release date: May 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463756355

Tristan Olson

Tristan Olson was raised on a small island in the Pacific Northwest. He didn’t start reading until he was 10, but once he figured it out he went from trouble with Dick & Jane to reading novels over summer break. He then read mainly science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. His urge to create started with comic strips and his first efforts were published in a local paper while he was in high school. He continued to write and draw comics, publishing them online into adulthood. On his way to being a writer, Tristan has also been a photo lab monkey, pharmacy technician, and 1950s-style house husband, the latter of which is still his primary job. He spends his days caring for his three increasingly rambunctious children and squeezes in writing time during evenings and weekends. He currently lives in Washington State.

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Copyright © 2019 by Tristan Olson

All rights reserved

This book is provided DRM-free to ensure that buyers are not arbitrarily hindered with restrictions. In order to allow the author to be properly compensated for his work, please ensure you’ve received this copy through a legitimate source.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to existing persons, characters, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Novels in the Unseen series by Tristan Olson

A GOD FOR THIEVES

BLOOD OF THE GREEN CHILDREN

BROKEN DOLLS

Content warning

Broken Dolls contains graphic descriptions and discussions of suicide and sexual assault.

The International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) has resources for those in crisis and can direct people to services throughout the world.

http://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

RAINN has resources for survivors of sexual violence and abuse in the United States.

http://www.rainn.org

RCNE has resources for survivors of sexual violence in Europe as well as links to services throughout the world.

http://www.rcne.com

For my son, who wasn’t there when I dedicated the last book

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Chapter One

The dispatcher’s voice sounded tinny and distant on my cell. Detective Bidarte?

Speaking, I answered, tucking the phone between my ear and shoulder as I tore open a sugar packet for my coffee and debated grabbing three more.

I’ve got a suicide for you, Detective, she said.

My stomach dropped. No chance it’s an attempted suicide? I asked hopefully. I knew I was grasping at straws. I just didn’t want to deal with a suicide today.

Sorry, Detective. You know we don’t call Homicide for the living, she replied sympathetically.

Worth a shot, I sighed as I grabbed the additional sugar. I was going to need the extra fortitude.

After getting the details I stepped out of the coffee shop and headed for my squad car, a sedan in a dull gray that matched the overcast sky. The address for the scene was in the University District, leading me to an apartment not far from my own. The woman had lived in a charming brick building that matched some of the nearby university’s older architecture. The building’s open front door was guarded by the distraught manager.

They’re upstairs, second floor, he mumbled as I approached, identifying me as police despite the fact I was in plain clothes. He was in his sixties, paunchy and pale, the nervous sweat beading on his forehead seemingly untouched by the April morning chill.

The wooden stairs creaked softly under my feet as I went up, my footsteps muffled by the thick, red runner. I didn’t need to check my notes to confirm which apartment I was headed to. A uniformed officer stood outside number 2B.

Hello, Detective Bidarte, she said as I approached, and I racked my brain to remember her name. Diane Shelby had joined the force after I came to Seattle, which meant she’d only been a cop for a couple of years. Somehow, that made me feel a lot older than it should have. She was tall and solid, with shoulders like a quarterback with the pads still on. Thick blonde hair undercut in a stubby ponytail and sparkling, feminine blue eyes with tastefully applied makeup decorated her muscular frame.

Officer Shelby, I answered with as much warmth as I could show under the circumstances. What am I walking into?

The deceased is Emma Graves, age 31. She didn’t have to check her notes, which earned her points in my book. She’s lived in the building for three years. You’ll find her in the tub.

I winced before I could stop myself. The bathtub meant this probably involved slit wrists and the subsequent—excuse the pun—blood bath. People who take pills tend to stay fully clothed and relax while they wait for the drugs to kick in. The tub is where suicides go when they want to do something violent to themselves while minimizing the mess for others to clean up.

