Vanishing Girls: A Totally Heart-Stopping Crime Thriller

by Lisa Regan

  She sucked in a breath and opened the third door. Empty. Behind the fourth door a thin, waifish form curled cowering in the corner of the cell. She balled herself up tighter when Josie stepped through the door. “Hello?” Josie called. The woman shot upright and scurried away from her, one pale thin arm covering her eyes. “No more,” she said, her voice hoarse. Josie didn’t think it possible but the rage she felt toward Gosnell for all the horror he had inflicted on so many innocent young women burned even hotter.

  “It’s okay,” Josie said. “You’re safe now. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Josie waited several moments. Finally, the woman lowered her arm and blinked, taking Josie in. It wasn’t Isabelle Coleman. This woman was likely in her mid-twenties, with short dark hair and a pointy chin. “Who are you?” the woman asked, the question sounding like an accusation.

  “My name is Josie Quinn. I am a detect—” she stopped, tears rolling unbidden down her cheeks. She glanced back to where the chief’s body lay. Then she continued, straightening her posture and raising her chin proudly. “I’m the new chief of police in this town, and I’ve come to get you out of here.”

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  The woman stood on shaky legs, skeletal in an ill-fitting lace bra and underwear. “Wait here,” Josie told her and quickly retrieved a blanket she had found in the empty cell. She held it out to the woman. “Here.”

  Still eyeing Josie with suspicion, the woman slowly wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “What’s your name?” Josie asked.

  “Rena,” the woman said, voice cracking with a sudden burst of emotion. “Rena Garry.”

  Josie held out a hand to her. “Rena, we have to get out of here. Now.”

  The woman’s eyes flashed with understanding. She gripped Josie’s hand and followed her out of the cell.

  “It’s not a pretty sight out here,” Josie said. “Look straight ahead toward the door. Don’t look down.”

  Josie tried to rush her past Nick Gosnell’s ravaged body, but Rena stopped, pulling insistently on Josie’s hand. Josie tugged back. “Please,” she said. “We have to go.”

  Rena stood over him, staring. “This is him,” she said. “He was here every day.”

  “This was his place,” Josie confirmed. “Listen, we really have to—”

  Josie’s eyes were drawn to the chief’s body. Struck by a thought, she dropped Rena’s hand. “Just a second,” she told her, but the woman’s eyes were fixed on Gosnell’s body with fierce intensity.

  Josie left her there long enough to search out the chief’s cell phone, which she found in his back pocket. As she strode back toward Rena, she realized that she couldn’t exactly call 911. Who would she call? The chief had told her not to trust anyone. Not that there was even a cell phone signal on the mountain, she thought, looking at the screen. She’d have to go to Gosnell’s house and use their landline.

  She grasped Rena’s hand once more. “Please,” she said. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Did you do this?” Rena asked.

  Josie looked down, really seeing what she had done as if for the first time. Through someone else’s eyes. Gosnell’s eyes pulpy caved-in messes, blood streaking his face. The front of his jeans shredded, blood pooling all around him. The jagged edges of bone sticking out from his left knee. The space where his right knee used to be. Bone splinters, tissue, sinew, and blood all around him. Close-range shots and devastating damage.

  “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

  She watched as Rena spit on Gosnell’s body. Then she said, “Let’s go.”

  Josie nodded, pocketing the chief’s cell phone and pulling Rena toward the door, only stopping to snatch up the chief’s gun in the corner. She put it in the waistband of her jeans, and pushed the mangled door aside. Daylight flooded around them, nearly blinding them. Rena threw an arm up over her eyes again and Josie looked down at her feet. “You have no shoes,” she said.

  “I don’t care.”

  Josie laced her fingers through Rena’s, and together they plunged into the light.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The Gosnell house was small and sparsely furnished. The back door led into a kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the seventies. Josie left Rena sitting with a glass of water in front of her at the yellowed formica table that took up most of the room. The rest of the house was empty. She breathed a sigh of relief. They were safe for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before someone came by. They couldn’t stay long.

