Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(25)

Nothing. Round and round the O she went. “June,” Josie tried again. “Who is Ramona? I want to help you, but I can’t do that if you don’t tell me what’s happening. Do you know Ramona? Is she in trouble? June, if this Ramona is in trouble, then I need to find her as soon as possible. I can help her. Let me help her. Who is she? Where can I find her?”

Up and down, up and down her hand went, now working on the letter N.

“I saw your uncle the other day,” Josie tried. “Your uncle Dirk. Right after his accident. I was there. He said her name. He whispered it to me. He said, ‘Ramona.’ If you could just tell me who—”

The rest of the sentence lodged in Josie’s throat so hard and fast she started coughing. June’s head snapped in her direction and her amber eyes zeroed in on Josie like a predatory bird. They flashed with intelligence and awareness. For that split second, June was there. Really and truly there, in the room with Josie. Then she was gone. She turned back to the wall, and continued.

Josie recovered herself. “June, please. You can trust me. Please tell me what’s going on. Who is Ramona?”

The sound of sirens, muffled but getting closer, invaded the room. Disappointment mixed with desperation rounded Josie’s shoulders. The cavalry was arriving. June would be taken into custody, and with her any chance Josie had of discovering who the hell Ramona was and where Josie could find her.

She glanced at the empty doorway, and when she looked back at June the girl was staring at her again, the lucidity in her light-brown eyes so stark and startling that Josie’s breath caught. Panic welled inside her.

The girl leaned forward and Josie instinctively flinched, throwing a hand up—but no attack came. Craning her neck, June brought her face within inches of Josie’s, opened her mouth, and stuck her tongue out as far as she could. In the center of it was a small pink ball with a word written on it. Lizard-like, June retracted her tongue before Josie’s brain could properly process the word. Tiny, white letters. Barely readable. Princess.

“Where did you—where did you get that, June?” Josie asked.

But the moment was over. The girl retreated back into herself, her eyes as blank and empty as polished stones, her scarlet palm massaging Sherri Gosnell’s blood into the final letter.





Chapter Twenty-One





Josie sat in a chair next to Noah Fraley’s desk, staring down at her sneakers and waiting to talk with the chief while Noah made awkward attempts at conversation. “Did you know Mrs. Gosnell’s father-in-law is a patient at Rockview?”

She had tried like hell to stay away from Sherri’s blood, but there it was—a browning crust around her soles. There was no avoiding it. Not in that room. Not after the way June had killed her. “They’re called residents,” she told Noah, absently.

“What?”

She was trying to focus on Noah, but kept seeing June’s tongue extended toward her. Princess. What was Isabelle Coleman’s tongue barbell doing in June Spencer’s mouth? Noah stared at her expectantly. She said, “In nursing homes, they’re not called patients. They’re called residents. They live there.”

Noah’s face flushed. “Oh.”

She hadn’t meant to embarrass him. Quickly, she said, “I knew that Sherri’s father-in-law is a resident there. I see him there sometimes when I visit my grandmother. Saw him today, actually. He’s the one with the artificial larynx, always accusing Sherri of stealing it. Must be a family joke. Sherri’s husband is—was—the plumber, right?”

Josie couldn’t remember his first name, but knew he was a Gosnell. She knew this because over a year ago, when their hot water heater burst, Ray had categorically refused to call the man—or any plumber—insisting on installing the new one himself, even though he had no plumbing experience whatsoever. The fight that ensued between Josie and Ray had been a big one. It was almost as though letting another man fix something in his house was a violation. As if letting a plumber install a hot water heater was the equivalent of letting a stranger have a go at your wife. The irony was not lost on Josie.

“Nick,” Noah supplied. “Nick Gosnell. They told him about an hour ago. He was out on an emergency call. Dusty tracked him down. Poor guy. Can you imagine? I heard they were high school sweethearts.”

Josie frowned. “That’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

She expected more blushing from Noah, perhaps a muttered apology or a palm to his forehead in a gesture of embarrassment. But all he said was, “I guess not.”

She followed his gaze to where Ray stood, just outside the chief’s door, talking with another officer. Slowly he walked toward her, and she had the strange sensation of being one of those military wives who saw the soldiers in their shiny dress uniforms coming up the driveway, knowing it only meant bad news. When he got closer, she stood up and wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans.

The phone rang on Noah’s desk and he answered it with a brisk, “Fraley.”

Ray said, “You okay?”

No. She felt shaken by what had happened with June. She’d given a brief statement to Ray when he arrived at the nursing home with a small group of other officers, but she hadn’t told him about the tongue piercing.

“Jo?”

She said, “Yeah, I’m fine. Where’s June?”