by Lisa Regan
“Yes.”
Emily turned and started walking down the hallway. “Come on. I’ll show you our hiding place.”
Eight
Josie heard Gretchen climb the stairs behind her as she followed Emily to the girls’ bedroom. What had they missed? Emily walked over to the section of wall that formed a chalkboard and wrapped her fingers around the string holding the eraser. She tugged at it, hard and fast, and the trim surrounding the chalkboard paint popped out of the wall, swinging like a door. Across the room, Gretchen gasped.
Josie looked at the other side of the trim to see that the hinges had been painted purple to blend in with the wall. One would have had to look very closely to notice anything off about it. Josie touched the inside of the makeshift hatch. Whoever had built it had been pretty creative. It was made of drywall and wood. Plus, it wasn’t in the shape of a door. The bottom of it was at Emily’s knee level which meant she had to climb in and out of it, almost as if it were a window. Josie poked her head inside, but it was dark.
“Just a minute,” said Emily. Tucking her stuffed dog beneath her armpit, she deftly climbed inside the large hole in the wall. A few seconds later, a light snapped on. Josie leaned her upper body inside once more. The space was the size of a large closet, the walls unpainted drywall. Josie tried to visualize what was on the other side—Lorelei’s closet. Had her closet originally been a walk-in closet? Had she or someone else walled it off to make a hiding place?
“We don’t have plugs in here,” Emily said. She pointed to a small battery-powered lamp on the floor in the corner of the space. There were two sleeping bags, each one with a pillow. A pile of books sat between the two bags. Next to those was a pile of flashlights and book lights. In another corner was a camping toilet with a roll of toilet paper beside it. The smell of urine wafted toward Josie. Another scent, this one rancid, filled Josie’s nostrils. Her eyes searched the tiny space until she saw its source: a half-eaten column of string cheese, a browned apple core, and a banana peel. Next to that was a half-eaten cup of yogurt with a plastic spoon poking out of it. Josie pointed to the food. “Did you bring that with you today?”
“No, I put it in here the last time we had to hide.”
“When was that?” Josie asked, wondering how long the food had been there and if Emily was going to get food poisoning from having eaten it.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But when I tried to eat the food, it didn’t taste very good.”
“How does your belly feel? Do you feel sick?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know.” She walked over and stood on top of the blue sleeping bag. “This one’s mine.”
Josie nodded and held out a hand, waving Emily back out into the bedroom. “Okay, very good, Emily. You can come back out. Thank you for showing me.”
Emily climbed back out and stood staring up at Josie. “I hide in other places, too, but that’s our special hiding place.”
“Why is it special?” Josie asked.
“’Cause only me and Holly and Mama know where it is. No one ever found us there. Not ever. I also hide in the cabinets in the kitchen sometimes, and behind the beanbag chairs in the living room and under the dining room table.”
“Why do you have to hide so much?” Josie asked her.
Matter-of-factly, she said, “I already told you.”
“Because of the bad things.”
She nodded.
“Okay.” Josie pointed toward Emily’s dresser. “I’m going to need you to pack a few things. Some clothes, and anything else you want to bring with you. Maybe some books or plushies? Also, you’ll need two socks and a pair of shoes. Can you find those things for me?”
Emily shrugged again. “Sure.”
Josie and Gretchen watched as she walked over to her dresser and began taking clothes out, lining each folded item up on the bed. When she finished, she reached under the bed and pulled out a duffel bag. Gretchen walked over to Josie’s side and muttered, “We’re going to have to call child services.”
“I know,” Josie said. “But I think we should take her to the hospital first and have her evaluated. We need to try to locate Lorelei’s next of kin as well.”
Gretchen waved her phone in the air. “I’ll be in the hall making some calls.”
Josie nodded. Once Gretchen was out of the room, Josie walked over to Emily, who had made four piles of clothes on her bed. Each pile had a shirt, pants, underwear, and socks. Under her breath, Emily counted the piles. “One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.”
“Can I help you?” Josie asked.