  From the living room window, the chief’s Jeep was visible. She hadn’t found any keys in his pockets, which meant he had probably left them in the vehicle. She could always load Rena into the Jeep and leave with her. But she needed to preserve the scene. Protect it. The last thing she needed was one of Gosnell’s sick customers coming by and destroying evidence.

  The chief had said to call the FBI, but she didn’t know anyone from the FBI. Luke might, but he couldn’t help her right now—at the very least she hoped he was still alive. Denise Poole probably knew someone, but she was likely in custody by now. That left only one person—one person who had a unique ability to help Josie protect and preserve the scene, even though calling her went against every fiber of Josie’s being.

  She returned to the kitchen and found the landline. It took three tries to get the number right—she was going by memory. Finally, her call was answered.

  “Hello?” the woman on the other line said.

  “Trinity?” Josie said. “I need your help.”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Josie Quinn.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. “Where the hell are you? No one has seen you for two days. Or Ray. And someone at the station said the chief took off and no one can reach him either.”

  Two days. She had been in that cell with Ray for two days. She wondered if Luke was still alive. She couldn’t bear to ask. She couldn’t lose him too. She would never survive it. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ll tell you where I am—where we all are—but I need your help. Do you know anyone in the FBI?”

  “Sure. There’s an agent in the Philadelphia office I’m friendly with. I… wait. What the hell is going on?”

  “I need you to call them. As soon as we hang up. Also, I need you to get Noah Fraley.”

  “He was just discharged from the hospital,” Trinity said.

  “Great. Get him and bring him with you.”

  “Bring him where?” Trinity asked.

  “I’ll tell you,” Josie said. “But you have to do exactly as I say. No exceptions, no deviations.”

  Josie pictured one of Trinity’s perfectly groomed brows arching. “What’s in it for me?”

  “The story of a lifetime.”

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  They had a few hours of daylight left, by Josie’s calculations. She was worried about what would happen when it got dark. She didn’t want to be in Gosnell’s house in the dark, but turning on the lights before help arrived would be risky. If any of Gosnell’s associates showed up Josie would be forced to defend herself and Rena.

  “How long till they get here?” Rena asked, quaking, from the kitchen table. She had tucked her knees against her chest, toes curled over the edge of the chair. She kept tugging the corners of the blanket tighter and tighter around her. It wasn’t cold in the house, but Josie knew she was in shock.

  Josie stood in the doorway. She had opened the curtains in the living room so that from where she stood she had a partial view of the driveway. “It might be a few hours,” she said honestly.

  Rena frowned. “I don’t understand. If you’re the chief of police, why do we have to wait hours for help to come? Why did you ask for the FBI?”

  Josie hung her head. “It’s a long story,” she said. “Which I am happy to tell you while we wait. But first I need to know, how long were you in that bunker?”

  Rena’s body began rocking slowly back and forth. “I have no idea. What’s the date?”


  “March twenty-third.”

  One of Rena’s hands snaked out from beneath the blanket and covered her eyes. “Oh my…” she squeaked.

  “When did you—when is the last date you remember?” Josie asked softly.

  “October. It was October fifth. I was at the hospital. Oh my God. I can’t… I can’t believe it. I knew it was long. It felt like forever, but the drugs… So much is a blur. I don’t… I don’t…”

  Hysteria raised her voice two octaves. Josie crossed the room, pulled out a chair and sat down next to Rena. “Hey,” she said softly. “You’re safe now. Rena, it’s going to be okay. Why were you at the hospital in October?”

  Rena didn’t speak for a long moment. When she looked up at Josie, tears streaked her thin face. “F-f-for rehab. I… I’m an addict, okay?” She extended an arm and, for the first time, Josie noticed the track marks pitting the soft flesh in the bend of her elbow. “It was my third time. I had checked myself in. I drove myself there, did two weeks until my insurance stopped paying, so I left. I was looking for my car in the parking garage and this lady came walking past me. She asked if I needed help so I said yeah, I’m looking for my car. And that’s the last thing I remember.”

