Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(95)

Again, the sick feeling overcame Josie. She tried not to sway on her feet. Looking back at him, she kept her voice calm, unemotional. “Where’s her body?”

A flush crept into his cheeks. He banged his hands against the table. “Fuck you,” he said. “You think I’d kill a kid?”

Josie walked back to the table, placed both hands on its surface and leaned in toward him. “Yes,” she said. “I do. You are your father’s son.”

He leaped up from his chair, lunging toward her, but Josie held her ground, despite the fact that her heart hammered so hard in her chest, she felt like it was going to crash through her breastbone. His face was inches from hers. She smelled cigarettes and something foul on his breath.

“I am not like him.”

“If you didn’t kill her, then where is she?”

“Don’t try to trick me,” he spat.

Josie shook her head. “You think I have time for tricks? Games? I have one job, Gideon. One. Finding Lucy Ross. That’s it. That’s all. So if you’re not going to help me—and maybe save your own life in the process—then I don’t have time for you.”

She turned away from him. He shouted after her. “Oh, so you’re going to walk away. Just like her. You bitches are all the same. You want to know where that little brat is? Figure it out. What would you do with her if you were me? If you really give a shit about Lucy Ross, you’ll know. Hey, hey bitch, don’t you walk away from me. Don’t you—”

The door closed behind her.

She walked down the hall and let herself into the viewing room. Chitwood, Noah, Gretchen, Mettner and Oaks stared at her. Chitwood said, “Well, that went well.”

“He wasn’t going to tell me,” Josie said. “He’s a sad, pathetic little man. This is what he’s got. This control. This game. He’ll never give that up. He’s got nothing to lose now.”

Gretchen said, “Do you think he killed her?”

“I don’t know.”

Noah said, “So we need to figure out the riddle. If we’re him, what do we do with Lucy Ross when the rest of the plan has gone to shit?”

Oaks said, “Well, he wouldn’t return her. I don’t think that was ever his intention.”

Josie said, “He wouldn’t return her because he would want Amy to wait and wonder, just like he did as a small child. He waited for her to come back. He wondered if and when she would return.”

“It was torture for him, I’m sure,” Gretchen put in.

“If he kills Lucy and we recover her body, that puts a stop to the uncertainty,” Noah said.

Chitwood said, “If he kills her and hides her body well enough, the uncertainty lasts forever.”

Josie could not disagree, but she also couldn’t give up on the possibility that Lucy was alive. If she was still alive, she was somewhere out there alone and terrified. Time was running out. Josie said, “Let’s assume for a minute that he means what he says, that he wouldn’t kill a child.”

“If she’s alive, he left her somewhere,” Gretchen said. “Where?”

“Somewhere she won’t be found,” Noah said.

“Which means she’s as good as dead,” Oaks said.

“She wouldn’t be found in the woods,” Gretchen said.

Noah let out a lengthy groan. “That’s everywhere. Literally every place outside of this city.”

“Why would he leave her in the woods?” Chitwood asked.

“Because of what he went through,” Josie said. “When he was a child, Amy left him alone in the figurative wilderness. She left him with an abusive father. He had to fend for himself.”

“But he made it out,” Noah said. “So if the game is to recreate that scenario—a child left alone to fend for herself in a harsh environment—there has to be a chance that she could get out, that she could survive.”

Gretchen said, “People can survive in the woods, even a child.”

“Not a seven-year-old,” Josie said.

“He’s got no concept of age,” Oaks remarked. “He didn’t have a normal childhood. He had to learn a lot more survival skills at seven than Lucy Ross. He’s not thinking of what it’s like for her being seven years old. He’s thinking of how it was for him.”

“So we’re back to the woods,” Chitwood said.

“Let’s get a map,” said Josie.

A few minutes later they were all gathered around Noah who had pulled up a satellite view map of the county on Google Earth.

“My God,” Oaks said. “This really is like looking for a needle in a haystack. How do you find a seven-year-old girl in miles and miles of forest?”

Josie stared at the map. “He would have thought this out. He wouldn’t have just left her anywhere. He would have wanted to put her where she wouldn’t wander into a residential area on her first foray. Here,” she pointed to southern Denton where Alcott County ended, and Lenore County started. “State gameland, maybe? It’s remote.”

“Too many people,” Noah said. “It’s for public use. You’ve got hikers, fishers, hunters. The chances of someone running into her are a lot greater in state gameland.”

“You think so?” Mettner said. “I mean, some of those areas aren’t used for months by anyone. There are plenty of wild animals out there—if I’m this sick bastard and I’m playing his demented game of trying to see if a seven-year-old girl can get out of the woods alive or not, I might choose the state gameland.”