Page 62 of Husband Missing

Even so, she’d given birth to a predator.

Josie could ask if he’d told her his name but what was the point? Roe wouldn’t be able to say it or spell it and even if she could, he had probably given her a fake name. Even if Roe could somehow communicate his real name, he was likely dead by now.

Josie tapped the side of her head. “Did he hurt your head? Take away your words?”

No response.

“Do you remember how your head got hurt?”

No.

That wasn’t unusual with traumatic brain injuries.

From the corner of the room, the guard cleared her throat. They were almost out of time. Josie had gotten off track. “When Lila was here pretending to be a reporter, did she tell you anything about herself?”

No.

“Did she talk about anyone besides herself?”

No.

But Lila wouldn’t have dished about her myriad crimes or her accomplices at that meeting.

Josie brought up the photos of Lila once more. “Later, she became a prisoner here.”

Roe’s gaze snapped to Josie’s face. She hadn’t known. Josie forged ahead anyway, tapping her finger against Lila’s mug shot. “This is what she looked like when she became an inmate here. Did you ever see her?”

No.

Josie hadn’t asked the superintendent to check but it was likely that Lila and Roe had never crossed paths. Muncy had sixteen housing units and, if Josie remembered correctly, had over fourteen hundred inmates while Lila was incarcerated.

“Did she ever send any kind of message to you through other inmates?”

No.

Josie sighed. She’d known this line of inquiry was a Hail Mary but she felt disappointed nonetheless. Roe Hoyt was a dead end. A sad, twisted, tragic dead end.

She removed her finger from the phone screen. Roe’s eyes locked on it. Then she lunged across the table, hands grabbing for Josie’s phone. Her voice went up several octaves.

“Roe! Roe! Roe!”

Josie jumped up, backing away as Roe threw herself across the table. The guard yanked her back, lifting her to her feet,shouting for her to calm down. But there was no getting through to her. Straining toward Josie, she flailed as much as she could while the guard dragged her toward the door. Josie’s phone had fallen, face-up, onto the floor near her feet. A photo of the contents of Lila’s box filled the screen. Had she accidentally swiped to it? Had something in the photo caused Roe’s reaction?

Josie snatched up her phone and held it out toward Roe, whose feet kicked in the air as the guard lifted her, carrying her toward the exit.

“Roe,” Josie shouted. “Do you recognize something in this photo?”

Roe didn’t hear her. Those familiar blue eyes were wild, panic-stricken. Wherever she was, it wasn’t in this room.

“Roe! Roe! Roe!”

FORTY-TWO

ONE WEEK AGO

Bug was half expecting some kind of sex dungeon or torture chamber—especially after the man said the bar was “more than a bar.” She was relieved to see that his words hadn’t been code for something else. At the bottom of the steps, a huge tiled room stretched out before them. Bug couldn’t even tell where it ended. The actual bar looked like something out of a movie. Sleek, shiny wood. Taps. Copper-colored cocktail shakers. Behind the bar was a mirror and miles of bottles. Every liquor imaginable. Overhead hung a light fixture that spanned the entire bar. Stained glass wrapped around metal slats that held upside-down wine and martini glasses.

“Cool, right?” said the man, heading straight to the bar.