Snapping on some gloves, I took a deep breath and went in. It was a small place, couldn’t have been more than 500 square feet for the whole apartment. The living area had a couch, coffee table, and desk, with no TV in evidence. There was a small circular table that four good friends who didn’t mind the occasional knocked over wineglass could squeeze around next to a cozy kitchen. A door to the right of that led to the bedroom, with the bathroom door just inside. I took a deep breath and slipped into the tight space, joining the Medical Examiner.

When you’ve seen enough violently dead bodies, your brain learns to stop focusing on the blood to preserve your sanity. With Ms. Graves, my eye was drawn to her tattoo, a half sleeve covering the upper part of her left arm. It was an amazingly detailed rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Night that covered the skin from the top of her shoulder to just above her elbow, wrapping as far as I could see around her arm. An incredible amount of care had been taken by the artist to recreate the illusion of brushstrokes and thick daubs of oil paint. The colors were vibrant, seeming more vivid than the original painting—or maybe the loss of blood made the tattoo stand out against her pale skin.

With that thought, I couldn’t help but see the blood staining the water a deep crimson. She’d kept most of it in the water, but there were some drops and smears along the edge of the tub and on the pale skin that peeked above the water line. Still, I suppose she’d accomplished her goal to keep the mess to a minimum.

Forcing myself to finally move further than the tattoo, I noted that Ms. Graves had a slim face with pouty lips under an elfin nose. Her eyes were half-open, glassy and deep brown, dark eyeliner drawing more attention to them. The open eyes created the unnerving illusion that she was staring at me. Her head hung back over the lip of the claw footed tub, trailing wavy golden hair with pink tips to the floor. The bath was only half full, even with her body displacing some of the bright red water.

Hey Alden, I greeted the ME, who was crouched next to the tub taking measurements of something. Don’t the eyes usually close with blood loss?

Usually, but not always, he responded, glancing up at me. Anything you want to see before I drain the tub? Joe Alden was narrow-shouldered and slim, and though he kept his hair short he never quite succeeded at making it neat. His voice carried a hint of a Texas drawl he’d spent a couple decades trying to shake but couldn’t manage to leave behind. If you took the chaps off a cowboy and gave him a medical degree, you’d have something that closely resembled Alden. Not that I’d ever share that observation with him; I valued our smooth working relationship too much.

Ready when you are, I answered.

The tub was old enough that it used a rubber stopper on a thin chain as a plug. At least Alden didn’t have to stick his hand in the water to get to it. While the bath drained I poked around the medicine cabinet. There was nothing out of the ordinary, and the only prescriptions I could find were birth control pills. Not that a lack of antidepressants or anxiety medication was itself entirely unusual in this situation, given how many people with mental illness stay undiagnosed or untreated.

With the water gone, Graves’ body lay wet and limp in the basin, a sheen of dull red drops from the water clinging to her pale skin. She was slender and small breasted with wide hips. Attractive and by all appearances in good health, at least until quite recently.

Alden lifted one wrist to get a closer look at the cuts. He didn’t insult my intelligence by pointing out the obvious cause of death, which I appreciated. Others in the department are not so considerate.

Any sign of foul play? I asked.

Not so far, Alden answered, carefully turning the arm to show me the underside. The wound looked deep, running parallel to the forearm from just under the wrist and nearly to the elbow. The cuts are on the deep side, but the angle looks self-inflicted. There’s a knife on the floor there. He twisted in the confined space to wave at a sharp paring knife on the other side of him, its blade smeared with drying blood.

She looks a bit fresh, doesn’t she? I asked. Those who live alone are not always found so quickly, which is when the bathtub option becomes a decidedly worse mess to clean up. I quickly shoved those memories away, suppressing an involuntary shudder.

You’re not wrong, he agreed. She’s only been dead since sometime last night. The temperature calculations get a little trickier when they’ve been in the water, but we don’t have to rely on that for this one.

We don’t? I prompted.

