Vanishing Girls

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Josie couldn’t stand Special Agent Holcomb. She had been relieved to see him at the Gosnell property and she was happy for the FBI presence, but Holcomb’s personality left much to be desired. It was about as colorful as his short, drab hair. Maybe he had seen too much in his long career, especially working for the FBI’s Civil Rights Division which investigated police corruption and human trafficking, but he didn’t seem angry or impassioned enough for her.

“Maybe that’s what we need. Someone who will be clinical. Detached,” Noah had tried persuading her after a day in Holcomb’s company, the three of them trawling through videos from Gosnell’s bunker, trying to identify all the men in the videos. They would ID the men first so they could arrest them quickly. Later, the FBI team would work on identifying all the women and then matching them to the remains that were already being recovered. There were nearly two decades’ worth of videos, and they only got through about five years’ worth that first day. Holcomb fast-forwarded through all of them. He was only interested in catching stills of the men’s faces at that point. Later, for the sake of prosecution, someone would have to go through each and every video thoroughly. He stopped the video every few seconds, demanding to know if Josie or Noah could put a name to the face, and grew impatient when they hesitated.

Even on fast-forward, the videos were horrific. Both Josie and Noah had to take several breaks, escaping outside into the fresh air, letting the rain wash the horror away if only for a few seconds. Holcomb had only gotten up twice. Once to eat and once to retrieve a cup of coffee—for himself, none for them. Then he had wordlessly recorded each name they gave him on a legal pad with the same expression Josie imagined he employed when making his grocery list. It irked her.

By the end of the third day they had a solid working list, and Holcomb left them to put together warrants and teams to execute them. “This has to be done quickly,” he told them. “We’ll want to pick them all up in a short span of time. We don’t want them tipping each other off. I want every last one of these scumbags.”

It was the first thing Holcomb had said that Josie could get on board with.

The moment he left, Josie turned to Noah. “How many people are searching for Isabelle Coleman right now?”

“I have a dozen people out right now.”

“Then let’s go talk to Alton Gosnell.”

Noah frowned and looked at his watch. He was one of the few men that Josie knew who still wore a watch instead of relying on his phone for the time. “Right now? Don’t you want to rest? It’s been a long three days.”

“No. I don’t want to rest. Let’s go.”