Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(72)

He took one look at the phone and called the other teams. They backed off once the FBI’s Evidence Response Team arrived. A few minutes later, Oaks confirmed that the phone belonged to Violet Young.

Josie’s own phone rang. She took it out and saw it was Noah. Swiping answer, she said, “What’s up?”

“Violet left for work at seven-thirty this morning just like always. She went out into the schoolyard with the kids during the afternoon recess period which was around one-thirty p.m. She did not come back in.”

“Did anyone see where she went?”

“When the principal and other teachers questioned the kids, a couple of them said she looked like she was watching something out in the street. She told one little girl she’d be right back and left the schoolyard. No one saw where she went after that.”

“Did you pull footage from the cameras near the schoolyard?” Josie asked.

“Gretchen did, but all it shows is Violet staring out toward the street and then exiting the schoolyard.”

“Jesus. Did you talk to Violet’s husband?”

“He’s in Orlando on business. At the airport, actually. The principal called him when Violet didn’t come back from recess. He told her to call the police, which she did. Dispatch took the call and sent a unit to the school.”

“No one called the mobile command?” Josie asked.

Noah sighed. “Why would they? Dispatch had no way of knowing this lady was Lucy Ross’s teacher.”

Josie knew this was true, but she couldn’t help but wonder whether Violet would have been saved had the teams on the Ross case been the ones to respond. “When did the husband last speak with her?”

“Last night. He’s on his way back now.”

Josie asked, “Violet’s car?”

“Still in the school lot.”

Josie sighed. “Thank you. I’ll let Oaks know.”

“I asked Hummel if we could run the elimination prints he got from Amy Ross through AFIS to see if her prints match any already in the database. I know Chitwood didn’t think it was worth it, but I put Hummel on it anyway. I don’t know how soon he’ll get to it though. I had to send him over to the school to help Gretchen interview the faculty and then try to track down the kids who saw Violet leave the schoolyard.”

“The drop is at six,” Josie groaned. “Amy and Colin still need to be prepped. The drop sites have to be monitored, and now Violet Young is missing, probably bleeding out while we’re all standing around on a riverbank. He’s spreading us thin.”

“Seems that way.”

Josie saw Oaks striding toward her. “I have to go, Noah. Thanks for your help.”





Forty-Eight





Josie tried to focus on Oaks’s words, but her mind was calculating. It was nearly four already. They were losing valuable time. There was so much to be done. There was no way they were going to send either one of the Ross parents to the drop sites alone, which meant they’d need to hide law enforcement personnel very carefully at each location. There was no time to strategize—no time for anything. The kidnapper had done this on purpose, leaving them almost no time to prepare and making sure that Violet Young’s fate was unknown so that their resources would be spread far and wide.

“Detective Quinn,” Oaks said, breaking through her thoughts. “Are you listening to me?”

Josie managed a tight smile. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please, go on.”

“I was saying that the phone is Violet Young’s,” Oaks told her. “One of my guys got a woman to talk to him. She said she saw a guy matching our suspect’s description—brown hair, ballcap, mid-twenties, Caucasian—standing near the water, talking on the phone before tossing it into the mud. She remembered because the phone was purple, and she said she doesn’t see many men with purple phone cases.”

Josie told Oaks what Noah and Gretchen had found out about Violet’s disappearance.

“You think Violet Young saw him from the schoolyard and recognized him?” Oaks asked.

Josie shrugged. “Either that or he lured her out of the schoolyard with Lucy. He had to have been in a vehicle. Maybe he drove up, let her see that Lucy was in the car, and then she ran out. If she’d simply seen him, I think she would have called the police. But if Lucy was there, right in front of her, she probably would have gone over.”

“So, he abducts her from right in front of the school with Lucy in the car, kills her, dumps her body, then drives out here to call Amy.” Oaks turned and scanned the group of agents milling around the area. “He changed his MO. Normally he kills them in their home. What’s he doing?”

“He knows we have to locate Violet. He’s taking up our time and resources, keeping us off balance in the hopes we won’t be fully ready by the time the drop comes.”

“Screw that,” Oaks muttered. “I’m leaving two guys here to search up and down the riverbank two miles in each direction for Violet Young’s body. The rest of us will regroup at mobile command in twenty minutes. I’m going to need your people.”

“You’ve got them,” Josie said.

“We’re going to need four teams—one at this Lover’s Cave—do you know where that is?”