Save Her Soul (Detective Josie Quinn #9)(25)
“Jo, there you are.” Ray appeared before her. She smiled weakly.
He knelt in front of her and touched her face. “Don’t,” she said. “I’m so sweaty. I know I smell.”
He smiled. “The whole school smells. I heard what happened. Are you okay?”
Josie looked away from him. “You’re not worried whether or not your girlfriend is okay?”
“I just asked you if you were.”
She met his eyes, glaring. “You know what I mean. The whole school thinks you’re sleeping with Beverly behind my back. That you’re taking her to the prom. The first couple of times these rumors started, it was funny. But now I’m starting to wonder, Ray. You know that saying? Where there’s smoke, there’s fire?”
He rolled his eyes. Sitting beside her, he put an arm around her and pulled her close to him. The shirt of his baseball uniform was scratchy against her cheek. In spite of herself, she leaned into him, feeling a rush of relief.
“There’s no fire. You don’t believe those rumors, Jo. Tell me you don’t,” he said.
“I don’t know what to believe.”
Using a finger, he tipped her chin up toward his face. “Believe me,” he told her. “Believe us. I’ve never even had a conversation with Beverly Urban in my life. I don’t care about her. I don’t care about anyone but you. I love you, Jo. You know that.”
Josie stared into his eyes. He brushed a droplet of sweat from her forehead. “It’s you and me, Jo. No one else matters. You know what’s between us. I know you feel it too. What you and I went through with your mom and my dad… no one else could ever fill your shoes, Jo. Those are just rumors. This is real.”
She thought about Ray and Beverly, tried to picture them meeting, kissing, embracing. She couldn’t. Besides that, she and Ray spent so much of their free time together. When would he even have time to carry on with Beverly? He wouldn’t, especially not with baseball. Beverly’s goal in life since the seventh grade seemed to have been to make Josie miserable. What better way to make her miserable than to cast doubt in Josie’s mind about her relationship with Ray?
“You’re right,” Josie said. “I’m sorry for doubting you. It was just… a bad day.”
The door to the office swung open and Beverly emerged, alone, still sobbing uncontrollably. Josie wasn’t sure she had stopped since the stairwell. Beverly pressed a tissue to her face. Turning her head, she took one look at them and ran off down the hall.
“She’s acting weird,” Josie told Ray.
He laughed. “Who cares how Beverly Urban is acting? She pushed you down the damn steps.”
Josie looked at her watch. “Ray, you’re late for practice. Coach is going to kill you.”
He squeezed her. “You’re more important than some baseball practice.”
Josie extricated herself and stood. “We’re talking about the state championship, Ray. You have to get out there. Let’s go. I’ll run in and let my grandmother know we’re headed to the field.”
Ray waited as she went back inside the office, interrupting an awkward meeting among the principal, Beverly’s mom, and her grandmother. Once she told her grandmother where she was headed, she went back out to the hallway. Ray jumped up and took her hand, leading her away. Josie looked over her shoulder but there was no sign of Beverly.
Eleven
“We need to talk to Plummer again,” Josie said as they made their way from the morgue back to the car.
“Yes,” Gretchen agreed. “That’s a good place to start.”
Gretchen used their Mobile Data Terminal to look up his home address in Quail Hollow Estates. Josie drove, her mind reeling with what had happened to Beverly. The girl had been a thorn in Josie’s side for years. She had been cruel at times, dangerous at others. It had been a relief when she didn’t return to Denton East in senior year, but now Josie saw her in a completely different light. Her mother had been experiencing financial difficulty. She knew this from the rumors at school and now from Plummer’s file. Beverly had been seventeen years old and pregnant. Who was the father? Had Vera known? Had anyone known? Josie tried to bring more memories of Beverly into focus, but most of them were scattered and indistinct. High school seemed like a hundred years ago—like someone else’s life.
“Would you look at this,” Gretchen mused as they pulled up to the entrance of Quail Hollow Estates. “Protestors.”
On either side of the sign announcing the development’s name stood a handful of people in rain ponchos and beneath umbrellas holding crude signs that read: Quail Hollow = Thieves and Criminals!, Charleston is a Mayor, not a dictator!, Dutton is a crook!, and Return Emergency Supplies! One person had a sign that said both Dutton for Mayor and Charleston for Mayor with both candidates’ names crossed out in angry red marker. The crowd surged forward when Josie turned in. She waved to the closest protestor and the woman stopped. She turned back to the people behind her and waved them off. “It’s Detective Quinn,” she told them. The rest of the protestors greeted her eagerly before letting her and Gretchen pass by.
“No wonder the Chief is having a conniption,” Gretchen said. “The flooding is bad enough, but this is turning into a full-scale scandal.”