Her Mother’s Grave_Absolutely gripping crime fiction with unputdownable mystery and suspense

by Lisa Regan

  So, she lied.

  With each lie that poured from her lips, Lisette’s frame crumpled a little bit more beside her. Guilt was a sour taste in the back of Josie’s throat, so she looked away from her gram, instead focusing on her mother’s face, which shone brighter with satisfaction with each one of Josie’s denials.

  As expected, the judge said Josie was to return home with her mother, but that Lisette should have visitation rights. Before they left the judge’s chambers, Lisette grabbed Josie up in a bear hug, and Josie felt her gram’s lips against her ear once more. “I’m not done, Josie. I’ll get you away from her. I promise.”

  When Lisette let go, Josie smiled bravely at her, holding back the tears and digging the point of the plastic fairy godmother’s hat deep into her palm. “It’s okay, Gram,” she told Lisette. “I’ll be fine.”

  Another lie.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Noah made Austin Jacks wait it out, let him sweat. Just when Josie expected him to start climbing the walls like some kind of jumping spider, the door to the room opened and Noah poked his head in. “Was that you hollering?” he asked.

  Austin stood beneath the camera and pointed to it. “Yeah it was me. You don’t have someone watching me right now?”

  “We’re pretty busy right now, Mr. Jacks. I’ve got to use my people on witnesses who have something to say, like your buddy Ian. What do you need? Bathroom break?”

  “You talked to Ian?”

  “We’re in with him now, yeah,” Noah said, already retreating out of the room.

  “He told you about the guy under the bridge?” Austin said.

  Noah didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, but he said he didn’t know the guy’s name.”

  “’Cause we never knew his name,” Austin replied. “He’s just, like, the guy under the bridge.”

  Josie knew there were only two bridges in Denton that crossed the Susquehanna River, and only one of them offered enough space and privacy for homeless squatters and drug transactions. Noah knew this as well.

  “Austin,” Noah said patiently, “there’s more than one guy under that bridge. You think we don’t run busts down there once a week?”

  The kid rubbed his scalp with both hands. “I can tell you what he looks like. You could get, like, an artist or whatever to come in, and I can tell him how to draw the guy. You know, like on TV.”

  Beside Josie, Gretchen laughed. Everyone thought real-life police work was like what they saw on television, but things like sketch artists cost money. A lot of money. The kind of money no police department would spend on a simple burglary—even for its chief of police.

  Noah stepped inside the room, pulling the door closed behind him and motioning for Austin to sit again. This time, the whole chair rattled with his agitation. Noah said, “How about you just tell me what you know about the guy and we’ll go from there.”

  Austin’s teeth gnashed on his dirty fingernails. “You gonna help me out, or what? Like with the DA?”

  “I can see about some reduced charges, sure.”

  Annoyance flashed in Austin’s eyes. “Reduced charges? Come on, man. You could get me out of here. I didn’t even do anything. I mean it wasn’t even my idea.”

  Noah leaned back in his chair, relaxed. “Reduced charges is the best I can do, Austin. I don’t make these decisions. You should know, the police lady whose house you broke into was Josie Quinn.”

  Austin’s mouth dropped open. “The chief of police? The hot one who’s always on the news?”

  “Uh, yeah. We only have one chief of police.”

  “Shit.”

  “You see my dilemma? I want to help you out here, but my hands are tied. Unless of course you have some information about Lloyd Todd or any of his associates.”

  Austin’s brow furrowed momentarily. “Who?”

  “Lloyd Todd,” Noah repeated slowly.

  The creases in Austin’s forehead deepened. “You mean that big drug dealer you guys busted last month? Todd’s Home Construction?”

  Noah nodded.

  “I don’t mess with Lloyd Todd,” he said. “Never did.”

  Noah tapped his fingers on the table as though bored. “How about someone in Todd’s crew? They’ve been pretty pissed since we put him away. Did someone in his organization ask you to do this job?”

