Her Deadly Touch: An absolutely addictive crime thriller and mystery novel (Detective Josie Quinn Book 12)

by Lisa Regan

  Inside her shoes, Josie wiggled her toes, feeling her legs once more. She took in several more deep breaths, shoring herself up. She reached into her pocket and fingered the rosary beads again. “I’m with you,” she said.

  Gretchen let go of her arm and stepped toward the door again. “Good. Now let’s go see if we can get a few bodies to help carry in all these boxes from Krystal’s law firm.”

  A half hour later, the boxes had all been moved up to the second-floor great room—a large, open area filled with desks where detectives and other officers could make phone calls and complete paperwork. Josie, Gretchen, Noah, and Detective Finn Mettner had permanent desks. They’d been pushed together in the center of the room. Off to the side was the only other permanent desk, which belonged to their press liaison, Amber Watts. Only three uniformed officers remained after helping Josie and Gretchen carry in all the boxes. Noah had gone home for the day and Mettner had the day off. Watts had likely left for the day as well. Josie looked to the Chief’s office door, but it remained closed.

  Gretchen put one box on Josie’s desk and another on her own. Together, they began to sort through the documents that Krystal’s boss had given them.

  Josie said, “These are all cases she was working on recently?”

  “Yeah. I’m not sure what we’re looking for exactly though.”

  “Yeah,” said Josie. “I figured this was an I’ll-know-it-when-I-see-it situation.”

  Gretchen laughed. It took them an hour to take an initial pass through all the documents. Neither of them found anything that seemed unusual or that might have upset Krystal Duncan enough to send her down to the East Bridge to get something more potent than pot. They were personal injury cases: car accidents, slip and falls, medical malpractice and product liability cases. Neither Josie nor Gretchen recognized the names of any clients or witnesses. Nothing stood out.

  “Maybe this thing that she found out had nothing to do with work after all,” Josie said.

  “But then why log in to her work database on Saturday? What was she looking for?” Gretchen said.

  “Maybe she wasn’t looking for anything? Maybe she was trying to signal to someone that she was alive.”

  “Then why wouldn’t she leave a message of some sort? Her boss said no files were even opened. If she wanted to leave a message, she could have opened a file, typed something in, and saved it.”

  “She was just looking, then. Could the files be viewed without opening them, though? Sort of like a document-preview type of thing?”

  Gretchen said, “Yes, Carly showed me how to preview the documents without opening them. It’s very possible that Krystal looked around in the files and found whatever she was looking for without opening anything. But this stuff is… not exactly scintillating. Guy breaks his wrist falling in the supermarket. A lady gets rear-ended by a guy driving while texting. What could she possibly have been looking for?”

  Josie said, “Maybe she wasn’t looking for anything at all. Maybe the killer had her looking for something.”

  “If that was the case, I’d be more inclined to look at the law firm as the source of whatever trouble that Krystal stumbled onto, but why would the killer write the nickname of Gloria and Nathan Cammack’s son on her arm?”

  Josie said, “True. We should ask Carly to do a search of all their clients and witnesses to see if the Cammacks’ names come up.”

  Gretchen scribbled on her notebook. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll call over there. Then I’m going to talk with Wallace Cammack’s parents. In the meantime, I’m going to take another look at these files to see if there’s anything we missed.”

  “You think it’s significant that she met with the bus driver just over two weeks before she went missing?” Josie asked.

  “I would not have except that the killer left her at her daughter’s grave, and now we’ve got the connection to the Cammacks, whose children were also killed in the accident. I’ll leave a message for Virgil Lesko’s attorney and see if he’ll agree to either let us talk to him or see the video of the meeting with Krystal.”

  Josie’s stomach growled loudly. She smiled sheepishly. “Want to order takeout?”

  Gretchen peered at her for a long moment. Then she said, “Why don’t you call it a day? I can go over the files myself. I’m sure Noah and Trout would like to see you at the end of your first day back.”

