Page 32

THIRTY-ONE

Even after midnight, Gretchen’s house was busy. When this was all over, Josie would have to buy her a really big gift to thank her and Paula for opening their home this way. Noah’s siblings had arrived while Trinity and Josie were out. They’d both gotten hotel rooms but, like Josie, they were too worried, too amped up, to rest. Instead, they joined the steadily growing group gathered in Gretchen’s living room, everyone crammed together, either sitting down or pacing, their nervous energy palpable. Christian, Shannon, and Patrick were there, engaging Laura and Theo Fraley in small talk that seemed wholly inappropriate given the circumstances. What else was there to talk about? None of them were privy to the details of the investigation.

No one wanted to say what they were all thinking. Noah might not come home, or if he did, it would be in a body bag.

Josie’s mind batted the thought away, refused to entertain it for even a millisecond.

Twenty-seven hours.

Paula flitted around, offering food and drinks, the consummate hostess. Trout, who would normally be hot on the trail of any food source or any possible attention from other humans, stayed close to Josie. He whined now and then even though he was fed and walked and had relieved himself plenty of times. Just like her, he wanted Noah.

Numbly, she sat in the corner of Gretchen’s loveseat with Trout curled up on her lap, only half listening to the chatter around her. She scrolled through the endless text messages she’d missed through the day. Drake, Misty, Cindy Quinn, Amber. Her former fiancé and Denton PD’s current K-9 handler, Luke Creighton. Some of the patrol officers she knew well had reached out, expressing support and offering anything she needed. Gretchen had checked in several times during the day as well. She and Turner were going to be stretched thin now that they were down two investigators.

Even Sawyer Hayes had messaged her. He was another casualty of Lila’s evil machinations. A local EMT, he’d come into their lives right before Josie’s grandmother Lisette died. A DNA test had proved that he was Lisette’s grandson by blood. Evidently, in the year after Eli Matson dumped Lila, he’d started seeing someone else. That woman had gotten pregnant with Sawyer. When she went to Eli’s trailer to tell him, she was greeted instead by Lila, who had just returned to town with baby Josie.

Whatever Lila said to Sawyer’s mother, it had frightened her enough that she never tried to contact Eli again. Never even told Sawyer who his father was until she was on her deathbed. Poor Sawyer learned of Eli’s identity and then, immediately afterward, learned that he’d died years ago. Lisette had embraced him wholeheartedly, but he’d had precious little time with her before she was murdered. Josie had done everything she could to make Sawyer a part of their lives, part of her found family, and he’d resisted at every turn. He resented her for having the place in the Matson family he never had and then, for a long time, he blamed her for Lisette’s death. They’d made strides in the past year though. Josie was heartened to see his message. It was the only one she had the energy to answer.

There was a new voicemail from the person who had called while she was at the stationhouse, but Josie couldn’t bring herself to listen to it. Wisely, her sister hadn’t pressed her about it.

“Okay, okay! I hate to break this up but Josie, you really need to get some sleep.” Trinity stood over her as the room went silent.

“But I?—”

Shannon said, “Your sister’s right, Josie. At least try to get some rest. You’ve got your phone, but we’ll wake you if we hear anything.”

Trinity scooped Trout into her arms and headed up the stairs while Josie hugged everyone good night. In the guest room, Trout snoozed in the center of the bed. Trinity sat beside him, cross-legged, her laptop open in front of her. A familiar thick file rested on Josie’s side of the bed.

She blinked, dizzy with fatigue. “What are you doing?”

“Getting to the bottom of Lila’s shit once and for all.” Trinity pointed to the file. “Starting from the very beginning. Come, sit.”

Josie knew she should sleep. There was a very good chance that once she was in bed, she’d pass out whether she wanted to or not, but she was too curious to do anything but follow Trinity’s instructions. Kicking off her shoes, she picked up the file and sat on the bed. Trout’s body twitched and he yipped. Josie placed a palm along his rib cage, feeling him jerk as he dreamt.

Trinity said, “Roe Hoyt is still alive. I searched the Pennsylvania inmate locator site.”

Josie looked down at the file in her lap. “You went to the house to get this? I don’t?—”

“Be honest. After your conversations with Heather and what Kyle told us, do you really think the Lila angle is going to take priority in this investigation? Especially since she’s been dead for so long? Don’t you think Heather’s going to look at the most recent crimes—the armed robberies—as a way to try to find this Dylan person?”

“It’s not about what I think. Heather’s team has to follow the leads that are there and one of them is Lila.”

Doubt needled her, like a splinter under her fingernail. Assuming Heather had very little to go on from the evidence they’d gathered directly related to Noah’s abduction, homing in on the robberies might make sense. They were recent and there were several of them—that meant multiple crime scenes which increased the odds of finding something that could lead to the perpetrators. Josie knew for a fact that most of the evidence taken from those scenes hadn’t even been processed yet. There was a very good chance Heather could get all the DNA samples expedited. It was possible that one or more of Dylan’s co-conspirators would show up in CODIS. If she could find one of the armed robbers, she could find Dylan—and hopefully Noah.

