Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(83)

Then, a few days after Sherri’s murder, Gosnell had called Dusty in a panic. Isabelle had escaped. The first escape ever. Gosnell had put it down to him being off his game after Sherri’s death. Plus, Sherri hadn’t been there to administer the date rape drugs so it was likely that Isabelle had become much more lucid and capable of defending herself. She had run off into the woods and hadn’t been seen since.

Josie knew from what Ray had said that the department had been searching for her around the clock for days before the showdown in the bunker. Even after that, they had kept up the search in the chief’s absence, but to no avail. Now that nearly all of Gosnell’s clients and accomplices in law enforcement had been arrested, the Denton PD was considerably lighter on staff. Josie planned to use Trinity to make a public appeal for every citizen who was willing and able to join the search.

Dusty had also given up two other Denton officers for the shooting of the gangbangers and Dirk Spencer. He said Spencer had managed to find out about “Ramona” from a bar he started frequenting after June’s disappearance. It had taken him a while to get the barflies there to talk about Gosnell’s enterprise, let alone give up its location, but eventually someone did. Somehow, word got back to some of Denton’s police officers that Spencer was planning to raid Gosnell’s bunker with the help of his city friends, and they had managed to head him off. There was a dirty cop at Luke’s barracks, as Josie had suspected, who helped cover up the police involvement in the shootout. That cop had also suggested framing Denise Poole, since he knew about her past relationship with Luke and her stalker-like tendencies.

What Holcomb hadn’t yet managed to get out of Dusty was who had shot Luke. On screen, Holcomb stood at one end of the table, one hand on his hip and the other smoothing down his tie as he stared at Dusty over a pair of reading glasses. His suit jacket rested on the back of his chair. Even on television, he towered over the table in front of him. Dusty looked like a small child sitting across from the agent.

“Sit,” Noah said, pulling her from her thoughts.

She took the chair next to him, sipping her coffee. “Turn it up,” she told Noah.

Across from Holcomb, Dusty slouched in his seat. A shock of greasy hair fell into his eyes but he didn’t push it away. He wore only a plain white T-shirt, and Josie could see the yellow pit stains creeping from his underarms. His hands waved as he talked.

“It was that guy I told you about earlier—the one who helped us cover up the shooting with the gangbangers,” he told Holcomb.

Holcomb looked down at the notes in front of him and rattled off the name of a state trooper.

“Yeah, him. He saw the Blackwell file in Luke’s truck. Like, in an envelope. So he called Nick, and Nick called me.”

“Why would Nick call you?”

Dusty shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You were a frequent customer.”

The coffee burned a hole in Josie’s stomach.

Dusty shrugged. “Well, yeah. Sure, I guess. We talked about it. By that time I had a few calls from guys on Denton PD and a guy I know in the sheriff’s office. People were concerned, you know?”

“Names, Officer Branson, I need names,” Holcomb said.

Dusty rattled off a bunch of names, and Holcomb wrote them down. Then he continued, “Who made the decision to shoot Trooper Creighton?”

“No one made the decision. I don’t know. We talked about it—”

“You and the men on this list?”

Dusty nodded. “Yeah. We talked about it and agreed that someone needed to, you know, take him out.”

Noah put his coffee mug down and reached over to squeeze Josie’s forearm.

“Who shot Trooper Creighton?” Holcomb asked.

“Jimmy Frisk.”

Holcomb again looked at his notes. “James Lampson?”

“Yeah. He’s an investigator with the DA’s office. He’s been in tight with Nick for decades. Used to be a cop in Denton.”





Chapter Seventy-Two





Josie followed Noah out of the room. She couldn’t listen to any more. Lampson had already been arrested in the FBI raids the day before. He would be punished. That’s what mattered.

Noah joined her in her office, leaning casually against the door jamb. Again, she stood by the window, staring out but seeing nothing this time. “I’m fine,” she said over her shoulder.

“Okay,” he said, even though they both knew she wasn’t. She wouldn’t be fine for a long time. None of them would.

She turned away from the window and sat behind the desk.

“Any word on Luke?” Noah asked.

“They’re going to try bringing him out of his coma tomorrow.” A genuine smile crossed Josie’s lips. “He’s doing well though. They’re very optimistic. I’ll want to go and be with him.”

“Of course.”

They heard Trinity’s heels clacking on the tile moments before she pushed past Noah and plopped down in one of the guest chairs on the other side of Josie’s desk. The same chair Josie had sat in a little over a week ago to beg the chief to bring her back on, even temporarily. “Your coffee sucks,” she said. “When are you getting new staff? This place is a ghost town. Oh, and that FBI douche wouldn’t let me in the viewing room. Did Branson give up Luke’s shooter?”