  “I’m fine,” Josie protested, but it sounded weak even to her own ears. After a few awkward moments, she gathered her phone and keys and went home.

  Trout greeted her at the door, his bottom wiggling. He let out a series of howls and moans as she knelt to give him attention. He jumped on her again and again, his body a blur of black-and-white fur, frenetically trying to lick her face as he cried out. Noah appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Hey,” he said over the din. “Sorry about him. I think he had a hard day.”

  Josie stood up and Trout jumped again, putting his two front legs on her thigh and kneading with his paws. Noah walked toward her, pointing to his left. Josie looked toward their living room and saw destruction. During the four months she had been off, she’d tried a number of things to keep busy: crocheting, jigsaw puzzles, painting, candle-making, and indoor gardening. Now the remnants of all those hobbies lay demolished and littered across the living room floor.

  Noah said, “I’ll clean it up, I promise. I just wanted you to see it.”

  Josie looked down at Trout. As if sensing the shift in her mood, he sat and flattened his ears against his skull, doing his best baby-seal impression. His bulging eyes looked sorrowful and pleading.

  “You were home with him for four months,” Noah added. “Then today we were both gone all day. He has to get used to the old work schedule again. He’s just acting out. At least he didn’t destroy the furniture. We might have to start putting him back in his crate though when we leave the house, at least temporarily.”

  Josie looked down into Trout’s mournful brown eyes and felt a relief so palpable that it literally felt like a weight being lifted from her shoulders. This little soul got her. He often seemed to mirror her feelings, and today was no different. She dropped to the floor and crossed her legs, letting Trout climb onto her lap. She leaned in and wrapped her arms around his warm little body. “You had a bad day, too, buddy?” she whispered. “It’s okay. It will be okay.”

  Noah sat down across from her, cross-legged as well. “You had a bad first day back?” he asked.

  Josie stroked Trout’s back and looked up at her husband. “No. I mean, I don’t know. It was… tough.” She didn’t want to talk but then again, she never wanted to talk. That’s what had landed her in therapy. She forced the words out anyway. “I miss her, Noah. I miss her so much, and I feel—” Her throat felt clogged, but she kept going. “I feel so damn guilty, still. Why should I get to just go back to my regular life as if everything is fine when she’s dead? Because of me, she’s dead.”

  In her lap, Trout whined. Josie felt his warm tongue on her forearm.

  She waited for Noah to say all the things she knew he was supposed to say—the things he had said to her in those first weeks at home when she was rudderless and barely functioning. The things Gretchen, her sister, her brother, her biological parents, and Dr. Rosetti had all said to her in the last four months:

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “The killer bears all the responsibility.”

  But he didn’t say any of those things. Instead, he touched her cheek. His hazel eyes were somber and pensive. “I know,” he said.

  In that moment, Josie believed him. She knew that he was just as familiar with this unique sort of pain and guilt—losing a loved one to violence—as she. His mother had been murdered, and Josie knew that even years later, Noah still asked himself whether she would still be alive if only he had arrived at her house ten minutes earlier. If only Josie had told Lisette to go b
ack to the hotel instead of letting her walk toward the woods, she would still be alive as well.

  As if reading her mind, Noah said, “It’s a wound, Josie. It doesn’t heal. It just scabs over from time to time. But I promise that you will get used to it.”

  “I don’t want this awful feeling to be normal,” she choked out.

  Again, Trout whined. She scratched between his ears.

  “I know,” said Noah.

  He leaned in and they touched foreheads, making a steeple with their bodies over Trout. They sat like that, breathing into one another until Josie couldn’t feel her legs anymore. She wondered if this was what Dr. Rosetti meant when she said to sit with her feelings. Except that this wasn’t the crush of horrifying emotion that was so overwhelming that Josie felt it might physically destroy her. This was just the ache and the sadness. This was missing Lisette. This was the knowledge that every day ahead of Josie for the rest of her life now yawned open before her, empty, without her grandmother. This was the hollow feeling that came with unfathomable loss. It was a slow agony, a torturous drip, drip, drip of the new reality. This was the amount of feeling she could handle mostly because Noah didn’t try to make any of it go away. He didn’t try to gloss over her pain or displace it or distract her from it. He knew none of those things worked. But sitting here with her, with these feelings; this he could do.

