Vanishing Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #1)(93)

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After what seemed like an eternity, they stopped. To the girl it looked like some kind of clearing. From the corner of her eye she saw a set of steps. Were they near a house? Was he taking her to get help? Was he taking her home? She dared not hope. Gently, the man knelt and laid her on her back. They were behind a house. It wasn’t her house though. It must be theirs. She thought she saw a movement of the curtains in one window. Then it was gone. Her eyes found the boy. He stared at her curiously. Then the man leaned closer to her, and when he smiled, she knew she would never go home again.



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Josie retrieved Lisette’s walker, but she refused it. Luke covered her palm with his and smiled down at her. They had hit it off far better than Josie hoped.

“You know,” Luke told her, “your granddaughter has dining room furniture now, and I make a mean creamy chicken lasagna. Will you come back to the house with us for the evening?”

Lisette had chosen to stay at Rockview, in spite of Josie’s insistence that she find another facility. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Lisette had said. “Why should I leave my home? Why should I have to live further away from you?” Josie had to admit that she was happy to keep her grandmother close, now more than ever.

They reached Josie’s Escape and Luke helped Lisette into the passenger’s side. She smiled at him. “I’d love to join you,” she said.



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Ramona didn’t look at the man again, or the boy. She would not give them that. Blue sky turning purple with dusk stretched out overhead, filling her heart with a strange kind of peace. She had longed for the beauty of the open sky when she was locked away. Her breath caught as a large, yellow monarch butterfly flitted across her line of sight. She smiled, and thought of her sister, and she didn’t feel afraid anymore.



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A Letter from Lisa Regan





I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read Vanishing Girls. If you enjoyed it, and want to keep up to date with all my latest releases, just sign up here. Your email address will never be shared, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

With such a huge selection of fantastic books out there to choose from, I genuinely appreciate your taking the time to read the first installment of the Josie Quinn series. The town of Denton and the County of Alcott are fictional places but based very loosely on several different locations in rural Pennsylvania that I’ve lived in and explored over the years. I hope you’ll keep reading about Josie and her adventures in Denton!

As you’ll see in my acknowledgments, I am so grateful to all of you readers for taking the time to read my work. I love hearing about your reading experience. You can get in touch with me through any of the social media outlets below, including my website and Goodreads page. Also, if you are up for it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d leave a review and perhaps recommend Vanishing Girls to another reader. Reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations go a long way to helping readers discover one of my books for the first time. As always, thank you so much for your support! It means the world to me! I can’t wait to hear from you and I hope to see you next time!

Thanks,

Lisa Regan

www.lisaregan.com





Acknowledgements


First and foremost, I must thank my passionate readers. Thank you for joining me on this wonderful journey. I deeply appreciate every message, tweet, email, and Facebook post. Thank you for spreading the word. I hope you love Josie Quinn as much as I do and will stick around for more of her adventures.

As always, thank you to my husband Fred and lovely, inspiring daughter Morgan for giving up so much time with me so I could work on this book. Thank you to my parents: William Regan, Donna House, Rusty House, Joyce Regan, and Julie House, who are constantly encouraging this dream of mine. Thank you to the following friends who cheered me on through the first draft of this novel and the many editing rounds, without whom I would surely have given up: Melissia McKittrick, Nancy S. Thompson, Michael J. Infinito Jr., Carrie A. Butler, Dana Mason, and Katie Mettner. Thank you to the following loved ones for constantly going above and beyond to spread the word about my books no matter how much time goes by between titles: Helen Conlen, Marilyn House, Ava McKittrick, Dennis and Jean Regan, Torese Hummel, Laura Aiello, Tracy Dauphin, and Dennis Conlen.

Thank you so very much to Sgt Jason Jay for answering so many of my police work questions in such great detail. I can never thank you enough. Thank you to Amy Z. Quinn for answering my journalism questions so thoroughly.

Finally, thank you to Jessie Botterill for asking me what else I had up my sleeve; for your willingness to take a chance on me; for your passion and commitment to this book and this series; for your amazing editing work; and for your candor and your overall brilliance. I feel so blessed to be working with you. Thank you to the entire team at Bookouture! It is humbling to be a part of such an amazing publishing family.