Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(90)

“Jesus. I wonder if there are any police reports.”

“I doubt it. He was never even arrested. Well, not for domestic violence.”

“For what then?”

“Well, that’s where it gets really interesting.”

Josie’s heartbeat sped up. “Tell me,” she said.

“Tessa and Martin Lendhardt had a baby.”

“What?”

“My source says that when they first moved in, she often heard a baby crying. She says eventually she worked up the nerve to go over when Martin was at work. She knocked on the door and asked Tessa if she needed help, but that Tessa closed the door in her face.”

“But there’s no record of Tessa Lendhardt even existing,” Josie said. “How could she have had a baby?”

“Maybe a home birth? It sounds like Martin didn’t let her out of the house very often—if at all.”

“Was the child a boy or a girl?” Josie asked.

“She didn’t know. They never let the child leave the house.”

“Then how does she know that there was really a child?”

“Well, I guess she doesn’t know. Not for sure. But there’s something else.”

“Besides a baby that may or may not have existed?”

“We’ll come back to that,” Trinity said. “My source thinks that Martin killed Tessa.”

“Based on what?”

“About five years after they moved in, Tessa disappeared. She says she used to see her pass by one of the windows facing her house just about every day. Then one day, Tessa wasn’t there anymore, and Martin was meaner than ever. She asked him where his wife went, and he said it was none of her damn business. She thought because of the way he used to beat her, he must have killed her and was hiding her body in the house. She says she called the police but that they came, went inside his house for a while and then left. She tried to get information out of them, but they wouldn’t talk to her. She asked them if they’d seen the child inside the house, but they told her to mind her own business. Nothing ever came of it.”

“Probably because Tessa never existed in the first place. There’s no record of her. So what happened?”

Trinity drew in a breath. Josie heard papers rustling. “She’s not sure what happened after that. She got put into a nursing home by her kids. Her house was rented out multiple times after that. I left her son a message, but I don’t know that he’ll have the information for all the tenants or that any of them would remember Martin.”

“It couldn’t possibly be that easy,” Josie groused.

“But I checked out Martin Lendhardt, and he was convicted of child endangerment in 2002.”

Now Josie’s heartbeat was a series of thunderclaps in her chest. “So there was a child.”

“Evidently. I couldn’t get anything else. But maybe you or the FBI could access the records of his arrest and conviction?”

“Yes,” Josie said. “I’ll call Special Agent Oaks. Trinity, thank you for this. That exclusive is yours.”

Josie hung up and called Oaks, briefing him on everything Trinity had discovered. He promised to find out everything he could about Martin Lendhardt’s child endangerment conviction. Josie dropped her phone into her pocket and tried to slow her breathing. It felt like a break in the case. She hoped that by the time she brought Colin back to the command tent, Oaks would have a lot more information.

She took a glance around the messy kitchen and started cleaning up. Several half-finished mugs of coffee sat on the kitchen table. Someone had kept the Rosses’ coffeemaker full and hot while the FBI and Denton PD were stationed at the house. Josie emptied them into the sink and rinsed them out. The real stink came from the trash bin, which was full of half-finished takeout, also from the myriad law enforcement officers who had been staying there around the clock. Neither Amy nor Colin had been able to eat much since Lucy went missing. She tied up the bag and wrestled it out of the bin. Turning toward the back door, something on the shiny tile floor caught her eye.

A muddy footprint. Then another partial print. From someone walking into the kitchen from the back door. From the look of the treads, Josie guessed the person who left them had been wearing boots. Her mind worked backward to every agent and officer who had been at the Ross home in the past week. None of them had been wearing boots. Besides that, it hadn’t rained, and there was no mud in the backyard. Josie set the trash bag softly onto the floor. She took out her phone, fired off a text to Noah—he would respond the quickest—and then she drew her service weapon.





Sixty-Five





As she raced up the stairs, she heard the sound of water running in the bathroom. At the top of the steps, she made a sharp right and began checking the rooms, her Glock held out in front of her. First Colin’s home office, then Lucy’s room. The bathroom was next. She placed one hand on the doorknob. “Mr. Ross?” she called.

No answer. He could be in the shower. Maybe she was imagining things. Even if the kidnapper had come to the Ross home after shooting Josie on the mountain behind Denton East, he had probably already left. What would he have come here for? Maybe he thought they’d brought the money back to the house and planned to swipe it while no one was around.

“Mr. Ross?”