by Lisa Regan
Josie stared down at the shiny band and blinked back even more tears. Her palms were sweaty as she accepted the other ring from Chitwood. Slipping it onto Noah’s ring finger, she, too repeated the words. “Noah, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love and faithfulness to you.”
There was a pregnant silence in the room. Josie glanced over to see Lisette beaming. She gave a little nod and Chitwood said, “It is my pleasure and my privilege to pronounce you two married. You may kiss each other!”
Noah cupped Josie’s cheeks with his palms and pulled her in, planting a long, soft kiss on her lips. Josie’s hand reached for Lisette’s and when she found it, Lisette’s grip was firm and unyielding. Josie kept hold of her hand while Trinity snapped some photos of them next to Lisette’s bed. Then everyone lined up to offer their congratulations. Already, Josie could feel the small bit of dizzying happiness that marrying Noah had brought her slipping away, knowing that her world was going to be shattered within a matter of hours. After several minutes, a nurse entered the room and made them all leave. Except Josie. Lisette wouldn’t let go.
“You have one minute,” the nurse warned. “Then I have to check her over.”
Josie nodded. When the nurse was gone, Lisette tugged her closer. Josie leaned in so she could better hear her words. Lisette said, “You have to learn to live with them both, dear.”
“Both?” Josie said, wondering if Lisette was becoming delirious.
“The grief and the happiness.” She paused, taking in a few shallow breaths. “If you can’t live with them both, you’ll never make it.”
“Okay,” Josie said.
“No, not okay.” Another pause for breath. “Josie, you’ve never learned that some things you have to sit with and really feel before you can move past them.”
She was getting tired, her breath more labored now. Josie thought of Emily and how her older sister had told her that sometimes you have to feel all the feelings until they’re gone. Josie had spent her entire life pushing all the bad and terrifying feelings down as deep as she could. She didn’t handle it well when they escaped from the dark place. Lisette had watched her self-destruct many times.
Josie kissed Lisette’s cheek. “I understand, Gram. You rest now. I’ll be back as soon as they let me.”
The celebration—if it could be called that—in the waiting room was subdued. Josie could tell that both Misty and Shannon were trying not to cry. Trinity handed Drake her camera and made him take more photos. Josie wondered how they would look months from now, or on their first anniversary. Would their faces appear strained and hollow? Would they look as exhausted as Josie knew every single one of them felt? Perhaps they should have waited and married after Lisette passed; after her funeral; after an appropriate mourning period. But Josie knew the instant the thought entered her mind that there would never be an appropriate mourning period. It would have been torture planning another wedding knowing that Lisette wouldn’t be there, knowing that if Josie had only stayed at Griffin Hall and walked down the aisle as planned, Lisette could have seen it. She wouldn’t have been able to marry Noah after this and eventually, he would have grown tired of the grief between them forcing them apart and keeping them that way.
Lisette knew Josie better than any living person, and this wedding—bittersweet though it was—was her gift to her granddaughter.
When enough photos had been taken, Shannon and Trinity accompanied Josie back to Dr. Feist’s office to change back into her regular clothes. Back upstairs they waited. Josie and Sawyer waited to be able to see Lisette again. Josie, Noah, and Chitwood waited for news on the case. A few hours after the wedding, Mettner showed up, looking haggard, his face dark with stubble. A glance at the clock in the waiting room told Josie it was just after eleven p.m.
“We’ve got nothing,” he told Josie, Noah, and Chitwood in the hall outside the waiting room. “Gretchen’s been working on finding Rory Mitchell. I’ve been working the Emily angle. They’re on opposite sides of the city, and our staff is stretched as thin as it can get. Even with the state police helping, we haven’t found any signs of them. I can’t get the dogs back till sometime tomorrow.”
Josie said, “Have you found any buttons? In the search for Emily?”