Emily paused and without looking at her, shook her head. With a frown, she started counting again. “One, two, three, four.” She repeated the process six times and then she began to pack the piles into the duffel bag. When she finished, Josie walked over to the dresser and selected a pair of socks from her top dresser drawer. Emily pulled them on and then retrieved a pair of sneakers from under her bed. Once those were on, Josie helped her zip up her overfull duffel bag.
“Wait!” Emily said when Josie went to pick up the bag. “I need to bring my other things.”
“What other things?”
Emily walked over to her desk and pointed to a pile of random items arranged into a circle. There was a small gray stone roughly the size of a quarter, a tiny pink sequin, a bird feather, an unused birthday candle, and a bright red bottle cap that had come from a gallon of milk. Emily began counting them, her small finger hovering over each object as she did. “One, two, three, four, five.”
She repeated the count six times. Then she looked up at Josie. “Now I can put them in my bag.”
Perplexed, Josie watched as Emily carefully put each item into one of the side pockets of the duffel bag. “I’m ready,” she told Josie.
Josie had a lot of questions, but her immediate priority was to get Emily out of the house. It was still a crime scene. “Emily, what’s going to happen now is that I’m going to take you to the hospital, okay? Because bad things happened here today, we’d like the doctors to talk to you, okay?”
Emily nodded.
“Then you might have to go stay with someone—a stranger, but someone who will keep you safe—until we find a place for you to live permanently. Do you understand?”
“You mean a foster home.”
Surprised, Josie said, “Yes, exactly. How do you know about foster homes?”
“I’m not supposed to say.”
“Who told you not to say?” Josie asked.
“My mom,” Emily replied.
Again, Josie was wary of pushing the girl too hard. On top of that, there were legal implications of any conversations that Josie had with the girl without a guardian or parent present. To get a proper statement from her, Josie would need to wait until they’d either located next of kin or until Emily had been taken into the care of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Still, Josie had no idea how long it would be before she could get such a statement, and it was clear that there was a killer on the loose—a killer who had no issues murdering children. Changing subjects, Josie asked, “Do you hide in the wall a lot?”
Emily shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“Can you tell me who you’re hiding from when you go in there?”
Slowly, Emily brought her index finger up and pressed it against her lips in the universal symbol for hush.
Josie managed a smile, trying to put her at ease. “You can tell me, Emily. Nothing bad will happen to you now, and you don’t need to hide anymore. It’s really important that I know who you and Holly hid from when you went into that little room.”
“I can’t,” Emily whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because if I say, bad things will keep happening.”
Josie felt a chill slither down her neck. She worked hard to keep her smile in place. “Okay,” she told Emily. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Josie guided her outside to Gretchen’s car and strapped her into the back seat. Gretchen had call
ed off the search and the Amber Alert. The patrol officers had gone, as had Deputy Sandoval and Rini. Everyone on the ERT had gone except for Officer Jenny Chan, who was packing up evidence bags in the back of her SUV. Josie left Gretchen standing by the driver’s side of her car, on the phone to the hospital, and walked over to Chan. “Anything interesting from the greenhouse?”
Chan peeled off her Tyvek suit and booties, crumpled them up and tossed them into the back seat. “Afraid not. A whole lot of ashes. A destroyed laptop and phone. I can have a tech expert look at them, but I think they’re too damaged to get anything from them. You’d be better off just getting a warrant for her phone records. I also found some bits of what look like color photographs, but none that have anything identifying in them. Scraps from what look like documents of some kind. Hard to say. There are some scraps with the ends of words on them, but without context, I’m not sure they mean anything. Sorry.”
Josie shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I appreciate you being here.”
Chan pulled off her skull cap and shook out her long, dark hair. “Sorry about your wedding.”
Josie gave a wan smile. “We can get married another day. Hey, did you find anything of interest inside the truck?”
“No, I’m sorry. Nothing in the truck except Lorelei’s vehicle registration and insurance card.”
