Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(32)

Quite honestly, she had expected more support from her colleagues. Like none of them had ever lost his temper in the heat of the moment, been driven to do something regrettable, something stupid or maybe, yes, a little crazy. Sometimes it happened. What they dealt with day after day was the worst humanity had to offer. If it didn’t get to you now and then, you weren’t human. Only Noah had given any indication that he understood. He had quietly said to her, as she left the station house in disgrace, gunless and badgeless, “She had it coming.”

Josie took the steaming cup of coffee Luke offered her, fixed just the way she liked it—two sugars and lots of half-and-half. “Luke,” she said, as he sat down next to her. “Remember the incident with that woman, you know, the one I got suspended for?”

He laughed. “Hard to forget it.”

“Do you think I did the right thing? Hitting her like that? Or do you think I was… I don’t know… crazy?”

His face turned serious. “No,” he said, not a hint of laughter in his tone. “I don’t think you were crazy at all. I would have shot her.”





Chapter Twenty-Six





They went out to breakfast, and in a hushed tone she told him what June had shown her after Sherri Gosnell’s murder, following up with her theory that the Princess tongue barbell in June’s mouth actually belonged to Isabelle Coleman. He didn’t tell her she was crazy. He didn’t question her competence. He didn’t tell her she had too much time on her hands, or that she should give it a rest. Instead, he raised an eyebrow, chewed his toast thoughtfully, swallowed and asked, “Did you check June Spencer’s Facebook page to see if there are any photos of her with this tongue piercing?”

Her fork paused, floating over her plate. “I did. There wasn’t anything useful. Wait—you think I’m right?”

Luke shrugged. “Don’t know. I can see what the chief is saying. It’s not a definitive piece of evidence that points to Coleman, but given everything you’ve told me, I can also see where you’re coming from.”

“You think there is something bigger at work here? Like Drummond was involved with someone else? Maybe more than one person?”

He finished off his toast. “I don’t know. Anything’s possible.”

“You think it’s some kind of trafficking ring?”

His brow furrowed as he took a sip of coffee, then he said, “Traffickers spend a lot of time grooming their girls. They don’t usually take by force. I’m not saying they never kidnap women, I’m just saying the usual MO is for them to find a girl with low self-esteem—family issues, desperate for attention, that sort of thing—and then they pull the bait and switch. It’s usually one guy making the girl feel like she’s the most special person in the whole world, that he loves her like crazy, giving her all kinds of gifts, lavishing her with attention and then when she is so gaga for him that she’ll do anything, he introduces the sex-for-money thing. It’s all about manipulation. It’s a game, and these guys are good at it. We do a lot of busts at truck stops. I see a lot of these girls. Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of them. So a trafficking ring that abducts teenage girls and then either gives them or sells them to known sex offenders to keep? It’s possible, but I’m really not sold on that.”

“But you think it’s possible that the same person or people who took Ginger Blackwell also took Coleman, and possibly June Spencer?”

Another shrug. “Could be. Worth checking out. You should tell your chief to request a copy of the Blackwell file and check for any connections to the Coleman case—assuming that the Blackwell case really wasn’t a hoax. If there is anything useful, I’m sure he’ll find it. Who has the file?”

“The state police would have a file. They were the first responders, and they had the case until the chief raised holy hell and got an investigator from the DA’s office involved. The state police lab processed the evidence.”

“You got all that from Google?”

“Trinity Payne did a pretty detailed story on the whole thing.”

Luke said nothing and they ate in silence for a few moments. Then Josie asked him the question she’d been working up to the entire time, “Can you get me a copy of the Ginger Blackwell file?”

He stared at her. “Josie.”

“I know. I’m asking a lot. Especially because I’m not on the job right now.”

The truth was that even if she was on the job, asking for a copy of the file was putting Luke in an awkward position. It was a closed case and she was with another law enforcement agency. “Please,” she added.

He put his fork down and put both his hands on the table on either side of his plate. “Why?”

“Because I don’t believe that her case was a hoax, but I won’t know for sure unless I know what the police held back from the press. And what if there really are connections between her case and Isabelle Coleman’s? What if Coleman is being held in the same place Blackwell was taken? I could find her.”

He looked away from her for a moment, at a point over her shoulder. A small vertical crease appeared above the bridge of his nose. He looked uncomfortable, like the time she’d had to tell him that she was still, technically, married to Ray. She could tell he was considering his words carefully. Whatever he was about to say, he didn’t want to offend her or patronize her. Finally, he forged ahead. “Josie, Denton PD is perfectly capable of following up on these leads. Googling missing girls in this area and trying to connect their cases is one thing; accessing a police file illegally for no other reason than…” He drifted off, unwilling or unable to finish the sentence. “I know it’s hard for you, being suspended, especially with everything that’s going on right now, and I know you want to be a hero and find Coleman on your own, redeem yourself or whatever, but maybe you would… I don’t know, get more sleep at night if you found something else to, you know, take up your time.”