Vanishing Girls: A Totally Heart-Stopping Crime Thriller

by Lisa Regan

  “He’s already in custody, but whatever.” She rolled her eyes but dropped her cell phone back into her purse. “Who else did Branson give up?”

  Noah said, “Couple of guys in the State Police, one guy at the sheriff’s office, the DA, Frisk. Most of the guys involved—law enforcement, anyway—were from here. The rest of them were just locals including a doctor, a pharmacist, and a bartender.”

  “That sounds like the beginning of a very bad joke,” Trinity said. “This is insane. You realize that, don’t you? I mean this thing is huge.”

  “Huge, but exclusive,” Josie said.

  “Oh really?” Trinity said incredulously. “It sure doesn’t seem like it was exclusive.”

  “They didn’t let in anybody,” Josie clarified. “Gosnell required absolute secrecy and loyalty. Nobody wanted to be the person to blow the whistle. Turning Gosnell in meant turning themselves in. Any one of them might have been able to cut a deal and testify against the rest of them—if they lived long enough to do it—but their friends and colleagues would have gone down with them.”

  “But surely someone tried to put a stop to it. I mean how did this go on for decades? How did so many people get away with it for so long?” Trinity asked.

  Josie said, “Gosnell was all about intimidation and once he had people in his pocket who were willing to cover for him, he was unstoppable. Some of the men we identified on the tapes as Gosnell’s clients killed themselves. Maybe they wanted to say something but couldn’t.” She thought about Ray and how he hadn’t wanted to know because knowing would force him to act. He had known he wasn’t strong enough to take on Gosnell and his accomplices. “But they couldn’t live with it either.”

  “Some of Gosnell’s clients had unfortunate accidents,” Noah put in. “That probably weren’t accidents at all.”

  Trinity stared at him open-mouthed. “Holy shit.”

  “If I wasn’t living it, I wouldn’t believe it,” Josie said.

  “What else did Branson say?” Trinity asked. “Did he say anything about Isabelle Coleman?”

  Josie told her what Dusty had revealed.

  “So she’s in the woods somewhere?” Trinity asked.

  Josie shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Hopefully she didn’t get eaten by a bear,” Noah put in.

  Trinity turned to regard him. “That’s not funny.”

  His cheeks colored. “It’s not a joke.”

  From down the hall, Holcomb called for Noah and he shuffled off, leaving Josie alone with Trinity. “Can you make a public appeal?” Josie asked her. “We could use help with the search. I’ve only got twelve people out there. It’s all we can spare right now.”

  “Of course,” Trinity said. She pulled out her cell phone and started firing off emails at machine-gun speed. Josie swiveled in her chair and stared back out at the gray sky. It had been overcast and occasionally rainy ever since she left the Gosnell property. She wondered if she’d ever see the sun again. It was a silly thought. Of course she would. But would Isabelle? Was she still alive? “She’s still alive,” Trinity said, as if reading Josie’s mind.

  Without turning, Josie said, “I hope you’re right. The odds are not in her favor.”

  A tap on the door drew both their attention. Noah stood there, a pinched look on his face. “Boss?” he said.

  Josie couldn’t get used to him calling her boss, but she didn’t correct him. He seemed to enjoy it. “Yes?” she asked.

  “Someone just called in another missing person. It’s Misty—Misty Derossi.”

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Josie stared at Noah. “What?”

  “Misty’s been reported missing.”

  Trinity looked from Noah to Josie and back again. “You’ve got another missing girl?”

  “She’s not a girl,” Josie said. “She’s a stripper at Foxy Tails.”

  “The stripper who was seeing your late husband?” Trinity asked.

  Ignoring the question, Josie asked Noah, “When was she last seen?”