  He stretched his neck and adjusted his head so he could kiss her lips. “You want dinner?”

  “Sure,” Josie said. “But first I want to go upstairs.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning, Josie met Gretchen in the municipal lot behind the police station and Gretchen drove them back to West Denton. She took a slightly different route since the Cammacks’ house was a block over from Dee Tenney’s house. As they turned onto the road that ran perpendicular to both the Cammack and Tenney houses, Josie noticed a memorial that had been set up for the five children who had perished in the West Denton bus crash.

  “That’s the bus stop,” Gretchen said. “Before the crash it was just a corner with a big sycamore tree in that front yard right there.”

  Josie looked at the house that sat on the corner, a split-level brick rancher set back about forty feet from the pavement. There was no sycamore tree now. Instead, paving stones had been laid into the grass, forming a circular patio and around the edges of the patio were five seats, sculpted in bronze. They looked almost like stools twisting up and out of the paving stones. There was room to sit on each one and rather than backs, each stool was fitted with a bronze vase. The children’s names had been carved into the vases. Gretchen lingered at the stop sign on the corner and Josie read the names: Bianca, Gail, Wallace, Frankie, Nevin. All the vases were filled with flowers. Bianca’s stool also held a teddy bear.

  Gretchen said, “The neighbor felt so awful that it happened in his front yard, that he had what was left of the tree removed and donated that space for the memorial. The community raised money for it and a local artist got together with a landscaping company and built it.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Josie murmured. But she wondered if it made it easier or harder for the parents to drive past it every single day, probably multiple times a day. Grief was different for everyone, and it changed over time. The memorial, while well-meant and quite lovely, could serve as either a happy reminder that the memories of the children were being honored and kept alive or it could serve as a horrific reminder of all that had been lost. Josie couldn’t help but wonder whether all the parents had been consulted. Had they discussed it in their support group?

  Gretchen pulled away and two blocks later, turned right onto the Cammacks’ street. It was similar to the houses on Dee Tenney’s street, which was a block over, filled with mid- to large-sized two-story homes with two and three car garages and large front yards. All the properties were well tended. The Cammack house had cheery cream-colored siding and white shutters. Calla lilies of various colors lined the front walk. Two large stone planters bracketed the front door but both were empty. Josie rang the doorbell, and they waited.

  “I thought Dee Tenney said Gloria and Nathan Cammack were divorced.”

  Gretchen fished her credentials from her pocket. “They are. Gloria got the house. Nathan lives in an apartment downtown. We’ll talk to him later today.”

  “Does she know we’re coming?” Josie asked, pressing the bell again.

  “I spoke with her this morning,” Gretchen responded.

  A few minutes passed and Josie was about to ring the bell once more when the door swung open. Gloria Cammack stood before them in a sharp black pantsuit with a pink camisole beneath her jacket. Her shiny black heels were at least six inches. Her blonde hair was slicked back away from her face. In her ear was a Bluetooth. One hand held her cell phone while the other waved them in. She talked rapidly, her tone strident. The effect was disconcerting at first until Josie realized she was talking to someone via the Bluetooth and not them.

  “And get those orders out today. I’m not kidding. I don’t want to lose this client. They’re huge. You hear me? Huge. I know you can do it, okay? You just need to take a minute, center yourself, and refocus. Remember, we don’t limit ourselves. We push forward and through. Got it? Okay, yeah. No, I can’t. I’ve got a meeting here at home. I’ll be there in an hour.”

