Gretchen took her copy of the inventory list out of her purse and handed it to Bonnie. “This is a list of the dolls Martha used to own. It’s becoming clearer that she had at least some of them in her possession when she died. We don’t know whether she actually owned them or if she was in the process of stealing them. Take a look at the list. Have you ever seen any of these dolls? In the past or recently?”

Bonnie slipped on reading glasses and bent over the list. “These here,” she said, pointing at the list. “I saw these years ago.”

Gretchen pulled the list over and read the description. “Kammer & Reinhardt 101 Character children, composition and wood jointed bodies, sixteen inch and seventeen inch, c. 1916.”

“Beautifully made dolls,” Bonnie said, taking the list back. “German manufacturers. Kammer & Reinhardt were the first to popularize character dolls, you know. Quite wonderful dolls. I remember them well.”

“Pictures of the dolls would be helpful,” Gretchen said, always amazed when collectors could identify a doll by such a brief description. The picture of the French fashion doll flashed through Gretchen’s mind. Once she’d seen a picture, the doll would remain in her memory forever. Martha had catalogued her dolls with such detail. Why wouldn’t she have taken pictures?

“Anything else look familiar?” Nina asked.

“Noooo…” Bonnie said, reading intently. Then she gasped, a little puff of air escaping from pursed lips. “Maybe this one. I’ll read it to you.” She looked up over her reading glasses. “You know I like Kewpie dolls. Actually, I’m obsessed with them. Listen to this.” She cleared her throat. “Blunderboo laughing baby Kewpie, Bisque, c. 1915, O’Neill mark on feet, original red heart label.”

“What about it?” Nina demanded. “What’s familiar about it?”

“I saw a Kewpie fitting this description at Joseph’s Dream Dolls.” Bonnie pounded the table with an open palm. “That has to be the same doll. No question about it.”

“When did you see it?” Gretchen asked.

“Two days ago,” Bonnie answered. “I couldn’t afford to buy it. He had priced it right, considering the age and condition, which was excellent, but I’m on a fixed income, and the price was out of my budget.”

Around in circles we go, Gretchen thought. Like musical chairs. The music stops, players scramble for seats, and I’m left standing in the middle staring at the same faces and asking the same questions.

What had today’s intruder expected to find in Caroline’s workshop besides a bag of old clothes? Another doll from Martha’s original collection? If Gretchen could believe April and Bonnie, they hadn’t shared news of the discovery of Martha’s bag with anyone else. That left only a handful of people who knew about it and had the opportunity to steal it. But why risk exposure by taking the bag if it contained nothing of value? And why draw more attention by hanging the Shirley Temple doll? Quite dramatic.

“Wait a minute,” Bonnie said, still concentrating on the list. “I’ve gone over this inventory twice, and it isn’t here.”

“What isn’t here?” Nina said.

“Martha showed me several dolls. This was long before the bank repossessed her house, and I had gone over to solicit donations for the Phoenix Dollers annual fund-raiser, which by the way is coming up again soon, and I hope I can count on you two for a contribution. Anyway, she showed me the character children, and she showed me another doll. A Madame Rohmer. I remember how surprised I was at the time, because she never let anyone see her dolls. But this group was new to her collection, and she was very excited.”

Nina swung the list around to her side of the table, and Gretchen watched her index finger underline each entry. “No Madame Rohmer,” she announced.

“That’s so odd. It had a darling blonde wig.” Bonnie posed both hands lightly on top of her own wig for emphasis. “And the cutest little cream dress with a blue feather pattern.”

“Maybe she sold the doll and revised the list,” Gretchen suggested. “But from what I hear, she refused to sell anything from her collection.”

“That’s right,” Bonnie said. “Even at the end, she wouldn’t sell any of them. They were like her children. She never had children of her own, you know, and I think she transferred all her pent-up affection onto the dolls.”

“That’s so strange when women do that,” Nina said, missing the connection between a childless woman and her own four-legged forms of compensation. Everyone needed to love somebody, and it didn’t matter whether they chose children or dogs or dolls. But children and dogs, and-yes, cats-loved you back. Inanimate objects like dolls couldn’t reciprocate.

No wonder Martha felt compelled to finish out her life in a lonely state of inebriation after her lifelong partner had died.

“She must have loved her husband very much,” Gretchen said, “to have fallen so far.”

Bonnie nodded, and the unsecured wig slid to the side of her face. She straightened it. “You have no idea what his death did to her. A match made in heaven, we all said. I hope they finally found each other.” Bonnie looked upward.

Gretchen, caught in a relationship that was quickly spiraling downhill, tried to imagine total and unconditional love with a husband of her own. She loved her mother that way, but could she say the same about her feelings for Steve? Would her world fall apart without him? Would she become a homeless drunk destined for a life of degradation and excess?

Hardly, she thought. She was stronger than that. If they failed to work out their problems, she would go on. Maybe that was the true test. If she wanted to fling herself from the top of Camelback Mountain, would she pass the test of love?

Maybe, after all the speculation and information gathered to the contrary, Martha had simply soared from the mountain heights in an attempt to rejoin her husband.

“It’s possible that she forgot to include the new doll in her inventory,” Gretchen said. “Everyone makes mistakes occasionally.”

Caroline knew that some doll collectors refuse to participate in online auctions. They worry that the seller will exaggerate the condition of the doll and they will unknowingly purchase one of inferior quality. Some say that they must hold a doll in their hands, prod for flaws or misrepresented repair work, look into the doll’s eyes, make a connection.

Watching the computer screen, Caroline again admired the valuable doll. She had already held this particular Bébé in her hands, had examined it from every angle. She knew it was in mint condition, not a single imperfection, and it wore its original white muslin dress and matching bonnet.

Her requirements for purchasing the doll were not the same hands-on connection that some collectors demanded. The doll was superfluous to her. The seller was her target.

Four hours and twenty minutes left in the auction, and twenty-seven bids registered. Caroline watched her e-mail in-box intently for new bids, the auction house alerting her each time another buyer outbid her. She rapidly and expertly moved between screens, from e-mail to auction.

Two thirty in the morning, and Caroline felt her resolve slipping as her need for sleep increased. Anxious worldwide buyers were bidding on the same doll. What time was it in London? In Rome? She cursed the seller for accepting international bids but recognized it as a brilliant maneuver to remove the doll from the United States. Crucial for the seller, but she refused to allow it to happen.

Caroline decided to check the auction bid one last time, then break for a few hours’ rest. She needed sleep desperately, her thoughts too loosely connected and ineffective without it. She watched as the auction screen lit up, and her eyes grew wide with urgency. The Buy It Now icon flashed across her screen, the signal that the seller was ready to end the bidding at a certain set price. Usually this option wasn’t available after the bidding began, and Caroline hadn’t expected it.