Miss Polly had a Dolly (Emma Frost #2) (25 page)

"Helloooo Fanoe!" Patrick yelled in
his microphone.

The crowd answered with gusto.
"Hello, Patrick."
A girl
standing next to me screamed so loud it hurt my ear. Some were even crying
while reaching their hands up towards him, like they believed they could touch
him. I stared at Maya with my heart pounding. She was smiling a shy little
smile

"Fanoe!" he yelled. "This is
Maya. Isn't she beautiful?"

The crowd screamed again. Most of them yelled
yes while others simply just screamed. I felt sick. I wanted to jump onto the
stage and stop this madness right now, save my daughter from the grip of this
lunatic before it was too late. I looked to find a police officer but all I
could see were security guards who probably would never believe my story. Where
were the police? Why hadn't they arrested Patrick yet? What were they waiting
for?

As I wondered I received my answer. Two officers
yelled and sprang up on stage. I recognized them as Officers Nyberg and
Gammelgaard. They were aiming their guns at Patrick while walking towards him
on the stage. Patrick grabbed Maya around the neck and held her tight. I
gasped. Then he pulled out a knife and placed it on her throat.

"Patrick, you're under arrest. Drop the
knife," one of the officers yelled. "The place is surrounded. You'll
never get away from here."

Thinking it was all just a part of the opening
act, the crowd screamed and started cheering for Patrick.

"Patrick, Patrick,
Patrick."

I saw the fear in my daughter's eyes and it hurt
like knives piercing my skin. My heart was racing and I felt so incredibly
helpless.

"Come any closer and the girl dies,"
Patrick yelled.

"Patrick, Patrick,
Patrick."

The two officers stopped and lowered their guns.
"Patrick," the older one said. "Let the girl go. She hasn't done
anything to you. You've killed enough, don't you think? Let her go and we'll
find a solution. We'll help you."

"Patrick, Patrick,
Patrick."

The crowd began to grow silent waiting for
Patrick's answer. Patrick laughed manically. The crowd laughed too, then the cheering
continued. By that point I'd had enough. I climbed the barrier separating the
crowd from the stage and before the security guards could grab me I climbed
onto the stage. I screamed and silenced the crowd who was now beginning to
realize this maybe wasn't part of some act or a part of the show after all.

"Patrick! Let my daughter go."

Patrick laughed when he saw me, then tightened
his hold on Maya who was now whimpering and crying. "So this is your
daughter, huh? Well that's just PERFECT, isn't it? Now I simply HAVE to kill
her."

That was when the crowd finally realized what
was going on. Some screamed out of fear while others started yelling at
Patrick. A man threw a shoe at the stage and hit Patrick on the arm.

"Let the girl go!"
he yelled. Then the rest of the crowd followed and started yelling at Patrick.
"
Let her go. Let her go."

Patrick's face went red with anger.
"No!" he yelled.

"Let her go. Let her
go."

"Fuck you!" Patrick yelled and put his
finger up in the air. But it didn't work any longer. Not now that he was
actually giving them the finger and not just the media. Some people started
booing. The rest of the crowd soon followed. Some were still chanting.

"Let her go. Let her
go."

Patrick was fuming with anger now.
"NO," he yelled at them. "You love me, remember? I'm Patrick.
You scream for me, you love me."

"We hate you,
Patrick,"
someone yelled from the crowd. The
crowd applauded and cheered.

"We hate you. We hate
you,"
they chanted.

Patrick looked truly perplexed. He looked out on
the people chanting and tried to yell back, but no one could hear him anymore.
He was drowned out by the booing and the chanting.

Then something happened that I had not seen
coming. At first it was just the guy who had thrown the shoe who crawled up the
stage, but soon hundreds of people followed him and literally stormed the
stage. They ran towards Patrick with such speed and force he didn't even manage
to react. They pulled Maya out of his hands and overpowered Patrick. Maya ran
into my arms crying, and I held her tight while tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Are you alright?" I said and stroked
her cheeks gently.

She sniffled and nodded.

Right before Maya and I jumped off the stage, I
looked back to cast one last glimpse at Patrick getting what he deserved. I heard
him scream from somewhere inside the crowd of people, but I could no longer see
him.

"I wanted
to be the
one to tell you this," Officer Morten
said on the phone. I was sitting in my living room with my family. My dad was
playing a game with Maya and Victor on the floor and was smiling and laughing
for the first time in days.

I smiled and walked into the kitchen to better
hear what he was telling me over the phone. I sat down. "Okay, I'm ready.
What is it?"

"Well first of all, I think that after this
you'll have plenty of material for a new book," he said.

My eyes grew big and wide. "You've got my
attention."