  Noah looked down at the notepad in his hand, flipping pages as he spoke. “Well, she worked her regular shifts last week. Then she called out sick the first few shifts this week. After that, she was a no-show. Her boss says she’d never done that before. Cell phone goes right to voicemail. Her best friend is away on spring break. She says she talked to her four days ago and she sounded strange. She’s called Misty several times a day since then but like I said, all calls go right to voicemail. She’s not answering texts either. The best friend had one of Misty’s coworkers go by her house but there was no answer, and her car’s been in the driveway the whole time.” Noah said.

  “Sounded strange how?” Josie asked.

  “Like strained, like something was wrong. Also, her dog is missing. The coworker says it always barks like crazy when she comes over, and when Misty’s coworker knocked, there was no barking.”

  “She has a dog?” Josie and Trinity said in unison.

  Noah gave the two of them a bemused look. “What? Strippers can’t have dogs?”

  Josie rolled her eyes. Trinity, who had pulled out her own notepad and pen, asked “What kind of dog?”

  Noah smiled. “A chi-wiener.”

  “A what?” Josie said.

  “A chi-wiener. Half chihuahua and half dachshund. It’s small and yappy, according to the friend, and Misty is obsessed with it.”

  It had never occurred to Josie that Misty could be in danger. She had sent Noah to break the news of Ray’s death to Misty as soon as they’d finished watching the videos with Holcomb. She hadn’t wanted Misty to find out second or third hand; she was capable of extending the woman that courtesy at least. But Noah hadn’t been able to locate Misty either at home or at work. Josie had told him to let it go. When Misty was ready, she would surface. They didn’t have the time or the resources to track her down.

  But now both her best friend and her boss had reported her missing.

  The chief’s words came back to her. Get them all. Had they missed someone? Missed something? Had Gosnell or one of his accomplices done something to her before Josie called in the FBI? Josie had no warm feelings for Misty, that was for damn sure, but she didn’t want her to be another casualty of one of Gosnell’s conspirators.

  “We need to check her house first,” Josie said. She grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Misty Derossi lived alone in a huge Victorian in Denton’s historic district. As Josie, Noah, and Trinity ascended the steps to the large wraparound porch, Josie bit back a disparaging remark about how Misty paid for the house. Noah went from window to window, peering inside each one. “It looks dark,” he noted. “No barking, just like the best friend said.”

  “Well, if the dog’s not here, then that looks more like she took the dog and left,” Josie said, hoping that Misty had simply left town. But the fact that Misty hadn’t taken her car gave Josie a bad feeling. June Spencer and Isabelle Coleman had both disappeared while on foot. “We need to find out where she would go if she thought she was in trouble. Has anyone checked… Has anyone…”

  Noah’s face softened. “I checked Ray’s house. You know his mom has been there all week? She’s planning his funeral. Misty’s not there.”

  Josie nodded, unable to speak over the lump in her throat.

  “So, where else would she go?” Trinity asked.

  Noah rattled the doorknob and pushed against the door frame, testing it. “Well, that’s just it. She doesn’t have many friends.”

  Josie swallowed another sassy remark.

  “Her parents live in South Carolina, moved there ages ago. The friend says she called them, and they haven’t seen her in five years. We checked with all her coworkers, and no one has seen her. The friend says if she needed a place to stay, she’d come to her.”

  He stopped talking and looked the door up and down like it was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out. Trinity said, “You didn’t ask if the be
st friend had a key?”

  He blushed and pulled out his cell phone. “She’s out of town, but she said she didn’t have one anyway. Misty was very private. But maybe she knows if Misty has one of those hide-a-key things—”

  Josie pushed him out of the way and drove her heel as hard as she could against the door, just below the locking mechanism. It took three kicks, and the door swung inward. She stepped over the threshold. When Noah and Trinity didn’t follow, she glanced behind her and found them staring at her, open-mouthed.

  “What?” Josie snapped.

  “Boss,” Noah said. “You can’t… we need a warrant. That’s breaking and entering.”

  “If she’s lying in there wounded or dying, I’m not wasting time waiting for someone with a key,” Josie said. The glare she shot them left no room for argument.

