Read The Ghost in the Doll (Fox Meridian Book 6) for Free Online

noises. ‘I’ll… take a look. I’m not promising anything.’ Fox had to bite her lips to avoid giggling.
    Jonathan leaned over, cupped Andrea’s cheeks in his hand, and kissed her on the brow. ‘For an intelligent woman, love, you can be far too easy to wind up.’
    Pouting, Andrea said, ‘You know that just makes me want to try it. It’s like a dare now.’
    ‘Just so long as I don’t hear what happens when you do,’ Fox said, ‘you can try whatever you like. That was a gamble, Kit. How did you know my mother wasn’t that kinky?’
    ‘Careful observation,’ Kit replied. ‘Usually, observation is the most I can do.’
    ‘I thought you were such a nice girl too, Kit,’ Andrea said.
    ‘Huh,’ Fox said, ‘she’s got a boyfriend, and you do not want to see her browser history.’
    ‘It’s all perfectly legitimate research,’ Kit countered.
    ‘That,’ Jonathan said, ‘is what they all say.’
    30 th March.
    Washburn Mall was not one of the largest in the city, but it was not far from the house, near to the university and not far from both the Palladium and Watch facilities. It also had a fair number of clothing shops, both the pattern-display kind for those who wanted to fabricate their own and more bespoke resellers.
    It also held the shop that Drew Maple and Sandy Bateson ran, selling various things made in the Southern Protectorate. Fox walked in expecting to be recognised and was not disappointed.
    ‘Miss Meridian!’ Sandy squeaked, rushing over. ‘It’s really good to see you.’ Her face fell a little. ‘We, uh, heard about what happened.’
    Fox gave a shrug. ‘Well, I get a couple of weeks here out of it. It’s not all bad.’ In all probability, half the city probably knew that Fox had been kidnapped and tortured. She doubted any of them, aside from her parents and Bart Wade, knew how badly.
    ‘Always a bright side. Are you looking for anything special?’
    ‘Mom’s got a party planned for Friday.’
    ‘I know. We’re invited. Me and Drew and Mom.’
    ‘I was hoping you would be. Otherwise I’d have had to invite you. Anyway, I can’t turn up to that in anything old. Have to outshine my mother, otherwise she’ll think I’m not trying.’
    ‘I’m not sure we carry that kind of outfit,’ Sandy said, looking around at their stock. Mostly it was leather and metalwork, all handmade, because it was usually easier to get cloth goods out of a fabricator, but Fox spotted an embroidered comforter hanging on display which looked rather familiar.
    ‘No, I wasn’t really expecting to see anything like that in here, but I’m also just browsing and I couldn’t come here without stopping in. I haven’t seen this place yet.’ Fox pointed at the comforter. ‘I see my mother has though.’
    ‘Those sell really well. Seriously, we can’t get enough of them. There’s a special flag on our notification channel to let people know we have new stock.’
    Fox raised an eyebrow. ‘You have a notification channel?’
    ‘Oh yes. Mister Runyard helped set it up. He says we’re a “prime example of how Topeka is moving forward into an integrated future.” I know it’s kind of bullshit, but he gave us both the money to get implants put in and he’s been very supportive. Your Mom’s subscribed to the channel. It used to be just a message when new stock came in, but the last couple of months we started doing vids of us unboxing some of the choicer items. That’s been popular.’
    Fox shook her head. ‘People watch the weirdest things.’
    Sandy giggled. ‘Well, it’s all pretty new to me. You know, ’cause of Malcolm. I’m like a kid in a candy store.’
    Fox did know: Malcolm Bateson had kept his daughter off the internet as much as possible, largely to hide what he was doing to his daughter. Still, he was serving a long sentence in Rikers now. ‘Is Drew here?’
    ‘Uh-huh. He’s in back. He’ll probably come out and say hello when it seems like we’re not acting like groupies