The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(31)

He shook his head. “No, not that I can think of—nothing worth killing over.”





Twenty-One





They took a break, leaving Mason alone in the conference room to go to the first floor break area to get themselves cups of coffee and a bottle of water for Mason. Josie put a fresh filter into the coffeemaker, scooped coffee grounds into it and then poured new water into the receptacle. “He should be in protective custody.”

Mettner laughed. “Do we have that in Denton?”

“You know what I mean. We should at least put a unit on him. I mean don’t you think this is strange? Colette had something that belonged to both Drew and Samuel Pratt. She ends up murdered. We track down Drew’s daughter but she’s dead. What if Mason is next?”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Mettner said. “But no way is Chitwood going to approve the overtime for putting a unit on this poor guy.”

Josie inspected the coffee mugs on the draining board next to the sink and plucked two for her and Mettner. “Sure he will. If he wants to keep this Pratt situation from getting any worse. He’s already worried about the press finding out that Drew Pratt’s daughter was murdered.”

“Okay, so we put a unit on Mason Pratt till we get a handle on things. I’ll go over to Rockview and talk to his mother, see if she knew Colette Fraley.”

“I think we should talk to Patti Snyder,” Josie said. “Or at least try.”

“You think she was the mystery woman on the video?”

“I don’t know what to think, but I’d like to find out if she knows anything about the flash drive that Colette had,” Josie pointed out.

Hummel poked his head into the break room. “Boss,” he said. “Mett.”

Josie said, “Just Detective Quinn, now.”

Mettner said, “Yes?”

“We got something back on the flash drive. A partial thumb print.”

“A partial?” Josie said. “How many possible matches?”

“Five,” Hummel replied. “But Drew Pratt is one of them. Detective Palmer has the report.”

Josie abandoned the coffee. Mettner handed a bottle of water to Hummel as they passed through the doorway and told him to deliver it to the guy in the conference room and tell him they’d be back in ten minutes. Once in the stairwell, they raced up the flight of steps, bursting into the large room side by side. Gretchen was at her desk, a report in her hands, scanning the list of names. “I don’t recognize anyone else on this list,” she said as they approached.

Josie and Mettner read the names over Gretchen’s shoulder. “The only one that matters is Drew Pratt. I’d say this pretty conclusively proves that he saw the contents of the flash drive,” Josie said.

“No,” Gretchen disagreed. “All it proves is that he held it. We don’t know for sure whether he ever viewed the contents of the drive.”

“Hmmm,” Josie murmured. “That is true. Or maybe this is what put Drew Pratt in such a dark mood before he went missing. I mean, let’s say he received the flash drive before he disappeared but hadn’t yet acted on it.”

Gretchen handed the list to Mettner so he could look it over. “He would have known from the contents of the drive that he needed to prosecute—or at the very least, investigate. Maybe he was mulling it over when he disappeared. But we still can’t say that the flash drive had anything to do with what happened to him.”

“Right,” Josie said. “We can safely say that at some point this was in his possession and then Colette Fraley came to have it. We just don’t know how or why.”

“We’re going to have to start looking into the belt buckle, too,” Mettner mumbled.

Josie felt a cold prickle of fear along the nape of her neck. “I’m afraid of what we’re going to find.”

“Yeah,” Gretchen said. “Me too.” She picked up another set of pages and handed them to Josie. Immediately, Josie recognized photos of the footprint found at Colette’s murder scene. There were additional photographs of the cast the team had taken together with a report on the Evidence Response Team’s findings.

“What’ve you got?” Mettner asked.

Josie said, “The footprint was a size ten—which we knew—but this says, given the impression in the dirt, the owner of the print was likely between 180 and 200 pounds. The more definitive outline near the front of the foot suggests he was leaning down, putting most of his weight onto the ball of his foot.”

“Which he would have had to do to kneel and straddle Colette,” Gretchen remarked.

Josie continued, “The tread was matched to a very common brand of men’s sneakers which can be found in just about any store in the country that sells men’s sneakers.”

“Well, that narrows it down,” Mettner said.

“Yeah,” Josie sighed. “I’m not sure this takes us very far.”

Gretchen pointed at the clock on the wall which read 11 p.m. “Why don’t you go home and check on Noah? I’ll write up all the reports from today, and you and Mett can hit this hard tomorrow.”





Twenty-Two





Noah’s house was dark when Josie slipped inside. Her skin pricked as she moved from the foyer, past the living room and into the kitchen. They had been attacked in these rooms only months ago. It was still difficult for her, but he refused to move. They’d been spending most of their time at her house, but not since Colette’s death. Josie flicked on the kitchen light and saw the note he had left her on the fridge.