Her Final Confession

Chapter Fourteen

In spite of having celebrated with the Paynes well past 2 a.m., Josie was up at six, showered and padding around her kitchen, waiting for her coffee to brew. Her phone chirped. A text from Noah. He was on his way to the station. Be there in ten, she responded.

Hurriedly, she fished her travel mug out of the cabinet, dislodging a tower of Tupperware containers. She tried to stop them from clattering to the floor, but only managed to catch two of them. She gathered them all up and tossed them into her sink, then listened to see if the ruckus had wakened any of her guests. When she didn’t hear anyone stirring, she fixed her coffee and snapped the lid down on her mug.

Her thoughts turned to Gretchen—her empty home, her list of relatives who barely had contact with her, and the photos of her beloved grandparents who now only existed in Gretchen’s life as a collection of boxed-up possessions. She wondered if Gretchen had ever had a house guest while she’d lived in Denton. What would that be like for someone who booby-trapped her own windows, Josie wondered.

At first, Josie thought she would go mad with so many people around all the time; it was quite an adjustment after living alone for so long, but eventually she came to enjoy it. When her house was empty and silent she had too much time to think about all that had happened in the last few months and all that Lila Jensen had taken from her. Then the dark thoughts and cloying anxiety set in. She used to numb her pain with sex and booze. Now she tried to do it with the company of the people she cherished most—the Paynes, her grandmother, Misty, baby Harris, and Noah.

If she didn’t know any better, she might think she was growing as a person.

Josie grabbed a piece of day-old birthday cake and ate it in two bites as she left the house, her mind moving back to James Omar. Had he been Gretchen’s house guest? How did they know one another? Did they know each other?

Noah was already seated at his desk when she arrived at the station, the landline receiver pressed to his ear. She settled into her chair as he finished up the call. “The warden will be in at eight, and he’ll see to it that Gretchen’s mother looks at our photo. He told me that Gretchen has never visited her in all the years that she’s been incarcerated, so I doubt that she has any idea where Gretchen might have gone. But evidently she has two cousins of her own who have visited and written over the years, so you were right. It’s worth at least having her look at the photo.”

“Great,” Josie said. “I’m not surprised Gretchen was never in touch with her. I think we’re going about this all wrong. Think about it. Where did Gretchen spend most of the last fifteen years of her life before she came here?”

“She was Philly PD,” Noah answered. “Homicide. We should be talking to her colleagues.”

“Exactly,” Josie said. She opened the center drawer of her desk, pulled out the personnel file she’d secured the evening before and flipped through it, looking for Gretchen’s resume and references. The first reference listed was a homicide lieutenant, Steven Boyd.

Josie used her cell phone to dial Philadelphia’s Homicide Department and ask for Lieutenant Boyd, only to be told he wouldn’t be in until four that afternoon. She would have to call back. With a sigh, she used her desktop computer to log in to Facebook and search for James Omar. She found his account almost immediately. His profile picture was a close-up of his face, curly hair blowing in the wind. Behind him, Josie could make out a beach. She clicked through to the rest of his photos. There weren’t many. It didn’t appear that he spent much time on social media. There were a few of him and a group of guys, and several of him and his parents and someone that Josie guessed was a younger sister, given her resemblance to both James and the older couple in the photos. There they were at an outdoor concert, a college campus tour, sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner, and cutting down their own giant Christmas tree. They looked happy. Josie felt a tug at her heartstrings. Today they would wake up to a world where they were never happy again. At least, never in the way they’d been before.

She skipped the rest of the photographs and studied his friend list instead. It was lengthy. With a sigh, Josie started working down the list, looking for any connections to Gretchen or Denton.

Three hours later she had a major crick in her neck and no clues. Most of his friends lived in Idaho. There were a few dozen who lived in or around Philadelphia. The rest were scattered throughout the country. There were no connections to either Gretchen or the city of Denton that Josie could find.

Why the hell had Omar rented a car and driven to Denton? What was he doing at Gretchen’s house?

She clicked on his About Me tab. It was no surprise to find that his hometown was Boise, Idaho. He was also listed as single and had attended Purdue for his undergraduate degree. Presently, he was a graduate student at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She had gone right for his photos and friend list when the About Me tab had been there all along. That solved the mystery of why he was in Philadelphia.

“I was right,” Josie said, looking across at Noah.

He came around and studied the computer screen. “Well, that’s two connections to Philadelphia—Gretchen’s old homicide lieutenant and Drexel University.”

Josie stood up and headed to Chief Chitwood’s office. Over her shoulder, she said, “We’re going to Philadelphia.”