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FORTY-THREE

Josie’s house felt desolate, stripped of all the energy that had always made it a home. It smelled like bleach, OxiClean, and peroxide. Aside from the items which were beyond repair—now sitting on the curb in a heap for the trash company to pick up—everything was back where it belonged.

It never looked more like a stranger’s house than in this moment.

Trinity’s palm grazed Josie’s shoulder. “We could have just asked Paula to use her printer.”

Josie shook her head. “No. I couldn’t stay there another hour. I want to try to get hold of Turner again and honestly, I need a break.”

It had been difficult to focus on the conversations at Gretchen’s. Her head was filled with Roe Hoyt’s cries, wondering if it was the photo from Lila’s trophy box that had triggered her. It was possible that Josie had accidentally swiped to that photo when she dropped the phone, and Roe hadn’t seen it at all. The superintendent told Josie that Roe was prone to these sudden outbursts that seemed to have no discernible trigger. On the way back to Denton, Josie had studied the objects in the photo—the pillbox, the spanner bits or whatever the hell they were, the cigar cutter, the hair, the teacup—but couldn’t figure out why any of them would cause such a strong reaction. She wanted to return and question Roe further, but the superintendent said it would have to wait until she was less agitated, which could take days.

Trinity broke through Josie’s thoughts. “You mean you couldn’t take another hour of that bitch Laura’s scrutiny and passive-aggressive bullshit remarks. I don’t understand why she even bothered to show up.”

Josie didn’t respond. Laura had taken Gretchen’s advice and no longer openly criticized Josie, but she still managed to get her digs in. Laura was annoying, but Josie had long ago resigned herself to the fact that Noah’s sister was never going to warm up to her. With his mom gone, she was his closest family. Despite the fact that she made Josie want to punch her regularly, she loved Noah—and he loved her. Josie didn’t want to be a wedge between them.

The current situation was beyond stressful, and everyone dealt with stress differently. For Noah’s sake, Josie was trying to extend Laura some grace. “She’s hurting, too.”

Trinity made a noise of exasperation, shifting the messenger bag with her laptop in it from one shoulder to the other. “The Josie of ten years ago would have cold-cocked her in the face right in the middle of Gretchen’s living room.”

Josie laughed. Really laughed for the first time since this nightmare began. It felt good and awful and soothing and wrong. “You know,” she said, heading toward the stairs. “If I recall, you were one of the many people who insisted I go to therapy. Well, here I am, a bigger, better, more patient person, and now you’re complaining.”

She could hear Trinity trudging up behind her. “Sometimes I miss that other version of you, that’s all.”

“Yeah, everyone misses the alcohol abuse and hair-trigger temper, I’m sure.”

“Don’t get me wrong. You’re still a badass but all that therapy still isn’t helping you emote properly,” Trinity goaded. “Come on, let’s have a good cry together.”

“No.”

She would cry when Noah was back in her arms. Whatever that looked like.

Dread filled Josie’s stomach as they reached the second floor. The door to their bedroom hung open. More of his clothes were in the hamper. Trinity had made sure no one washed them.

Forty-five hours.

Mentally, Josie smacked the dread down, visualized grinding it into a million tiny pieces with her boot. She wouldn’t sleep in that room again until Noah was with her. She would find him. Alive.

The universe would just have to bend to her will.

“Come on,” she told Trinity, heading toward the first guest bedroom where she and Noah kept their printer.

On the way back from Muncy, Josie had decided they might have a better chance at finding some link to Noah’s whereabouts if they tracked down some of Lila’s victims. The only viable lead they had for doing so were the newspaper clippings in Lila’s trophy case of terror.

“Don’t bother with the ones about Dex or our family,” said Josie. “We don’t need those.”

Trinity booted up her laptop and used the now-restored Wi-Fi to connect with the printer. “That only leaves two.”

“Forget the one about the house fire that killed a former foster father,” Josie said. “Given the advanced age of that guy, I’m guessing he was one of Lila’s foster parents. He likely abused her and killing him was revenge. It happened right after she left me in Lisette’s custody. I’m not sure that rabbit hole will lead us anywhere.”

“Then we’ll look at the other one.”

Using the picture of the clipping that Josie snapped before Heather’s team took Lila’s entire box into evidence, Trinity used a database to locate the full article. The printer whirred to life.

Five minutes later, they sat side by side, cross-legged on the bed, pages spread before them. The article was from a Williamsport newspaper, dated eight years ago. Together, they scanned it.

“This is fairly recent,” said Trinity. “I mean, this would have been only a year before Lila came back to Denton to try to ruin your life and kill the two of us. But this doesn’t seem like Lila’s work, does it?”

Josie took a moment to read the article more closely.

FORMER HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR PLEADS GUILTY TO FELONY CHARGES AFTER EMBEZZLEMENT SCANDAL

Alec Slater, former director of Williamsport General Community Hospital, pleaded guilty Friday to embezzling more than $200,000 from a charitable account. He was sentenced to five years’ probation with no prison time, according to the Lycoming County District Attorney. Thirty-nine-year-old Slater, a local resident, pled guilty to felony counts of theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking, computer trespass, access device fraud, and forgery, according to court dockets.

Slater initially faced over a year in prison for these offenses but given that he had no previous arrests or criminal records, the judge chose to hand down no prison time. He will also be required to pay back all the money he stole to the Williamsport General Community Hospital Charitable Fund.