  Austin shook his head. “Nah, dude. I told you, I never messed with Lloyd Todd. I’m not trying to get involved in all that. I mean, like, one day I want to go to college and shit. Those guys get in deep with him. He like, controls them.”

  “Yeah, we know. How about your guy under the bridge? He work for Todd?”

  “I don’t think so. I never saw him talking to any of Todd’s guys. He’s on his own down there, I’m pretty sure about that.”

  “What else can you tell me about him?”

  Austin rubbed at his cheeks until the skin pinkened. Finally, he said, “Reduced charges, right? What do you want to know?”

  “Reduced charges,” Noah repeated. “Tell me whatever you know about him.”

  “He’s old, dude. Like, way old.”

  “Can you estimate his age?”

  “I don’t know, like fifties or sixties.”

  Next to Josie, Gretchen let out a lengthy sigh. “Nice to know that fifty is ‘like, way old.’”

  Josie laughed at her impression of the kid.

  “He’s really skinny,” Austin continued. “I mean, dude’s whacked out most of the time. You know Lloyd Todd don’t take no whackos. You have to be on point to work for him. Anyway, I think this guy lives under the bridge, like, all the time. He’s always got the same old green jacket on, even in the summer.”

  Noah narrowed his eyes. “I thought you didn’t know much about him. Sounds like you see him a lot.”

  Austin slumped in his chair. “Come on, man. You trying to bust me for something else? So me and Ian go down to the river a lot, okay?”

  “To buy drugs,” Noah filled in.

  “I’m not saying that. You asked me about the guy, I’m telling you about him.”

  “Okay, he’s in his fifties or sixties, skinny, green jacket…”

  “Stringy-ass gray hair, wears this old pair of work boots that look about twenty years old.”

  “You don’t know his name?”

  Austin shook his head. “The people you see down there—you don’t ask for names, you get me?”

  “Fair enough. How’d he get involved in your robbery?”

  Austin put a hand to his chest, fingers splayed. “My robbery? Dude, that wasn’t my robbery. I’m not trying to rob the chief of police and shit. It was his idea.”

  “Who?”

  “The guy under the bridge. We get stuff from him sometimes, you know?”

  “What kind of stuff?” Noah asked.

  “Like stuff, you know? You really want to know? ’Cause if I tell you, you can’t, like, bust me, right?”

  Noah sighed. “I’m only interested in what you know about the robbery. I don’t care what ‘stuff’ you were getting from this guy, okay?”

  “Okay, okay. We were getting some weed and pills and shit from him—me and Ian—and we were a little behind in payment, so this guy said we could get caught up and get some more stuff if we did a job for him.”

  “He approached you with it?”

  “Yeah, I guess. He said it would be easy. He’d go with us to the house, get us inside, and then we were supposed to take some shit and mess the place up. But there was nothing in there, you know? Nothing this guy wanted. He didn’t want electronics or anything. He said to look in the bedroom for jewelry and cash, so we did.”

  “Who brought the spray paint?”

  “He gave it to us. Said we should write something real nasty on the walls.”

  “So ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ were your idea?”

  Austin’s face flushed. “No, man, not ours. We didn’t even know this bitch—I mean the chief. I said to him, ‘What do you mean by nasty?’ and he said to write ‘sl
ut’ or ‘whore’ or something. He said, ‘Bitches don’t like to be called slut or whore.’”

  Noah let out a heavy sigh. “Women don’t like to be called bitches either.”

  Austin’s head bobbed. “Hey, man, I know that.”

  Next to Josie, Gretchen hung her head. “Progressive,” she muttered.

  “Did this man tell you why he wanted you and Ian to do these things?” Noah asked the kid.

  “No. We just figured he had a beef with the lady. I mean, he said it was a police lady and she lived alone, ’cause we were like, we don’t want to go into no house if there’s people there or a big dog and shit. He said she was always working. Anyway, he was there, and once we found the jewelry, he left. Said he’d meet up with us later when we were done. Ian said he should stay, ’cause what if we got caught, then we’d take the fall for all of it, so he said he might come back, but I knew he wouldn’t.”

