by Lisa Regan
“Did you kill my father?” Josie asked quietly.
Lila laughed. “Took you long enough to figure that one out. A fine detective you are.”
“Why?” Josie asked, incredulous. “You could have left me with him and gone away. Started over somewhere else. And my gram—” Here Josie’s voice cracked, thinking of the grief and confusion that Lisette had carried around with her for decades, thinking Josie’s father had given up on them.
“You’re not listening to me, little JoJo,” Lila said. “He got what he deserved. He betrayed me. He said he loved me, but he didn’t. I didn’t mean to kill him. Not at first. But then we were walking out in the woods to ‘work things out’ after I showed him the gun I got from Zeke, and I just did it. I waited for the police to arrest me, but they believed me when I said it was a suicide.”
“And you kept me because you didn’t want Lisette to have me,” Josie said.
“You were a little bitch, but you had your uses,” she replied, smirking.
“Until my grandmother paid you to leave. Why did you come back? Why after all these years did you feel the need to ruin my life? And Trinity’s?”
Lila glanced down to where Trinity lay at her feet. “Two years ago, I’m sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office watching the TV. There the two of you were—being interviewed about all the ‘good’ you did up in those mountains. You’re a famous police chief. The other one is a famous reporter. Then they call me back to the exam room and tell me I’ve got cancer. That’s not how things were supposed to end.” She kicked out again, and Josie heard Trinity yelp. “And this bitch. Every time I turned on the television, I saw her face. Your face. I couldn’t go without making sure you knew what it felt like to be me. You don’t get a happy ending while my insides rot to hell.”
“Then why did you dig up Belinda?” Josie asked. “It was you, wasn’t it? You got the boys to find her. That’s why there were so many foxholes.”
Lila nodded. “Took those little idiots a week. I didn’t think they’d ever find her. I needed money.”
“You squeezed Sophia Bowen for twenty thousand,” Josie pointed out.
“Yeah, but there’s this experimental treatment I could get if I had enough money. It might be my only chance. I can’t get that much from Sophia. Maybe close to it, but it wouldn’t be enough. I pulled every con I could think of, but I was running out of time. Then I remembered Belinda kept saying she had a big payday—she just had to cash it in. She always said that. She begged for me to help her when Sophia was after her, and she said she would share it with me. I didn’t pay her any mind back then. She was a stupid kid. But then I remembered that locket she always wore, and I thought, ‘Holy shit, did I miss that?’ Sophia always said it was cheap costume jewelry, but I got to wondering, what the hell was Belinda always talking about? Did she mean the locket? So yeah, I paid a couple of kids to dig her up.”
“You have the locket,” Josie said.
“I tried to sell it, but turned out Sophia was right. It was cheap costume jewelry. All it had inside was a lock of hair. Stupid bitch. All that for nothing.”
It must have been Andrew Bowen’s hair. Judge Bowen had given Belinda the locket and had obviously promised he would take care of Andrew. The “payday” Belinda had bragged about was what she could get by threatening to expose the judge.
“Anyway,” Lila said, “I think I can get it from Sophia now, especially after that business in the mill the other night. I saved her ass again. I depleted my funds with these little projects of mine.” At that, she laughed again and reached down, pulling Trinity upward. “The drug lackeys around here got expensive since I was here last.”
Trinity cried out in pain as Lila dragged her toward the door. “What are you doing?” Josie asked, unable to keep the panic out of her voice. “Where are you taking her?”
Lila dropped her onto her side, and Trinity’s body made a loud thud. Her strangled cries turned into an angry shout. “Leave me alone, you old twisted bitch!”
“What are you going to do with her?” Josie asked.
“You’ll be joining her soon enough,” Lila answered. She bent toward Trinity, eliciting more screams from her, and slowly untied her feet. She pulled Trinity upright, but she fell down immediately, her legs useless from having been tied in the same position for so many hours. “You better learn to walk real quick, princess,” Lila told her. When Trinity’s legs collapsed under her once more, Lila sighed, slid her arms under Trinity’s armpits, and dragged her out of the room.