  So, similar to Ginger’s story.

  “I’m sorry,” Josie said. “I’m so sorry. Do you remember anything about the woman?”

  “She was dressed in scrubs, like a nurse. Older, like, maybe in her sixties. She said her name was Ramona.”

  So, Sherri Gosnell had lured her.

  “What hospital?” Josie asked.

  Rena told her, but Josie didn’t recognize the name. “It’s in a small town outside of Pittsburgh,” Rena added. Then her eyes widened. She looked around frantically. “Oh my God, where am I? Where the hell am I? Is this still Pennsylvania?”

  “Yes,” Josie said. “You’re still in Pennsylvania. But you’re about a hundred and fifty miles away from home.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “I’m so sorry, Rena,” Josie said. She got up to check the living room window. Nothing yet. Relief warred with her anxiety. Trinity and Noah couldn’t get there fast enough.

  Behind her, Rena said, “So now you tell me. Tell me where I am, and how you found me.”

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Daylight was fading by the time Josie and Rena heard the first crunch of tire over gravel outside. They’d drunk every bottle of water in the fridge and raided the Gosnell’s cabinets, finding some potato chips and crackers to chew on. Josie could tell by the way Rena picked at the chips that she had even less of an appetite than Josie did, but both their stomachs growled with hunger and Josie urged her to eat, if only to pass the time. “I don’t know when we’ll have a chance to get real food. Once the FBI arrives, things are going to move pretty quickly,” Josie told her. They ate what they could. Josie’s throat felt dry and scratchy from talking, but it kept her anxiety away, kept her from thinking about Ray and the chief lying dead and cold and alone in the bunker.

  They both sprang up from the table when they heard the cars. More than one, Josie realized as she darted into the living room. She watched as the first rounded the last curve of the Gosnells’ driveway and came into view. Her entire body unwound with relief as Trinity Payne’s Honda Civic pulled up alongside the chief’s Jeep. Behind it were two black Chevy Suburbans and one boxy white van with the FBI logo emblazoned on the side of it above the words Philadelphia Field Office Evidence Response Team.

  “They’re here,” Josie called to Rena, her voice losing all trace of calm. “They’re here!”

  Rena sat back in her chair in the kitchen. “I’ll be right back,” Josie told her.

  Josie never would have thought she’d feel such joy at seeing Trinity Payne, but she had to work hard not to fall into her arms as she emerged from her Honda. She stood a few feet back from Trinity, trying to smile but already feeling her composure cracking. Her shoulders quaked as all around them FBI agents began to alight from their vehicles and jog over.

  “Thank you,” Josie told Trinity.

  For once Trinity’s face was devoid of its usual eagle-eyed scrutiny. “You don’t look so good,” she replied.

  The passenger-side door of the Honda opened and Noah stepped out. His right shoulder was heavily bandaged and his right arm rested in a sling. He looked pale and exhausted, bags hanging below his eyes. “Detective Quinn,” he said.

  “Noah,” Josie choked. She wiped tears away with the backs of her hands. “I’m sorry I shot you.”

  He managed a weak smile. “All is forgiven,” he said.

  A tall male agent in a charcoal-gray suit stepped up beside Josie. He was easily six foot four, and thin as a rail. He was nearing sixty, his short hair a drab gray. Trinity looked from him to Josie and said, “This is Special Agent Marcus Holcomb. He’ll be heading up this investigation.”

  Josie shook his hand. “Let me show you what we’ve got.”

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Josie spent two hours on the scene with Holcomb, leading his team to the bunker and giving him her version of events. As she grew more and more exhausted, Holcomb suggested that she let his team transport her to the hospital to be checked out and then to a hotel to get cleaned up, eat something, and get some rest. He put a female agent with her. Josie was grateful for the company. The last thing she wanted was to be alone.

