Page 59

FIFTY-EIGHT

Balancing Trinity’s laptop on her knees, Josie slouched down in her seat and watched Officers Brennan and Conlen leave the Woodland Creek Inn. It was a major step up from the Patio Motel. Clean, well-lit, well-managed and properly fitted with very good security cameras. The parking lot was small, but she had managed to find a spot where she wasn’t likely to be seen that also gave her a clear view of the entrance. While she waited for them to pull away in their cruisers, she sipped from a paper cup. Bitter gas station coffee scalded her tongue. She tried not to gag. Spewing it all over the computer and the inside of Trinity’s rental car would not go over well with her sister. Despite the fact that the sludge was probably a day old and that there had been no sugar or creamer on hand to soften the taste, she needed the caffeine. It was foura.m.

Noah had been missing for seventy-eight and a half hours.

Drake and Gretchen had given her good advice. Sleep. Rest. Once Alec Slater called, there was no way in hell that was happening, no matter how badly her body ached for it or how her eyes burned with exhaustion. After checking into the hotel, Alec had had a long conversation with his daughter. Then he’d taken a drive to a nearby convenience store to buy more cigarettes. When he returned, Erica was gone. Taken. He was certain of it.

Josie dutifully told him to call 911. He’d wanted her to come but she couldn’t. Not in a police capacity. Not in any way that would interfere with the job her colleagues had to do. Instead, she promised to be there after he spoke with them. She wasn’t even sure why. This wouldn’t lead to Noah. It wouldn’t give her the name of the man currently being hunted by Denton PD and the state police.

But she didn’t know what else to do and the desperation in Alec’s voice had called to her like a siren song. He was as terrified of losing his daughter as Josie was of losing her husband.

She choked down the rest of the coffee. The display on the laptop screen was dimmed as much as possible so she didn’t draw attention to herself. Between that and Josie’s tired eyes, completing her research had been a struggle. Making a list of all current Phelan construction sites as well as all properties owned by Mace had given her something to do while she waited for Alec. She’d come up with a third theory to top off her Tower of Absurdity which was supported by absolutely no evidence and sponsored by her raving lunacy.

But if Josie was right, then Gina had found Erica inside the children’s hospital build and tried to sneak her to safety because she knew that Mace was somehow involved in whatever led to Erica being bruised, battered, and held against her will. If Josie was right, Erica had been brought there for the purposes of being killed and buried where no one would ever find her body. The mysterious “Dylan,” or Mr. O Negative, had seen the two women escaping together and in the heat of the moment, stabbed Mace’s sister to death. Josie wasn’t sure how or why he’d gone from that scene to her home, or the role the rest of his crew played in what happened to Noah, but her theories dictated that Mace would have known that the three men had taken a law enforcement officer.

Obviously, they couldn’t be trusted to keep a twenty-year-old girl captive. They couldn’t be relied on not to kill Mace’s sister. They also couldn’t retrieve an item from Lila’s trophy box without injuring and abducting a law enforcement officer. Josie doubted that Mace would then entrust them with handling Noah—dead or alive.

Alive. He has to be alive.

Between the development projects being handled by the company and Mace’s own personal properties, there was a plethora of options for hiding or disposing of a body. Noah was at one of them. She was certain.

Or maybe she was just certifiably insane now.

Josie didn’t know what she was going to do with the list at this juncture, but she liked having it.

From her periphery, she saw Alec push through the doors of the hotel, still dressed in the same clothes he’d had on behind Burgers. He paused to light a cigarette, scanning the parking lot. When Josie flashed the headlights, he lumbered in her direction. She stepped out of the car before he reached it and motioned for him to walk with her.

Woodland Creek Inn was adjacent to Denton University’s campus. Silently, they made their way out of the parking lot, through an empty plot of land to the crest of a hill that overlooked the stadium. The structure was no more than a hulking shadow, the soft yellow lights along the pavement surrounding it barely piercing the darkness.

“Here,” Josie said, stopping before they made their descent. “University police patrol the campus during the night. I don’t think either one of us is prepared to deal with that kind of hassle.”

Alec snorted. “You got that right.”

Between the hotel behind them and the stadium below, there was enough ambient light for them to see one another, although not very well. The end of Alec’s cigarette flared orange, giving Josie a clearer glimpse of his face. He’d been crying. A pit opened up in her stomach.

“The officers you spoke with,” she said. “Did they pull the footage from inside the building?”

“And outside, yeah,” he said in a scratchy voice. “I was right. They took her. Two men. Grabbed her just down the hall from our room. She’d gone to the vending machines. When I got back from the store, she wasn’t in the room so that’s where I went looking for her. One of those nasty sneakers she was wearing was on the floor and…I don’t know. Father’s instinct, I guess. I knew something was wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” said Josie. “Did the officers say anything about the two men?”

Alec lowered himself to the grass, pulling his knees toward his chest and resting his forearms over them. The cigarette bobbed between his fingers. “No. Wouldn’t even let me watch the footage. They were going to get still photos and try to pull a license plate number from the car they were driving.”

It was no coincidence that Erica had been kidnapped after she came out of hiding and talked with the police. A shiver ran the length of Josie’s body as she settled beside Alec. Entering a hotel and snatching a grown woman in full view of surveillance cameras was incredibly brazen. After the perpetrators had been so careful to avoid getting caught during the numerous armed robberies they’d committed, this seemed out of character.

It was sheer panic.

They were trying to tie up loose ends. This was the most dangerous time for Erica and for Noah, if he was still alive.

Alec stubbed out his cigarette under his boot. “All these years, I never told another soul what really happened with the embezzling. Not until I talked to you and your sister. It felt…good to, uh, let it out.”

Josie said nothing.

“Thank you for coming, especially since your husband is still missing.”

“You’re welcome,” she choked out.

There was a moment of silence and then Alec began to sob quietly, his shoulders quaking. His despair hung heavy in the air between them, stoking Josie’s own fear. Mentally, she patched the holes where it poked through her protective shell. She laid a palm on Alec’s forearm. Staring straight ahead, he nodded and then patted her hand. It was all she could do. There were no words of comfort in this situation. Josie knew that firsthand.

After several minutes, he calmed enough that she withdrew her touch. Lifting the collar of his shirt, he wiped his face. “It shouldn’t be this damn hard to protect one kid. I don’t even know what the hell kind of trouble she got herself into in the first place.”

From everything Josie had learned in the last several hours, she was inclined to believe Erica had been at one of the parties that Mace Phelan liked to throw at his sprawling residences and seen something she shouldn’t have. She was certainly in the same age range as the young women whose parents had sued Mace for injuries sustained at or after leaving one of his parties.

“She didn’t tell you?” Josie asked, trying not to sound too eager but desperate to know if Erica had told her father anything she hadn’t shared with the police. Something that might lead her to Noah.

“Nope,” Alec said. “She wouldn’t tell me one damn thing. Not about that.”