Page 19

EIGHTEEN

Putting the main bedroom back together went more quickly than Josie anticipated, though, to be fair, Trinity did most of the work. The shelf in the closet, two of Noah’s dresser drawers, and her bedside lamp were total losses. Aside from her jewelry, nothing else was missing. Trinity found a tote bag on the closet floor and stuffed Noah’s T-shirt inside so Josie could bring it with her. She could technically stay here since the house had been processed, but she wasn’t sure she could handle sleeping in the bed she shared with Noah right now. Gretchen and Paula were happy to host her as long as she needed.

When they finished in the primary bedroom, they moved on to the rest of the second floor, cleaning the mess in the hallway, the bathroom, and the guest room. Trinity took one look inside the nursery and quickly closed the door. No need to go in there and be reminded that their adoption dreams were now most likely on the line. Josie didn’t think the agency would give them a pass on this break-in. Assuming they found Noah alive and safe.

As if sensing Josie’s thoughts, Trinity herded her back to the stairs. “One crisis at a time.”

Downstairs, Shannon was on her knees in the living room, still working on the blood. In the light of day, with no adrenaline pumping through her veins, and time to study the room, Josie saw there was far more of it than she initially thought.

Trinity’s fingers curled around her forearm. “Let’s check out the other rooms. You can inventory this one when Mom’s done.”

The dining room was already back in order, though all of their more expensive dinnerware was a total loss. The kitchen was still quite a mess. In the time Josie and Trinity had taken to straighten up the second floor, it appeared as though all Christian and Patrick had accomplished was to put the silverware back in its drawer. Shattered dishes and glasses still littered nearly every tile. Pots, pans, and broken appliances lay among the debris. The cabinets yawned open and empty. Josie hadn’t noticed it last night, but the intruders had even cleared out their dry goods and tossed them everywhere. Christian stood in the center of the mess with a box of cereal in his hand while Patrick hopscotched over obstacles, taking photos with his phone.

Trinity scoffed. “How many Payne men does it take to clean up a kitchen? What have you two been doing this whole time?”

“You need a new coffeemaker and a new toaster,” said Patrick, leaning over to snap a picture of their now-dented crockpot. “Also, I don’t know what the heck that thing is but it looks fine to me.”

Josie followed his gesture toward a silver contraption that folded into some kind of press. “I don’t recognize that.”

Trinity huffed. “It’s a panini maker! I bought it for you guys when you moved in together!”

Christian arched a brow and shuffled over to one of the cabinets above the countertop. He placed the box inside it. “I hope that was the last culinary item you gifted them.”

Under any other circumstances, Josie would have laughed. Both at Christian’s joke and at the irony that the one appliance that had survived the destruction was one they’d never used.

“It was,” Trinity said before turning toward the laundry room, beckoning Josie to follow. “Work faster. We’ll be in the garage.”

A quick sweep through the laundry room was all it took to get everything back in place. Nothing broken there. Nothing missing. Josie did her best to ignore the smear of blood along the wall. She knew that what was in the garage, on the other side of the laundry room, was so much worse. Trinity flicked on the overhead lights. They weren’t very powerful.

“Want me to open the bay door?” asked Trinity. “Get some more light in here?”

“Only if you’re prepared to turn away any nosy onlookers,” Josie said.

Trinity flashed her a brief grin and rubbed her hands together. “Turn them away? Nosy onlookers are my bread and butter.”

Josie bent to pick up the fallen weedwhacker, then a rake, and some gardening tools. She placed them back where they belonged. One side of the garage was for outdoorsy stuff while the other side was for the random personal items they’d initially stored in their basement.

Trinity stopped in the center of the room, ankle-deep in the detritus. “You don’t have one of those clicky things for the door?”

Josie nudged their power washer back into its corner. Why in the hell would intruders need to disturb a power washer? “No. It broke a couple of years ago and we never got it fixed. New, automatic garage doors cost thousands. Besides, we’ve never used this for our vehicles.”

“Right. Who would use a garage for cars?” Trinity found the locking mechanism on the door and unlatched it. With a grunt, she heaved the door upward. Bright sunlight flooded the space. The warm golden glow streaming inside would normally make Josie feel happy and energetic but now, all it did was expose just how much worse the garage had been tossed compared to the rest of the house. At least the state police evidence techs had taken away the items on the floor that had been speckled with drops of blood. Still, there were layers upon layers of possessions to comb through and put away.

Trinity pointed to a couple of overturned plastic bins, their contents blanketing the concrete. “What is all this stuff?”

Josie knelt to gather the contents of the one closest to her. Halloween decorations. “A lot of it is holiday stuff but the rest is stuff from my grandmother and Noah’s mom. Things we didn’t want to part with but don’t really know what to do with either.”

She stood and hefted the Halloween bin to fit it back onto the shelf but hesitated when she saw the bloody handprints. She’d noticed them last night but that was before she knew that most of the blood in the house belonged to Noah. Had he been out here, injured, searching for something? If the blood belonged to Noah, what had he been looking for?

Or were the handprints from the other person who’d left blood behind? Mr. O Negative. Was the young man her neighbor had seen walking up and down their block Mr. O Negative? Had he come in here after subduing Noah to search for something? Or had he or his accomplices forced a bleeding Noah in here to find whatever it was they wanted? The evidence techs would have typed the blood from each room. Heather’s team probably already knew whether the handprints belonged to Noah or Mr. O Negative. Her team would have the partial handprints to work with as well. Whether they could match them to Noah or anyone else was a different question.

“Josie.” Trinity held up a metal coffee can with sewing supplies stuffed into it. “Was this Lisette’s?”

Josie pushed the Halloween bin onto the shelf. “No. Colette’s. Noah’s mom.”

Trinity fit the lid onto it and picked up what looked like a half-sewn shirt, tucking both into a bin Noah had marked “Mom.”

“Are you sure they weren’t looking for something in her stuff? No offense, but she spent most of her life hiding a pretty big secret. Who’s to say there weren’t more?”

That secret had led to her murder. But Josie was pretty sure Denton PD had gotten to the bottom of everything Colette Fraley had been hiding. “I doubt it.”

Trinity slid Colette’s bin next to the Halloween stuff. Then she looked around until she found the bin labeled “Christmas.” Dragging it over, she started packing it with the decorations at her feet. Josie watched, momentarily paralyzed by the overwhelming task ahead of them.

“Oh my God!” Trinity shrieked.

For a moment, Josie wondered if some kind of rodent had gotten into the garage. They occasionally had to deal with mice. One year, a squirrel had set up residence in one of their roof soffits. But at Trinity’s feet, nothing moved. Beneath the rolls of Christmas lights, now-cracked ceramic gnomes dressed in Santa outfits, and the pile of holiday-themed outfits they’d bought for Trout, was some sort of file. Pages fanned out from inside its manila folder. Reports so old, they’d been prepared on a typewriter. Black and white crime scene photos.

“Why do you have this?” Trinity asked. “You’re not supposed to have police files at home.”

“We don’t.”

Josie picked her way closer, staring down at the photo closest to Trinity’s feet. Her exhausted brain was taking a long time to catch up, to process what she was seeing. A splintered wooden floor, its planks peeled away to reveal five tiny skulls, their round white surfaces fractured like cracked eggs. They were all nestled together in a bed of frayed fabric. Each one had its own heap of bones so thin and fragile, they looked as though they belonged to birds.