Slater acted as the hospital’s director for over ten years before embezzling the funds during the last year of his tenure. Shortly after taking over the position of director, he was tasked with overseeing the sizable charitable account which had been put in place decades ago by the hospital’s then Medical Executive Board. It was initially created to provide funds for patients in dire need of care who had no insurance and few assets to pay for said care. Donations from private citizens and community leaders funded the account. In the future, it will be managed by a board of directors rather than the hospital administrator.

“It’s just a huge betrayal,” said a coworker who worked closely with Slater for many years. “I never could have imagined Alec doing something like this, stooping so low to take money from a charity. That’s not the Alec I knew. He should have gone to prison.”

Josie rubbed her eyes. “Lila wouldn’t have this in her little trophy box if she didn’t have something to do with it.”

“It doesn’t even mention her, though.”

“Exactly,” Josie said. “She always got away with everything. Notice this article says Slater had to pay back the money but it doesn’t say what he did with it.”

Trinity frowned. “You think she somehow got him to embezzle money for her?”

“Something like that. It definitely fits her pattern—well, one of her patterns.”

The driving forces behind Lila’s behavior had always been startlingly predictable. Men she could control because they fed her starving ego. Men who might fill the void inside her caused by the circumstances of her birth and a life that repeatedly reinforced the notion that she was nothing. Worthless. That was why she’d always been so jealous of Josie. As an infant, Josie was supposed to be little more than a bargaining chip to win back Eli Matson’s affection. When Eli fell in love with Josie—supposedly his own daughter—Lila went mad. The same thing happened with Dex when he began to care for Josie. Lila had never known love, so she didn’t understand it. What had the woman who’d read Lila’s foster care file said about it? Everything bad you can imagine happening in a foster home happened to Lila.

If she’d ever stood a chance after being rescued from Roe Hoyt, it had been crushed under the unforgiving boots of the foster care system as it stood in the sixties and seventies.

Beyond trying to fill the void left in her soul with the attention of men, Lila only ever cared about three other things: drugs, money, and revenge. Drugs were plentiful enough that she’d never had an issue getting them. Her revenge tended to be the type that ended in someone’s house burning down, as evidenced by the first article. Which meant that she’d somehow ensnared Alec Slater and convinced him to ruin his career and possibly go to prison to provide her with a payoff.

“Slater was either romantically involved with her,” Josie said, “or Lila had something on him.”

Trinity tapped a nail against the screen, indicating the date on the article. “He was thirty-nine. Lila would have been a lot older and if it was this close to when she returned to Denton, she wouldn’t have been looking so great.”

Lila had been dying of cancer at that time. Josie hadn’t even recognized her after the disease ravaged her body. It wasn’t out of the question that she still could have seduced a younger man, but Josie thought this particular scenario involved something darker and more treacherous.

“There’s no mention of a wife or family,” Trinity added. “But what if this is Dylan’s father?”

The same thought had been swirling at the edge of Josie’s tired consciousness. Though if that was the case, it meant Alec Slater was dead. Dylan had told Dex that his father passed away. Josie held her hands out for the laptop and Trinity handed it over without protest, watching as Josie opened a new browser tab. For the next twenty minutes, they searched for any information they could find about Alec Slater, eventually discovering that he was married and had a daughter. By all accounts, he was still alive. Disappointment hit Josie hard.

It could never be that easy. Not when her husband’s life hung in the balance.

Trinity gave a frustrated sigh. “What do you think? Is it still worth tracking this Slater guy down?”

They had no other leads, no more clues to how Lila had spent her years after leaving Josie with Lisette.

Forty-six hours.

“Yes. Let’s do it.” Josie stood up and stretched her arms over her head.

Trinity snapped her laptop closed and gathered up the printouts. “I’ll find him then. Hopefully he’s still in the Williamsport area. We could pay him a visit tomorrow.”

Josie’s phone rang. Trinity abandoned her messenger bag and climbed off the bed, coming to Josie’s side as she pulled it out of her pocket. The two of them stared at it like it was a bomb about to go off.

Not Heather.

“Josie,” Trinity said softly. “You have to answer.”

“No, I don’t.” Everything inside her started to shrink, to curl in on itself. An emotional retreat. If she didn’t fall back, she wouldn’t survive this, and she would be damned if she let herself break.

“You should.” Trinity’s voice was still gentle.

Josie swiped the decline icon, shocked at the steadiness of her finger. “No,” she said firmly. “I have to find Noah.”

Trinity opened her mouth as if she was going to say more but then decided against it. She gathered her messenger bag and walked to the door, where she stopped to check her own phone. “Drake will be here soon.”

Josie was surprised by just how much she wanted to see Drake. He wasn’t just her future brother-in-law. He’d become a good friend to her and Noah. He would be another cool head in this chaos, just like Trinity. Like Gretchen and Paula. Josie knew he’d be there for whatever she needed, making no demands of her.

“Is he getting a hotel?” she asked, following Trinity downstairs.

“Yes, but don’t worry, I’m staying with you at Gretchen’s house.”

Josie’s automatic response was to tell her she didn’t need to do that, she should go stay with her fiancé, but the truth was that Josie needed her right now. Needing anyone—besides Noah—was a difficult thing for her to admit. She was glad Trinity didn’t make her say it.

“Call him back. I’m going to go out front and see if I can get Turner on the phone.”