Josie’s chest felt like it was being crushed. “Trinity!” she screamed.
“Josie!” came the answer.
There was a series of grunts and a couple of thumps, the front door opening and closing again, and then silence.
Lila was going to kill Trinity.
Josie opened her mouth and started bellowing at the top of her lungs once more.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Josie had no sense of how much time had passed, but suddenly a face floated above her. Not Lila. A boy. It took her panicked brain a moment to process what she was seeing. She tried to remember which boy was which. The shaggy-haired one was older. Was he Troy or Kyle?
“Kyle?” she croaked.
He nodded. In his hands, he held a long gun with the words Red Ryder emblazoned on the stock. A BB gun. His simultaneous innocence and bravery brought tears to her eyes. “Can you untie me?”
He nodded again. Carefully he placed the gun onto the bed next to her and helped her turn onto her stomach so he could work at her bindings. He struggled for several minutes, until Josie could feel hot drops of sweat falling from his face and landing on her arms. “Go get a knife,” she told him. “From the kitchen.”
Wordlessly, he left and came back, then started gently sawing away at the ropes. Both of them kept silent, listening for Lila to return. Her hands came free first, allowing her to flip onto her back and stretch her legs out in agony and ecstasy. Kyle handed her the knife, and she quickly sawed through the ropes binding her feet. “Thank you,” she told him.
He snatched the gun up from the mattress and motioned toward the door. Josie couldn’t help but smile. He wanted to go in front of her, to protect her. “I’ll go first,” she said. Then she stood up and fell right to the floor. She hadn’t been bound as long as Trinity, but her legs were numb and weak. Kyle helped her stand and tucked himself under her left arm. Together, they hobbled out to the living room of the trailer, where they found a kitchen table covered with fast food wrappers and prescription pill bottles. On the couch sat a laptop and two cell phones.
Outside it was dark, with only the golden glow of the exterior light over the Price trailer’s front door. The air was cool, and after several deep breaths, Josie’s head started to clear. Leaning on Kyle, she flexed and tested each leg until she could stand.
Kyle pointed to the dark wooded area across the street. “They went into the woods. Come on.”
He took a few steps toward the forest and stopped, turning back to her. “Aren’t you coming?”
Josie wanted to squeeze him, but instead she smiled again. “Kyle,” she said. “Thank you for saving me, but I can take it from here. I do need your help with one more thing though. I need you to go inside, wake up your mom, and have her call 911. Tell them that your neighbor was holding two kidnapped women next door—a reporter and the chief of police—and tell them she took us into the woods. Can you do that?”
He nodded solemnly.
Josie laid a hand on his shoulder. “And then I need you to stay here and wait for the police, okay? So you can point them in the right direction.”
“I can do it,” he assured her.
“Thank you,” Josie said. She waited until he was inside the trailer before she took off into the moonlit woods.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Josie’s muscle memory kicked in the moment her feet hit the trail. When she and Ray were teenagers, they had met in the woods during the night countless time
s. Her legs carried her into the heart of the forest without conscious thought. She was halfway to where they had found Belinda Rose’s remains—where her father had been murdered—when she stopped, trying to steady her breathing and listen for the snap of twigs or the rustle of brush. All that came to her were crickets chirping and the low, mournful hoot of an owl. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might jump right out of her body.
Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, trees and rocks took shape around her. The overhead moonlight was stronger here than it had been in the warehouse, filtering through the canopy of trees overhead. As quietly as possible, Josie found a nearby rock, hopped onto it, and swung her body up onto the low branch of a tree. Bear-hugging the branch, she used her vantage point to search the nearby forest. She thought she saw the flutter of crime-scene tape from where they had excavated Belinda Rose in the distance. To the left of it was movement, and then she heard what sounded like a wail. Trinity. She was still alive.