  They followed Gloria deeper into the house. On the walls that led from the foyer to what looked like the kitchen were dozens of framed photographs. Josie slowed to study a few of them. All of them were of Gloria and Nathan’s children. Wallace resembled his mother, tall and blond with blue eyes. His hair was shaved short in the back with a sheaf of blond locks nearly covering his eyes. A quick scan of the photos revealed that sometime between toddlerhood and adolescence he had stopped smiling—at least for photos. In what must have been the most recent pictures, where he looked oldest, his face seemed to hold a challenge, as if he were daring someone to mess with him. Was this a typical male, preteen attitude or something more, Josie wondered?

  His sister seemed the complete opposite. With brown hair and a wide, infectious smile, Frankie Cammack shone from every photo she appeared in. For every picture that her brother brooded in, Frankie grinned. In some, she stuck out her tongue or struck a sassy pose. There was one photo taken in front of the house where Frankie was doing a handstand and Wallace holding onto her legs. Frankie’s face was bright and smiling. Wallace looked to be in the middle of an eye-roll. Each photo she passed made Josie’s heart ache even more.

  Gloria Cammack’s kitchen was surprisingly homey with honey oak cabinets and blue gingham hand towels that matched the curtain over the kitchen sink. Gloria yanked the Bluetooth out of her ear and tossed it onto the kitchen table together with her phone, letting out something between a groan and a small howl of frustration. Turning her back on them, she went to the countertop and poured herself a cup of coffee. “These people come to you with these resumes that make it seem like you’re underpaying them. Then they get into the position, and you have to hold their hand with every little thing.”

  She slammed the coffee pot back into its place with such force, Josie was surprised that the glass didn’t shatter. She watched as Gloria took in a breath, staring straight ahead at the cabinet in front of her as if they weren’t even in the room. It was almost like she was looking into a mirror. Josie saw her struggling to force a smile onto her face before turning back to them.

  “Detective Palmer,” she said to Gretchen. “I wish I could say it was nice to see you again, but I’m sure you realize that it’s not. No offense.”

  She took a sip of her coffee, black.

  Gretchen smiled. “None taken. Mrs. Cammack, this is my colleague, Detective Josie Quinn.”

  She took a few steps toward them and extended a hand to Josie. “Gloria Cammack,” she announced. “I’m the owner and CEO of All Natural Family and Child.”

  After they shook hands, Gloria reached up to smooth her hair back although not a single strand had fallen out o
f place. “I’m so sorry. My manners. Would you like some coffee?”

  They declined and Gloria motioned for them to sit at the table. She remained standing, leaning against the countertop, her coffee mug in hand. “This is about Krystal, I’m guessing. I don’t know why else you would be here unless you came to tell me that Virgil Lesko was killed in jail while he was awaiting trial.”

  Gretchen said, “We’re here about Krystal.”

  Gloria tipped her head back and gave a mirthless laugh. “We wouldn’t get that lucky, would we? For that bastard to die in jail and spare us all this circus of a trial. Now, with Krystal’s murder…” She returned her gaze to them. “I already know she was murdered. Dee told the group, and Nathan called me afterward because he thought I’d want to know. I don’t go to the group. I went once and didn’t find it helpful. I’m not sure how I can help, though. Or are you here because Dee told you there was bad blood between Krystal and me.”

  Gretchen and Josie exchanged a furtive look. This was new information. Josie said, “Why would Dee think that?”

  Gloria rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on.”

  When neither Josie nor Gretchen spoke, a spark of rage flashed in Gloria’s blue eyes. She slammed her coffee mug onto the counter and the liquid sloshed over. A few drops got onto her wrist, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Really?” she said. “I know that Dee was the one who found Krystal’s body. Nathan told me. Which means you talked to Dee. You have to talk to the person who calls in the body, right?”

  “Yes,” said Gretchen. “We talked with Dee.”

  “You expect me to believe she didn’t tell you? She and Krystal were practically BFFs, at least after the kids—” She broke off and turned her head to the side. Again, she seemed to be going through some private ritual to compose herself. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer. “After the kids died.”