  Once at the hotel she thought she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but after a shower and two painkillers she fell into a dreamless slumber. They let her sleep until early the next morning, but then it was time to get back to work. The FBI needed to know everything she knew in as much detail as she could give. The female agent set up an impromptu interview area in the hotel room, recording Josie’s lengthy statement while Holcomb remained at the Gosnells’, overseeing everything.

  Josie was told that Rena Garry had been transferred to Geisinger Medical Center under guard. Josie was allowed to contact Carrieann to let her know that she was safe and to arrange for the FBI to take custody of June and Lara Spencer. There had been no change in Luke’s condition. Josie was relieved, but disappointed. She needed Luke now, more than ever.

  Noah and Trinity were allowed access to Josie at the hotel. It was Noah who told her that they still had not found Isabelle Coleman. “There are some graves up there,” he said. “Some relatively fresh ones, but none fresh enough to be Coleman.”

  Josie shivered. “Gosnell and his father have been at this for decades. Noah, there could be a hundred bodies up there.”

  Noah sat down beside her at the foot of her hotel bed. “I know,” he said. “Listen, I didn’t get the chance to tell you, but I’m sorry about Ray.”

  She stared at the threads of the carpet beneath her sneakered feet. Maroon, mauve and more shades of pink than she could count. “Ray knew,” she whispered. “He knew they were doing something bad up there, and he didn’t try to stop it.”

  “But he was still your husband,” Noah offered.

  All she could manage was a stiff nod.

  “Josie,” he said. “There are a couple of things. Gosnell had videos—”

  “I know,” she said. “He told me.”

  She glanced up in time to see Noah’s grimace. “Holcomb wants us to review them with him. We need to ID as many of the men in them as possible. If this goes as far as you think, it’s going to be a delicate operation rounding up all these assholes without tipping them off first.”

  “Did Trinity run the story I suggested?”

  “Yeah. She had to get her producer and the station to agree, but Holcomb worked that out pretty quickly.”

  Josie smiled. “Wonder what he promised her. Trinity doesn’t do anything for nothing.”

  Noah shrugged. “She’s not so bad.”

  The story that Josie had suggested was that both Gosnell and Chief Harris were alive and well and assisting the FBI in an investigation into a cache of illegal drugs found on Gosnell’s property, including a meth lab being run out of the old house on the back
end of the land. Josie had suggested they take footage of the FBI appearing to search Josie’s great-grandparents’ old house. It was far enough away from the bunker that it might keep Gosnell’s regular customers from panicking. The fake story would keep Gosnell’s associates from coming onto the property but also keep them from fleeing. Still, Josie knew there would be a lot of nervous men in Denton and the surrounding counties. Based on what Ray had told her, they knew without watching any tapes that Dusty was involved.

  “Did Holcomb get Dusty?” she asked.

  “He’s cooperating fully,” Noah said. “I think he’s trying to work out some kind of deal. Holcomb barely said two words and he was rolling over like a goddamn dog in heat, ready to give everything up.”

  Revulsion rippled through Josie’s body. “What a creep.”

  “Yeah. I never liked that guy.”

  “I don’t even think his own mother ever liked him.”

  Noah laughed. The sound was alien after the few days she had had, and yet it felt good to hear it. Noah nudged her leg with his. “Dusty already ID’ed all the culpable Denton PD officers. Holcomb had them all picked up this morning. You’re officially interim chief now. You outrank everyone anyway, even without Grizz promoting you. Everyone else is still operating as though it’s business as usual. We’re a little short-staffed, but things are being handled. I’ve got teams trying to locate Isabelle Coleman around the clock.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “Hey, did you talk to Holcomb about going to see my grandmother?”

  “He can give you one hour, but that’s it. He wants to review these tapes immediately. Once that’s done you can go back and spend more time with her.”

  “An hour? Is he kidding?”

  “No. I can take you by Rockview on the way to the station.”