Josie thanked her, watched her pack up the rest of the vehicle and start down the driveway. It was almost dark now. The sounds of the night started to rise all around them: frogs peeping and trilling; cicadas rattling; crickets chirping.
Josie turned back and began walking toward Gretchen’s car. Gretchen was now on the phone with Chief Chitwood. Josie could tell by her tone and the way she kept saying, “Yes, sir.” She had put her heels back on as she paced beside the vehicle, occasionally pausing to wrench one of the spikes from the soft ground. From the back seat window, Emily stared at Josie, looking frozen, her eyes so wide that Josie felt a little shiver pass through her. Josie stopped in place, feeling as though Emily was trying to communicate something to her. Then, slowly, Emily’s head swiveled toward the front steps of the house. Josie’s gaze followed hers.
A cry escaped Josie’s throat before she could clamp her hand over her mouth. Gretchen stopped dead in her tracks.
There, on the top step, was a pinecone doll.
Josie spun in a circle, looking all around them. There was nothing. No one. She strode over to the car. The movement seemed to reanimate Gretchen. She dove into the open window of the driver’s side door and grabbed her gun. Josie said, “Lock her inside the car.”
“We have to get her out of here, boss.”
“Call for back-up.”
A whirring sound made them both turn to the back seat window. Emily had used the button to lower it. She said, “He’s already gone.”
“Who?” Josie said. “Who’s already gone? Who was here, Emily? Who left that doll? You saw him, didn’t you?”
Emily gave a solemn nod. Gretchen said, “Who was it? Who was just here?”
She lifted her finger to her lips again. Hush.
“Emily,” Josie said, trying to keep the frustration and desperation out of her voice. “It’s very important that you tell us who left that doll.”
No response.
“Was it your father?” Gretchen asked.
“I don’t have a daddy,” she said.
“Then who was it, Emily?” Josie asked. “You can tell us. We’re the police. We need to know who he is so we can arrest him. We think he’s the one who hurt your mom and Holly. Please, Emily, tell us whatever you know.”
She shook her head and lowered her eyes.
Gretchen lowered her voice so only Josie could hear. “Maybe she doesn’t want to tell us while we’re at the house. We need to get her out of here.”
Josie nodded. “Call for back-up. As soon as they get here, we leave with Emily.”
While Gretchen made yet another phone call, Josie slid into the back seat beside Emily. They watched Gretchen finish her call, one hand pressing the phone to her ear while the other held her pistol out, panning the area in front of the car.
The pinecone doll stared at them, it’s freakish, googly eyes now sinister and menacing. Josie felt Emily’s warm hand on her arm. She looked over at her.
Emily said, “It means he’s sorry.”
Nine
Outside one of the glass-partitioned rooms in Denton Memorial’s Emergency Department, Josie paced. A nurse and doctor were inside the room with Emily. They had pulled the curtains across the glass when they went inside so Josie couldn’t tell where they were in terms of their exam. Gretchen had gone home to change before heading back to Lorelei Mitchell’s house to help with the search for whoever had left the creepy pinecone doll. Chan was going to meet her back out there to process the doll. Then Mettner was going to meet with Gretchen at Lorelei’s house to compare notes. A social worker from the county’s health and human services department was due at the hospital any minute. Josie still wore her wedding dress, and every person who walked past her stared. She wished she had thought to bring her own phone. She could have called Noah and asked him to bring her a change of clothes.
A woman in a black pantsuit strode down the hall toward Josie. Soft brown curls floated around her face. Over one shoulder was slung a messenger bag. In her hand was a paper coffee cup. She stopped when she got to Josie and gave a wry smile. “I’m looking for an eight-year-old girl found at a murder scene. I was told to stop when I saw the lady in the wedding dress.”
Josie laughed and extended a hand. “Detective Josie Quinn. Excuse the dress. Are you from child services?”
The woman shook Josie’s hand and then produced her credentials. “Yes. Marcie Riebe.”
Josie pointed toward the glass enclosure. “The medical staff are examining her now.”
