Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(71)

“Because they want to keep coming back…”—she nearly choked—“… for more?”

He rocked back and forth on top of her, grinding into her. She couldn’t keep the repulsion from her face, which only made him laugh. “Well, sure, but mostly because they’re afraid of what I got on them. They all got wives and girlfriends and families and shit.” He let go of one of her wrists and pointed toward the door to outside. Josie could just make it out over his shoulder. “There,” he said, pointing to a small black camera affixed to the wall above the door. “My camera takes their picture as soon as they walk in. I have a record of who comes and how many times and what they do while they’re here.”

He took hold of her free wrist again and pinned her hands to the bed above her head. His breath was hot and smelly against her cheek as he laid himself on top of her. “And no one wants to be the one who takes me down.”

She turned her face away from his, so she didn’t have to see his beady eyes. Just keep him talking. As one of his hands reached down into the waistband of her pants, she forced out a question. “Where did you come up with it?”

“Jesus Christ, you talk a lot,” he complained. He sighed heavily, sat back up and let go of her hands. She immediately held them up in front of her. The relief she felt at having a bit of distance between them was palpable. “My dad,” he said. “It’s kind of a family business.” Her waistband momentarily forgotten, he reached down into his undone jeans, working his hand inside of them.

Josie thought of Alton Gosnell nestled safely and comfortably inside Rockview, just a few doors down the hall from her grandmother, and wanted to retch. So his father had started it. Taking his larynx seemed the least Sherri could do. “And your mom?”

His hand froze. A shadow passed over his face. After a few seconds he heaved himself off her and retrieved his beer. Josie scrambled up onto her knees.

Gosnell said, “She didn’t help. She didn’t know how to act. My dad had to put her down.”

“But you didn’t have that problem with Sherri,” she prompted.

His smile returned, faintly. “Sherri was a good girl.” The shadow returned. “Then that little cunt killed her.”

“June Spencer?”

“I let her out. We had the new one anyway. There wasn’t enough room. Sent her up to Donald. Then she goes and kills my Sherri.”

So June had been here.

“Was Donald one of your…”—she searched for the right word, every choice making her cringe, and settled on—“… regulars?”

He sipped the beer, suddenly in no hurry to get into her pants. He was enjoying this, she realized. Bragging about his sick enterprise. “Yeah, he was. Took a liking to June. When her time was up, he asked if he could take her. I told him he had to pay me for her. Two thousand dollars he offered. I took it. Easier than digging a hole.”

A fresh wave of dizziness washed over her. So, he killed them. What else would a man like Gosnell do with his chattel? “Was she the only one you sold?”

“Yeah. I didn’t need to get into all that. I make enough here with my girls.”

He started to leer at her again, his hand working harder inside his pants this time, so she said, “It must have been hard. Losing Sherri like that.”

His face colored with anger. The beer can hurtled toward her face, glancing off the wall beside her head. He leveled a finger at her. “Shut up already, would you?”

He took a breath, turned away from her, and stumbling, headed back to the fridge, next to the cabinet of vials and needles. Josie wondered how drunk he was and forged onward. “Sherri administered the drugs, didn’t she? To your girls? She was a nurse. She would have been used to giving needles.”

He took another beer from the fridge and slammed the door shut. He snapped the beer can open. “I said, shut up. You fucking talk too much.”

“Where did you get the drugs?” Josie asked, trying to keep him talking so he wouldn’t touch himself anymore—or, more importantly, her. “You must have needed a pretty steady supply. Your regulars—you had to have a doctor or a pharmacist, maybe more than one, as regular clients. Who’s your supplier?”

He ignored her, chugging his beer down but keeping one eye on her.

“You can’t do it, can you? Administer the drugs without Sherri?”

This beer can, fuller than the last one, hit her shoulder as she tried avoiding it and landed on the bed, its contents spilling onto the sheet. “You don’t listen for shit, do you?” he growled.

“What will you do now?” she pressed on. “You and Sherri never had kids. There’s no one to help you carry on the family business.”

Shaking his head, he went back to the fridge to get another beer. “You better shut up about my wife,” he muttered.

“What happened? She couldn’t have children? Or she didn’t want to have children with you? Or was it you? You couldn’t give her children?”

Josie narrowly avoided the full beer can as it smashed into the wall above her head, leaving a gash in the drywall and spraying liquid all over her. He advanced on her, again pointing accusingly. “I told you to shut the fuck up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Sherri had a tumor when she was nineteen. They had to tie up her female parts. There’s not a goddamn thing wrong with me.”