The Girl With No Name

Chapter Forty-Six

Dr. Anya Feist shook her head as she surveyed the scene. The area where the bodies lay had been cordoned off. After composing herself, Josie had sprung into action, not wanting her officers to see her lose control, even though that was exactly what she felt like doing. She didn’t have that luxury. She contacted a couple of local engineers and construction outfits to come out and assess the scene before her people could move in to process it and move the bodies. It had taken about an hour for them to determine that there was no more imminent danger. It would take longer for them to figure out what the hell had gone wrong.

Once Denton PD had the okay to start their work, Josie sent in her evidence response team and called the medical examiner. Dr. Feist now stood beside her, looking almost as perplexed as she was. “You just like seeing my face, or what?” Dr. Feist said.

“No,” Josie deadpanned. “I really don’t.”

The doctor raised a brow. “I’m not that hard on the eyes.”

Josie knew she should smile or make some joke back, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She had gone on autopilot making calls and barking out commands, but all the while her eyes kept drifting back to the carnage. Her last lead to Luke and Misty’s baby, gone.

Dr. Feist’s fingers were warm on Josie’s forearm. “Hey, Chief,” she said. “You okay?”

Josie looked away from the scene, where some of the construction workers had begun using the crane to lift the piping and the air conditioning unit from the bodies. Dr. Feist’s face was lined with concern. “I’m fine,” Josie mumbled.

“Did you hit your head?” Dr. Feist asked.

“No. I’m fine.”

The doctor put her fingers to the inside of Josie’s wrist. “Your pulse is racing,” she noted. When she pressed the back of her hand against Josie’s forehead, Josie stepped away from her. “Doc, seriously, I’m fine.”

Dr. Feist smiled wanly. “Physically, you mean.”

“I need to make a phone call,” Josie said abruptly. She walked away from Dr. Feist, weaving her way through vehicles and personnel until she found Noah looking over a rough drawing one of the engineers had made of the top floor of the building. “I’m taking Gretchen’s car,” she told him. “You stay on-scene here until everything is wrapped up, okay?”

She started walking away before he could ask any questions. Gretchen’s keys were in the ignition. Josie backed up, turned the car around, and drove off. It was a short drive to the cemetery where Ray was buried. It was a small graveyard, one of the newer cemeteries in Denton. Josie liked it because it was well kept, but that hadn’t stopped people from vandalizing Ray’s headstone.

As she approached it in the twilight, she could see indiscernible graffiti across his name but at least she didn’t smell urine this time. She couldn’t blame the vandals—she still struggled herself with Ray’s betrayal—but she didn’t come to the cemetery to visit the man who had done nothing while innocent girls were violated and killed. She came to visit her childhood friend, her high school sweetheart, the man she had once loved and married. A man she thought was kind and decent. She wished he was alive. What would he say? What would he say if he knew the baby they were looking for might belong to him?

Had he ever really wanted children? The topic must have come up between him and Misty just as it had with Josie, otherwise Misty wouldn’t have known to search out his donor sperm. Josie hadn’t had much time to think about what it meant for Misty to bring a baby into the world whose father was already dead, not to mention a pariah in his own city.

“I’m sorry, Ray,” Josie whispered as she knelt in the grass in front of his headstone. She stared at his name, hating him for the thousandth time for what he did, and for leaving her alone to deal with it.

Night descended around her, and the air grew cold. Josie sat until she felt numb, the events of the last few days playing over and over again in her mind. She tried to find the place where everything had gone irreparably wrong, tried to figure out what she could have done differently. Should she have taken a more direct approach with Dunn? Should she have thrown him in jail and let his lawyers get him out in a day just to put a good scare into him? Even as she thought this, she realized it wouldn’t have done any good. Dunn wasn’t scared of anyone. Perhaps that had been his downfall.

The beam of a flashlight bobbed in the distance beyond Ray’s grave. Josie quietly took her gun out of its holster and held it in her lap. She sat perfectly still, waiting. At first it didn’t look as though it was heading for her, then the light jerked upward and Josie heard a mumbled “Shit”. It was a woman. The voice was familiar.

“Boss?”

Josie let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She put her gun back and called, “Over here, Gretchen.”

The beam of light turned in Josie’s direction. She threw a hand up as it crossed her vision. Gretchen pointed the flashlight straight up in the air, illuminating her own face. “Sorry,” she said. A bottle appeared before Josie’s eyes. “Noah said you like this stuff.”

