Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(48)

During the ride to the hospital Josie had kept her hysteria at bay by cataloging all the questions she had. She was Josie the police officer, not Josie the police officer’s fiancé. It was the only way to keep her foot on the gas, to keep moving forward, to keep her from pulling over and losing it completely on the side of the road.

Before her knees could buckle, she stumbled backward and fell into the nearest chair. Carrieann dropped into the chair beside her and reached over, squeezing Josie’s hand in hers. It was odd and somewhat alarming to see her so affectionate, as though they’d been sisters-in-law for years, but she got the feeling it was more to comfort herself than to comfort Josie. Either way, she would take it. This was uncharted territory for her. The only two people Josie had ever truly cared about before Luke were her grandmother and Ray, and neither one of them had ever been in danger. Luke had come into her life like the air she needed when her shitty life threatened to suffocate her. She’d been surviving her suspension in large part because of him. She loved his good humor, his smile, his body—his body that was fighting to stay alive at that moment. She wished she hadn’t left that message earlier. It seemed so trivial now. She hoped those words wouldn’t be the last ones he ever heard from her.

“What happened?” she asked Carrieann.

Luke’s sister looked around the room as though she had just realized they were there, alone among the vinyl upholstered chairs and old, discarded magazines. In one hand rested a balled-up tissue. She squeezed it. “They said he was in the parking lot at the barracks. He had just finished his shift. He was ambushed. Someone shot him twice. In the chest.”

Josie closed her eyes. All she could think of was his heart. It was a kill shot. How was he still alive? Tears streamed down her cheeks in hot, salty streaks.

“Oh, hon,” Carrieann said huskily as she slung an arm around Josie’s shoulders and pulled her into an awkward side hug. “He’s strong. He’s going to survive this.”

But Carrieann didn’t believe that any more than Josie did. It was just something you told yourself while you waited for an outcome that no one had any control over. “What caliber?”

“What?” Carrieann said.

“What caliber were the bullets?”

Most people would never think to ask, but Carrieann and Luke had been shooting targets and hunting game since they were old enough to hold a gun, which was younger than most people were when they first held a gun. “30-30,” Carrieann said.

“A hunting round.”

Carrieann nodded.

Nearly every household in rural Pennsylvania had a hunting rifle that took 30-30 ammunition. A hunter would know the immense damage the round could do to a human being; depending on the type of round, it could shoot straight through a person or it could fragment inside and destroy everything in its path. Luke was lucky to be alive. For now.

Carrieann said, “They said the shots came from the woods.”

“Oh God.”

It must have been close to the place they’d hooked up the other day. The barracks was surrounded on three sides by forest. Someone had intentionally hidden in the trees and waited for him to finish his shift. Him? Or any trooper, she wondered. She thought of the manila envelope on her kitchen table. The Ginger Blackwell file with all of its missing information. The other envelope in her car showing that Ginger had been raped, just as she had said. Had Luke been targeted because he’d been nosing around in the matter? It sure felt like it. Or was she reading too much into it again? No. She was sure that she wasn’t. He had been picked off in the parking lot at the end of his shift. It was intentional.

Who could have known that he was nosing around in the Blackwell file? Obviously, Denise had some idea that he’d been looking into it, but she seemed much more interested in him personally. Since he had accessed the physical file, it had to be someone in his barracks. They might not even know he’d passed it on to Josie or that he’d called Denise about the rape kit.

But if someone did know that he’d given it to Josie and that she was looking into the Ginger Blackwell case, was she next?

She looked around. She’d seen two state troopers at the entrance to the hospital and one outside the doors to the surgical wing, but that was it. Usually when a member of law enforcement was shot, their brothers in arms were everywhere. Standing guard. Keeping vigil. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

“Scouring the woods,” Carrieann answered. “Trying to find the person who shot Luke.”

But they wouldn’t find him. Because it was one of them. He would know how to cover his tracks. He was probably out there with them right now, searching for himself. Everyone would be fooled. No one would expect that one of their own would turn on them. Unless the killer had help? Unless it was more than one person? She thought of the DA and Jimmy Lampson and their shady report on the Blackwell case. Then there were the four state troopers who were transferred soon after working on the Blackwell file. So they wouldn’t ask questions? So the men responsible for Ginger’s abduction would never be called to account for their crimes?

None of the Denton PD officers who had worked on the Blackwell case had been banished, and there were three law enforcement agencies involved in the Blackwell case. The state police, Denton PD, and the district attorney’s office. Which meant that if law enforcement was either complicit or involved in Ginger Blackwell’s abduction, there was no way of knowing exactly who was involved or how deeply it went.