by Lisa Regan
“Or it could be Pax,” Chitwood said. “Maybe he’s injured. Quinn, you said the relationship between him and his dad was strained. Is it possible Reed got mad at him, hauled off and hit him and Pax fought back?”
“I suppose,” said Josie, but she was thinking of the method of killing. Head and neck. Blitz attack. From behind. When the person wasn’t looking and didn’t expect it. A lot like the patient who had nearly killed Lorelei almost twenty years ago. Also a lot like the way Rory had attacked Josie in the hallway of his home. Josie thought about Lorelei and Holly’s autopsies. Lorelei had had a head injury before she was shot. Emily had shown years of trauma to her head which they now knew was from Rory, based on what Dr. Buckley had said.
“Do you have any photos?” Josie asked. “From the scene?”
Mettner said, “Hummel took photos.”
“But you always do a sketch,” Josie pointed out. “On your computer. I know you take your own photos with your phone for reference in case the ERT takes too long to upload to the file.”
Mettner swiped a few times and turned his phone toward Josie. It was exactly as he had described. In the center of the barn, on the dirt floor, Reed Bryan lay face down in a pool of blood. The back of his head was a pulpy mess, what white hair he’d had left dark with congealed blood. His arms were extended, almost as though he had tried to crawl away from his attacker. The shovel lay discarded next to him.
“I’m not sure what you’re looking for,” Mettner said.
Josie studied the rest of the photo, using her thumb and index finger to zoom in and out on the other areas of the barn depicted. “I think Rory Mitchell did this.”
“Based on what?” Chitwood asked.
Josie explained the connection she had drawn from the method of attack.
“That’s thin,” Mettner said.
“Maybe,” Josie said.
Chitwood said, “What would Rory Mitchell be doing at Reed Bryan’s farm? You’re saying now that Pax picked up both Rory and Emily and took them home? Then Rory killed his dad?”
A small blur in the corner of the photo caught Josie’s eye. She zoomed in on it as close as she could. “Is this the only photo of the scene, Mett?” she asked.
“Swipe to the left,” he said, sounding impatient.
She found a better photo and zoomed in on the same area, finding exactly what she’d expected to find. She turned the phone around so the rest of them could see it. “Yes. Pax had both Rory and Emily with him. See that?”
Chitwood took some reading glasses from his shirt pocket and positioned them on his nose. Squinting, he put his face only inches from the screen. “What the hell are those? Buttons?”
“Gray tufted buttons from the couches in Celeste Harper and Adam Long’s parlor, yes. Emily was there. Whether she left that pile there on purpose or they fell from her pockets, she was there. You need to call the dogs again. We need them back up near Harper’s Peak in case that’s where Rory went, and also down by Reed Bryan’s farm in case Emily is still in that area. People saw a teenager who could potentially be Rory get out of the crashed van and head back in the direction of Harper’s Peak, but there was no sign of Emily, so she could still be in the area of the farm in South Denton.”
Mettner took his phone back and peered at the photo. “I don’t think we can get the dogs back. They had a couple of other calls elsewhere in the county.”
“Try,” said Chitwood. “Quinn’s right. We need to cover the area around Harper’s Peak and Reed Bryan’s farm. Move some of the searchers from the Harper’s Peak mountain to the farm.”
“There’s still the matter of Paxton,” Noah pointed out. “If it was Rory who crashed the van into a house and then ran back up the mountain, that means Pax could still be out there driving the other van. Do we have any leads on that vehicle?”
“We’re still looking,” Mettner told him. “We’ve got a BOLO out. City and state police are looking for it.”
Josie said, “Has anyone checked the produce market?”
Mettner raised a brow. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Paxton Bryan’s world is narrow, Mett. Home, the market, Lorelei Mitchell’s house. That’s it. That’s what he knows.”
Chitwood said, “He drives all over town with his dad delivering produce. It’s not that narrow.”
