Vanishing Girls

Chapter Sixty-Two

The woman stood on shaky legs, skeletal in an ill-fitting lace bra and underwear. “Wait here,” Josie told her and quickly retrieved a blanket she had found in the empty cell. She held it out to the woman. “Here.”

Still eyeing Josie with suspicion, the woman slowly wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “What’s your name?” Josie asked.

“Rena,” the woman said, voice cracking with a sudden burst of emotion. “Rena Garry.”

Josie held out a hand to her. “Rena, we have to get out of here. Now.”

The woman’s eyes flashed with understanding. She gripped Josie’s hand and followed her out of the cell.

“It’s not a pretty sight out here,” Josie said. “Look straight ahead toward the door. Don’t look down.”

Josie tried to rush her past Nick Gosnell’s ravaged body, but Rena stopped, pulling insistently on Josie’s hand. Josie tugged back. “Please,” she said. “We have to go.”

Rena stood over him, staring. “This is him,” she said. “He was here every day.”

“This was his place,” Josie confirmed. “Listen, we really have to—”

Josie’s eyes were drawn to the chief’s body. Struck by a thought, she dropped Rena’s hand. “Just a second,” she told her, but the woman’s eyes were fixed on Gosnell’s body with fierce intensity.

Josie left her there long enough to search out the chief’s cell phone, which she found in his back pocket. As she strode back toward Rena, she realized that she couldn’t exactly call 911. Who would she call? The chief had told her not to trust anyone. Not that there was even a cell phone signal on the mountain, she thought, looking at the screen. She’d have to go to Gosnell’s house and use their landline.

She grasped Rena’s hand once more. “Please,” she said. “We need to get out of here.”

“Did you do this?” Rena asked.

Josie looked down, really seeing what she had done as if for the first time. Through someone else’s eyes. Gosnell’s eyes pulpy caved-in messes, blood streaking his face. The front of his jeans shredded, blood pooling all around him. The jagged edges of bone sticking out from his left knee. The space where his right knee used to be. Bone splinters, tissue, sinew, and blood all around him. Close-range shots and devastating damage.

“Yes,” she said. “I did.”

She watched as Rena spit on Gosnell’s body. Then she said, “Let’s go.”

Josie nodded, pocketing the chief’s cell phone and pulling Rena toward the door, only stopping to snatch up the chief’s gun in the corner. She put it in the waistband of her jeans, and pushed the mangled door aside. Daylight flooded around them, nearly blinding them. Rena threw an arm up over her eyes again and Josie looked down at her feet. “You have no shoes,” she said.

“I don’t care.”

Josie laced her fingers through Rena’s, and together they plunged into the light.