Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(88)

“Thank God. Thank God you’re here,” Misty cried. Josie tried to mask her shock as she attempted to disentangle herself from Misty’s vise-like embrace. It was like trying to get a frightened child to let go. Josie peeled one of Misty’s arms from around her neck and the woman quickly slung it back around Josie’s waist. Tears streamed down her face. Her blond hair looked dull and uncombed. “Thank God,” she repeated. “The chief said you would come. He said you would. But you didn’t answer any of my calls. How come you didn’t answer any of my calls? I would have left a voicemail but the chief made me promise not to just in case someone else got their hands on your phone and accessed the messages. He didn’t want anyone knowing we were here.”

Noah stepped from the tree line and approached. Misty clutched Josie harder and squealed in panic. “He promised you would come alone,” she shrieked.

Josie glanced back at Noah and he froze in place. “That is Officer Fraley,” Josie explained. “He’s helping me. The, uh, chief said I could trust him.”

Misty’s body relaxed. “Okay. Okay.”

Josie made one last effort to free herself, curling her hands around Misty’s shoulders and holding her at arm’s length. “Misty,” she said. “What the hell is going on?”

A figure stepped into the doorway behind Misty. A young woman with sunken cheeks and skin so pale it had a blue, vampirish hue. A men’s sweatsuit hung on her, and she too looked unkempt, her blond hair in a tangle. In her arms was a tiny dog that looked like a miniature fox. Before Josie could completely register the young woman’s identity, she heard Noah murmur, “Isabelle.”





Chapter Seventy-Six





Misty sat at the table in the Denton police department’s conference room, a half-empty bottle of water in front of her. She raked her fingers through her hair over and over again, trying to tame it, her tiny dog snoring in her lap. Across from her sat Special Agent Holcomb. Josie sat all the way at the end of the table, as far from Misty as she could get without actually leaving the room. Noah stood behind Josie like a sentry. She was glad of his presence. They had had to break the news to Misty on the way back from the lodge that both Ray and the chief were dead. Josie could barely handle her own grief, let alone Misty’s, which was emotional to the point of seeming insincere.

“You didn’t even know the chief,” Josie had snapped at her in the car.

“Boss,” Noah had interjected softly. “Everyone deals with grief differently.”

She had kept her mouth shut since then because she was afraid if she spoke again she would say things she would regret—even to Misty. Special Agent Holcomb readily agreed to take down Misty’s statement.

Isabelle Coleman had been taken to the nearest hospital. Josie had called her parents, reveling in the pleasure of delivering some good news at last. Holcomb would take her statement later, after she’d been examined by a doctor and reunited with her family, although she had told Josie enough to confirm what they already knew. The Gosnells had kidnapped her after seeing her at her mailbox and held her in the bunker. When she first arrived there she had been imprisoned with June Spencer. The Gosnells had been arguing so fiercely about whether or not to keep Isabelle that Sherri had unwittingly left the girls with a flashlight for two whole days. It had been Isabelle’s idea to give June her tongue piercing after she heard the Gosnells talking about selling June. It was her only way to send a message in the event that June somehow escaped. Once they took June and started administering the drugs, her memories took on the same flash-cut quality as Ginger Blackwell’s memories. She had escaped after Sherri was no longer there to administer the drugs on a regular basis, and had wandered through the woods for some time before coming across Misty.

“Take me through it, Miss Derossi,” Holcomb said to Misty, his tone so gentle Josie wanted to slap him across the face. But then she realized that there was no reason for him not to be gentle with Misty. She had found Isabelle and kept her safe.

“Well, I was driving down Moss Valley Road,” she said, referring to one of the rural roads that ran past the Gosnell property between the strip club and Denton’s central area. “It was early in the morning. I was leaving work, you know, the night shift.”

“What do you do for a living, Miss Derossi?” asked Holcomb.

Misty stroked her dog’s head. “I’m a dancer at Foxy Tails.”

One of Holcomb’s eyebrows lifted. “Foxy Tails?”

“It’s a strip club,” Josie said pointedly, unable to stop herself.

Misty glared at her.

Holcomb watched the two of them stare icily at each other for a long moment before posing another question. “What time of the morning were you on the road, Miss Derossi?”

Slowly, Misty turned her attention back to Holcomb. “It was probably around five. I don’t usually work that late, but we had a lot of private parties that night. Anyway, I was going slow ’cause of the deer, you know? They’re always running out. I almost hit her. She ran out just like a deer. Stark naked.”

“Who?”

“Isabelle. At first I didn’t know who she was. She scared the shit out of me. I braked just in time not to hit her, and got out. She was screaming and just, you know, totally freaked out. She wouldn’t let me touch her. I was going to call 911, but my battery was dead.”