No, Shelby said, and I jumped as I turned to face her. Despite her large frame, she could sneak around like nobody’s business. The body was spotted this morning by a nosy neighbor. She pointed to the bathroom window where I could see across to another building. The curtain wasn’t drawn when we got here.

That doesn’t tell me how we know that she was alive last night.

The same neighbor saw the light turn on at about 11pm, Shelby explained.

The same neighbor? I repeated, eyebrows raised.

Shelby shrugged. I did say she was nosy, didn’t I? I went and spoke to her. Little old lady. Didn’t look like she gets out much. No TV, but a big window facing this building. She grinned suddenly. Heck, if my neighbor left her bathroom curtain open, I’m not saying I wouldn’t be a little curious.

Maybe, I allowed, an answering smile automatically ghosting across my lips as I considered. Unless they don’t want to be found at all, suicides usually want to be found early. No one likes to think of their body being discovered too far along in the decomposition process. But if that’s the aim they make a phone call or send an email or something. An open bathroom curtain is pretty unreliable, and that’s assuming she was aware of her voyeuristic neighbor to begin with. I turned to Alden. You got anything else for me?

Not here, he said. I’ll get her cleaned up back at the morgue and let you know if anything pops up. You going to try for autopsy authorization on this?

I shook my head. No, I don’t think so. Like you said, textbook self-inflicted.

Stepping out of the bathroom, I headed for the kitchen. There was a big knife-block holding a set matching the one in the bathroom, a conspicuously empty slot in the middle of the lower row. I hadn’t expected anything less, but it always pays to check. The only dirty dishes were a bowl and mug in the sink waiting for a wash that wasn’t coming. That was the kind of detail I hate most at crime scenes: the small reminders of a life abruptly ended.

Hanging on the wall was a calendar. There were no clues there, no string of job interviews or anything else to indicate a conflicted mental state. Of course, few people write that stuff down on paper anymore. It’s always in their phone.

Above the calendar a corkboard covered in pictures caught my eye. Emma Graves featured regularly with smiling friends. She was smiling too: a big, genuine grin every time. Sometimes people bury their pain deep, but I didn’t see a single hint of it in her face.

Then I saw the picture that changed my entire game plan. Oh, no, I sighed. There was Emma, her bright smile in place, beer in one hand, her other arm thrown over a man’s shoulders. He was, in the broadest of terms, average looking: dark brown hair in need of a cut, brown eyes set in an oval face, a light skin tone that claimed nothing more specific than mixed European ancestry. His strong cheekbones matched his jaw and chin, and his smile—though not as dazzling as Emma’s—was still warm.

Jack Severn, I whispered to myself. What the hell are you doing here?

Chapter Two

I drove to the Capitol Hill area, found a parking spot, and headed towards Jack Severn’s soon-to-be-opened bike shop off Broadway. As I got there he was standing outside the front door, blocked by a lithe woman running a paint-smeared hand through her hair, which was a natural orange color currently sporting as much paint as her hands and clothes.

Jack turned at the sound of my footsteps and grinned. Detective Bidarte! You’re just in time for the grand unveiling. Want to see the paint job?

Sure, I answered, realizing I didn’t really have a choice. Severn’s habit of excessive friendliness used to rub me the wrong way back when I thought he might be a serial killer. I’d always been upset at the thought that his charm manipulated my instincts, because although the evidence seemed to always point in his direction I’d never really believed he could be guilty. Now that we were friends and I realized the attitude was just how he interacted with the world—and that he was totally innocent—I allowed myself to find it endearing.

Nora, Severn said, addressing the painter in the doorway, this is Detective Alize Bidarte, who hasn’t put me in handcuffs for at least eight months. Detective, this is Nora, who I’ve known for years and who hasn’t put me in handcuffs even once, and she just finished painting my shop for a suspiciously low price.

Nora grinned and extended a painted hand, laughing at my obvious hesitation. Don’t worry, it’s all dried at this point, she said as we shook. She gave me an appraising look, and although I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing, I could tell that I was a bit of a surprise for her.