Trinity was right. It was likely a stronger avenue of inquiry. As was the Gina Phelan case. Still, there was no denying the Lila connection. Heather’s team had clearly started looking into it but how far had they gotten? How deep would they go? Even in Josie’s professional opinion, the Lila lead was weak.

Josie was shut out of the investigation into her husband’s abduction and the Gina Phelan case now that they were connected. As wrong as it was, she would have to rely on Turner for information and hope he meant it when he said he didn’t care about getting into trouble.

Regardless of which avenue of inquiry Heather’s team prioritized, if Josie wanted something to do, all that was left was digging into Lila’s past. It was a long shot, but it was the only shot she had. What a cruel twist of fate that even now, years after Lila’s death, after Josie had spread her ashes, there was no escaping her. Even in death, Lila was like one of those planet-destroying stars that Noah always talked about. Him and his obsession with astronomy. Lila was the host star—fiery and destructive—and Josie was a tiny, insignificant planet, doomed to remain in her orbit until the day she got too close and fell into a death spiral. The collision would vaporize Josie instantly. There would be nothing of her left.

Wasn’t that what Lila had always hoped for?

Trinity laid a hand over Trout’s rib cage, right next to Josie’s, as he started running in his sleep, little legs working feverishly. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That I’m stuck with Lila,” she muttered. “Like always.”

“I know,” Trinity sighed. “She’s like herpes.”

Josie snorted even as her mind descended into the rabbit hole. Would Noah be missing right now if she’d just dug into Lila’s past all those years ago when she came into possession of the box? What if she’d laid all of Lila’s secrets bare back then? Until there was nothing else to be uncovered. No surprises. What if she’d worked harder to find Lila’s accomplices? What if she’d tried to locate the men in the photos or the people Lila had taken the objects from? What if she’d disassembled that sick trophy box of terror before slamming the door on Lila?

Would she be here right now or would she be in bed with Noah, in their own home, with Trout snoring at their feet while they planned their vow-renewal ceremony?

Trinity reached for the nightstand and snatched up a printout of some sort, waving it in front of Josie’s face. “You said you never looked inside the Roe Hoyt file. I didn’t want to read it without you, but I was curious. I found this newspaper article online.”

Josie took the printout. It was from a small Bradford County newspaper that probably didn’t exist anymore. The article was dated December4,1966.

HUNTERS FIND WOMAN HIDING HUMAN REMAINS ON STATE GAME LAND

Josie had a vague recollection of Gretchen telling her that Roe had been found in Sullivan County, but she also knew there was a large swath of state game land that stretched across both counties. It was possible that when the case went to trial, the jurisdiction had been found to belong to Bradford County.

She scanned the article, the scant details lining up with what Gretchen had told her years ago when Josie was too exhausted and too chickenshit to open the file herself. It also offered additional information which Josie would probably have known if she’d ever reviewed the file. Roe had been living high in the mountains in a shack that was thought to be an old waystation for game wardens who got caught in bad weather. Her age was indeterminate though she was thought to be in her early to mid-twenties. She was unable to speak, though she could make noises. Dressed in scraps of clothing. With her was a small girl, estimated to be about five years old, naked, unkempt, described as “feral,” communicating using only grunts and screams.

Little Lila.

Roe had gotten her name from the noise she made most often. Lila had been given hers by her first foster family. Both of them attacked the hunters who discovered them, and later, the police officers who came to collect them. One of the hunters had been stabbed in the arm with an old hunting knife Roe possessed.

“It’s not what I expected,” Trinity said. “It’s hard for me to muster any sympathy for Lila but…”

“I know,” Josie said. The day Gretchen had brought her the file, she remembered thinking poor little Lila never stood a chance. “I have sympathy for the little girl found in the woods. The one who couldn’t speak, who was dumped into foster care and subjected to horrific things.”

“That makes sense.” Trinity stroked Trout’s side as he growled. His little face twitched. Still dreaming. “How did Lila even figure out that Roe Hoyt was her mother?”

“It was probably in her foster care file,” Josie replied. “Lila got full access to it before it was destroyed.”

Lila had wanted to erase her past, her identity, and yet, she’d tracked down her biological mother. Had she wanted to know where she came from? It was such a human impulse, but Josie had never known Lila to do anything unless there was something in it for her. Had she thought her biological mother might have something that Lila could take from her only to find out Roe was in prison? But why give Josie her inmate number? Why put Roe Hoyt on Josie’s radar? To prove once and for all that in the contest of whose childhood was worse, Lila remained victorious?

“I know this isn’t likely to lead to Noah,” Trinity said, “but it’s a place to start. Plus, you said that Lila and Roe were incarcerated together at some point. There might be something to uncover there. But if you think this is a waste of time, we could start with researching the newspaper clippings from the box. You took photos of them before Heather’s team took everything into evidence, right?”

Josie nodded. Her fingers traced the edge of the file folder. Even if Noah wasn’t missing because of something Lila-related, the specter of Lila would always be hanging over her. If there was even the slimmest chance that she and Noah would still be able to adopt, didn’t she owe it to her future child to vanquish all traces of Lila’s foul, invasive sins from their lives once and for all? Didn’t she owe it to herself?

It would certainly give her something to focus on. Something connected, however tenuously, to the investigation.

She flipped the file open.

“Let’s find out why Lila wanted me to know about her mother.”