Josie lowered herself back down and ran in the direction of the crime scene, her stiff legs working more quickly now. The wail became louder as she approached the hole from which Dr. Feist had excavated Belinda’s remains. She slowed to a halt.
Suddenly, pain streaked across the back of her shoulders, and she went tumbling forward into the black hole, landing face-first in a pile of loose dirt. As she rolled to her side, her arm brushed against something fleshy. Feeling around, she found one of Trinity’s elbows. Josie’s fingers scrabbled over Trinity’s prone form, trying to get to her ties. “Trinity!” Josie whispered, clutching the hard knot of her shoulder. “Trinity, I’m here.”
Above them, moonlight reflected off Lila’s pale face, and the edge of a shovel gleamed in her hands. A pile of dirt hit Josie’s face.
She was going to bury them alive.
Josie abandoned her efforts to untie Trinity and struggled to her feet, feeling around the edges of the hole, trying to find a foothold. Her fingers closed over a tree root protruding from the dirt wall, and she put a foot on it and hoisted herself up. Lila was there waiting, the shovel raised high above her head. She brought it down as hard as she could, but Josie rolled to one side, narrowly avoiding it. She stumbled forward, her foot catching on a rock and sending her flailing. She broke her fall with both hands and felt the end of the shovel whiz past her head. Josie scrambled to turn onto her backside as Lila swung the shovel again. Josie kept backing up as fast as she could, fear closing her throat, but the shovel caught her forearm this time, causing a sickening crack and a white-hot streak of pain through Josie’s entire arm. Instant nausea rocked her body. Pulling her lifeless arm in close, she shuffled further backward, trying to put some distance between them again.
Lila raised the shovel one more time, laughing maniacally. “Come on, little JoJo. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Stop running. Be a good girl.”
A pop sounded, and Lila froze. The shovel fell to the ground as her hands flew to the side of her head. “What the hell?” she muttered.
Another pop burst through the night. Then another, and another. Each time, Lila jumped as though startled. Josie spun around, searching the woods for the source, her addled brain taking a moment to figure out what the popping noise was—Kyle Price’s BB gun. Josie scrambled to her feet and picked up the shovel with her good hand. She raced toward Lila and took a wild swing that made contact with Lila’s back—a solid kidney shot. She fell to the ground. Josie pulled back and swung again but missed. Lila reached out and wrapped a hand around Josie’s ankle, trying to pull her off balance. Josie brought the shovel down again. It glanced off Lila’s shoulder with just enough force for her to release Josie’s leg.
Josie turned and ran away from her, trying to make her way back to Trinity.
“Stop, JoJo,” Lila gasped. “I’m your mother, remember?”
“You’re not my mother,” Josie said over her shoulder. “You took me away from my mother.”
“I raised you.”
“No, you hurt me, you abused me, you tried to sell me. You’re not a mother.”
Lila’s voice was getting closer. “I’m the only one you ever had.”
“Are you out of your mind? You tried to ruin my life, and you just tried to kill me.”
Josie turned, and Lila was right there. She raised the shovel over her head, but Lila grabbed it. As they fought over it, Lila changed tactics, huffing, “I’ve got money. I’ll give you money. Give me the damn shovel. We’ll bury the reporter together and go our separate ways. No one has to know. Come on, I’m dying. I don’t want to do it in prison.”
“I don’t give a shit what you want,” Josie told her. “It’s over. You’re over. You’re finished ruining lives. I’m going to make sure you rot in prison every day for the rest of your shitty life.”
Josie won the tug-of-war, sending Lila off balance. She stumbled backward without falling, and Josie turned away to flee just as one of Lila’s arms shot out, pushing at the small of Josie’s back. The ground rushed toward Josie’s face. She dropped the shovel and tried to break her fall with her good hand. As soon as she hit, she rolled. She lost sight of Lila, but she kept moving so Lila couldn’t zero in on her. Footsteps sounded close by, but then Josie heard the pop of the BB gun again.
