Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(34)

“Oaks,” she called. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

Oaks crowded into the bathroom with her.

Josie pointed to the toothbrush holder. “What do you see?”

Oaks raised a brow but studied it. “I see a college kid who hasn’t cleaned her toothbrush holder in months, probably.”

He was right. It took time to build up the whitish-green crust that rimmed the toothbrush hole.

“But there’s two,” he added.

“Exactly,” Josie said.

One of the toothbrush holes was deep in crud while the other had only a thin layer but enough to indicate that someone else had been storing their toothbrush there for a shorter amount of time. Josie said, “In the spare room, under the desk is a compact.”

“Compact?”

“Foundation,” Josie said. “Women’s make-up. You know, it’s a little circular thing that opens. Mirror on one side, skin-colored powder on the other?”

Oaks laughed. “Okay, yeah. I got you. So what?”

“It’s not Jaclyn’s.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Jaclyn’s is in her suitcase.”

“Maybe she had two,” Oaks said. “How many do you have?”

Josie smiled. “I do have two but mine come in the same color and brand. Come with me.”

Oaks let her pass and followed her back into the bedroom. She knelt down over the open suitcase. “Was this photographed?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered the FBI agent on the other side of the room, dusting for prints.

Gingerly, Josie lifted the compact just enough so she could read off the brand and shade from the bottom. “Revlon ColorStay. Medium Deep. This runs maybe ten dollars at your local drug store. Look at Jaclyn’s skin. It’s not fair. It’s olive.”

“I’m listening,” Oaks said.

She led him back to the spare room and pointed to the floor beneath the desk. “You can look but I already read it. It’s Estée Lauder. Ivory Nude. Goes for about forty dollars and is sold at higher end department stores. Jaclyn is a college student. College students don’t spend forty dollars on foundation at Macy’s. They go to the local CVS.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because I’ve bought make-up—and when I was in college, ten dollars on make-up was a lot. And no matter where you buy your make-up or how much you spend on it, you don’t get the wrong shade. Google it. Ivory Nude is nowhere near the shade Medium Deep. This is someone else’s compact. I think it fell and got kicked under here accidentally or something. Whoever it belongs to probably didn’t even realize she left it.”

“Jaclyn has friends, you know. It could be one of theirs.”

Josie nodded. “It could be. All of this could be perfectly innocent.” She walked over to the closet and tugged the door open again, pointing to the pillow on the shelf. “This pillow is from her bed. There are three pillows on her bed now. All with the same matching pillowcases. Just like this one. Why is this one in here?”

Oaks said, “Someone was staying here with her.”

“Yes,” Josie said. “Maybe not for long, but long enough to have kept her toothbrush in the bathroom, which tells me it wasn’t just a friend crashing here for a night or even a weekend.”

“She told my team she had no roommates or recent visitors.”

“Did you ask her how recent?”

Oaks sighed. “Let me make a phone call.”





Twenty





Josie tracked down the building manager and took a look at all the video footage inside and outside of the building. The exterior camera at the front entrance showed Jaclyn arriving almost two hours earlier, dragging her suitcase with her. The foyer camera captured her as well. Only one other person entered after her before the FBI arrived and the building manager identified her as a tenant on the second floor. The rear exterior camera didn’t show anyone entering or exiting. Josie asked the manager for a copy of the footage even though all it showed was that the kidnapper-killer was smart enough and had done enough reconnaissance to enter and exit through the sliding glass doors, where he wouldn’t be caught on camera.

She met Oaks outside, gave him the footage and briefed him on what she had found, which was nothing of substance.

“I talked to the agent who spoke with Ms. Underwood on the phone,” he said. “He asked her if she had had any visitors in the past few weeks and she said no. I’ve already dispatched a couple of agents to question her friends and neighbors about anyone who might have been staying with her going back at least six months. We’ll print the compact and see if we can get any DNA from it—the pillow, too. Just in case. You think this person had something to do with Lucy’s disappearance?”

“I think that this kidnapping was planned for a long time,” Josie answered. “I think Lucy was well prepared. I don’t know how or by whom or when it took place. By all accounts the only adults she has been around on any regular basis are her parents, nanny and teacher and they all check out.”

“Except Amy,” Oaks said. “She failed her polygraph.”

“You said yourself that doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Josie pointed out.