Her Final Confession

Chapter Two

PRESENT DAY

Denton, Pennsylvania

Spread out on the kitchen table before Josie was a vast array of brochures advertising home security systems. It had been six months since her life was turned upside down by the woman Josie had thought was her mother. The assault on Josie’s life and sanity had included a home break-in, and for months she’d been trying to select a home security system advanced enough to keep her anxiety at bay. Twice she’d had the representatives out to the house to install the systems but changed her mind at the last minute when she discovered a hidden flaw or outrageous additional fees.

From the pile, she pulled out a colorful brochure from Aegis Home Security.

SPECIALIZING IN HOME SECURITY FOR OVER 20 YEARS.

They were one of the few companies transparent enough to put their full pricing scheme in their promotional materials. She flipped it open and looked at the options. She wondered if a dog would be a better way to go. A big dog. But her work schedule could be crazy. As a detective for the small city of Denton, Pennsylvania, her cases often kept her away from home for days, even nights. Sometimes she only returned long enough to shower, change, and head back out to work. If she owned a dog, she’d have to hire a dog walker. Then she’d worry about whether the dog walker was trustworthy. Josie sighed. Too many complications. She would just have to bite the bullet and spend a small fortune on a security system if she ever wanted to feel safe in her own home again. Her fingers hovered over a smaller brochure from a different company: Summors Security.

A knock at her front door interrupted her thoughts, and she made her way into the foyer. Through her peephole, she saw that it was Lieutenant Noah Fraley. She opened the door and looked him up and down, giving a low whistle. “Well,” she said. “If I knew you cleaned up this nicely…”

He wore a perfectly cut charcoal-gray suit with a tasteful yellow-and-gray striped tie that brought out the hazel of his eyes. When he smiled at her, she felt a slight flutter in her chest. “Very funny,” he said, stepping past her and making his way back to the kitchen. “You’re not ready. You’re not even changed.”

Josie looked down at her jeans and faded Luke Bryan T-shirt. “It’ll only take me a minute.”

“Isn’t that what all women say before they spend an hour on hair and makeup?”

Josie raised a brow. “Watch it. I don’t have to bring a date to this dinner.”

“Kidding,” Noah said. He looked around the kitchen. Then he walked back out to the foyer, poking his head into the living room. Returning to the kitchen, he asked, “Where is everyone?”

Josie had recently been reunited with a biological family she had no idea she’d been separated from at birth. She was still getting used to calling Shannon and Christian Payne “Mom” and “Dad”. She ticked off her fingers as she spoke. “Shannon and Trinity are out shopping. They’ll meet us at the restaurant. My dad and brother are coming in from Callowhill. They’ll also meet us there. My gram is back at Rockview since I needed the spare bedroom for Shannon, and Mrs. Quinn is on babysitting duty for little Harris this week.”

Noah moved around the table, drawing closer to her until the backs of her thighs were up against the table’s edge. He leaned in, pinning her there, his hands finding her hips and his lips grazing hers. “Do you mean to tell me that we’re actually alone for once? Really and truly alone?”

Josie laughed and slipped her arms around his neck, drawing him down for a kiss. It was true that since the end of the Belinda Rose case, they hadn’t had a moment to themselves when they weren’t working or too exhausted to do much of anything. With an entirely new family in her life, Josie’s home had seen a constant influx of guests in the last six months. Her real mother, Shannon, had stayed with her for several weeks, trading off with Lisette, Josie’s grandmother, when Shannon had to return home for work. Josie’s arm had been in a cast for nearly two months after the attack, and the help was welcome. Occasionally, her sister, Trinity came from New York City, where she worked as a national network news anchor, and spent the weekends with Josie. And a few times, Christian and her teenage brother, Patrick, had stayed with her.

