The Girl With No Name

Chapter Fourteen

Josie leaned against her Ford Escape and pressed her cell phone to her ear. It rang three times before Carrieann Creighton picked up. “Josie?”

She plunged right in. “Carrieann, something’s happened to Luke.”

Josie could hear her sharp intake of breath. “Is he… is he alive?”

“I don’t know,” she said honestly.

Somehow, she kept her voice calm as she explained to Carrieann what she had found when she arrived at Luke’s house, stopping short of telling her about Jane Doe. Saying it out loud to his sister made it so much worse. Nearly two years ago they had comforted one another in the hospital while Luke recovered from gunshot wounds. That had felt like the worst-case scenario; Luke’s insides had been shredded by sniper bullets, and he was barely clinging to life after surgery. But this—not knowing where he was, how badly he was injured, or even if he was still alive—this was so much worse.

“I’m sorry,” Josie concluded.

Carrieann’s voice was thick with emotion. “I’m coming there. I can be there by the morning.”

Josie didn’t argue with her. “Carrieann, when was the last time you spoke with Luke?”

A brief silence. Then, “I don’t know, a few weeks ago? You know how Luke is over the phone. It’s tough to get even a few sentences out of him. Everything is always, ‘I’m fine, Josie’s fine, things are fine.’ He never calls me. It’s always me calling him.”

Josie knew this was true.

“When you talked to him, did he seem… off in any way?”

“No,” Carrieann answered. “He seemed the same as always. I know you said he was pretty depressed since his friend died, but I never noticed any difference in him. Josie, why are you asking me these questions?”

“I’m trying to figure out what was going on with him. What he was… what he was involved in.”

“Involved in?”

“Something was going on with him, Carrieann. I don’t think this was random. We’ll talk when you get here, okay?”

“I’ll see you soon,” Carrieann responded before hanging up.

Her next call was to Luke’s station commander at the barracks to let him know what had happened. He related that Luke had been much more reserved since the Conway shooting, but he hadn’t given any indication that anything else was going on. Luke’s commander promised to talk to the other troopers to see if they had any useful information and to lend any assistance they could to the investigation. Josie hung up feeling even more frustrated than she had before she made the calls.

When it became apparent that there was no more that she could do at Luke’s house, Josie left her team there to continue processing the scene and drove around the city. She left her police scanner on, listening to the chatter to drown out her thoughts and be first to hear if anyone called in a response to the Amber Alert. She started out on the rural route that Luke lived on, driving miles in each direction, her vehicle moving slowly while she panned the shoulder of the road on each side. She didn’t know what she expected or hoped to find, but there was nothing. She just didn’t want to go home. With each hour that passed, Josie fought a creeping sense of hopelessness. She had driven down damn near every street in Denton before her eyes started to burn from exhaustion.

She could hear Noah’s voice in her head. Boss, go home. Get some rest.

She was heading home, reluctantly, when her cell phone rang. It was Gretchen. “Boss, I just got a call from the lab. The blood type from Luke’s kitchen was O-neg. So, not Luke.”

The relief Josie felt was so immediate and so strong, for a moment she felt a little light-headed. Collecting herself she said, “If it wasn’t his and it wasn’t Jane Doe’s, then there was someone else there.” She hoped the blood belonged to the person who attacked Luke; it was likely that person would have bled out by now and Luke would be free. Unless he was also dead. No, she couldn’t go there. “Have the lab run a DNA test on it, and we’ll submit it to the state database.”

“Sure thing,” Gretchen said, and Josie could hear her scribbling on her notepad.

“You still at the hospital with our mystery woman?”

“Yeah, they’re waiting to take her for a CT. They had to page the neurosurgeon on call to come in for a consult. It will be a while. Boss, she’s got some… scars.”

“What kind?”

“On her back. Burnt tissue.”

“Fresh?”

“No. I’m no expert, but based on what I’ve seen on the job, I’d say they’re from a hair straightener or a curling iron.”

Josie winced. “You’re thinking domestic violence?”

“Could be. They’re not huge, but there are two of them and one looks older than the other, which suggests it wasn’t an accident. Just thought you’d like to know.”

“Thanks.” Josie sighed. “Call Hummel to relieve you. He can babysit her for the night. I need you fresh in the morning.”

She thanked Gretchen and hung up, driving with more purpose toward her home. As she pulled into her driveway, she saw a light glowing from her living room window. She nearly forgot to put her car in park in her rush to get inside. Was Luke there? Had he been there all along?

But her living room was empty. She stood in the doorway staring at the neat stack of wedding invitations beside a vase filled with late-blooming wildflowers. She loved wildflowers. He must have gone out and picked them and then left them for her, something he hadn’t done in ages. On an end table she found a note in Luke’s handwriting: I’m sorry. I love you. P.S. These three are my favorites. Beside the note were three mock wedding invitations he had selected from the pile on the coffee table.

He had cleaned up after himself and left the light on for her. She bet if she went into her kitchen, all her dishes would be washed and neatly stacked in the drainboard. All the chairs would be pushed beneath the dining room table. It was one of the things about him that had always driven her crazy until after the Conway shooting, when he stopped doing it. When he stopped being himself.

She clutched the note in one hand and collapsed onto her couch, eyes shut tightly against the swell of emotion that threatened to overtake her. He had visited Misty at the strip club behind Josie’s back. On more than one occasion. There had been another woman in his house. Wearing his clothes. Sleeping in his bed. And yet, after acting so coldly toward her that afternoon he had gathered flowers for Josie and picked out the wedding invitations she’d been trying to get him to look at for weeks. What the hell was going on?

She wasn’t even aware of having fallen asleep until a knock on her door startled her awake. Jumping up from the couch, she looked toward the television where the cable box beneath it announced that it was nearly seven in the morning. Daylight crept around the edges of her blinds. She wiped the sleep from her eyes and started for the front door, checking her phone as she went. It was at five percent, and she had no news from anyone on her staff. With a heavy sigh, she pulled the door open.