It was Wild Turkey. Josie took it and Gretchen squatted down, setting the flashlight between them in the grass, pointed upward so they could see one another. “How did you know I was here?” Josie asked.

“Noah said you come here sometimes.”

“Did he?” Josie was surprised; it wasn’t something she told people about. Not even Luke knew that she came here—or how often.

As if reading her mind, Gretchen said, “He just worries about you. A lot of your staff do, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

Gretchen shrugged. “I mean not in the way like they don’t think you’re fit. More in the way that they don’t want anything to happen to you. They already lost one chief. They don’t want to lose another. They respect you. You’re a little bit of a hero around here after what you did up on that mountain.”

Josie’s index finger circled the cap of the Wild Turkey. She sighed. “I don’t feel like a hero,” she said. “I didn’t then, and I don’t today.”

A moment of silence passed between them. Then Josie said, “Why are you here?”

“Thought you might want to know the engineers’ preliminary assessment of Dunn’s construction site was that it wasn’t an accident.”

Josie’s throat tightened. “You mean someone was there?”

Gretchen nodded. “Looks like someone had cut into the beams to compromise the integrity of the floor, and then used a small forklift to push all that stuff to the weakest spot…”

“There was a forklift up there?” Josie said.

“Yes, and the straps holding the piping together were also cut. It wouldn’t have taken much for someone to start the pipes falling by slicing the straps and giving a little push. Then once the floor started to bow… well, you know the rest.”

Josie uncapped the Wild Turkey and sniffed it but didn’t sip it. “So they think someone was up there while we were there?”

“Yeah.”

Josie pictured the Flats in her mind. Technically, someone could get there on foot, and if they had come across the interstate and down the hill behind the buildings, they could even do it without being seen. They could easily have slipped away during the commotion they caused, and no one would be the wiser. There were no cameras anywhere in that area. It was the perfect place to stage an accident. It also meant that someone else besides Josie’s people was following Dunn.

“You’ve been on Dunn for two days,” Josie said. “Have you noticed anyone else keeping tabs on him?”

“No, but I wasn’t really looking for someone else.”

Josie was well aware of how many people might have their own reasons for wanting Dunn dead. But why then? And why there?

“It also didn’t help that Dunn was already cutting corners everywhere he could on that site,” Gretchen said. “The engineers will be at it for a while. They’ll prepare a full report for you, but that’s the bottom line.”

“Which means absolutely nothing to me,” Josie said flatly. “Because it doesn’t help me find Luke or Misty’s baby.” She took a long swig of the Wild Turkey and then capped the bottle. It burned her throat and warmed her stomach. She held the bottle out to Gretchen, but she refused.

“I’m sorry, boss,” she said.

Josie nodded and looked away from Gretchen. “Detective Palmer,” she said. “I’d like to be alone now.”

Gretchen waited a moment, but when Josie didn’t say anything else, she stood up, shaking stiff legs. “You want to keep my flashlight?” she asked.

“No,” Josie said. “Thank you.”

Gretchen scooped up the torch. “You know where to find me,” she told Josie before walking off.

Josie listened to her picking her way through the headstones until there was only the silence of the night. She took another searing sip of Wild Turkey before curling up on her side. She closed her eyes, trying to stop her imagination from running wild with images of Luke’s lifeless body, wondering what Dunn’s goons had done to him—and to Misty’s baby. It didn’t work. She was about to pour half the bottle of Wild Turkey down her throat when her phone buzzed several times. Fishing it out of her pocket, she squinted as the screen’s bright light flooded her field of vision. It was Carrieann. She had probably seen a news report on Dunn’s untimely demise. With a heavy sigh, Josie answered. She heard nothing but rustling. “Carrieann,” she called a couple of times but got no response.

She was beginning to think Carrieann had called her by accident when her hushed voice finally came on the line. “Josie,” she hissed. “Someone’s here.”

Josie’s spine tingled. “In my house?”

“No, at Luke’s. I came to straighten things up a little, and I think there’s someone here. There are lights on on both floors.”

“Where are you right now?”

“I just went back out to the road. I’m at the edge of the driveway in my truck.”

Josie was already racing back to her vehicle. “Get into your truck and leave. I’m on my way. I’m going to call in some units.”