Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(7)

Flinging her arms wide, she stared at the ceiling and concentrated on breathing through the pain until it subsided. She listened to cars passing outside and the noises of her house—the hum of the fridge, the roar of the forced-air heating system as it kicked on, and then the deafening silence when it kicked off. She still wasn’t used to the house, having only moved in three months earlier. It was a proud moment for her, finally owning her own house. She hadn’t been able to stay in the home she and Ray had shared. Sure, it was painful—how could the end of a marriage not be painful?—but mostly, living there made her irrationally angry. He had had the good sense to move out, living on Dusty’s couch for months while she looked for a new place to live. He had offered to give her the house. He had cheated, he reasoned, so he should have to leave. It was the most intelligent thing he had said in the last decade.

Josie tried it. She tried to move on while living in the home they’d bought together as a young married couple. The home where they’d celebrated their promotions. The home where they’d entertained mutual friends—almost all of whom were on Denton’s police force—on holidays and on nights when their jobs had been particularly difficult. The home they’d furnished and decorated together, arguing over their choices in perfect matrimony.

She couldn’t do it; she didn’t want to stay there. The thought of using her own money that she had earned to buy her own house was so appealing to her, it made her giddy. She’d found the three-bedroom bungalow-style home on two acres of land after only a month of searching. It was her house; she knew it the moment she saw the front of it. She didn’t even need to go inside, but the realtor had insisted. A college professor had owned it. He’d been abruptly transferred and wanted a quick sale. It was a match made in heaven.

She let Ray keep all of their furniture. She didn’t want any remnants from their life together. The downside of that decision was that since she had sunk all her money into the new house, she had had very little left to spend on new furniture. It was a work in progress. With her work hours she was rarely home anyway, and she didn’t entertain, except for Luke, and they spent ninety-five percent of their time in her bedroom.

Her one extravagance had been the enormous bed she lay on now. A small compensation for her shitty childhood; a king-sized bed in a huge master bedroom with high ceilings and a wall of windows was about as far as you could get from the two-foot-by-four-foot closet where she began.

Usually Josie reveled in sprawling out in the luxurious bed with its fifteen different-sized pillows, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Dirk Spencer: shot and bleeding out, eyes panic-stricken, struggling to utter just one word. Why that word? Why that name? Who was Ramona? Why was Spencer in an SUV with a bunch of gangbangers from Philadelphia? Had he been in Philadelphia? Did they take him under duress? Who was shooting at them?

There were too many unanswered questions. Too many for Josie to possibly stay home in bed.





Chapter Six





It only took a few minutes for Josie to google an address for Dirk Spencer. His house was on top of a mountain in a development called Briar Lane. The small collection of modular homes could only be reached by one of the long, narrow rural roads that snaked from Denton proper out into the thick forests surrounding it. Josie actually passed the Coleman driveway on her way out there; the two lay along the same road. A large yellow mailbox with hand-painted cardinals on it stood alone on the shoulder of the road where the mouth of the small one-lane driveway that snaked its way through the woods to the Colemans’ home started. She expected to see crime scene tape, a cruiser, or another WYEP news van parked at the turn-off, but it was deserted.

Like most of the new developments in Denton, all the houses in Briar Lane looked the same. They came in three colors: tan, gray, and white. Some of the residents had added a little character with landscaping and lawn ornaments. Dirk Spencer’s house was gray and nondescript. He hadn’t bothered to add any distinguishing touches. If Josie didn’t know any better, she would think the house was unoccupied.

She parked out front even though the driveway was empty. She had no idea who else lived there, if he had a wife who might arrive at any moment. She didn’t want to be blocked in. She knocked on the door a few times and then rang the doorbell, but no one came to the door. No sounds came from the house at all. No barking dogs or cats in the windows. She peeked in through the gauzy curtains and she saw furniture, but nothing inside moved.

“Oh, honey, he’s not home.” A woman’s voice came from behind her. Josie turned to see a white-haired woman at the end of the driveway. She wore a camouflage-green raincoat even though it wasn’t raining, and held a cane in one hand. She smiled at Josie. “You missed him. Someone picked him up this morning in a big car.”

So, Spencer had gone willingly with the men in the Escalade.

“You saw him leave?” she asked the woman.

“Well, yeah. That big old truck was parked out here, same place you parked. They beeped twice. That’s what made me come to the window. Dirk came running out a few minutes later, hopped right in.”

He’d been expecting them. He must have left his own car in the garage.

“It’s probably best you missed him with all that fighting between you two. Did you forget where he keeps the spare key?”

It was only then that Josie realized the woman was mistaking her for someone else. Someone who knew Dirk Spencer quite well. Before she could answer, the woman hobbled up the driveway, picked up a round, palm-sized stone from beside the porch steps and shook it until a small flap opened up along its surface and a shiny key fell out. Quickly, Josie stooped and snatched the key from the ground. “Thanks,” she said.