Page 16

FIFTEEN

“Honey, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Shan, she has to inventory the house. See if anything else is missing.”

“But she hasn’t even slept! Christian, this isn’t a good idea. Maybe we can do it instead.”

Josie tuned out her bickering parents, who stood on the sidewalk beside her, and stared at her house. The mid-morning sun crept across the driveway, where Noah’s car and her SUV were still parked. The state police had issued a warrant for the GPS history, but they hadn’t needed to impound the vehicle for that. A strip of crime scene tape still hung across the front door. It didn’t even look like their home anymore. Josie felt strangely adrift. The house was either going to become a sanctuary again or it was going to be the place where her life was shattered beyond repair.

Either way, she had to go inside.

Her brother, Patrick, appeared halfway down the block, jogging toward them with a tote bag over his arm. “I’ve got trash bags and latex gloves and some cleaning supplies. Peroxide for the blood.”

“Patrick!” Shannon chided.

Christian sighed. “It’s fine, Shan. Josie’s seen more blood than most doctors, probably. She can handle it.”

Josie felt him at her side. When he slid an arm around her, she let her head loll on his shoulder. Almost immediately, her eyes began to droop. Her mother was right. She hadn’t slept. How could she? Noah—her Noah—was gone. His blood was all over their house and in their driveway. No one would or could tell her anything.

Since she couldn’t be part of the official investigation, she’d spent the night sitting cross-legged on the bed in Gretchen’s guest room doing the only things she could do on her own. First, she logged into their Spur Mobile account to review Noah’s phone activity for the last two months. There was nothing out of the ordinary. While she couldn’t view the contents of his texts, she was able to see all the numbers he exchanged messages with. No surprises. No numbers she didn’t recognize. Then she looked at their joint credit and debit accounts. There hadn’t been any unusual activity since last she’d checked them. The pending charges from hours ago told her which stores he’d visited while she was at work. She’d passed the information along to Gretchen who said that the state police had already visited the stores and pulled interior and exterior security footage to see if anyone had been following him. Gretchen didn’t know what they’d found.

Out of ways to track Noah down or find some evidence of what might have led to the home invasion, Josie spent the rest of her time mentally cataloging all the things she wanted to find out about the investigation as soon as the sun rose. Trout had slept fitfully beside her. Sometime around six, Trinity had arrived, padding silently into the room. Without a word, she’d climbed into the bed, gathered Josie in her arms and held her. Nothing more. No conversation. No questions. No coaxing.

Just connection.

Trinity hadn’t left her side. Until they arrived here, though Josie knew she was nearby.

“We’re ready whenever you are, kid,” Christian said softly into Josie’s ear.

“Thanks, Dad.”

It was still so strange to call him that and to call Shannon ‘Mom’ even though they were her biological parents. Josie had grown up what felt like worlds apart from the Payne family. They’d lived two hours from Denton, in a small town named Callowhill. After giving birth to Josie and Trinity, Shannon had hired a nanny to help watch the twins when Christian was at work or when she needed to run errands. When the girls were three weeks old, a young woman from the housecleaning service the Paynes employed, Lila Jensen, had kidnapped Josie. She’d set the house on fire. The nanny, who’d been there alone with the babies, had managed to save Trinity. She’d never even seen Lila that day.

No one had.

The authorities told the Paynes that tiny Josie had perished in the fire. Her family mourned her their entire lives.

“We’ll follow your lead,” said Patrick, patting Josie’s shoulder.

Nodding, she stepped out of Christian’s embrace and trudged toward the front door. Her legs felt heavy as she climbed the stairs. She’d had two cups of coffee and choked down a pastry from a tray one of the patrol officers had dropped off at Gretchen’s house, but her eyes felt gritty. A wave of dizziness washed over her. It was her body reminding her that it needed rest. But her heart needed her husband more. She was strong enough for this. Strong enough to do what needed to be done to bring him home, even from the sidelines. How many times had Noah come to her rescue? Been strong when she was weak? She was damn well doing the hard things for him now, no matter how her body protested.

With a deep, steadying breath, she pushed inside. Her parents and brother followed. For a long moment, they all stood quietly in the foyer, which was relatively undisturbed. Josie found the bullet hole in the baseboard again. The state police’s forensic team would have marked and photographed it, removed the bullet, and then tried to determine the trajectory. It would tell them something about how things unfolded but Josie wouldn’t be privy to that. She was just Noah’s wife right now.

Josie sensed her parents and brother turning toward the living room and heard their gasps of surprise.

