The Girl With No Name

Chapter Forty-One

Josie arrived at Denton Memorial well before visiting hours. Noah had told her Misty’s room number on the fourth floor where Josie flashed her credentials at the nurses’ station and was promptly taken to see Misty. She was propped up in bed, one of her arms in a sling, her head swathed in white gauze and her face badly bruised. Josie noticed that one side of her mouth drooped slightly.

“Not too long,” the nurse whispered. “She’s had a major head injury and a very invasive surgery. She’s on a steady morphine drip. She needs her rest to heal.”

A guest chair had been pulled up beside Misty’s bed. A thin white hospital blanket was balled up on its seat. She knew Brittney had been keeping vigil at Misty’s bedside. Her friend had probably gone home for some proper rest. Josie pushed the blanket aside and perched on the edge of the seat. For a few moments she watched Misty’s steady breathing. Then she studied the monitor over her bed which kept track of her heart rate, blood pressure, respiration and oxygen saturation.

Touching Misty’s hand, Josie said her name a few times until Misty’s eyes fluttered open. They were small slits in her swollen, purple face and they stared blankly at Josie. She opened her mouth to speak but only a scratchy sound came out.

Josie stood so she could get closer. “It’s Josie Quinn.”

“Jo…” Misty trailed off. A thin line of drool snaked from the side of her mouth. Josie could see the gap along her upper gum line where her tooth had been knocked out.

“Misty,” Josie said. “I need to know what happened to you. What happened at your house? Can you tell me? Do you remember?”

Her eyes left Josie’s face and searched the room, finally settling on her stomach. Her good hand pressed against it. Josie watched the terror blanket her face. “My baby,” she said. “Where is—where is he?”

Josie squeezed her hand, wishing she had better news to give this poor, battered woman. “We’re looking for him. I’m doing everything I can to find him, but I need your help. I need to know what happened after Victor was born. Who was with you?”

Misty’s gaze found hers again. A tear slid from one of her eyes. “A man took him. I tried to… I tried to stop him. I tried… is my baby okay? Where is he?”

Josie’s stomach burned. “We’re looking for him,” Josie repeated. She took out her phone and pulled up a photo of Denny Twitch’s driver’s license. She held it close to Misty’s face. “Is this the man?”

Misty gave a slow nod. More drool dripped down her chin. Josie searched out a box of tissues and used one to dab gently at Misty’s face. “Do you know him?” Josie asked.

“No,” Misty said. “He came in the… the back.”

“There was no sign of damage to the back door. Was it unlocked?”

Another slow nod. More tears leaked from Misty’s eyes. “My baby. Where is my baby?”

Josie didn’t answer. Instead she pulled up a photo of Kim Conway and showed it to Misty. “How about her? Do you know her? Was she there?”

Misty’s eyelids fluttered, and Josie knew she wouldn’t be able to stay awake much longer. “Kim,” said Misty. “Brady’s sister. Luke’s friend.”

Josie felt a jolt go through her like a current of electricity. “She knew Luke? How did she know Luke?”

“She was there.”

“Where? At your house?”

Misty’s head bobbed in confirmation. “The baby came. She helped me…”

“She came to your house, said she was a friend of Luke’s and—”

“Needed to stay.”

“Needed a place to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Then the baby came. Why didn’t you go to the hospital?”

Misty’s eyelids lowered.

“Misty,” Josie said. “Stay with me. You were with Kim at your house when you went into labor. Why didn’t she take you to the hospital? Why didn’t you call 911? Where was Kim when the man took your baby? Misty!”

But her breathing started to even out, and Josie knew she had fallen back into a morphine-induced sleep. She watched Misty for a little longer, dabbing occasionally at the drool that leaked from her lips. When the nurse came in to check her IV, Josie left. She could always send Noah back later or return herself, but she doubted that Misty could tell them anything useful that they hadn’t already pieced together. Except perhaps why she had delivered at home with Kim’s help and where Kim was when Denny Twitch snuck into her home and took her baby. A thousand other questions raced through Josie’s mind. Why had Kim gone to Misty’s house in the first place? Had Luke sent her? What had Kim been after? Had she been there when Twitch attacked Misty and if so, had she tried to stop the attack? Or had she run because she had known what he was capable of?