Josie had lived alone for some time. It was difficult at first being surrounded by people at every moment. The first time she had gone into her refrigerator to find that her half-and-half was gone had been frustrating, as had the first time she’d found her bathroom devoid of both towels and mats because Shannon was washing them. Her carefully ordered world, the sanctuary of her home, was being turned on its head. But, she reminded herself, family was more important than any household item or habit she had become accustomed to over the years. The Paynes wanted to swoop in and reclaim the last thirty years in only a matter of months, but for Josie, it was going to take longer than that.

Then there was Misty Derossi, the woman Josie’s late husband, Ray, had been seeing before he died. Misty had given birth to Ray’s son after his death, and the two women had struck up an unlikely friendship. Baby Harris was almost a year old, and Misty had stopped stripping and gotten herself a job at the mayor’s new women’s center doing intake for domestic violence victims, which meant that Josie’s occasional babysitting duties had become routine. Now traces of Harris’s place in Josie’s life were scattered throughout her home—a high chair at one end of the kitchen table, baby gates, sippy cups, a bin of toys, and a rocking chair in her living room. It was easier for Josie to keep some things at her own house rather than ask Misty to lug everything back and forth each time she brought the baby.

Noah’s lips moved to Josie’s throat. His hands cupped her bottom and lifted her up, setting her onto the table. Reflexively, her legs wrapped around his waist. She threw her head back. “Your suit,” she breathed.

His hands traveled up, under her shirt, to the clasp of her bra. “I don’t care about my suit.”

She could feel the frenetic energy building between them, and she knew that if she gave in to it, there would be no turning back. The tension between them had been building for so long, it felt like a volcano about to erupt. She had told him when the Belinda Rose case ended—after their first kiss—that she needed to move slowly, and he had respected that. Josie had a bad track-record with relationships, and she didn’t want Noah to be another casualty of her horrible upbringing and all her personal baggage. She wanted it to be right. Or maybe she was just afraid…

“Is this how you want to do it for the first time?” she asked. “On my kitchen table?”

He scooped her up off the table as if she weighed nothing. “We’ll go upstairs then.”

Her mouth opened to protest, but as her body melded to his, every inch of her skin burned to know what was hidden beneath that suit.

They’d made it as far as the bottom of the stairs when the muffled beat of a cell phone sounded from within his jacket pocket, then from her own somewhere on the other side of the house.

Their bodies froze. Josie broke their kiss first, her head turning toward the sound. She’d left her phone in the living room. Neither one of them said it, but they both knew that there was only one reason both their phones would be ringing so close together. It had to be work, and it had to be serious. Although many of Denton’s twenty-five square miles spanned the untamed mountains of central Pennsylvania, the population was large enough to give the police department about a half dozen murders a year and enough other crimes to keep the police department staff of fifty-plus fairly busy. In recent years, the small city had seen a couple of cases so shocking that they had caught the attention of the entire nation. She and Noah had both been deeply affected by those events, and Josie knew he was feeling the same sense of trepidation that spiraled up from her core. If they were both being called in on their day off, it must be big.

Slowly, Josie unhooked her ankles from Noah’s waist, and he lowered her to the ground. His phone stopped, and Josie’s began again. She straightened her clothes and walked into the living room to answer it. Denton Chief of Police, Bob Chitwood, wasted no time getting to the point. “Quinn. I need you and Fraley on the street right now. We got a homicide.”

“Sir,” Josie said, “we were—I—”

“I know. I don’t care. Get your asses out to the scene right now.” He rattled off an address that sounded familiar to Josie.

Chitwood’s voice was so loud, it carried across the room to where Noah stood in the doorway, his suit wrinkled, one eyebrow raised. He mouthed the word Gretchen?

Gretchen Palmer was another detective with the Denton Police Department. Josie said, “Detective Palmer is on duty tonight. She can handle it.”

Chitwood made a noise of exasperation. “I’m aware of who’s on duty, Quinn. But I can’t get hold of Detective Palmer.”

“Did you try her—”

His voice rose to a shout. “Dammit, Quinn, I don’t have time for twenty questions. I’ve got a dead body, a crime scene, and no detective. Now one of you get over there.” He spat out the address again, and it was then that Josie realized why it was familiar.

It was Gretchen’s home address.