  The house was completely empty. It was also immaculate. The three of them moved from room to room with a strange sort of reverence. It looked like it belonged in a magazine. Expensive, ornate antique furniture, perfectly matched, adorned every room. Some rooms looked so perfect, Josie felt like they should be cordoned off. Misty could open her house for tours. Josie thought of her own house and felt like someone was driving tiny spikes into her heart. While beautiful, it lacked all of the charm and style that dripped from every tasseled lampshade and every perfectly plumped cushion of Misty’s house. Hell, Josie didn’t even have furniture, and even if she did, it wouldn’t be as finely coordinated, as expensive, or as neatly kept as the pieces in Misty’s home. Josie tried to imagine Ray in this house with his perpetually muddy boots tracking dirt through every room. Or leaving his pit-stained undershirts over the back of the couch all the time, or leaving empty beer bottles around the house—sometimes even in the bathroom. Josie couldn’t picture it. Of course, now she would never have to; she would never know whether Misty could tolerate him. Emotion rolled through her like the tide, and then receded. She was here to work.

  “Obsessed, much? Holy shit.” Trinity’s voice came from the kitchen. Josie followed it and found the reporter standing in front of Misty’s very modern refrigerator. “Look at this,” she told Josie and Noah.

  The fridge was covered with colorful pages cut from magazines. Each page showed a room that precisely matched a room in Misty’s house. “She’s copying from these magazines,” Trinity added.

  From behind the two women, Noah remarked, “It’s kind of sad.”

  Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but it made Josie feel slightly better. Awkwardly, she clapped her hands together. “Well, we should go. Obviously, she’s not here. There aren’t any signs of struggle. Nothing looks amiss. It looks like she took her dog for a walk and never came back.”

  Outside, Josie instructed Noah to call someone to fix the door and pull one of their officers from the Coleman investigation long enough to make some official inquiries into Misty’s whereabouts. She turned to Trinity. “You think you can get this on the afternoon broadcast?”

  Trinity’s brow crinkled. “We are talking about the chick who stole your dead husband from you, aren’t we?”

  Josie resisted the urge to lash out. “My husband had an affair with her. Our marriage ended. But she’s still a citizen in my town and she’s missing. Given what I saw up on that mountain last weekend, I’m not taking any chances. So I’d like to make an appeal to the public. Please.”

  Trinity stared at her a moment longer, almost as if she could see how much it burned Josie to ask.

  “No more Ginger Blackwells. No more June Spencers. No one falls through the cracks,” Josie promised, mostly to herself.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  That night, Trinity made a sincere and urgent request to the citizens of Denton to gather to search for the two missing women. Her face was now on the news practically every time Josie turned it on. Even national news shows tapped her for their ongoing coverage of the madness taking hold of central Pennsylvania. As Trinity gave her report, photos of Isabelle and Misty appeared to the right of her head. Beneath their smiling faces the word “Vanished” appeared. Then it was replaced by the Denton PD tip line number.

  Josie watched the broadcast from beside Carrieann in the ICU waiting room. The doctors had reduced Luke’s medication hours earlier; now they just had to wait and hope he woke up on his own. They took turns sitting by his bedside until the nurses kicked them out during shift change so they could bring their incoming replacements up to date.

  The two women sat silently side by side, staring up at the television, watching Trinity Payne’s special news bulletin about the missing women and the rest of the unfolding events in Denton.

  “Boss?” Noah appeared in the ICU waiting room doorway.

  Josie’s heart jumped into her throat. If Noah had driven all the way to the hospital it couldn’t be good news. Had they found Isabelle Coleman? Was she dead? She excused herself and went out into the hallway with him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He held up a plastic baggie with a cell phone inside it. “I thought you might want this.”

  She stared dumbly at the phone, completely confused. All she could think about was Isabelle Coleman. “I don’t get it. Did you find Coleman? Or Misty?”