“But he’s on the run,” Josie said. “Think about it. Everyone he cares for has either been killed or gone missing in the last forty-eight hours. He won’t be thinking straight. Even if he had something to do with these murders, it’s a stressful time for him. He’s going to go somewhere he finds comforting. Mett, you said you’ve got searchers out in the woods between the Mitchell house and Harper’s Peak. That’s a huge area to cover. When’s the last time anyone looked inside any of the structures on Lorelei’s property?”
He looked at her as if he wanted to argue. He often argued with her. It drove Noah crazy, but Josie appreciated it. It meant he was thinking critically, and also, she needed to be challenged to stay sharp. She said, “Just spit it out, Mett.”
“I don’t think Pax would do that. It’s… stupid.”
“Mett,” Noah said.
Josie held up a hand, silencing him. “It is stupid, but what would also be stupid is for us not to check the most obvious places. How long will it take to have someone swing by the market and the Mitchell house? You’ve already got units out there.”
Mettner looked at Chitwood, who shrugged. “We need to find this kid, Mett. Today. Now. Do whatever you have to do.”
He sighed. “Fine. I’ll send units. What about Emily? Any idea where she could be?”
“She might be with Pax,” Josie pointed out.
She didn’t say what they were all thinking—that the reason no one had found her yet was because she was dead.
Thirty-One
Two hours later, an exhausted Gretchen ambled into the ICU waiting room. Everyone else had gone in and out of the room all day to eat, sleep, shower, and change clothes. Only Josie and Noah stayed. Sawyer was around somewhere, Josie knew, because she had seen him coming in and out of Lisette’s room at his appointed time.
Now only Trinity and Shannon remained to keep vigil with Josie and Noah. Both of them slept on separate couches. Quietly, Gretchen walked over to where Josie and Noah sat. “How’s Lisette?” she asked.
Josie said, “They had to drain some fluid from one of the wounds in her abdomen, but other than that, she’s hanging on. Not awake much. We get to go in every hour for about ten minutes, but that’s all.”
Noah asked, “Do you have an update?”
Gretchen pulled her reading glasses from her pocket and put them on. Then she took out her notebook and flipped through some pages. She looked at the door. “The Chief should be right behind me. I just saw him at the vending machine.”
They waited a few minutes until Chitwood came strolling in with a bag of potato chips and a Coke in his hands. He stood beside Gretchen, as though he was the one waiting for her and said, “Let’s hear it.”
Gretchen shot him a dirty look and then turned to Josie. “Mett said to tell you that you were right.”
“Really?” said Noah with a slight smile on his face.
“Not you,” Gretchen said. “The boss.”
“I know,” Noah said. “You found Pax?”
Gretchen nodded. “The second van was parked behind the produce market. He had used several pallets, empty crates and bushels to cover it up, although not very well.”
“Was Emily with him?” Josie asked.
“No.”
“Where was he?” Josie prodded. “With the van?”
“No. He was in the greenhouse at the Mitchell property. Curled up under one of the tables. Didn’t put up a fight when patrol took him in.”
Chitwood tucked the Coke can under his arm and opened his chips, the plastic crinkling. He popped a few chips into his mouth.
Josie said, “This is going to sound weird, but did you find any… buttons? Eit
her in the van or in the greenhouse?”
Gretchen raised a brow. “You mean like the kind at the Reed Bryan murder scene? The tufted gray buttons? No. Mett told everyone to be on the lookout for those after he met with you earlier.”
“Has Pax said anything?” Noah asked.
“No. He was advised of his rights. He hasn’t asked for an attorney. The only thing he has asked for is to talk to Josie.”
Josie’s gaze snapped upward toward Gretchen’s face. “What?”
“He wants to talk to you and only you.”
Chitwood’s fingers froze halfway between his chip bag and his mouth.
Noah said, “That’s not possible.”
