The Bones She Buried: A completely gripping, heart-stopping crime thriller(55)

“We don’t need to talk about this now,” Josie pointed out.

“I don’t want to talk about it ever,” Noah said. “Please. You knew where I stood with my dad, and you went to see him anyway.”

“Noah,” Josie said. “I was doing my job. I don’t think you’re thinking clearly right now. You’ve been through a lot.”

“I need some time,” Noah mumbled. “Time alone.”

“Time alone?” Josie echoed, cheeks stinging with heat. “What are you—what are you saying?” She couldn’t help but wonder if he meant time away from her. Temporarily, or permanently, asked a quiet voice in the back of her head. Had the rift between them really grown that large?

“Yes,” Laura interjected. “I think time alone is exactly what you need.” She looked pointedly at Josie. “Time away from all of this drama, all of these ridiculous questions.”

Josie was certain Laura really meant time away from her. “Well,” Josie said to Laura. “He doesn’t need to answer any questions right now. He just needs to rest and heal.”

Laura crossed her arms over her belly. “He can do that with us, right Grady?” She looked beyond Josie to her husband.

Grady’s expression was pinched as he stood up and clapped his hands together. “Uh, sure,” he said. “Noah’s always welcome.” He offered Josie a tight smile. “And you can come by anytime to see him.”

“Grady,” Laura snapped. “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

“What?” Josie asked.

Laura pointed a finger at Josie. “Every time you’re around, something dreadful happens. I’m just trying to protect my baby brother. I think you two need a break from one another.”

“I don’t—” Josie was at a loss for words. Well, there were many words she wanted to say to Laura in that moment, but she didn’t want to upset Noah or cause him any more stress. The strain on him already was beyond what she could bear to see him endure. Even if she wasn’t welcome at Laura and Grady’s home, Noah staying there would put him out of harm’s way, and that was what mattered most.

She looked down at Noah’s face. “Is this what you want?” she asked softly.

His gaze flitted to his sister and then back to Josie before he nodded and closed his eyes.

“Okay,” Josie muttered, willing tears not to form in her eyes. “Go with Laura and Grady. I’ll work with Mettner and Gretchen to make this right.”





Thirty-Seven





The Denton Library was a two-floor stone building designed by a local architect in the early 1900s in neoclassical style, complete with a grand staircase and large Doric columns. Josie had spent many hours as a teenager tucked away among the shelves, studying in the reverent hush that presided over the massive collection of books. In the intervening years, much of the building had been modernized, upgrading from tables to computer stations and expanding into conference and activity rooms. But even the beloved building failed to cheer her up as she trudged inside. Fatigue burned through every cell in her body. She felt as though she was weighed down by an invisible cloak. She couldn’t shake her sadness over the disconnect between her and Noah. That’s what it was, Josie had realized on her way from the hospital to the library: a disconnect. They’d been side by side almost every day for the last four years, moving through their personal and professional lives together with a natural ease. They had fallen in love and after many false starts, begun their romantic relationship. Josie thought they’d been tested in the past by some of their more shocking and difficult cases, but it was only now, only with this particular case, that she felt herself unmoored from Noah in a way she didn’t like at all.

As Josie approached the information desk, she wondered if there was something fundamentally wrong with her that she couldn’t be there for the significant other in her life. But that wasn’t true. She’d seen Ray through many things before he’d died, and there had been a serious relationship—an engagement—to a state trooper named Luke Creighton after Ray. She had faithfully cared for him for over a year after he was shot and lost his spleen. So why was she getting it so wrong in her attempts to be there for Noah?

“Miss? Can I help you? Miss?”

Josie blinked and gave her head a quick shake, trying to focus on the task at hand. She explained to the librarian what she was looking for, and the woman led her to a computer station on the second floor. Josie was already familiar with the electronic database, but she was too tired to stop the woman from giving her a spiel. She didn’t listen to much of it, only the part where the woman suggested that the items Josie was searching for were most likely in either the Denton Tribune or the Bellewood Record, but since the Record was a smaller paper, something like the results of shooting club competitions would have been more likely to be printed in it.

Josie thanked the woman for her assistance and started with the Bellewood Record, searching back to the early seventies for shooting clubs, shooting competitions and gun clubs. There were listings of the dates, times and locations of several competitions in the back of the Bellewood Record between 1970 and 1975 in the same area where the local churches listed their food drives, Easter egg hunts, potluck dinners and other services. She checked the papers in the days after each competition, but no results were listed. She expanded her search parameters to include the 1980s but still found nothing. She switched over to the Denton Tribune where she found a small article from 1976 in the bottom corner of the “Local” section titled: “Tri-County Shooting League Disbanded”.