“Knock it off!” Lila shouted.
Pop. Poppoppop.
Getting her bearings, Josie stood again. Lila was turned partially away from her, her eyes searching out the source of the BBs. The shovel hung loosely in one hand. Beyond her, Josie saw two sets of crime-scene tape around the other holes the Price brothers had dug. Holding her broken arm against her side, Josie planted her feet into a runner’s starting position, tucked her chin, and bolted as fast as she could. She shoulder-tackled Lila’s torso, and the two of them flew through the air into one of the empty holes, Lila’s fleshy body cushioning Josie’s fall. Josie heard her struggling for air, the wind knocked out of her. Sweat poured off Josie’s brow as she struggled with one good arm to turn Lila’s body over and push her face into the dirt. She sat on the backs of Lila’s legs and screamed for Kyle to go get help.
Flashlight beams cut through the trees. Josie heard shouts and the sound of boots pounding along the forest floor, then Noah’s voice, which brought tears to her eyes. “Josie!”
“Here!” she shouted back.
Her staff rushed in. What seemed like a half dozen of them stood over the hole, shining their flashlights down on her. “Trinity’s over there,” she said. “In the other hole. One of the other holes. She needs help.”
“We’ll get her,” Noah said. Josie heard more boots pounding the ground. Shouting. The night was awash in flashlight beams. Two of her officers climbed into the hole with her and Lila. They secured Lila’s hands behind her back and then lifted Josie up, out of the hole, and into Noah’s arms.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Josie dozed in a vinyl chair beside the bed they’d given Trinity in Denton’s emergency room. Trinity was badly dehydrated, with wounds on her wrists and ankles where Lila had bound her. Her face was swollen and covered in various shades of blue and black and green. Her nose was broken, just as Josie had thought, and a CT scan of her head had revealed a small hematoma, but she wouldn’t need surgery. A couple of her ribs were broken, and two of her fingers, but she would survive.
A hand touched her shoulder, and Josie bolted upright, an involuntary cry escaping her lips. “It’s okay, Boss,” Gretchen said softly. “I told them I’d come get you. You’ve got to go back for pre-ops now. Noah will be there with you.”
Josie’s arm was badly broken. She’d undergone a full exam and various x-rays on her arrival in the ER—she would need surgery. The nurses wanted her to wait in her own curtained-off area, but she’d refused, instead keeping vigil by Trinity’s bedside. Josie glanced over at her sister and back at Gretchen. “When will her parents be here?”
“Soon,” Gretchen said.
Josie stood up and let Gretchen hook an arm through hers, guiding her
out into the hallway and off to another set of cold, bright, sterile rooms. Josie was numb and silent as she changed into a hospital gown and let the nursing staff take over. Hands probed her, taking her blood pressure and temperature, sliding in an IV, sending medication into her veins that made her feel relaxed and drowsy. She was grateful for the slow tranquility that overtook her. When Noah appeared by her bedside, she smiled broadly and reached for him with her good hand.
He took it and grinned back at her. “Well,” he said, “I see whatever they’re giving you is better than Wild Turkey.”
She laughed. Or at least she thought she did.
Then they were wheeling her down a long hallway. They passed Trinity’s room, and Josie saw Shannon Payne clutching her daughter and weeping into her matted hair. Even in her semi-stupor, Josie was struck by the resemblance between herself and Shannon Payne. How had Lila gotten away with it all those years, passing Josie off as hers? It didn’t matter now. The worst was over. Lila was going to prison. Josie closed her eyes, her mind too tired to think.
When she opened them again, she was in a cavernous room filled with people rushing around. The air was freezing. A nurse with a skullcap pressed a vial of medicine into her IV. “I’m gonna ask you to count backward from ten in a minute, hon,” she said. “Then you’re gonna have the best sleep of your life.”