Josie felt the pull, as she always had, toward work. Purpose. Action. Yet, her heart was in the other room with Lisette. She didn’t want to leave. What if Lisette took a turn for the worse, or if she died and Josie wasn’t there? On the other hand, it had been hours with little change. When the doctor came to tell them they were going to drain some fluid from her abdomen, he had said it was going to be a very long night for Lisette. Once the procedure was finished, no one would be allowed to see her for at least two hours after that. If Josie couldn’t see her for two hours, then why not take some of that time to talk to Pax? The police station was only minutes away.
“What if Pax knows where Emily is?” Josie heard herself say.
Chitwood threw his chips back into the bag and rolled it up, putting it into his suit jacket pocket. Josie expected him to say something like, “You’re not on the clock right now, Quinn,” or “Absolutely not,” but he was silent.
Noah turned to her. “You don’t have to do this. It doesn’t always have to be you.”
Josie said, “In this case, though, it does. If we knew where Emily was, I wouldn’t even consider it. But if there’s even a chance that we can find her… I won’t even be able to see Gram for another two hours. I’ll be back before that.”
“Josie,” Noah said.
“There is a scared little girl out there who has just lost her entire family and probably witnessed her father’s murder—although she doesn’t know Reed was her father—my point is that she’s lost everyone. She’s deeply traumatized, and we don’t know where she is right now. She has no one, Noah. No one. Even I had my—”
Josie broke off, finding it suddenly hard to force air into her lungs. She looked away from them, focusing on her breath, trying to stay calm. She felt Noah’s hand slip into hers. “Your grandmother,” he finished for her. “I get it.”
Chitwood said, “I would not allow this if a girl’s life wasn’t at stake, but I can stay here while you go talk to Paxton Bryan. But you have to keep yourself together. For all we know, this kid is the one who’s been running around the woods shooting at people. If you go in there, the focus has to be on Emily, not on your grandmother. You got that? If this kid ever has to go to court to be tried for what he’s done, we can’t have any confessions he might make thrown out because you were the one taking them.”
Josie looked back at him and nodded.
Chitwood lifted his chin toward Gretchen. “Palmer, you handle this. Take Quinn over to the stationhouse. Bring her back as soon as you can. If anything happens here—if there is even a hint of a change in Mrs. Matson’s condition, I’ll be on the horn before you can snap your fingers. Now go.”
Thirty-Two
Neither Josie nor Gretchen spoke on the drive to the stationhouse. As the large building came into view, Josie felt a release of some of the tension building inside her. Here was the place where the world made sense. Here was the place where she knew what to do and what to say. She had purpose. There were always puzzles for her mind to labor over. Always distractions from anything that her heart didn’t want to dwell on. Today, most of all, she needed that feeling, if only for an hour.
Josie waited at her desk while Gretchen had Pax moved from the holding cells in the basement to one of the interrogation rooms on the second floor. Once he was in a room, Josie waited in the adjacent CCTV monitoring area while Gretchen got him a water and some crackers, which he left untouched in front of him. She read him his rights again and waited for him to request a lawyer. All he would say was, “I want to talk to Josie Quinn.”
Gretchen left him at the table in the small room and met Josie in the hallway. “He’s all yours.”
While Gretchen disappeared into the CCTV room to monitor the interview, Josie stood in front of the door, shoring herself up. Emily. She just had to find Emily. If one good thing came out of this horrific situation, it would be locating Emily safe and alive. With a deep breath, she pushed through the door. Pax, who had been hunched over, his elbows leaning on the table, sat up. His eyes grew wide and Josie felt his palpable relief. There was a chair opposite him. Josie dragged it around to his side of the table, pushing it as close to him as she possibly could before sitting down.
He turned slightly to face her. Josie pushed her face into his personal space and said, “Where’s Emily?”
His lower lip quivered. “I—I don’t know.”
“Pax. Someone I love is dying a mile away in the hospital. I do not have to be here. Even though you asked for me, I did not have to come. I’m here because I want to find your sister. Now where is she?”