  Noah folded his arms across his chest. “Where were you supposed to meet up later?”

  “Under the bridge, where else?”

  Josie shook her head. “God, this kid is stupid.”

  “That’s why the guy used him,” Gretchen agreed.

  “You think he’s lying?” Josie asked. “About this man under the bridge?”

  “Well, we know from what you heard in the house there’s someone else involved. Hard to say if it’s someone they’re protecting, or if he’s telling the truth about this drug-dealer guy. But there’s one way to find out.”

  “He’s not going to be under the bridge,” Josie said.

  “Probably not,” Gretchen agreed. “But it’s a good place to start. I’ll head over there with a couple of marked units. Let you know what we find.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  JOSIE – ELEVEN YEARS OLD

  Her mother’s small blue Chevette sat outside the trailer looking like a discarded toy, slumped to one side, its front passenger-side tire flat. Red paint streaked the bumper where her mother had hit a shiny red Mustang when they left the liquor store. It had been two days, but Josie’s neck still hurt.

  Her homework was spread out on the kitchen table. Fractions. Josie hated fractions. They had started them in the fourth grade, and she still hadn’t mastered them. Her mother paced from the kitchen through the living room and back, stopping at the front door on each pass to stare at the broken-down car and curse under her breath.

  Josie heard the sound of a car jolting over the large pothole two trailers down before the same red Mustang pulled up beside the Chevette. From the kitchen window, Josie could see that it was waxed to perfection, except for the long thick streak where the paint had been gouged from the front of the driver’s side to the back. Josie watched a man climb out of the Mustang, flicking a cigarette into the grass as he walked toward the front door of their trailer. He was tall and thin, older, but not as old as Josie’s gram. Dull brown hair peeked from the back of a worn blue ball cap. The sleeves of his white T-shirt had been torn away, revealing wiry arms with faded black tattoos that Josie couldn’t make out. Beneath a long, bulbous nose, a wide moustache stretched across his upper lip. Old stains dotted his faded blue jeans, and the toe of one of his boots had a hole in it.

  When he banged on the door, the sound reverberated through the whole trailer. Her mother stood frozen between the kitchen and living room. She brought an index finger to her lips, signaling for Josie to be quiet. They waited without moving as the man kept knocking, harder and harder. The minutes ticked by. Then he began shouting, “I know you’re in there, dammit. Just answer the door. You’re not getting away with this. You hit my car and then drove off.”

  More knocking. More shouting. “I know who you are, Belinda Rose. The lady at the liquor store knows you. Told me all about you. Now come on out here or I’ll call the police.”

  At this, her mother took a few tentative steps toward the door. “Shit,” she muttered.

  “I’m giving you ten seconds,” the man hollered. “You don’t come out in ten seconds, I’m leaving, and I’ll be back with the police.”

  Josie’s mother pulled the door open. “Okay, okay,” she said. “Here I am.”

  “You gonna make me stand out here, or you gonna invite me in? Least you can do is offer me a drink after you wrecked my car.”

  Her mother rolled her eyes and stepped aside, letting the man inside. “I hardly wrecked your car,” she remarked.

  The man stood in the middle of the living room, eyes panning the trailer until they landed on Josie. He offered her a toothy smile. “Hey, sweetheart.”

  Josie lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave. Her mother went to the drainboard and snatched up a glass, filling the bottom of it with the vodka she’d bought at the store. She handed it to the man, and he knocked it back in one gulp, handing her the glass back. She put one hand on her hip and stared at him. “What do you want?”

  Again, he smiled. “What do you think? I need a paint job and you’re gonna pay for it.”

  “Oh yeah? How’s that? I don’t got no insurance.”

  He laughed, his eyes drifting to Josie and then back to Josie’s mother. “Of course you don’t.”

  “How much is a paint job?” her mother asked.

  He looked out the front door at the Mustang. “For a beauty like that? At least five hundred.”