“Two,” he said. He took out his phone and pulled up Google Maps. After a few swipes, he turned the map toward her and used one finger to point at the screen. “Here. This is the Bryan farm, right? Here, about a mile this way…” He swiped some more, moving the map so that more of South Denton was visible. “There’s a small creek. It’s not even a creek. It’s just a place where the water runs off at the edge of the farmland. One of the searchers found two gray buttons.”
“She’s walked a mile already,” Chitwood said. “She can’t be far, Mett. Take people off Rory Mitchell and send them over to South Denton. We already know this teenager can live out in the woods for days. Emily is an eight-year-old kid. How long is she going to last out there? She’s gotta be starving, dehydrated.”
Noah said, “Rory Mitchell is dangerous, Chief. He killed at least one person that we know about.”
“Who’s the Chief of Police, here, Fraley?” Chitwood snapped, sounding more like himself than he had all weekend. “I tell everyone else what to do, and I’m telling Mett to take three-quarters of whoever you’ve got on the Harper’s Peak mountain and send them to South Denton. They’ll start where the last buttons were found and fan out.”
Josie was still staring at the screen. “May I?” she asked Mettner.
He handed it to her. To the Chief, he said, “Maybe we should get the press involved? Ask for civilians to help with the search? Amber could get something going real fast.”
Josie zoomed out on the phone and turned the view to terrain, watching as the lines and asymmetrical shapes on the map turned to fields and trees.
Chitwood said, “That’s a good idea, Mett. Have her talk to WYEP and see what they can whip up in a hurry, would you? It’s too late for the eleven o’clock news but they can still put out a call on social media, and maybe something when they come back on air in the morning. I think they go on at four a.m. The more people we’ve got on this, the better.”
As Josie suspected, not far from where the buttons had been found, there was a break in the forest. A small, indistinct square breaking up the unending green. “This is the old Rowland place,” she said, pointing to it.
Chitwood put on his reading glasses and peered at the screen. “What’s the old Rowland place?”
“Before your time,” Noah said. “We used to have a billionaire living in Denton. Local celebrity, sort of. Went on to make big bucks creating security systems, but always kept a house here.”
“It’s been vacant for years,” Josie said. “But the house is made almost entirely of glass.”
“Like a greenhouse,” Mettner said.
“Yes,” Josie said. “It wouldn’t look like a greenhouse to you or me—”
“But to an eight-year-old, it might,” Mettner filled in. “We’ll check it out.”
Josie said, “Follow the buttons.”
Thirty-Six
It was just after midnight when Dr. Justofin appeared at the door to the waiting room. Only Josie, Noah, Sawyer, and Trinity remained. Everyone else had left, gone to get rest and sustenance. Josie nudged Noah awake when she saw the doctor. Sawyer sprang out of his chair. “What is it?”
Dr. Justofin gave them a pained smile. “I’m sorry, but your grandmother is declining. We don’t believe she’ll be strong enough to undergo surgery in the morning.”
“Is she still alive?” Trinity asked, putting a hand on Josie’s back.
“Yes. She’s still alive and still lucid—when she’s not sleeping—but I’m not sure there’s much more we can do for her. She’s declined any further life-saving care.”
“Can she do that?” Noah asked.
Dr. Justofin nodded. “She can. She’s already signed the paperwork. We’re going to move her down to a regular floor and
do our best to make her comfortable. There won’t be any restrictions on visitors. I’ll see to it that any of you can stay with her as long as you’d like.”
Josie could barely choke out a thank you. Once the doctor was gone, Trinity pulled Josie into a hug. Josie let herself sob into Trinity’s shoulder for several minutes. Across from her, she could hear Sawyer weeping as well. She wanted to comfort him but couldn’t bring herself to move. Did he really have no one in his life?
Noah squeezed Josie’s knee. “I’ll call your parents.”
“And your team,” said Sawyer. “This is about to be a homicide.”
