Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(38)

Josie walked over and sat next to Amy on the bed. Amy said, “I’m sorry about downstairs.”

“Don’t be,” Josie said. “You know that Jaclyn’s murder is not your fault, right?”

Amy’s voice squeaked. “Isn’t it? He’s right, you know. I don’t need a nanny. I should be able to do this myself. If it weren’t for me—”

“If it weren’t for you, Jaclyn would have been working a lot harder at a job she loved a lot less for practically no money at all. The only person who put her in harm’s way was the person who killed her. No one else is to blame. No one.”

“I’d like to believe that.”

“When you and Colin were… arguing, you said he promised not to be cruel. Has he been cruel to you in the past?”

Amy waved a hand. “Oh no. Not him. I would never have given in to him. He chased me, you know. He was so persistent. I didn’t want a man at all. He wore me down in the best possible way. But before I said yes to marriage, I made him promise he would never treat me cruelly. The man I was with before him, a long, long time ago, was very cruel. I didn’t ever want to be in that position again.”

“That man—” Josie started.

“He’s dead,” Amy interrupted. “He passed years ago, or so I heard. It wasn’t serious anyway. Kid stuff. Like I said, a long, long time ago. It was barely a relationship at all. It’s just that that was my only experience and it was bad, so I wasn’t looking for a man. That’s all.”

“You left him?”

“Yes. He didn’t try to come after me, if that’s what you’re getting at. Ultimately, he didn’t care enough to come after me. Ancient history.”

“Amy, I have to ask. Is there anyone who would do this? Take Lucy, kill Jaclyn?”

“That would be so easy, wouldn’t it?” Amy said. “It would lead us right to him. But no, I can’t think of anyone.”

Josie measured her next words carefully. “We all have secrets, Amy. I have some whoppers. Google me. You’ll see. There’s no shame in having a past.”

“I don’t have a past,” Amy insisted. “I barely have a present.”

“This is personal,” Josie said. “Whoever this guy is, he’s targeting you and Colin for personal reasons. Colin seems like the obvious target—he’s already got death threats from his work with Quarmark. Can you think of anyone who might want to target him? Maybe someone you wouldn’t want to mention in front of Colin?”

Amy raised a brow. “What do you mean? You think… you think he was having an affair?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Josie said. “But I’ve been in this business long enough to know that people keep all kinds of secrets.”

“Not Colin,” Amy said. “He’s an honorable man—in spite of what you saw downstairs. He has nothing to hide.”

“What about you?” Josie asked carefully.

Amy pointed to her own chest. “Me? You think I have something to hide?”

“You understand that I have to ask. If there’s anything you haven’t told us, anything that you maybe didn’t want to say in front of your husband, you should tell me now. If you have even the slightest suspicion at all that someone you know might have targeted Lucy to get to you, it’s important that you tell me now. Before this goes any further.”

“I wish I knew which direction to send you. Do you think I would keep any secret from you if it meant saving my daughter’s life? I don’t know anyone who would want to do this to Lucy or to me.”

Josie didn’t push. They sat in silence for a moment. Then Amy said, “Do you think she’s still alive?”

“I don’t know,” Josie answered honestly.

“I just wish he would tell us what he wants. We have money. This could all be over quickly.”

Kidnapping Lucy for money was the most logical scenario, but Josie didn’t think this was about money. If it was as simple as that, the kidnapper wouldn’t have murdered Jaclyn so he could call Lucy’s parents, only to goad them. He wouldn’t waste his time or resources—he would make a ransom demand right away. This was about more than money, Josie was sure of it, but she didn’t say that to Amy. It would do her no good. She had already told Josie that she couldn’t think of anyone who would target her. Either she was lying—and if she was still willing to lie after Jaclyn’s murder, Josie couldn’t imagine her ever willingly coming clean—or the kidnapper was targeting the Ross parents for some other reason—a reason that neither Colin nor Amy knew about.

Again, Josie thought of the death threats Colin had received at work because of the cancer drug. How many people had died because they couldn’t afford Quarmark’s miracle drug? Certainly seventy-four people blamed him for their loved ones’ suffering, even deaths. Perhaps one of them believed the best way to take revenge on Colin would be to take the person he loved most away and then make the next most important person in his life suffer by taunting her. In the current scenario, Colin was almost a bystander. Forced to watch powerlessly while his daughter’s life hung in the balance and his wife became increasingly hysterical and unstable. Was it, as Josie and Oaks had discussed earlier, somehow symbolic of the way family members had to stand by and watch their loved one fight cancer—all the while knowing there was a drug that could stop the disease in its tracks, or at least slow it down, but unable to afford access to it? If that was the case, there would be no ransom demand and the endgame would be Lucy’s death.