Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(36)

Josie left early in the morning and drove straight eastward, fifteen miles over the speed limit, turning a four-hour trip into a three-hour trip. Trinity had given her a cell phone number for Ginger’s husband, but Josie was afraid if she called ahead, the man would shut her down before she even had a chance to go to New Jersey. The element of surprise was best. She just hoped that the Blackwells—or the Gilmores as they were now known—were in.

Phillipsburg was just about the quaintest town Josie had ever seen. It reminded her a lot of Denton. Most of its buildings were grouped densely along the Delaware River directly across from Easton, Pennsylvania, but as Josie drove deeper into New Jersey, Phillipsburg’s clean, quaint streets gave way to long, rural roads and farmland. It had a distinct country feel to it. The Blackwells had moved to the outskirts. Their large, two-story Cape Cod with its gray siding and black shutters lay along a rural road between two farms. Josie estimated a good quarter-mile between the road and the house, all grass cut to golf green standards. A long gravel driveway led to the side of the house where the attached garage sat, its doors like two eyes tightly shut. The area around the house had been meticulously landscaped and lovingly decorated. It looked like the perfect suburban family paradise.

She parked outside of the garage and walked to the front door, ears tuned to the low, gravelly bark of what sounded like a large dog coming from inside the house. The storm door was accented with decorative steel bars. Josie tugged on its handle but it was locked. The low bark continued from inside, the sound so powerful she could almost feel its vibration from where she stood. She rang the doorbell and waited. After a few minutes, the heavier black door creaked open just wide enough to reveal the white of an eyeball. “Can I help you?”

Josie pressed her face between the bars of the storm door and spoke into the pane of glass. “Mrs.… uh, Gilmore?”

“She’s not here.”

“Well, actually I’m looking for Ginger Blackwell.”

The eye blinked. The barking, closer now, rose in intensity. “Who are you?” the woman asked, her tone strident now.

Josie had to shout over the barking. “My name is Josie Quinn. I’m from Denton.”

“Go away.”

“I’m a detective with their police department—I mean, I’m off duty now, but I’m a police officer. I just need to ask you some questions.”

The eye was so wide it looked cartoonish. “I’m calling 911. I suggest you leave immediately. Do not come back.”

The eyeball disappeared, and the inner door slammed shut with the finality of a coffin closing.

“Wait!” Josie cried. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted into the glass. “Mrs. Blackwell, please! Just hear me out. Please. Another girl has gone missing. I need your help.”

But she was certain she couldn’t be heard over the barking. She waited a few minutes for the noise to die down and tried again, shouting once more into the heavy glass pane of the storm door in the gap between two of the steel bars. The barking began anew. She repeated the process several more times, waiting for a police cruiser to roll into the driveway at any moment. But it didn’t.

After the fifth or sixth attempt to get Ginger’s attention the door cracked open again. Josie’s throat burned from trying to be heard through the doors; her voice was hoarse, her words tumbling out too fast. “Mrs. Blackwe— Please, another girl is missing, need your help, I—”

The woman’s tone was icy. “If you think I’m going to help the Denton police department, you’re out of your mind. Go away before I call the police, for real this time.”

“I’m on suspension!” Josie blurted in a last-ditch effort to keep the woman at the cracked door.

The eye stared at her warily, waiting as Josie plunged ahead. “Please. Just hear me out. I’m not here in my capacity as a police officer. I’m a private citizen. Some things have come to my attention lately, and I am just trying to figure them out. I—I read about you on the internet. You were abducted before I was a police officer. Trinity Payne—the reporter—she gave me your address. She told me you had changed your name, and she was very clear about the need to protect your privacy. She is the only one who knows I am here. I will never give anyone your address. I promise you, I will not disclose your new name or this place.”

The door cracked open another inch and Josie could see the pale, lightly freckled skin of Ginger’s cheek. Tiny lines extended from the corner of her eye. “Why were you suspended?” she asked.

Josie swallowed. She felt nervous, the way she had when she had to testify in court the first time. The assistant district attorney had fired off questions at her while the jury stared. She had felt like a bug trapped inside a glass. “It was a noise disturbance. Out by the old textile mill in Denton. You know, by the river, those houses that get flooded every year?”

“I remember,” said Ginger.

“I’d been called to investigate a robbery nearby, so I was the closest. Otherwise patrol would have responded. So, I show up there—it’s like one in the morning. One of the neighbors says he keeps hearing a kid crying, people fighting, that sort of thing. He knows none of his neighbors has kids. Tells me he has a bad feeling. So, I find the house that’s the source of all the noise. It’s a bunch of guys, maybe mid-twenties, mid-thirties—partying. They were pretty accommodating when I asked them to keep it down. I said I wanted to have a look around. I get out to the back, you know, near where the river bank is—a few people from the party were out there—and there’s this woman. Obviously a habitual drug user. She’s got—she’s got her daughter—”