An hour later, Josie and Sawyer sent everyone home to rest, even Noah, while they kept vigil over their grandmother. They sat on either side of Lisette’s bed in a new room. The floor was much quieter, with fewer alarms going off at the nurses’ station. Lisette looked better without all the equipment hooked up to her. Only a single IV was left in her good arm. She smiled, first at Sawyer, then at Josie. “This is better,” she said.
No, it’s not, Josie wanted to shout.
“They’re making me comfortable,” Lisette went on. “That means they’re giving me the good stuff. The really good stuff.”
She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. Without opening them, she said, “I never got to say goodbye to your father, Eli. I always wished I had. Or my daughter. She was with me such a short time, and then one day, she was gone.” Pausing, she took several breaths. “I never got to say goodbye to her. This is a blessing.”
“How can this be a blessing?” Sawyer said, his voice breaking.
Lisette opened her eyes and looked at him lovingly. “I couldn’t stay here forever, dear. We all knew that. I wish I had more time, I do…”
She drifted off, exhaustion and the drugs taking their toll once more. Josie moved her chair closer and took Lisette’s hand. On the other side, her arm was in the cast, so Sawyer put her bedrail down, got as close as he could to the bed and rested his forehead on her shoulder. Josie saw his shoulders quaking.
She wasn’t sure how much time went by. Her middle finger was on the inside of Lisette’s wrist, counting off the faint heartbeats. Sometime later, Lisette opened her eyes again. She stared straight ahead at the foot of the bed and smiled. Then her face relaxed. Josie thought she might be going, but her pulse was still thready beneath Josie’s finger. She stayed that way for several minutes.
“Sawyer,” she whispered.
He lifted his head and leaned even closer, so that his ear was over her mouth. She whispered something to him that Josie couldn’t hear. He went back to his position at her shoulder, weeping into the bedsheet. Lisette turned her head toward Josie.
Josie stood and folded her upper body over the bed, her face hovering just over Lisette’s. Lisette whispered into her ear, kissed Josie’s forehead, and squeezed her hand for the last time.
Thirty-Seven
Josie and Sawyer waited until the medical staff made them leave the room. They stayed with Lisette until her body was cold. They waited in the hallway, standing awkwardly, until Dr. Feist arrived. She hugged them both. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I promise I’ll take good care of her.” She looked at Josie. “I’ll give my findings to Detective Mettner.”
Josie nodded. She’d never imagined that Lisette would need an autopsy after death. She had always envisioned Lisette passing away quietly in her chair while playing cards in the cafeteria at her nursing home. Or going to sleep in her room one night and simply not waking up. Dying of old age. A peaceful death. But she’d been murdered. Coldly, savagely, before Josie’s eyes, and when Josie caught the person who did it, the criminal justice system would require that the extent of the injuries that killed her were documented by autopsy.
They watched as Dr. Feist wheeled Lisette’s bed out of the room—her face covered with a sheet—and into one of the staff elevators at the end of the hall. Josie felt strangely numb, but she knew it was just her body clicking over to survival mode. This was how she had managed to get through a childhood of trauma, losing her father, then losing her first husband. Her mind took the unfathomable horror of her new reality and shut it away so that her body could keep doing all the things it needed to do to function and live. Sometimes, later on, there was a reckoning, if she wasn’t able to keep all those bad feelings down. Most of the time, she kept them buried so far beneath the surface, she could go for long periods without any of them being triggered. It was getting more difficult with each year that passed, to not feel her feelings. She suspected that a time would come when she would pay for all those years of locking everything away.
But tonight was not that time.
She said, “Sawyer, can I call someone for you?”
“No,” he said, and with that, he walked down the hall and got onto an elevator.
Josie took the steps down to the first floor and walked outside through the Emergency Department lobby. She knew she should call someone. She had a host of loved ones waiting for news, waiting to comfort her, and do all the things she could not imagine doing right now. The logistics of death. She’d always hated them. When her husband, Ray, died, his mother had done most of the funeral planning.
