Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(27)

“What about from prison?”

The chief pointed a finger at her. “Quinn. I mean it, now. Stop. I appreciate your telling me what happened with that girl, but you need to go home. We will follow up every lead. You know that. But you’re out. Leave the police work to us.”

Josie sensed this might be her only chance to plead her case for getting back on the force. When would she next be in front of him? When he called her back, whenever the hell that would be. She wasn’t about to hold her breath. “I’m sorry, but listen to me. Things are moving quickly. You’re short-staffed. You’re working a high-profile abduction where there might be more than one person involved, a shootout, a kidnapping—again, where multiple possible suspects are involved—and now a murder.”

“You think I don’t know what we’re dealing with right now, Quinn?”

“That’s not what I said. You need help. Let me come back. Two weeks. You can put me back out on suspension after things settle down.”

“That’s not how it works, and you know it. As always, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’re on thin ice here. The DA is all over my ass to conduct a proper investigation. You have a better chance of winning the lottery than that woman deciding not to press charges. I’m trying to figure out a way to get you out of the mess you made before all this shit started. You being in the middle of every other damn mess isn’t helping.”

“She won’t press charges,” Josie said.

His voice rose to a near shout. “Quinn, you knocked out two of her teeth! How in the hell do you know she won’t press charges?”

Because what she did was far worse than me elbowing her in the face, Josie thought. She kept her mouth shut this time; the last time they’d had this conversation it had sounded like a justification. Instead, she tried, “I’m sorry. I’ll try to… fly under the radar from now on. But please, just think about it. We can do it quietly. Put me on the tip line or let me guard June Spencer while she’s in holding. I’ll keep my head down, I promise.”

He sighed. “I said no, Quinn. I brought you in here to put you on notice. Stay out of the shit, will you?”

She wanted to scream. Instead, she asked, as calmly as possible, “What about the Ramona thing?”

Slowly, his eyelids dropped. He raised his head to the ceiling and inhaled deeply, his way of counting to ten. She’d pushed him too far. His blue eyes locked on her again. “Did you not hear a goddamn thing I said?”

“I did. I was just wondering. Now more than ever, we need to find her, don’t you think? What if she’s connected to Isabelle Coleman somehow? What if she knows where Coleman is?”

The chief rubbed a hand over his eyes. “There’s no Ramona. I got the report after the shootout, and we checked every possibility. There are six Ramonas in the NAMUS database listed as missing, and none of them are from Pennsylvania. Not even close. We checked out Spencer’s house. Talked to coworkers, friends, his ex-girlfriend. No one knows anyone with that name. We don’t even have anyone named Ramona in the city—accounted for or unaccounted for. It’s a dead end, Quinn.”

“But don’t you think it’s weird that both Spencers brought the name up? It must mean something. Whoever Ramona is, she must be important.”

“What’s weird is you pushing all this when you’re suspended. I don’t appreciate you second-guessing the quality of work that this department is putting out. Now unless you want to be on unpaid suspension, you better get out of my office right now.”

“Chief.”

“Now,” he hollered.

His words hit her like a physical slap. She gripped the armrests of her chair and pushed herself to standing. It wasn’t that he had yelled at her. The chief was well known for his big, booming voice. It was the way he looked at her. For the second time in the last five minutes, she felt like a stranger in her own world.

She kept her eyes on him and backed out of the room.





Chapter Twenty-Three





She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping, but she was startled awake when the door swung open, pushing against her prone form. As she opened her eyes, daylight slashed into the room, blinding her. The pain in her head was instant and excruciating. The girl clenched her eyes closed as tightly as she could, threw her forearm over her face and scrambled backward until her body slammed hard into the stone wall. Before she could catch her breath, a rough hand dragged her up from the ground.

“Stand up,” a man’s voice commanded.

She followed the pain in her scalp more than his command. Her legs wobbled and shook as she stood upright. She tried opening her eyes again but the light was too harsh.

“Please,” she croaked. “I want to go home.”

He laughed, his breath hot in her ear. “You can’t go home, girlie,” he said. “You’re mine now.”





Chapter Twenty-Four





It was nearing ten o’clock and Josie was three shots of Wild Turkey deep by the time Luke arrived at her house. She met him at the door, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him deeply. She felt the stir of her lust for him, intensified by booze. Before he could catch his breath, she was undoing his belt.