“I tried to tell you it was bad,” she said.

“Is the whole house like this?” asked Patrick.

Josie nodded.

Before anyone could speak, Trinity bustled in through the front door. She was dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans and one of her fiancé Drake’s FBI sweatshirts. Her glossy black hair was pulled up into a high ponytail. Josie hadn’t seen her apply makeup this morning, but she still looked glamorous, like she belonged in the pages of a magazine that showcased fashion and makeup tips.

Trinity clapped her hands together, unbothered by the state of the house. Unless she was freaked out but doing a better job of covering it up. “All right, let’s get started. Detective Loughlin needs to know as soon as possible if anything else is missing besides the jewelry. Josie, where do you want everyone?”

Josie pointed at the living room. Because she knew that Shannon would be able to handle it, she said, “Mom, you’ll be in charge of cleaning up the blood.”

“Also, all this fingerprint powder needs to go,” Trinity added. “And someone needs to hose down the driveway.”

“Right,” said Josie. “Dad and Patrick, start in the kitchen. Put anything that can be salvaged away. If you’re not sure where it goes, set it aside.”

Trinity put her hands on her hips. “All of you—don’t forget to take photos of everything that needs to be replaced. Come on, Josie. We’ll start upstairs.”

Josie took a garbage bag from Patrick and followed Trinity up the steps to the main bedroom. Her sister pushed open the door and stepped inside. Last night, Josie’s senses had been so overloaded, she hadn’t noticed just how much it smelled of Noah, of them. Her next breath, full of him, of both of them, nearly put another crack in the shell around her heart that was keeping her from having a breakdown.

“Hardest thing first,” Trinity mumbled.

Josie stood in the doorway while Trinity carefully cleared enough room for them to close the door. “How do you know the living room isn’t the hardest?”

“Because of the blood?” Trinity shrugged. “Your job revolves around crime scenes. It’s easy for you to detach, become clinical. This is where you spend your most intimate moments with Noah. It’s harder.”

Harder.

Screw breaking down. Josie wanted nothing more than to surround herself with Noah’s scent, wrap herself in it. How many times had she buried her face in his neck, against his chest, seeking comfort? There was something left of him in their home. This small thing, fleeting and ephemeral. When the thoughts that it was only a reminder of what she might lose started to creep in, she mentally stomped on them. She refused to let her fear and terror weaponize against her the one piece of Noah she still had. No, she was taking this. Keeping it.

Josie’s gaze flickered toward their private bath. She tossed the garbage bag toward Trinity. “I need a minute.”

She tried unsuccessfully to close the door behind her. There was too much on the floor. After three tries, she gave up, not caring if Trinity saw, and sank onto her knees, rifling through their belongings until she found the clothes that had been dumped out of their hamper. It was her week to do the laundry, which meant it hadn’t yet been done. Emotion pulsed at the edges of her mental shields as her hands closed over a T-shirt Noah had worn earlier in the week. She brought it to her face, pressing her nose against it and inhaling his scent. So familiar, so comforting, and yet, despite her determination to not let this vestige of him upset her, it caused a wave of anguish to crest inside her. Her mental armor held as it crashed against her heart. No tears. No hysteria. No coming apart at the seams, but the pain was so intense it felt physical.

She stood and returned to the bedroom. Trinity was still near the door. She studied Josie carefully. “It’s okay, you know. It’s just us two right now.”

Josie’s fingers tightened around the shirt. “I’m not going to cry.”

Trinity picked her way across the room and lifted the mattress to peer beneath it before setting it right. “I know. You should, though. It will make you feel better.”

“It won’t.”

“You think it will break the seal and you’ll never be able to put all those scary feelings back inside so you can function, but you’re wrong.” Trinity righted Noah’s nightstand, then picked up the drawer and tried to fit it back into its slot. “Think of it as releasing a little bit of tension. Like opening the pressure relief valve on a boiler.”

She told herself she was being strong for Noah—and she was—but Trinity was spot-on. Everything she’d said was frighteningly accurate. Also, Josie hated crying. She chanced a more thorough look around the room. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her. “I know all the things I’m supposed to do,” she snapped. “I’ve been in therapy for ages now.”

She was just choosing not to do them. Default settings were hard to undo.

Trinity knelt on the floor and started picking things up, examining them before putting them either in Noah’s drawer or on the bed. Josie should be the one reclaiming the contents of her husband’s nightstand, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. Not yet.

“Fine,” Trinity said. “Then I’ll tell you what I found out.”