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TWENTY-FOUR

“Believe me, her lovers were her victims as well,” Josie said. “One night Lila set Dexter McMann’s pillow on fire. While he was sleeping.”

“Good lord,” Heather winced. “Then if you take into account Eli Matson’s photo—which you said was also there—the pattern is victims one way or another. That’s what the sample size tells us. How many photos in all are we talking about here?”

Again, Josie imagined herself sitting on Noah’s couch in his old house, thumbing through them. “A dozen? No more than two dozen.”

Heather made a note. “Let’s talk about Lila’s associates. Not her accomplices, just anyone associated with her. Anyone who had regular or semi-regular contact with her over the years.”

“That’s going back a long time,” Josie said. “Remember, Lila only raised me until I was fourteen years old.”

“She had a life before you and during the period of time after she left which you can’t fill in because you had no contact with her,” Heather agreed. “I get that, but tell me anyway. If we go down this rabbit hole, we’ll need a place to start.”

Josie took another sip of tea. It suddenly dawned on her that not only was it incredibly strange being here without Noah and with the house in total disarray, but it was odd sitting in their kitchen without Trout. She wished he was here so she could stroke his silky back or feel his warmth over her feet. He was like a drooly, whiny, demanding comfort object and she needed that more than ever. Without Noah, she was rudderless, adrift.

“The only associate I’m aware of is Needle,” Josie said without thinking. When she was a kid, she hadn’t known the man’s name so in her mind, she referred to him as Needle because he was the one who brought Lila the needles she used to shoot up. She corrected herself. “I’m sorry. That’s a name I made up for him in my head when I was a kid. His actual name is Larry Ezekiel Fox but he goes by Zeke. When I was growing up, he was her regular drug dealer. She was in contact with him when she came back to Denton seven years ago. He lives under the East Bridge, not near the encampment, though. Further down, along the bank. There’s a shed there. That’s where you’ll find him, but I doubt he has anything to offer.”

Then again, Josie hadn’t spent much time grilling him on everything he knew about Lila or who she associated with. He may not have told her if she did. Their relationship—if you could call it that—was bizarre and tumultuous to say the least. When she was a little girl, he’d been at their trailer several times a week. He’d stood by and watched Lila do abominable things to Josie, sometimes protesting weakly, but mostly letting it happen. Except for the time Lila tried to cut her face off.

The scar tingled again, and Josie ran her fingers over it.

Apparently, slicing the face off a six-year-old was a bridge too far, even for a degenerate like Needle. As was Lila’s attempt to pimp eleven-year-old Josie out to pay for car repairs. He’d stopped that, too. All her life, Josie had lived in a perpetual state of conflict where Needle was concerned. Angry at all he’d let happen but deeply grateful at the things he hadn’t. Always, she’d wrestled with the notion that she had expected a man like Needle—a career criminal with absolutely no regard for the law—to be some noble protector of innocents. Even he had called her out on that.

“You speak to this guy recently?” asked Heather.

“Yeah. I, um, keep tabs on him.”

He’d helped Lila hurt Josie seven years ago but then, later, he’d gotten caught up in a case Josie was working and he’d taken a bullet for her. Saved her life. Again. The man literally had no redeeming qualities, and in his lifetime, he’d caused far-reaching damage to those around him and yet, he’d been the fucked-up hero in the tale of Josie’s life three times.

“He probably won’t talk to you though,” Josie said. “He only talks to me. Although he might spill something for a carton of cigarettes. Sometimes a twenty-dollar bill works.”

Heather regarded her with a strange look.

Josie sighed. “We have history.”

“Okay.” Heather flipped to a new page. “Who else?”

“That’s it.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about Lila Jensen that we haven’t discussed?”

“You could look into anyone Lila might have confided in or grown close with while she was in prison,” Josie suggested.

“We’ll do that.”

The image of those tiny skulls all bunched together pushed its way to the forefront of Josie’s mind. She was going to dismiss the file. Lila’s biological mother. The woman was probably dead now, and if she wasn’t, then she was still in prison. Josie doubted she could offer anything that might help them track down the person or people in Lila’s life who had taken Noah. Except that Lila had known that Roe Hoyt was her mother. Lila had known her inmate number. They’d been in the same prison at one point. Whether they ever spoke was another matter, but it was an avenue that couldn’t be ignored. Josie always had the sense that Lila had known about her mother long before she, herself, was incarcerated.

The file in Josie’s garage was something Gretchen had pulled together and given her in confidence. Heather could get access to anything that was in the file quickly and easily on her own, under her authority as the lead investigator on Noah’s case. Keeping the copy Gretchen had given Josie wouldn’t affect the investigation in any way. Plus, she really didn’t want to betray Gretchen’s confidence in case she’d gotten it in a way that wasn’t quite aboveboard. Toxic mothers and the need to understand them was something they’d always had in common, and the file was a gift. A nod of recognition from one deeply damaged daughter to another. There was no blood on it. It hadn’t been with the silverware box.

Josie said, “Lila’s mother was called Roe Hoyt. I’m not sure if she’s still alive but last I heard, she was serving five life sentences in SCI Muncy for the murder of her other children.”

Heather’s pen froze. “The rotten apple didn’t fall far from the rotten tree, did it?”

“Sure didn’t. Anyway, Lila was the one who told me about her. She knew her inmate number. At one point they were in there together. Might be worth looking into whether they formed a relationship of some sort or if Lila ever told Roe anything that would be useful to know in this case.”