Page 53

FIFTY-TWO

“Easy there, killer,” Turner murmured. His hand pressed down on Josie’s shoulder, keeping her in the chair. The anger rolling off her body must have been palpable. For once, she wasn’t annoyed by his uninvited touch. She was on a razor’s edge right now, spinning out, self-control a flimsy thread she could no longer catch. Without Turner holding her in place, she didn’t know what she might do, but she knew it would blow up her entire world. Some dispassionate, professional part of her pushed through the chaos in her mind, reminding her that with witnesses like Erica Slater, a certain amount of finesse was necessary. It would take as long as it took and there was no guarantee they’d get what they needed from her anyway.

“If this was a domestic dispute that Gina Phelan got in the middle of, you know we’ll be able to track this guy down pretty fast,” said Turner. “Palmer’s got this.”

Josie didn’t have the mental resources to reflect on the fact that hell had just frozen over. Never in her life did she think she’d see the day Turner complimented Gretchen.

As if sensing her thoughts, he said, “Don’t tell her I said that.”

Gretchen put on her reading glasses. She flipped a page in her notebook. “Your dad tells me you’re from Williamsport, but you were living in Lock Haven. What were you doing in Denton?”

Erica’s legs slid down to the floor again. “Don’t judge me, okay? I met a guy online. I know, I know, no story that starts like that turns out well, right?” She didn’t wait for Gretchen to respond. “We were messaging on Snapchat for a while. He wanted to meet but I was really nervous. I don’t trust that sort of thing, you know?”

Given the scheme Lila had hatched to ruin the Slaters’ lives, it wasn’t surprising.

“That’s smart,” said Gretchen.

Erica’s fingers poked out of her sleeves, thumbnail chipping away at her nail polish once more. “You know how Snapchat has that location feature? Well, his was usually turned off but over the weekend I noticed it was on, and he was in Denton when he told me he was in Williamsport. My plan was to expose him as the big fat liar he was by coming down here and confronting him but when I got here, I couldn’t find him and his location was turned off again. He sent me a snap once with a picture of him, but you know those disappear. I wanted to save it but then he’d know I did and if I took a screenshot, he’d be notified.”

“This is too practiced,” Josie said through gritted teeth. “While my husband is God knows where, she spent the last three days holed up at the Patio Motel concocting this shit and rehearsing it.”

Erica had chosen to claim that Snapchat was her mode of communication with this mystery guy because its messages and photos disappeared within twenty-four hours. Most people had no idea that police could retrieve much of that data.

The furor swirling inside Josie’s core threatened to blast through her emotional walls and incinerate any restraint she had left. The metal chair quivered under her weight. She was trembling all over and she hated herself for it. Hated her body for betraying her, especially here.

Turner kept gentle pressure on Josie’s shoulder, and she despised the fact that it made her feel grounded. “Do some of that weird breathing shit you do, Quinn.”

“Piss. Off.”

He chuckled. “That’s the spirit.”

“Why would he care if you saved a photo of him?” asked Gretchen.

Josie dropped into her box breathing, hoping Turner wouldn’t notice.

“He wouldn’t care,” Erica said. “But I didn’t want to look desperate. Anyway, my point is that I did look around the last place his location was turned on—down the street from that construction place—but it’s not like I had a photo to reference. I mean, I never met the guy. So yeah, I didn’t get to do the whole dramatic confrontation thing.”

Gretchen peered at Erica from over her reading glasses. “Your dad told us you were seeing someone.”

“I wasn’t. I just told my dad that because he definitely wouldn’t approve of me making contact with anyone I found online.”

“What was this guy’s name?”

“John Smith,” Erica answered easily. Too easily. “It’s probably a fake name, though.”

Gretchen smiled indulgently, like she was buying Erica’s endless stream of bullshit. “Is his profile still accessible to you on Snapchat?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did you get from Lock Haven to Denton?” asked Gretchen.

Unsurprisingly, Erica had an answer ready. “Rideshare. My car is a clunker. There’s no way it would have made it down here and back. Of course, I had to take like three rides since none of those companies go straight from there to here.”

“Which rideshare?” asked Gretchen.

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you intend to stay here for a few days?”

“No. I was going to go home after I made him cry.”

Turner smothered a laugh.

“Where did you lose your phone and purse?”

Erica’s eyes flitted toward Gretchen and then quickly away. “I, um, I’m not sure. It probably happened when we were attacked.”

We.

Gretchen didn’t bother to point out that none of her things had been left at the scene. It was pointless. Erica would probably say the attacker took them, and he very likely had. Hopefully.

“Turner,” Josie said. “Get her number from Alec Slater. Draw up the warrant to ping her phone. If this guy still has it and it’s turned on, we could find him. Even if it’s powered down now or he tossed it, we’d be able to see the last place it pinged and go from there.”

He squeezed her shoulder. “In a minute.”

