Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(91)

Josie’s brow furrowed. “You mean you’re not upset?”

Lisette turned to look out the window. “No, dear. For the first time since my Ramona went missing, I finally feel a bit of… peace.”

“I’m going to find her,” Josie said.

“I know.”

Noah pulled into a parking spot at the funeral home and helped Lisette out. Josie followed behind them. Ray’s mother had planned the service. She had wanted something quick and simple, and neither she nor Josie could afford a large affair. Josie had wanted to get there early so that she could spend a few minutes with him in private. She left Noah and Lisette chatting with Mrs. Quinn while she approached his open casket at the front of the room. The funeral home had done a good job making him look handsome in his police uniform, his blond hair neatly combed, eyes closed in what looked like a peaceful sleep. But somehow he just didn’t look like the man she had loved. She touched his cold hands. This was not her Ray. It was just the shell that had held all the parts—good and bad, wonderful and ugly—that had made him hers for so many years of her life.

Still, she could not stop the tears from rolling down her face. “Damn you,” she muttered to him. “Damn you for leaving me.”

She felt strangely numb and adrift the rest of the day. The hours passed in a blur. She stood in the greeting line beside Ray’s mother. She was too immobilized by grief to even protest when Mrs. Quinn allowed Misty to stand on the other side of her and hug Ray’s mourners as though she had had any place of importance in his life. As though she had mattered that much to him. He never signed the divorce papers, Josie kept thinking. It was small solace.

She hugged every mourner, said the requisite words, half-listened as a pastor she had never met before gave Bible readings. No one gave a eulogy. Neither Josie nor Mrs. Quinn were in any shape to give one, and Ray’s best friend, Dusty, was in jail. After the service, a small group of mourners followed his casket to the cemetery. Josie and Lisette clutched one another and wept as they lowered Ray into the ground. Noah stood sentry behind them. He waited until they were ready to leave, which wasn’t until the graveyard workers finally asked them to go so they could finish their work.





Chapter Seventy-Eight





The next day, Josie sat next to Luke’s hospital bed, holding his warm, meaty palm in hers. They had moved him to a step-down unit, given him a private room, and taken away most of the equipment needed to keep him alive. Now he only had to wear the standard monitoring devices that checked his heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation. All his numbers were stable. Carrieann said he had woken up the day before, briefly, while Josie was at Ray’s funeral. He had asked for Josie. Carrieann hadn’t told him anything, just that Josie would return soon. Then he had fallen back into a deep sleep. Now Josie waited. She could wait as long as she had to. Isabelle Coleman had been found and reunited with her family. The FBI was handling the Gosnell mess, which would likely take months. Ray had been laid to rest. She would have to attend Wayland Harris’s funeral in a few days, which was going to be a spectacular affair befitting her beloved chief. But other than that, she was free to sit with Luke and wait for him to come around. Noah could handle things at the department for a few days.

Josie was watching Luke’s chest rise and fall, her mind back on the conversation she had had with Lisette on the way to Ray’s funeral. Aside from her obvious grief over Ray’s death, Lisette was right. She did seem more at peace. Lighter. Josie would even venture to say happier. She kept thinking about the sparkle in Lisette’s eyes. The flash of triumph.

He’ll never make it to prison, Lisette had said with confidence. He’s too sick.

I mean, we caught her outside of his room a couple of times, just standing there, staring at him. I don’t think it’s healthy. Last night, one of the night shift nurses found her inside his room, standing over his bed.

Oh, Josie dear, he did pay. Don’t you give him another thought. Things have been set straight.

“Hey.” Luke’s voice cut through her thoughts. His hand squeezed hers gently. She looked over to see him smiling wanly at her.

She stood and leaned over him, holding his hand against her chest with both of hers. “Luke,” she breathed. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

He blinked a few times. “Fuzzy,” he said. “What the hell happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No, I remember leaving work, walking to my truck, that’s all. Carrieann said someone shot me.”

Josie nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

He opened his mouth to speak but the effort of the few words he’d already said seemed to wear him out. “It’s okay,” Josie told him. “Just rest. I’m not going anywhere. There will be plenty of time to fill you in later. We got the shooter. Everything is going to be okay.”

He closed his eyes. “I know it will be,” he said. “You’re here now.”

She relinquished his hand and sat back down, studying his face, surprised at how much better the sound of his voice made her feel. He would make a full recovery. They would get married, start a new chapter in both their lives.

She might even let him put a door on her bedroom closet.





Epilogue