The Girl With No Name

Chapter Twenty-Four

Josie’s voice shook with rage and frustration. “I told this woman I would protect her.”

“Boss, this isn’t your—”

She shot up out of her seat and Noah jumped back as she pointed a finger at him. “Don’t. That was not a marshal. That is either the guy who beat her badly enough to break her face, or he’s taking her to that guy.”

She stalked back and forth across the room, her anger like a balloon inflating inside of her, stretching her to her limits. Noah watched her pace like a caged wild animal. “She was my only connection to Luke,” she said. “Now she’s gone.”

Noah stared at the screen where Josie had paused the footage on Jane Doe’s face. “Why didn’t she say something? Scream, fight? Something? She was in a police station.”

“Haven’t handled a lot of domestic violence cases, have you?”

He met her eyes. “What does that mean?”

Josie motioned to the screen where Jane Doe’s terror-stricken eyes peered at them. “Why don’t all victims of domestic violence run to the police? They’re too scared. These guys have a psychological hold over their victims, and most of the time the system fails them when they do speak up.”

Noah raised a brow. “She was in a police station.”

“That’s right. He knows where she is now. Let’s say she screamed and raised hell and Lamay arrested this guy—then what? He’s out on bail in a few weeks and now he’s even more pissed that she went to the police.”

“So it was better for her to go with him?”

Josie shook her head. The room suddenly seemed too small, the air too thick. “You don’t understand what it’s like to live with someone like that. Someone who hurts you. Someone who finds ways to keep hurting you even when people are trying to help you.”

“You do?”

She ignored his question. That wasn’t a conversation she was going to have with Noah. Not today, maybe not ever. “I need to find this woman,” she said instead.

He held her gaze for a long moment, as if waiting for her to say more. When she didn’t, he suggested, “Pull the external footage. Maybe we can see what kind of vehicle they left in.”

Josie took a deep breath, willing herself to focus. What she wanted to do was throw everything she could get her hands on, destroy everything in her path, but none of that would help get Luke back or change the fact that she had put Jane Doe back into the hands of whoever was hurting her. She sat down to pull the footage from the exterior of the building and sent Noah to do a computer search for any and all Kim Conways in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

They had exterior cameras all around the building. The man who took their girl had entered through the front, so Josie pulled that up first. The view extended roughly a half block in each direction and encompassed the small visitors’ parking lot in front of the building. But the man didn’t park out front. He entered the frame on foot and exited with one hand clamped firmly around Jane Doe’s upper arm, dragging her along. They walked down the sidewalk and out of the frame.

“We can’t trace his vehicle,” Josie said, trying to keep the hopelessness out of her voice. “He parked out of range of the cameras. We don’t even know what he was driving.”

She looked around, suddenly remembering she was alone in the video room and went out to the front desk where Lamay was hanging up the phone. He used his sleeve to wipe sweat from his brow. His face was pale, and he wouldn’t look at her. “I’m sorry, boss,” he mumbled. “I made a mistake. The Marshal’s Office didn’t send anyone here to pick up the Jane Doe. I can’t believe I—I’m really sorry, boss.”

Carefully controlling her voice, Josie said, “From now on, all transfers from us to anyone outside of the Sheriff’s Office have to be specially approved by me. No exceptions. You call me at home if you have to. You got that, Lamay?”

He nodded.

“We’ll discuss disciplinary action later. For now, I need you to send two or three units out to patrol the town looking for this guy. Notify the state police as well. They’ll be eager to help since this is connected to Luke’s case.”

He nodded again, still unable to look at her.

Josie left him to his work and headed to her office. Noah was there already. “Where’s Gretchen?” she asked.

“I put her on Kavolis since you said you needed me here. I couldn’t find any record of him having been a guest at the Eudora Hotel when Dunn was here in May, but if the rooms were reserved under Dunn’s name, he wouldn’t be in the computer. Gretchen’s going to show his driver’s license photo to some of the staff and see if anyone remembers him.”

“Great,” Josie said. “Anything on Kim Conway?”

“There are eight Kimberly Conways in Pennsylvania but none of them are younger than thirty-eight, so not her. There are nine Kimberly Conways in New Jersey. One of them lives in Margate, which is not far from Atlantic City, and she is twenty-two.”

“Criminal record?”

“No.”

“Facebook account?”

“Not that I could find.”

“Driver’s license photo?”

Noah frowned. “I can’t view New Jersey driver’s license photos, only the records.”

“Shit. I forgot.” Josie sat in her chair. “The Conway connection is bothering me,” she said.

“Is there a connection?”

“I don’t know. It’s too coincidental, don’t you think? Luke’s best friend was a Conway. Jane Doe is most likely Kim Conway—girlfriend of Eric Dunn whose lackey we just found dead on Luke’s property. Those dots aren’t hard to connect.”

“So, let’s say the common denominator is Eric Dunn.”

“No, the common denominator is Jane Doe. She was at both crime scenes.”

“Okay, well, if Jane Doe is Dunn’s girlfriend, why doesn’t he show up and tell us that?”

“Because if she disappears with a United States marshal and we think that she’s gone back into Witsec, we’ll never know or even notice when he has her killed and disposes of the body.”

“Why would he want to kill his own girlfriend?”

“I have no idea.”

“Are you ready to pay Eric Dunn a visit?”

“Not without confirming that Jane Doe is his girlfriend. Can you get me Brady Conway’s mother’s phone number?”

“Of course,” Noah said.

Josie was thinking of the girl’s face in the camera and her silent plea for help. Guilt pricked at her. She might have lied about her amnesia, but she had tried to tell Josie that she was in trouble. The burns on her back and the old facial fractures were objective evidence, and Josie had ignored them, putting her further into harm’s way by releasing her photo so quickly. What if she had waited a few hours like the girl had requested?

“Don’t second-guess yourself,” Noah said.

Josie gave a pained smile. “You can read my mind now?”

He smiled back at her. “I’m getting better at it,” he joked. “I’m just saying—she was the only lead we had on Luke’s whereabouts. You had to find out what you could about her sooner rather than later. You did the right thing by releasing her photo. How could you have known someone would be desperate enough to find her to impersonate a United States marshal?”

Josie used her fingers to roll a pen along the surface of her desk. What if I’ve lost him already? she wondered, but she didn’t say this to Noah. Still, he said, “We’ll find Luke. I’ll go track down Mrs. Conway’s number.”

Noah turned to leave and at once, Josie felt panicked. Being alone had become unbearable. So many devastating unanswered questions rolled through her mind.

“Wait,” she called.

He stopped, half out the door and half in her office. “What is it?”

She beckoned him back into the room. He waited, an uncertain smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. A few seconds of silence passed between them. Long enough for Josie to hear the muffled sound of someone streaming coverage of the Aaron King case—either from their phone or from one of the desktop computers. The sound of Trinity Payne’s voice floated under the door. “Today, the prosecution intends to introduce DNA evidence linking King to his last victim…”

Noah said, “Boss?”

She couldn’t tell him that she didn’t want to be alone. She was his superior. They had a case to work. People were missing: her fiancé, a tiny infant, and an abused woman. She motioned to the doorway. “Will you tell them to turn off that damn Aaron King coverage, please?”

“Sure thing,” he said, and then he was gone.