I don’t look much like anyone’s idea of a police officer, let alone a detective. Generally people expect female officers to be somewhat masculine, more like Officer Shelby. I’m on the shorter side at only 5’4 and my hair is dark brown and thick to the point of being untamable, at that moment only barely contained in a bun behind my head. In general, my features are too delicate for the world of law enforcement and the dash of light freckles across my nose centered a heart-shaped face and shaved a good decade off most estimates of my age. I’m often described as cute," which is pretty much the least helpful adjective when trying to earn respect.

When Nora melted back to allow us entrance, I saw that the space was dominated by a looming stack of boxes in the center of the room. Judging by the labelling they were full of shelves, racks, and miscellaneous small bike accessories. I didn’t see any actual bikes, but maybe those were coming later. The left wall as we came in was a recreation of the God and Adam bit of the Sistine Chapel, with the minor change that Adam was on a recumbent bike and God on a fixie. The right wall was the Birth of Venus, but instead of a half shell she was riding a unicycle. All of the art was done in a sort of gentle impressionism with a lot of vibrant colors.

Did you come up with the design? I asked Severn as I gave the walls a look.

Nope, he answered cheerfully. This is all Nora. What do you think?

Um, I tried to think of the most diplomatic way to put it. It looks like Adam has gotten, uh, a bit of an upgrade.

Severn inspected the wall more closely. Nora?

Yeah? she said brightly. She’d been standing behind us, obviously waiting for this moment.

I’m not super familiar with the original, but Adam here seems … somewhat well-endowed. From his tone he was more confused than offended. I wondered idly what the regulations were around nudity in artwork for public spaces. Maybe Severn would have to post a warning sign at the door.

I’ve actually been to the Sistine Chapel, I chipped in cheerfully. The original would be jealous.

So what? Nora shrugged, but her eyes glinted with warning. Those renaissance guys were too hung up on imitating the Greeks, who thought a small penis was a sign of good intellect. This is just an update. Besides, I didn’t hear anyone complaining about my boosting Venus a cup size.

Okay, fine, Severn agreed, evaluating the bosom in question. Fair’s fair. There’s something here for everyone, I guess. I stifled a snort, bringing his attention back to me as Nora began tidying her supplies. So, Detective, what can I do for you?

And just like that, I was in cop-mode again. I reached into my bag and pulled out the picture from Graves’ apartment. What’s your relationship with Emma Graves?

Emma? He looked at the picture, a short quirk of a smile fleeting across his lips, maybe remembering the night it was taken. We’re friends … he trailed off. I could see the moment he remembered that I work homicide as his eyes shuttered.

Is there somewhere we can talk? I asked softly.

Yeah, the office, he answered distantly. Follow me.

Severn showed me into a small room at the back of the shop. The cramped space was dominated by a desk and folding card table that were in turn crowded with binders, catalogs, and loose paperwork. The desk was pressed up against the wall, so I helped him clear a little space off the table and we sat down.

There was a pause. So … Emma? he prompted, and the spark of hope in his eyes was painful to notice. I’d never had to break the bad news to someone I knew personally before, and it was definitely worse than dealing with anonymous next of kin. This really was my least favorite part of the job.

Yes, Emma Graves, I said, steeling myself. She was found dead this morning in her apartment. How well did you know her?

He shrugged, obviously only giving me half of his attention. "Well enough, I suppose. She’s from Brantford, where I grew up in Wisconsin. She came out here for college a year or two after me and looked me up. We’re friends. We were friends, I guess," he corrected himself quietly.

Were you close? He didn’t seem to notice the underlying question about the physicality of their relationship, instead answering what I had literally asked.

Not lately. When she first moved here I think she was a little overwhelmed. Brantford’s a small town, and Seattle is huge by comparison, so I was a welcome bit of the familiar. But over time she made new friends and we didn’t hang out as much. Which was fine by me.

Why is that? I asked confused by the sentiment coupled with the obvious warmth in his tone.

"Come on,