Page 55

FIFTY-FOUR

Josie staggered into the municipal parking lot behind the stationhouse. Behind her, Turner said something before pulling the door closed. It was dark. The air was cool and crisp. She tried to get her bearings. Get her legs under her again. Think. A few uniformed officers passed her as they entered the building. Each of them stopped to greet her and offer words of support that she barely registered. She needed to go back inside. She needed to talk to Erica Slater.

Except she would never be granted access to the girl. Even if she managed to get her alone, speaking to her could be a colossal mistake. What Erica knew could be the key not only to finding Noah but to putting his abductors away for a very long time. Any conversation Josie had with her, even one about Lila, could taint that case. No one ever thought about the part that came after a big investigation, after a crime was solved, after arrests were made. That was left to prosecutors and usually carried out with little fanfare, but it was critical. Knowing that perpetrators would be sent to prison was the only thing loved ones had to cling to after their worlds had been shattered.

As desperate as Josie was to find her husband, a realistic part of her, the seasoned professional buried beneath layers of rage and panic, knew that she might not get Noah back alive. If she didn’t, the only thing worth living for would be seeing his killers go to prison. She couldn’t jeopardize that despite the fact that with every fiber of her being, she yearned to throw every rule and regulation she’d ever known into the trash.

She looked around, as if coming out of a trance. Her vehicle wasn’t in the parking lot. On shaky legs, she walked toward the front of the stationhouse. Where had she parked it? There were too many thoughts whirling in her brain.

You can’t always be all roses and sweetness, that don’t get shit done.

It was just an expression. Maybe Lila had heard it from someone else. Maybe lots of other people used it and it was just a coincidence that Erica knew it.

Except Josie knew in her gut that wasn’t true.

She kept walking, giving a half-hearted wave to a cruiser that passed. Erica had unleashed a tornado inside her head. Snippets of her life with Lila, conversations she’d had over the last seventy hours, and the interview she’d just watched. They batted around in her mind, too fast for her to capture.

It didn’t matter anyway. It wouldn’t help locate Noah.

That didn’t stop her from approaching Alec Slater when she saw him standing beside the front steps of the stationhouse, smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t a witness. He had no direct knowledge of anything surrounding Noah’s case.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s going on in there? Is Erica almost done? She’s not in trouble, is she?”

Josie tried to organize her thoughts.

Alec’s brow furrowed. “You okay?”

The man was disheveled, his stained white T-shirt rumpled and his curly hair in disarray. Large bags hung from under his eyes. The faint smell of grease mixed with the smoke flowing out of his nostrils. Earlier, he’d appeared exhausted and defeated. Now, all Josie could see was a parent’s fear in the rigid way he held himself and how his fingers trembled when he flicked his butt to the ground. Josie didn’t bother pointing out the standing ashtray nearby.

“Hey,” he said. “You, uh, need me to call someone?”

“No,” Josie finally managed.

“Is Erica in trouble?”

“Do you have any photos of Erica’s mother? Not your wife. Her biological mother.”

Alec’s head reared back slightly. “What are you—you want photos of Erica’s mother? What’s going on in there?”

A few people sauntered down the street. Josie moved closer to him. “Erica is still being interviewed. That’s all I know. Someone will call you when it’s finished. I need to know about her mother. Do you or Erica have photos of her?”

He eyed her skeptically as he lit a new cigarette. “This is weird, you know that, right?”

“Please,” said Josie. When he didn’t acquiesce, she added, “I think I might have known her.”

Alec waited until a woman walking her golden retriever passed. “Does this have anything to do with Lila Jensen?”

Josie nodded.

With a sigh, he said, “I never saw any pictures of her. My brother didn’t have any when he brought Erica around. We live in the digital age so it’s not like people print them out anymore. He always used those cheap, pay-as-you-go phones. It’s not like his shit uploaded to the cloud. There were only a half-dozen pictures of Erica when she was a baby. Always bothered me. But none of her mom.”

Lila had rarely let herself be photographed. Before leaving Denton, she’d destroyed every picture she could find. The only photo Josie had of Lila from back then had come from Dex.

“Tell me about her,” Josie said.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.” Alec inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs for several seconds before exhaling. “I’m not sure I should. It’s not really my story to tell. Erica doesn’t talk about her much, but I can tell it’s a sensitive subject.”

He had no idea.

“It stays between us,” Josie said. “Just like what you told me today.”

“Awww shit,” he muttered. “My brother—his name was Kiernan, by the way—said they met at a bar. Hit it off, although from the way he talked, the only thing they had in common was drugs.”

Lila had struggled with addiction the entire time Josie knew her. That wouldn’t have changed after she left Denton.

“The pregnancy was accidental,” Alec went on. “They’d only been seeing one another for a few months. Kiernan didn’t know what the hell to do but he was ready to step up. As much as he could, given his issues.”

Josie did the math. Lila would have been forty-three when she gave birth to Erica. At that age, it was sometimes difficult to get pregnant or to carry to term and complications could occur. Illicit drugs wouldn’t have helped. An ugly thought took root. Even at the ideal age and physically healthy, Josie couldn’t have a baby, but Lila—older and using drugs—had done it with ease. The unfairness of it felt like a knife in Josie’s back. Lila had done nothing but rain destruction over countless lives. Josie had spent her career making her city safer and protecting the most vulnerable.

Lila was the one who’d been rewarded with a child.

“Kiernan said Erica had some problems when she was first born but they seemed to resolve. Doctors didn’t think the drug use would have any long-term effects.”

“Lucky,” Josie muttered.

Alec puffed smoke in little bursts. “No shit. Kiernan tried to make it work with this woman, do the whole family thing, but she got bored or started seeing someone else. Maybe both. He couldn’t remember. She took Erica and left. Kiernan was too strung out to notice or even care, apparently.”