Back at the station, Josie spent her morning trying to catch up on the mound of paperwork she had to clear as chief. It did nothing to keep her mind off all the questions twisting round and round in her head. It also did nothing to quell the heavy ache in her chest which she was certain was a sob just waiting for an opportunity to erupt from her body. Every second brought new visions of what Dunn might have done to Luke. Her mind pictured his lifeless body in so many different scenarios that it started to make her feel sick. She put the paperwork aside and called the cell phone providers again, trying to impress upon them that lives were at stake. Twenty minutes later, Josie and Noah were behind her desk, shoulder to shoulder, looking at maps on Josie’s laptop.

Noah pointed to the screen, tracing the triangle formed by the three cellular towers the cell phone companies had flagged as getting optimal signal strength from two of the phones Denny Twitch had been calling. “Here. This is our area.”

It was a swath of land south of Denton, outside of Alcott County. She would have to get in touch with local police there if they were going to do any kind of search. “How big of an area are we talking?” Josie asked.

“It’s about twelve miles.”

Josie felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. “Twelve miles? I thought they could pin this down to within a mile or two.”

“It’s a rural area. The towers aren’t as close together. But look, the fact that most of this is farmland or game land might actually help us.”

“How do you figure?”

Nimbly, he ran his fingers over the flat square of the computer mouse, swiping and clicking until he had a Google map showing the overhead satellite images of the area. One half looked like a series of irregularly shaped green and brown squares threaded with the thin lines of roads. The other half was densely wooded and marked on the screen as State Game land. Zooming in, Josie could see that he was right. Most of the green squares outside of the game land were cornfields and other crops. There were few manmade structures, and the ones that existed stood out white or gray in stark contrast to the earthy tones of the uninhabited land. Toward the bottom of the area was the northernmost point of a town called Fairfield. Josie could see the roofs of various buildings grouped tightly together. “I don’t think they’d be holding anyone in a populated area,” she said. “We’re looking for something out of the way. Where people aren’t going to ask questions. Fairfield isn’t that big. Thugs like Twitch coming and going in the town would draw a lot of attention.”

“You don’t think them coming and going from someplace remote would draw even more attention?” Noah asked.

“If it’s remote enough, there won’t be anyone around to see them coming and going, so no, I don’t think that would draw more attention than if they were in town.”

They stared at the screen. Josie reached forward and swiped the mouse, bringing the tiny arrow of the cursor over two buildings standing alone in the middle of several fields. One was quite large and L-shaped with a peaked roof. “This looks like a farm of some kind,” she said. “There’s the house and then, back here, that’s a big barn.”

“That looks like equipment,” Noah said. “It’s remote but if the farm is still operational then I doubt Dunn’s men set up shop there.”

“We’ll need to call the county sheriff,” Josie said. “We’ll need to coordinate with them anyway. Maybe they can tell us whether the farm is still in business.”

Noah marked down the names of the rural routes nearest to the farm. “Okay, let’s keep looking. Zoom out.”

Josie clicked on the zoom, and the screen panned out to a more expansive view of the area. They identified two more structures that seemed to be miles from any other buildings or populated areas. One was at the westernmost point of the area they were searching and looked like a factory of some kind. Given the state of good repair of the road leading up to it and the vehicles parked near it, they guessed it was still being used for something. Still, they put it on the list to check with local law enforcement. The second structure was north, closer to Denton, and appeared to be a church. The satellite images showed no vehicles near it, and the land immediately surrounding it was overgrown with grass and weeds. Beyond that it was bordered by trees on three sides.

“I think this is it,” she said.

“A church?”

“It looks abandoned. Let’s check it out.”