"You were right. All the children that
disappeared were kidnapped. They didn't drown as we thought at first."

"Have you got evidence to back that
up?" I asked.

"Yes. Polish police just dismantled a ring
of trafficking criminals working together all over Europe. They arrested a guy
who told them that back in the late nineties he had people helping him get
young girls from Scandinavia and bring them to Poland where he sold them to
different brothels. Scandinavian girls are worth a lot down there with their
blonde hair and fair skin. But anyway, he had a contact in Denmark who worked
out of Fanoe. The contact spotted girls around six years of age, blonde and
with blue eyes, and stole them. Lured them with free ice cream from an ice
cream truck at the playground. Then the contact would drive them across the
border and into Germany where the girls were picked up by eastern European men
and brought into Poland to whomever would buy them. Patrick, who was Nina back
then, was the first to be taken like this. He told his story himself when he
was interrogated and finally broke down. The Fanoe contact worked for them in
the years between 1997 and 1999 and was paid huge sums of money for a
child."

"Wow," I said. "That's some
story. I have a feeling you also know who this contact was?"

"I do and that's what is a little
unpleasant for you and your father."

"Helle," I said.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. We confronted her with
this and she denied everything, but the money in her account speaks to her
guilt. Plus, Patrick has identified her as the one who kidnapped him back then.
We're guessing she stopped when she became pregnant with her own child. It was
the same year that the disappearances stopped."

"That sounds plausible. But that
means…" I paused and let the final pieces fall into place. "That
Helle took Asta's daughter and sold her and…"

"Asta took Helle's daughter and stuffed her
like a deer, yes. Asta didn't know it was Helle who had taken her daughter. She
lost it after losing her daughter and was desperate to get her back. She
started making dolls but none of them seemed real enough. Then she saw Helle's
daughter one day and something went click inside of her. She convinced herself
it was her Nina. Helle's daughter looked a lot like Nina and she tells us that
she knew she wasn't Nina to begin with but somehow she wanted her to be so
badly that she started believing she was actually her. She killed her and stuffed
her to be able to keep her forever. It was the same with Josephine. When she
saw her in the water she was convinced it was Nina that had come home. Asta had
been searching for her daughter ever since sensing that she was still alive,
which was right I guess."

I leaned back in my chair with a sigh. I heard
my dad laugh in the living room and Maya whine with joy.

"What about the other kids that were
stolen?" I asked.

Officer Morten sighed. "Polish police are
helping us try to track them down, but no luck so far. We have notified the
parents and they're trying to raise money to conduct searches themselves."

"Both Asta and Josephine are being released
from the hospital tomorrow. Asta will go to jail and so will Helle and
Patrick."

"Hmm. I'm not sure anyone will ever believe
me if I write this story, though."

"Then make it fiction," Officer Morten
said and laughed. "Listen, I gotta go. Let me know if you need anything
else. For your book or…well, or maybe if you'd like to have dinner some
time."

"Well, Officer Morten. I guess I'll think
about that."

"You do that, Emma. See you around."

"See you."

I hung up and walked into the living room where
Maya was tickling my dad making him scream and whine like a schoolgirl. They
stopped when they saw me.

"Victor, you should be in bed now. Go
upstairs and get ready. I'll be up to tuck you in later."

"Who was that?" my dad asked.

I sighed wondering if I should tell him the
truth, tell him everything about Helle. I was about to do it, when Maya
suddenly screamed.

"We're missing it." She sprang for the
remote control and turned on the TV. "It's the new show everybody's
talking about. It is
aaawesome
.
They say the host is so gorgeous. I saw pictures of him online. Oh my god. You
won't believe it."

I looked at my dad who shrugged. "You wanna
go in the kitchen and grab a beer?" I asked.

"Anything beats having to watch another
show on TV with some host acting crazy," my dad said.

My daughter scoffed and threw herself on the
couch. "Old people. They just don't get it."

THE END

Dear reader,

Thank you for purchasing
Miss Polly had a dolly
.  It is the
second book in my Emma Frost series. If you haven't read the first,
Itsy
Bitsy Spider
, then you can get it, and all of my other books by
following the links underneath. The third book in this series,
Run, Run as fast as you can
will be
released in November 2013.

If you enjoyed this book you might also enjoy my
Rebekka Franck mystery series that also takes place in Denmark. You can read an
excerpt from the first book
One,
Two ... He is coming for you
on
the following pages.

If you'd really like to help me out then leave a
honest review of this book where you bought it. Don't forget to like me on
Facebook or follow me on twitter or my blog. I love getting mail from readers
so don't be shy about contacting me.

Take care,

Willow

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