For now, she stood outside in the cool night air, breathing in a world without Lisette. How was that even possible?
She took out her phone and texted Noah. She’s gone.
His reply came back immediately. I’ll be right there.
She put her phone back into her pocket and looked toward the lobby as a police cruiser pulled up. A uniformed officer got out and opened the back door. Out stepped Mettner. He turned back toward the open door, reached into the back seat, and lifted Emily Mitchell into his arms.
Josie followed them inside.
Thirty-Eight
Josie waited until the medical team had done their initial assessment, listening from the other side of the curtain as they determined that Emily was severely dehydrated and needed a few stitches for a cut on her arm, but that otherwise she was in fair condition. Once they left her alone with Mettner, Josie stepped into the area.
“Josie!” Emily cried. She waved her stuffed dog in the air. It looked a lot dirtier than the last time Josie had seen it.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Josie said.
“You’re okay,” Emily said.
“Yes.”
Emily lowered her voice. “Are we dead yet?”
Josie smiled. “No, we’re not dead yet.”
Mettner’s eyes widened. “What does—you know what? I don’t want to know. Emily, stay here while I talk to Detective Quinn down the hall for a few minutes.”
“You mean where I can’t hear you,” she said pointedly.
“That’s what he means,” Josie said, winking at the girl.
Mettner took her arm and guided her a few cubicles away, pulling her to one side of the hall. “What are you doing here? How is Lisette?”
“She passed away,” Josie said.
His face fell. “Oh my God. Boss, I’m so sorry. Do you need me to—should I—”
“Noah is on his way,” she said. “Thank you.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, clearly flustered. “I—uh—well, you were right. Emily was at the old Rowland place. She left a little path of buttons. Hard to see in the dark, but we got some of them. She’ll be okay. Social services are on the way. I already talked to Marcie. They’re not going to place her at Harper’s Peak, which I think is best. Gretchen had contacted Pax’s aunt who lives in Georgia, told her everything that’s going on, and she’s expressed some interest in meeting and possibly taking Emily into her care.”
“She is a blood relative,” Josie noted. “Through Reed Bryan.”
“Right. She was pretty upset when she heard what was going on. She confirmed what Pax had told us—that Reed wouldn’t let her see him. Anyway, she’s getting on the next flight. Now we just have to find Rory. But what am I saying? Your grandmother just died. You don’t need to be here. I can stay with Emily.”
> Josie said, “Do you mind if I talk with her for a minute? You can stay. Just until Noah gets here?”
“Uh, yeah, okay, sure.”
Josie walked back to Emily’s cubicle. Mettner stood outside the curtain. Josie pulled a chair up to the bedside. Emily said, “Did you get your doll?”
“I did.”
Emily played with the stuffed dog’s ears. “He said he was sorry for the bad thing that happened.”
“Who is he, Emily?” Josie asked.
She put one finger to her mouth. Hush. Josie reached across and pulled it away. “I know about Rory,” she said. “And I know about Pax. I also know that Rory did bad things sometimes.”
“You already know?”
Josie nodded.
“That bad thing that happened. Rory said someone got shot. Was it your mom?”
“My grandmother,” Josie answered.
Emily lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did she die?”
“Yes,” Josie said, feeling a swell of emotion in her chest and quickly pushing it down.
“I’m sorry bad things happened to you. Were you ready?”
Josie smiled. “You know what? I don’t think any of us are ever ready for the bad things.”
Emily nodded but didn’t respond.
“Emily, did Rory tell you that he shot my grandmother? Did he say that specifically?”
She went back to playing with the dog’s ears. “No. He said it was his fault.”
“That’s not the same thing as having actually done it. Do you understand?”
“I know.”
“You were alone with Rory for a while after Pax took you to his farm. Did he tell you anything? About the things he had done?”
She shook her head.
“Did Pax tell you anything? About hurting anyone?”
“No, he didn’t hurt anyone. Pax is good.”