“How old was Erica?” Josie asked.

“I think he said about a year old, maybe two. He saw her a few times over the years. When Erica’s mother needed something. No regular contact.”

That also fit Lila’s pattern. Still, Josie couldn’t imagine Lila wanting to keep a baby, much less care for one. Maybe she’d used Erica as a way to get things or scam people. Who could resist a down-on-her-luck single mother with an adorable little girl? Or was it as Erica had described: Lila had liked being worshiped by her daughter? Perhaps a bit of both.

Josie wondered what it had been like to be parented by a Lila who didn’t hate your guts for becoming more than a pawn in her stupid games. Or for unwittingly being competition for a man’s attention. By keeping Erica away from Kiernan Slater, Lila had ensured that she never had to compete with her daughter for his affection. There was a difference between Josie and Erica. Eli Matson believed he was Josie’s father and, as such, he’d always prioritized her over Lila whereas Erica’s biological father didn’t appear to have bonded with her. Whether that was because of his struggle with addiction or because Lila kept Erica away, they would never know.

Erica was Lila’s biological daughter. Josie couldn’t help but wonder if that had made Lila treat her differently. Better, in some small way. Had Lila cared that Erica was her own flesh and blood? Had it mattered to her that she’d carried Erica in her body for nine months?

Josie shook off the thought. “What was Erica’s mother’s name?”

Alec squinted as he tried to remember. “Bonnie something. Romero, I think.”

Bonnie Romero.

B.R. Lila’s signature in choosing her aliases.

Belinda Rose, Barbara Rhodes, Bea Rowe, Bethany Rounds. Bonnie Romero.

Josie massaged her temples with her fingers. The headache she’d managed to ignore while engrossed in Gretchen’s interview with Erica returned with a vengeance. She needed ibuprofen and more caffeine.

She needed Noah.

This wasn’t getting her closer to him, but another question spilled from her lips anyway. “When did Bonnie Romero die?”

Alec tossed another butt onto the ground. “About six months before Kiernan turned up on my doorstep with Erica.”

Josie tried to recall their conversation from earlier, behind Burgers. It felt like it had happened decades ago. “How old was Erica then?”

“Eight, almost nine.”

Faking the death of her alias and providing a death certificate to prove it was certainly not beyond Lila’s capabilities. Someone could always be blackmailed into giving her what she needed. Bonnie Romero had died so that she could move on.

Then she left me for good and I had to live with my bio-dad.

After almost nine years, Lila had abandoned Erica in a way that ensured she could not return. Had Erica stopped being useful, or was that when Lila was first diagnosed with cancer? When she’d returned to Denton to destroy Josie’s life, she’d been desperate for money so that she could afford some experimental treatment. It was her last chance, she’d said.

Then she left me for good.

“Shit,” Alec said, fiddling with his cigarette pack. “I’m out of smokes.”

Erica hadn’t said, “then she died.” Maybe “left me for good” could be interpreted that way but Josie was certain that wasn’t what Erica meant.

“How much longer do you think it will be?” Alec asked, craning his neck to look back and forth along the block, probably searching for a place to buy more cigarettes.

My wife always thought Erica was some master manipulator, but she was a kid! I mean yeah, she had a lying problem. She always did.

Erica had spent eight years trying to make Lila happy. Doing anything she could. Eight years under Lila’s influence. Her tutelage.

I don’t deserve him. His life was ruined all because of me…What I did to him ? —

Erica wasn’t a master manipulator, but Lila had been. Josie had no doubt that Lila had exploited her sweet, young daughter’s desperate need for love and approval for her own selfish ends.

What I did to him.

Alec brushed a hand through his curls. “Do you think they’d let me see her? Just for a few minutes? I’m starting to worry.”

Erica grew up watching Lila plot and scheme against unsuspecting people. Watching her lie as easily as she breathed. She’d probably used her daughter in many of her ploys. That was their normal. In her most vulnerable years, Erica had depended on Lila for her very survival, had yearned for any little scrap of affection from her despite her major failings. It was a toxic carousel controlled entirely by Lila’s whims. There wasn’t a chance in hell Erica would rat out her mother, no matter how low she stooped or who she hurt. In the end, Lila would get what she wanted and Erica would be saddled with the guilt of it all. She would be left behind to witness the wreckage, the ruin of the only person who ever truly loved her.

Alec Slater. Her true dad.

At eleven years old, Erica wouldn’t have had any concept of the ramifications of Lila blackmailing him. She probably never anticipated that he would go to such lengths to protect her. No one in her life had ever cared as much as he did. No one had ever shown her what good parenting or unconditional love looked like. By the time she realized what Alec brought to her life, the damage was done.

I don’t deserve him.

Alec would forgive her. He would understand. But clearly, Erica didn’t believe that.

It was sad. Tragic, even.

“Are you listening to me?” Alec said. “Do you think I can see Erica?”

Pain jackhammered against the inside of Josie’s skull. “I don’t know if they’ll let you see her at this particular moment, but you can certainly ask for an update.”

“I guess you’re right.” He crumpled the empty cigarette pack in his fist and nodded. “Are you going to let me in on why you have this sudden interest in Erica’s mom and what it has to do with Lila Jensen?”

It wasn’t Josie’s place to share her theory that Erica had been in on the blackmail scheme. That was something he should hear from his daughter, if she chose to tell him. Unless he figured it out on his own. She did, however, share her theory about the true identity of Erica’s mother. Shock drained all the color from his face. Josie could relate.

Everything she had learned in the last hour was a shock to her already weary system.

But none of it brought her closer to finding Noah.

Seventy-one hours.