  “Five hundred dollars?” her mother exclaimed. “Are you shitting me? For some paint?”

  “Honey, that’s a 1965 Mustang GT. A classic car. Took me years to restore it.”

  Josie’s mother sighed and threw her hands in the air. “I don’t have no five hundred dollars. You come back in a week and maybe I’ll have something for you.”

  The man walked over to the couch and sat down. “I don’t do payment plans, and if I leave, I told you, I’m coming back with the cops.”

  Her mother followed him, standing between his legs, staring down at him. “Cops don’t solve nothing,” she told him. “Stop bringing them into this. This is between you and me.”

  He stretched his arms out across the back of the sofa and smiled at her like they were old friends. “Is that right?”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  As Josie predicted, the man Austin Jacks described was not under the bridge. Gretchen unearthed a handful of people who knew him, but only as Zeke. It wasn’t a lot to go on. Josie didn’t know anyone named Zeke, and she had no idea what the drug dealer would want with her—particularly if he wasn’t associated with Lloyd Todd, as Austin had said. She left Noah at the station house to book the teenagers while she returned home to assess the damage and start cleaning up. She went in through her front door and moved through the first floor slowly, flipping on light switches as she went. The downstairs hadn’t been disturbed at all. Everything was exactly as she had left it—it was impossible to tell that anyone had been there. But Josie knew. The house felt different to her now—emptier and colder somehow, like it was missing something. Something she didn’t know if she could get back.

  She hesitated before turning on the kitchen light, knowing the sight of the broken kitchen window was going to stir up all the feelings of unease and rage she’d been tamping down since the teenage boys had been taken out of her bedroom in cuffs. The entire ride home she’d been worrying about that point of entry—the glass broken now, her home open and vulnerable. Now anyone could slip inside unheard until she had it fixed. Then there was the cost of the window.

  The kitchen lights flickered on, and Josie’s breath caught in her throat. In the window, a large, thick board had been fitted into the window frame, sealing it off. It wasn’t the responsibility of Denton PD to clean up crime scenes, and certainly not to board up windows, but her team had done it for her. She walked over and tested if it was secure. Tears of gratitude burned her tired eyes as she pressed against it and it didn’t budge. She rushed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. Her bedroom had been straightened, the night stands had been placed upright once more, her lamps reassembled as best as they could be. The stuffing t
orn from her pillows had been removed, and the torn pillowcases were neatly folded and placed at the foot of her bed. Someone had stripped the muddied sheets and folded them as well. Even the broken pieces of her jewelry box had been neatly arranged on the top of her dresser. She walked over to the dresser, where all the drawers had been put back in their places, clothes folded and placed inside each one. She studied the carpet and saw that someone had vacuumed. Many items would need to be replaced, but everything in the room was clean and orderly. Only the nasty red words shouted from the walls, marring the tidy room.

  She sank onto the bed and squeezed her eyes closed against the sting of tears. In her jacket pocket, her cell phone made a pinging sound. A text message from Noah.

  I’m outside, it read. Can I come in?

  He waited on her doorstep, a brown bag in hand that smelled deliciously like meatball subs. “You didn’t eat,” he said as he stepped past her. He gestured toward the bag as he made his way to the kitchen. “All I could get were sandwiches from that minimarket over near the college. We’ll probably pay for this later.”

  Josie glanced at her microwave clock and saw it was almost three a.m. “Noah,” she said softly. “You don’t have to—”

  “I think you should come stay with me for a day or two. Just until you get everything back in order here.” He didn’t look at her as he spread the contents of the bag across her kitchen table. Her stomach clenched as the smell grew stronger. He was right. She hadn’t eaten. She was starving.

  “That’s not necessary,” she told him.

  Together they sat down and dug in. Under normal circumstances, Josie knew she probably wouldn’t enjoy a minimarket sandwich, but in that moment, the cheese- and sauce-covered meatballs were the best thing she’d ever tasted. Noah waited until her stomach was full before trying again.