Marcie looked up and down the hall. She spotted a linen bin and wheeled it over to where Josie stood. She took a small laptop out of her messenger bag and set it on top of the bin. Next to it, she set her coffee. After a few clicks and some fast typing, she looked up at Josie and said, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Josie told Marcie everything they knew. She tapped away furiously at her keyboard, pausing occasionally to fire off questions. When Josie was finished, she said, “The first thing we need to do is try to locate her next of kin. I’d like to keep her with family if at all possible, especially given the trauma she’s been through.”
“I agree,” Josie said. “My team will get to work on it as soon as possible. Right now, they’re still out in the field.”
Before Marcie could say more, the doctor emerged from Emily’s room. Josie knew him from many trips to the Emergency Department related to cases she was working. Dr. Ahmed Nashat was smart, sensitive, and no-nonsense. Josie made the introductions between him and Marcie. He gave them both a pained smile. “She appears to be in excellent health. Well nourished, no signs of any injuries or physical trauma. No signs at all of long-term abuse. She is alert and oriented. On exam, she is around the fiftieth percentile for milestones for her age. She’s bright and articulate, although she does refuse to answer some questions. I’m a little concerned about the psychological trauma she’s had today. I’ve called for a psych consult. The only issue at this point is that she does appear to have a case of food poisoning. She threw up twice while we were in with her.”
Josie sighed. “I was worried about that.” She told them about the spoiled food they’d found in Emily’s hiding place.
Dr. Nashat nodded. “That would do it. If it’s okay with you, Ms. Riebe, I’d like to keep her for at least a few hours, perhaps overnight, to make sure she’s stable.”
“That will be fine,” said Marcie.
Josie asked, “Doctor, does Emily already have a medical chart here?”
He shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. She’s not in our system.” He looked at Marcie. “Registration will probably be reliant on you to provide financial d
etails.”
“Great,” said Marcie with a tight smile. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go in and speak with her now.”
“Of course,” said Dr. Nashat. “Just one more thing. We asked her if she knew of anyone we could call—family or friends—and she said, ‘Pax is a friend.’”
“Pax?” Josie repeated.
“Yes. P-A-X. That’s what she said. When we asked who he was, she said that he was a friend her mother helped. She also said that his dad didn’t like him coming to their house. We asked her if she had seen him today. She said no.”
Marcie smiled. “I’ll see if I can get more information from her about this Pax person.”
“Thank you,” Josie said. “As soon as I talk with my team, we’ll see if we can locate him and his father.”
Marcie disappeared into the room and the doctor moved on to other patients, leaving Josie alone in the hallway once more. Moments later, the sound of heavy footsteps on tile drew her attention. She looked up to see Noah striding down the hall. Her relief was so profound, she thought she might buckle. He had changed into regular clothes: jeans, a black T-shirt under a light jacket, and boots. In his hands he carried a burgundy-colored cloth tote bag that said, “Harper’s Peak” on it in elaborate script.
His smile made her knees go weak. “You brought a change of clothes for me,” she said.
He stopped before her and kissed her lips. “And your phone, your weapon, and I went by the house to get your laptop.”
“Thank you.”
“The band is still playing at Harper’s Peak,” he told her. “Misty and Harris took Trout home with them. Your grandmother, parents, brother, Trinity and Drake are staying the night at the hotel. So are my sister and brother. Celeste and Tom weren’t thrilled about any of this, but Adam was very accommodating.”
Josie laughed. “So everyone’s having our wedding without us.”
“This time,” he said.
“Have you heard anything?” Josie asked, taking the bag from him.
“No one on the staff at Harper’s Peak remembers ever seeing Holly Mitchell before—alive or dead. They’ve got no cameras out in the gardens or at the overlooks. They do have cameras in all the parking lots. I went through all the footage, but didn’t see anyone getting a body out of their car. I looked at the footage from cameras overlooking the staff parking lots and cameras at the exteriors of all the buildings, thinking maybe Holly came there alive with someone, was killed in one of the buildings and then carried to the overlook, but there’s nothing on any of the footage to suggest that.”
