Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(10)

Flustered by having been caught sleeping on the job, his words came out fast, piling on top of one another. When she smiled at him, the color in his cheeks deepened. He had always had a crush on her. Noah wasn’t bad-looking, but it was impossible to see him that way. He had no swagger. You had to have some degree of confidence to be a cop. Even if it was fake. Noah’s decided lack of self-assurance was exactly the reason he kept getting assignments like this—sitting in a car all day making sure no one went into the woods.

“Is that the crime scene?” she asked him.

He glanced over at the crime scene tape tied across the trees on the shoulder of the road and then back at her. She could see the hesitation in his face. “Uh, yeah, it’s through the woods there.”

The trees were thick and the woodland dense; there was no path that Josie could see. “Through the woods? How far from the road?”

Noah shrugged. “I don’t know. You have to go back a ways.”

She rested her forearms on the window’s edge and leaned closer. “Do you mind if I take a look?”

“I—uh, I can’t, you know, I’m not supposed to, I really shouldn’t—”

“Noah,” she said, her tone conspiratorial. “I’m an experienced investigator. You know I won’t disturb the scene.”

“But the chief said no one except—”

“It’s already been processed, hasn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but I still have to keep a log of everyone who comes in and out,” he said.

“You don’t even have to put me on the log. It will be like I was never here.”

“But the point of the log is so we know who was on the scene and when.”

She tried another tack. “Officer Fraley, am I or am I not your superior?”

He shifted uncomfortably, looking away from her. “But you’re not, you’re—you’re on suspension.”

“You don’t think the chief will call me back soon? I know you guys are running on empty. He’s got everyone on around the clock, doesn’t he?”

Noah nodded. He let out a long breath. “It’s been awful,” he admitted.

“And now with this shooting…” she added.

He met her eyes again. “I, uh, heard you were there. Glad you’re okay, by the way.”

“Me too,” she said. She was close enough to smell the stale scent of old sweat. He probably hadn’t been home to shower or change for a good three days. “Noah,” she tried again. “The chief is going to call me back any minute now. Ray told me so. When he does I’m going to need to be up to speed. You don’t have to tell anyone I was here, and I don’t have to tell anyone that you fell asleep at your post.”

He closed his eyes, resignation and shame warring for dominance on his face. “Please, just be quick, okay?”

She patted his shoulder and half-ran, half-hobbled off toward the woods before he could change his mind.

“Don’t leave your car here!” he shouted after her.

He was right. If someone from the department came while she was in the woods, there was no way he could explain away her vehicle. Of course, there weren’t many places she could leave her car without giving away the fact that she was nosing around the Coleman scene. She couldn’t park up near the house, so the best she could do was park along the shoulder of the main road about a half mile back. Anyone coming from town to the Coleman home would not pass her vehicle. If someone showed up while she was at the abduction scene, she could always find her way back to her car through the woods and take off with no one the wiser. She just had to hope no one on the force decided to pass the Coleman home and head toward Dirk Spencer’s development while she was at the scene.

By the time she got to the Colemans’ mailbox she was sweating pretty heavily, and the left side of her body had gone from a dull ache to an angry throb. She took off her jacket and tied it around her waist. As she passed the mailbox, she saw something bright and pink in the grass a few feet from it. A closer inspection revealed an acrylic nail: hot pink with yellow stripes. She snapped a few pictures of it with her phone before picking it up with a tissue and putting it in her pocket.

She knew the woods around the Colemans’ home had been searched extensively. They would have come to the edge of the road. They probably had even gone a few miles into the woods on the other side of the road, across from the mailbox. She was sure this nail would have been seen by someone already. It should have been taken into evidence, at least until they could determine whether or not it belonged to Isabelle. Unless it was from one of the searchers, which was entirely possible. Or perhaps Mrs. Coleman had stopped for the mail and lost it. Josie sighed as she trudged up the long driveway. This was the sort of thing that drove her crazy. There was no way to know whether or not it was important. If she hadn’t had to give up her badge, she would go right to Mrs. Coleman with it and ask if she recognized it. But she wasn’t a cop right now.

She nodded at Noah as she stepped gingerly behind the crime scene tape. More yellow tape tied from tree to tree formed a narrow path that led to the clearing. The ground was covered with mud, decomposing leaves, and snapped-off tree branches. She estimated the scene was about forty feet from the side of the driveway. It was just a small clearing with a large stone to one side. There was nothing to it, really. All the evidence had been processed and removed.