Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(52)
Oaks shook his head. “Nothing of any substance. One woman thinks she remembers seeing a white pickup truck driving around the development earlier today but nothing more than that. But we have no way of knowing whether that’s related to Wendy Kaplan’s murder or not. It could have been anyone. Without a make, model or license plate, that lead is a dead end. None of those people had exterior cameras.”
“I’m not surprised,” Josie said.
Oaks raised a brow. “I am. Where I come from, everyone has a camera outside of their house.”
“Well in Denton, the crime rate is pretty low, believe it or not. People don’t see the need for them.”
Oaks still looked baffled but continued on with his briefing. “We’ve got what we believe is the killer’s DNA both under Kaplan’s fingernails and on one of the broken pieces of ceramic mug. There’s a chance that Kaplan wounded him during the struggle.”
“You’ve got his blood?”
Oaks nodded. “We believe so. We’ll test it along with the skin under Kaplan’s nails and compare it to the skin found under Jaclyn Underwood’s fingernails.”
“But even if it matches and you can put him at both crime scenes, you already said there wasn’t a hit on the DNA found under Jaclyn’s nails. So that doesn’t help us find this guy.”
“True,” Oaks conceded. “It will only help the district attorney if we catch this bastard and he gets prosecuted.”
“Then we keep working every angle,” Josie said.
“There’s something I need you to do now though.”
“What’s that?” Josie asked.
“I need you to talk to Mrs. Ross again. The list we talked about earlier?”
“Of people who are close to her?”
“Yes, that’s the one. There’s no one else on it.”
“What?” Josie said.
“The nanny and Kaplan were the only people she saw regularly, she claims.”
“Two people?” Josie said.
Oaks said, “It’s not that big a stretch given what we already know about her. Every person we’ve talked to has said the same things: she’s quiet, keeps to herself. Isolated. Distracted.”
“I know, that’s true, but the kidnapper is going to target someone else to make contact with the Ross parents, and we need to figure out who that person is ahead of time so we don’t have another murder on our hands.”
“I think you’re our best bet to get it out of her,” Oaks said. “In the meantime, I’m going to put some units on the mothers you and Mettner interviewed. I know they told you that she wasn’t close with them, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“Good call,” Josie said.
“I’ll also have my team double back on Amy’s background check to see if there’s anything we missed. Maybe dig deeper.”
“Great,” Josie said. “I’ll head over to the Ross house.”
Once outside, she took her phone out and texted Trinity:
Anything yet?
The response came back within seconds.
I’m working on it. I’ll let you know as soon as I have something.
Thirty-Three
Amy sat in her backyard on a chair she’d pulled over next to Lucy’s playhouse. In her arms she held a stuffed unicorn that Josie had previously seen in Lucy’s bed. Amy’s face was swollen, blotchy and tear-stained. As Josie approached, she said, “They told me about Wendy.”
“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “Truly sorry.”
“We weren’t even that close,” Amy said, her voice raspy.
“But you had lunch a couple of times a week, didn’t you?”
Amy nodded, squeezing the unicorn more tightly to her chest. “Wendy was a transplant like me. Divorced. She was well past the point of having children and had no desire to date or marry again. She was very insular. Like me, I guess.”
“She didn’t have many friends here?” Josie prompted.
“No. Not many.”
“What did you talk about at lunch?” Josie asked.
“Things we saw on the news, projects she was working on, books. I talked about Lucy a lot. Wendy didn’t seem to mind even though she didn’t have her own children. She was kind to me.”
Amy squeezed her eyes closed against the fresh wave of tears that came. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Where’s Colin?” Josie asked.
“I don’t know,” Amy said. “Upstairs, probably.”
“I need to talk to both of you.”
From the back door, Colin’s voice sounded. “I’m right here. Did you find something? What’s going on?”
As he stepped into the yard, Amy stood up from her chair, squeezing the unicorn more tightly against her chest. “What is it?”
“We believe that Lucy was with the kidnapper at Wendy’s house.”
“What?” Colin said. “You think—you think she saw what happened to Wendy?”
“Does this mean she’s alive?” Amy asked.
Josie held up a hand. “We don’t believe she witnessed Wendy’s murder although she likely heard it. We found a paper chrysalis under Wendy’s desk.”