She was about to argue, but Gretchen spoke again, seizing on the same detail Josie had. The fact that Erica referred to herself and Gina Phelan as “we.”

“Had you ever met Gina Phelan before that day?”

“No.”

Finally, a truth. Now Josie knew what it looked like when she didn’t lie. No prepared answer delivered with a too-transparent attempt at charm. No tightening of the skin around her mouth, no pauses or hesitation before answering, no flitting back and forth of her eyes as she searched for an out. Yet, the “we” implied she and Gina Phelan had formed some type of bond which would not have been possible in the seconds it took for their assailant to stab her.

Gretchen jotted something down in her notebook. “How did you pay for your motel room?”

“I, um, had some cash in my pocket.”

Another ready lie or maybe a half-truth. The uncertain pause—the “um”—gave her away. She had to have had cash to rent the room and to buy the burner phone she’d used to contact Alec, but Josie doubted she’d had it on her person. Hardly anyone carried cash anymore, particularly in Erica’s generation. Perhaps she’d convinced a stranger to lend it to her or she’d stolen it.

Gretchen used her feet to maneuver her chair closer to Erica. “What happened to the clothes you were wearing when you were attacked?”

“I threw them away in the dumpster behind the motel.” She touched the collar of her sweatshirt. “I bought these clothes from a lady a couple rooms down from mine.”

Turner kept his hand on Josie’s shoulder and used the other to take his cell phone from his pocket. His thumb tapped away at warp speed. Josie hoped he was sending the ERT over to the Patio Motel to see if the clothes were still there.

Gretchen moved even closer, subtly invading Erica’s space. “Why did you run?”

“I don’t know.” Erica’s eyelashes fluttered. Her thumb worked harder to dislodge more nail polish. “I was scared. Not thinking straight.”

Given her body language, this, too, was true, though Josie suspected there was more to it.

“You ran right into a crowd of twenty people,” Gretchen pointed out. “And kept going. Why didn’t you stop and ask one of them for help?”

More purple flecks snapped off Erica’s fingernails, landing on the table. “I don’t know, okay? It’s not like I almost get stabbed all the time, okay? I just ran.”

“You kept running,” Gretchen said, though her voice was still quiet and free of judgment. “Then you hid. You weren’t the aggressor in this situation. Why hide?”

Erica abandoned her nails and reached inside the front of the sweatshirt, coming up with a necklace. Josie hadn’t noticed it when she was face to face with the girl. Now her fingers caressed the charm, keeping it covered from Josie’s view.

“I don’t know, okay?”

“Look at me.” Gretchen put her pen down, pushed her reading glasses onto the top of her head and leaned her elbows onto the table.

Slowly, Erica lifted her chin, wincing as she met Gretchen’s eyes.

“Given the bruises on your throat and wrists, I’d guess that someone is hurting you.”

Erica closed her fist around the charm. “No one is hurting me.”

“Where did you get the bruises?”

No response.

Gretchen didn’t try to poke holes in Erica’s neatly wrapped story. Instead, she got right to the point. “The man who came after you on Monday—you know him, don’t you?”

“N-no. I told you, I never saw him before.”

“You can tell me the truth, Erica.”

“I am! I am telling the truth!”

Rage simmered under Josie’s skin with each lie that rolled off Erica’s lips. Turner’s head stayed bent toward his phone as he scrolled and typed with his thumb. All the while, his other hand rested on her shoulder, steady and—she couldn’t believe she was even thinking it—comforting.

“I’m thinking of ordering takeout,” he said absently.

Josie lifted her head, glaring at him, and snarled, “I will punch you right in the throat.”

He chuckled. “None for you then.”

She opened her mouth to tear him a new one, but he squeezed her shoulder again and used his phone to gesture toward the monitor. “Pay attention.”

Gretchen’s tone was soft. “It can feel confusing—humiliating, even—when someone you care about becomes abusive. It happens more often than you think.”

“What?” Erica said incredulously. “Are you serious? That’s not what happened.”

“There’s no reason to be embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed!” Her voice went up an octave. “No one treats me like that. I mean it! No one.”

Getting nowhere, Gretchen swiftly changed course. “You didn’t come to Denton using a rideshare, did you?”

Silence.

“He brought you here, didn’t he?”

Erica didn’t answer. Her fist flexed around the charm of her necklace.

Gretchen tried another avenue of inquiry, one that Josie had been mulling over. “What happened when you got here? Did he expect you to do things for other men?”

In other words, had this boyfriend tried to traffic her?

Erica’s face scrunched up. “What? No! That’s—that’s horrible!”

“Then it was just him hurting you?”

Erica glowered at her. “I told you, no one hurts me! I never saw that guy before.”

“I know this is scary but Erica, I can help you. Keep you safe. But you need to tell me the truth.”

“I am telling the truth! You’re not listening!”

“You don’t need to protect him.”

“I’m not trying to protect him!” she shouted. “I don’t want to protect him!”