Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(73)

She heard Ray’s voice then, as surely as if he were standing at the foot of the bed. Calm down, Jo. The darkness can’t hurt you.

She stopped struggling and took a long, shuddering breath, allowing Nick to free her hands. He reached for her hair again, his preferred method of moving women from place to place. Without hesitation, she reached up with both hands and grabbed the sides of his face, as though she was going to draw him in for a kiss. For a split second, his face registered delighted surprise. Then she drove her thumbs into the soft orbs of his eyes, holding onto his head while he howled and bucked and swung his arms, desperate to get away from her.

He fell away, off the bed and onto the floor. She leapt over him, landing painfully on her knees, and found his gun discarded on the floor. She stood, pain shooting through both her kneecaps, and trained the gun on his writhing form. He held his palms against his eyes. “My eyes!” he screamed. “My eyes!”

“Gosnell,” she shouted.

“My eyes! You bitch. My eyes!”

“Stop moving,” she told him as she stepped closer to him.

“You fucking bitch!” he shrieked.

“This is for Ray,” she said and fired a shot into his left kneecap.

More howls. His hands scrambled for his obliterated kneecap. He curled onto his side. Following his jerky movements, she placed the barrel of the gun against his right kneecap—steel against bone—and fired again. Blood and bone sprayed up into her face. She used her forearm to wipe it away. The sounds coming out of him were like nothing she had ever heard before—not from a human—but she was dead to it. “That was for the chief.”

She kicked him, rolling him until he was flat on his back, grinding her heel into the crushed knee closest to her. She leaned over so that she might be heard over his cries. “This is for the girls,” she said and fired a shot into his groin.

She tossed the gun away and ran to where the chief lay, face down. She touched his shoulder and he coughed. “Josie,” he choked.

She dropped to her knees. “Chief!”

“Don’t move me,” he said, his voice raspy. Every word seemed a monumental struggle. She strained to hear him. “I think the bullet severed my spine. I can’t feel anything. It’s hard to… hard to breathe.”

She lay down next to him, her face inches from his, so he could see her eyes. He tried to smile, but a tear slid out of his eye and rolled off the bridge of his nose. They stared at each other for a beat. The relief that Josie felt was subsumed by the grief that was already overwhelming her. Nothing would ever be the same again.

“Listen,” he whispered. “This is important.”

“Chief,” she squeaked.

“Trust Fraley. He’s clean. I’m promoting you to chief. You’re reinstated and promoted. Don’t… don’t trust anyone else. You’ll… you’ll have to bring in… new—”

“I’ll bring in new people,” she promised.

“Watch your… watch your back.”

“I will.”

His eyelids fluttered. “Call…”

She touched his cheek gently. “Chief?”

“FBI.”

“Okay, I will.”

His eyes opened wide and he held her gaze with a penetrating intensity that made goosebumps erupt over her entire body. “Get them,” he said. “Get them all.”

Then he exhaled for the very last time.





Chapter Sixty-One





She covered the chief with a sheet from the bed as reverently as she could in the godforsaken hellhole they were in. Nick’s body had gone completely still amongst the wide and extensive blood and bone spatter all around him. She let herself sob for several minutes beside her mentor, holding her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth like a child. She wailed and keened and let herself feel the unfathomable loss she had just experienced for a few private moments. Then she wiped her tears away and hauled herself to her feet. She found her pants and put them back on. Then she surveyed the room. She had to think. She had to be smart about this.

First things first. She had to open the doors. Dread was a heavy brick in her stomach. She didn’t know which door Gosnell had taken her out of so she would have to check each one. She started with the closest one and worked her way down. Much to her relief, the first cell was empty, although it looked as though it had been recently vacated. A crumpled blanket lay on the wooden cot, and a discarded fast food bag lay on the floor. When she opened the second door, she saw Ray’s boots and closed it again. She couldn’t bear to see him. Not like that. Not yet.

She sucked in a breath and opened the third door. Empty. Behind the fourth door a thin, waifish form curled cowering in the corner of the cell. She balled herself up tighter when Josie stepped through the door. “Hello?” Josie called. The woman shot upright and scurried away from her, one pale thin arm covering her eyes. “No more,” she said, her voice hoarse. Josie didn’t think it possible but the rage she felt toward Gosnell for all the horror he had inflicted on so many innocent young women burned even hotter.

“It’s okay,” Josie said. “You’re safe now. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Josie waited several moments. Finally, the woman lowered her arm and blinked, taking Josie in. It wasn’t Isabelle Coleman. This woman was likely in her mid-twenties, with short dark hair and a pointy chin. “Who are you?” the woman asked, the question sounding like an accusation.