The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(19)

Gretchen added, “And his name was on it.”

Again, Josie wondered what the connection was between Pratt, Sanders, Wood Creek and Colette Fraley.

“His name was on it,” Chitwood said. “But you can’t prove he ever received it or even saw it.”

“If his prints show up on it, then we know he had it in his possession.” Gretchen pointed out.

Chitwood held up a finger. “That doesn’t prove he ever looked at the contents.”

Josie was still racking her brain for everything she could remember about the Kickbacks scandal and its connection to the missing prosecutor. “There was another Kickbacks theory,” she said. “Wasn’t there?”

Chitwood and Gretchen stared at her. She went on. “I’d have to look it up, but I’m certain there was another theory about what happened to Pratt. There was a mother whose son went to Wood Creek for something minor. He was brutalized in there, and never the same once he got out. He eventually killed himself.”

Gretchen nodded. “I remember that now. The mother killed one of the Wood Creek guys—someone on their board of directors. Her plan was to kill every person involved in it, but she got caught immediately.”

“Yes,” Josie agreed. “Then there was speculation that she had killed Pratt all those years ago because he knew what was going on and hadn’t prosecuted. There was also a guard who worked at the facility who had committed suicide, and the investigation into his death was reopened after the mother was arrested, because the police were worried that she had been killing people unchecked for years.”

“What was her name?” Gretchen asked.

Chitwood answered, “Patti Something… Patti Snyder.”

“You knew her?” Josie asked.

“No. I didn’t know her, but I had it from several sources that she was looked at hard for Drew’s disappearance, especially because in the hours before Drew went missing, he was seen on surveillance footage in a store talking with a woman who vaguely resembled Snyder.”

Josie made a mental note to find out everything she could about Drew Pratt’s case the first chance she got.

“Do you think it was her?” Gretchen asked.

Chitwood shrugged. “Don’t know. Like I said, we have no proof Drew even knew what Sanders and Wood Creek were up to. That’s all speculation. Has been for years. Besides, Patti Snyder was just plain crazy.”

“Or just grief-stricken,” Josie pointed out.

Gretchen said, “Regardless of what this Patti Snyder did or didn’t do, regardless of what happened to Drew Pratt—the real question is why did Noah’s mother have this flash drive? Why did she hide it, and is this what the killer was looking for?”

“The case already broke years ago,” Josie pointed out. “And Pratt has been missing for over a decade. It’s not like anything on that flash drive would be so shocking that it would even need to be hidden.”

“True,” Gretchen conceded. “I’ll take a closer look at every person mentioned in those documents and see what I can find out. We need to know what connection Colette had to all of this—if any.”





Fourteen





The Fraley children had only vague memories of Drew Pratt and the Kickbacks for Kids scandal, things they’d heard on the news or read online. None of them could account for why Colette would have had the flash drive. “She must have found it or gotten it by accident somehow,” Laura theorized.

“Yeah,” Noah agreed. “I don’t know where it came from, but I don’t think she had any idea what was on it.”

“She knew enough to hide it,” Josie pointed out.

Laura laughed. “With two other completely random objects, from what Noah said. You have to understand, Josie, the more the dementia took over her mind, the more strange and inexplicable things she did. God knows where she got those things, but she was probably having one of her episodes and hid them. She’s probably got stuff hidden all over that house.”

But when Noah did the walk-through with Mettner they didn’t find any other hidden items or anything else unusual.

With the funeral looming, Josie had helped Noah straighten and clean up his mother’s house before his sister saw it. Laura was entering her last month of pregnancy and Noah was already concerned about the stress that Colette’s death had put on her, and didn’t want her to see the disarray. Once the house was restored, Laura went through Colette’s closet to choose clothes and jewelry for her funeral. Josie did her best during that week to help the Fraley family in any way she could. The days and nights passed in a blur. She had little time to check in with Mettner or Gretchen and, before she knew it, she was walking into the funeral home hand in hand with Noah.

They had arrived well before the viewing was scheduled to begin. A strange, creeping stillness took over them the deeper into the building they went. As her feet, clad in simple black flats, sank into the thick carpeting of the viewing room, Josie couldn’t help but flash back to her husband Ray’s funeral. All these years later, the grief was still there, the wound barely scabbed over. Josie felt a wave of sadness for Noah. Now he would feel the yoke of loss, forever on his shoulders.

Josie squeezed his hand as the funeral director sailed into the room and beckoned the Fraley siblings into the anteroom where all the photos had been proudly displayed. She stayed behind while Noah, Theo, Laura and Grady went over the final details before the mourners began to arrive. Colette’s body lay in a beautiful, shiny rose gold casket at the front of the room, dozens of floral arrangements arrayed around it. Josie read each card. With Deepest Sympathy, they read, and below each message was the name of a family. A lump formed in Josie’s throat as she realized how many people’s lives Colette had touched.