Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(63)

“Amy, I need the truth.”

Something in her eyes flared. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“Then what was your name before you were Amy Walsh?”

“If you know I was never Amy Walsh, then you must know my real name.”

Josie didn’t want to alert her to the fact that they didn’t have that information yet, so she said, “I need to hear it from you.”

Amy said nothing. More tears rolled down her face. “The person I was before is a ghost. A fiction. She always was.”

Josie was growing frustrated with Amy’s cryptic answers. She wanted to shake the woman but at the same time, it was the most honest she had been thus far. “You were someone else before you assumed Amy Walsh’s identity. I need to know who,” Josie prompted.

Amy looked back at the butterfly garden, lines appearing on her forehead. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t think I was. I wasn’t anyone.”

“Amy,” Josie said, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice. “I need you to be straight with me right now. Stop talking around this.”

Another small, bitter laugh. “Around it? It’s been over twenty years, and I still haven’t made sense of any of it.”

Josie wondered if the stress of Lucy’s abduction and the murders of the people closest to her was sending her over the edge. She reached out and touched Amy’s hand. “Tell me something about your life before you became Amy Walsh. Something true.”

Amy pondered for a moment. Then she said, “I lived in Buffalo.”

Josie didn’t get a chance to ask any follow-up questions. A commotion erupted from downstairs, followed by pounding on the stairs. Oaks threw the door open. “Mrs. Ross’s phone is ringing,” he said. “Get down here now.”





Forty





The three of them raced downstairs and into the dining room. In the center of the table, Amy’s phone rang. Josie leaned over and looked at the screen. It wasn’t one of Amy’s contacts. She read off the number. “Do you know whose number this is?”

Amy shook her head. “I don’t—I don’t know.”

“On it,” one of the agents said, tapping away at his laptop.

“You think it’s him?” Amy asked.

“Only one way to find out,” Oaks said.

Colin reached across the table, picked up the phone and answered.

The kidnapper’s voice filled the room, sending a shudder through both parents. “Hello, Colin. I’d like to talk to your loving wife, please.”

Colin closed his eyes and took a deep breath, phone pressed to his ear. “She can’t talk right now. But I can discuss the money with you. Look, I can’t—”

He opened his eyes and looked at Oaks, who shook his head and mouthed the word: how. Earlier, Oaks had told them to answer each of the kidnapper’s demands with a how question. Colin said, “How am I supposed to come up with a million dollars?”

“Put Amy on the phone.”

The agent whispered, “It came in as private. Give me a second to get a name and address.”

Colin said, “How is Amy going to help you? I handle the finances. I can get you eight hundred thousand, but I need proof of life.”

The kidnapper’s voice became even colder. “Put Amy on the phone.”

Colin looked at Oaks who nodded for him to continue. “You want to talk to her, I understand, but we need to talk money first. Like I said, I can come up with most of it, but I need a proof of life.”

“It’s a landline,” the agent whispered. “Registered to Bryce Graham.”

Josie’s head snapped in his direction. “What did you say?” she whispered.

Oaks went over and stood between Amy and Colin. “Detective Quinn told me that you said you didn’t know Bryce Graham. Why is this call coming from his phone?” he asked her quietly, but she wasn’t listening. Her eyes were fixed on Colin, her fingers twisting around themselves against her chest.

On the phone there was a rustling sound. The kidnapper said, “You want a proof of life? I’ll give you a proof of life.”

Josie’s heart halted abruptly then thundered back into motion, beating so hard against her breastbone she was sure everyone else in the room could see her shirt moving. She motioned to Oaks who strode over to her. “Bryce Graham was still at the city park when I left. But the kidnapper is obviously at his home.”

Oaks gazed down at the screen, located Graham’s address and rattled it off to an agent standing by the door. “Get a couple of teams over there now,” he commanded.

The agent nodded and left. Josie said, “I’ll call my team and have them check for Graham in the park.”

“Put him into protective custody,” Oaks told her.

Josie stepped out of the room long enough to call Gretchen and give her some terse instructions. She walked back in and over to Amy, gripping her forearm. “You said you didn’t know Bryce Graham. Why is the kidnapper calling from his home?” she asked but her words were swallowed up by the sound of screaming coming over the line. The sound pierced right through Josie like a spike. Her knees weakened. It was a girl. Young. Her voice high-pitched. No words. Just the soul-crushing sound of a small child’s terror punctuated by the kidnapper hollering, “Here’s your proof of life, you smug bastard. Is this what you want? Is this it?”