His voice was barely audible. “I don’t know. I swear to you, I don’t know.”
“Then why am I here, Pax?”
A single tear slid down his cheek. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. His left shoulder shrugged. It was a tic, Josie realized.
“Rory killed my dad.”
Josie sat back in her chair. “I’m sorry to hear that, Pax,” she said. “Can you tell me about it?”
“We were in the barn. Me, Rory, Emily—”
“How did Rory and Emily end up in your barn?”
“I brought them there.”
“Half the county has been looking for them for the last two days, Pax. How did you find them?”
His shoulder shrugged twice in quick succession. “When that other officer dropped me off the other day—after I was here—my dad was busy, so I grabbed my bike and I rode back up into the woods. Look, I knew Rory was in the woods, okay? I saw him that day you found me out riding around.”
“Did you talk to him that day?”
“No, he was running away.”
“That’s a lot of woods back there,” Josie said. “How could you find him when no one else could?”
“When I would come over to Miss Lorelei’s house, sometimes he and I would go exploring. He said it helped him with his… creature.”
“You mean his rage,” Josie said.
Pax nodded. “I thought if we were friends, maybe he wouldn’t have to try so hard to keep his creature from coming out. We had certain areas in the woods we always went to, and only we knew where they were. Certain trees and little gullies and stuff. So I went looking for him in those places.”
Something had been bothering Josie since the day she’d been shot at in the woods. “Pax, why were you looking for Rory?”
He looked away from her. His shoulder shrugged three times, and his fingers tapped against the table.
“Pax?”
“He promised me,” he said quietly.
Josie leaned in closer. “Promised you what?”
“That he wouldn’t let the creature hurt them. He promised me, and he broke that promise. He killed Miss Lorelei and Holly.”
“What were you going to do when you found him?” Josie asked.
Now he met her eyes. With an expression of perfect innocence, he said, “I was going to ask him why.”
“That’s all?”
“Hasn’t anyone ever broken a promise to you?” he said. “A really important one?”
She almost said that the difference between her and him was that she would want to kill someone who broke a promise the magnitude of the one Rory had broken, but she was here to find out what happened to Emily. “You found him.”
“Yeah. I was pretty high up on t
he mountain, almost further than we ever went, and I saw him. He had Emily with him.”
Josie said, “Emily was with him. Did he say where he found her?”
“He said he went and got her. I don’t know from where.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“There wasn’t time for that. I told him to come with me, both of them. I’d get one of my dad’s vans and hide them ’cause I knew he was in big trouble, and I wanted Emily to be safe. Then we heard something in the woods.”
“What did you hear?”
“Like footsteps. Like someone coming toward us. Rory shoved Emily toward me and told me to take her and go get the van. He said he’d meet us in the back of the store later. He made me take her.”
“Where did you take her?” Josie asked.
“I was taking her back to the store. To hide her. I made her hide out back. A couple of hours later, I went out and Rory was there. He had walked all the way down the mountain to the market. My dad was still working in the office. Doing the books. I took one of the vans and we left.”
“Pax,” Josie said. “Did Rory have a gun with him?”
“No.”
“Where did you take them?”
“First we just drove around. He was really upset. The creature was really bothering him. I had to find a place to stop the van so we could talk. I drove back to that old textile mill. The one that’s abandoned?”
“I know it,” Josie said.
“I waited for him to stop freaking out but he wouldn’t. I tried to talk to him, and he said something bad happened. He said he saw a police officer and some old lady and something bad happened, and he couldn’t stop it and he was sorry.”
Josie’s heart thudded in her chest, but she remained calm. “What else did he say?”
“That it was his fault, all his fault, that the police lady and the old lady got hurt. He kept crying and freaking out.”
But the gun hadn’t been found anywhere in the woods, Josie thought. “But he didn’t have a gun with him? Are you sure, Pax?”