  Now it was Noah’s turn to look baffled. “What? No.” He shook the baggie. “The FBI found your cell phone. They’re done processing it. I thought you might want it back.”

  Slowly she reached out and took the bag. She’d been using a temporary, department-issued cell phone. Only Lisette, Noah, Trinity, Carrieann, and Holcomb had the number. With everything going on, her actual cell phone had been the furthest thing from her mind. But as she took it out, she remembered all the photos of her and Luke she had on it and was grateful that Noah had come all this way to return it to her.

  She looked up at him. “Thank you,” she said.

  With his good hand he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a charger and cord. “You’ll need this,” he said.

  Impulsively, she rocked up onto her toes and kissed him on the cheek. His face turned fire-engine red. “What was… What was that for?”

  “For being one of the good guys.”

  * * *

  Noah sat with her for a while but then had to return to Denton to oversee things while she stayed at the hospital for the night. She left her phone charging beneath a chair in the ICU waiting room. Once the nursing staff changed over, she and Carrieann resumed their vigil at Luke’s bedside, trading off every couple of hours. He had slightly fewer tubes and wires coming out of him than before, so Josie was able to get close enough to hold his hand and speak softly to him. She talked endlessly. Not about all the horrific things she had been through since his shooting, but about all the things they would do together when he woke up, and about how maybe she would take up fishing instead of knitting, and they could have a hobby together. She was only half-joking.

  She was dozing when the nurse came in around five in the morning to tell her it was Carrieann’s turn to sit with Luke. As she stood to go, Luke squeezed her hand.

  Josie screamed, causing Carrieann to come hurtling into the room. What followed was the kind of jumping-up-and-down, bear-hugging, chest-bumping, high-pitched-squealing celebration that normally accompanied the winning Super Bowl team. The nurse checked Luke over thoroughly, called his name into his face fifteen times and shone a small flashlight into both of his eyes, but there was no more response than that. Still, it was a start. It was enough for Josie.

  She left Carrieann weeping and trembling with excitement by his side and ran into the waiting room to get her cell phone so she could call Noah. Her fingers tapped impatiently against the phone case as she waited for it to boot up. A glance at the television showed the six a.m. news. More Trinity Payne. The phone had been dead a long time. As the screen flashed on, the photo of her and Luke beneath the icons sent even more euphoria surging through her. He had squeezed her hand. He was in there. He was going to be okay.

  Notifications from the last week started pouring
in. Missed texts and missed calls. She saw the little number at the upper right-hand corner of the phone icon tick upward. Three, seven, twelve, seventeen, twenty-two. The missed calls stopped at fifty-seven.

  Josie pressed the icon and pulled up the missed call log. It went from most recent to oldest. The most recent call had come in an hour ago. In fact, forty-nine of the calls were from the same person. A tiny photo of Chief Wayland Harris showed beside the number. Above the number was the name she had assigned in her phone’s contacts: Chief (Lodge).

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  “I don’t understand,” Noah said. “The chief is… well, he’s dead.”

  Josie paced the ICU waiting room, clutching her cell phone to her ear. “Well, someone is calling me from his hunting lodge. Someone called my cell phone from his hunting lodge forty-nine times this week.”

  “His wife?”

  “I talked to his wife. She’s planning his funeral. I doubt she’s had time to drive to his hunting lodge every day for the last week and call my cell phone. Why would she? She could just call the station.”

  “His daughters?”

  “They’re both away at college. They’re flying into Philadelphia tomorrow.”

  “Did you try calling back?”

  “There was no answer. I tried three times. We need to go up there.”

  On the other end of the line, Noah sighed. She knew he hadn’t slept in days. Neither of them had. “I’m gonna have to pull people from the Coleman search,” Noah said.

  “No,” Josie said. “We can’t afford that. Especially if Coleman is still alive somewhere. I think we should call the FBI. Ask for their help.”

  “I’ll call them, but they’re spread pretty thin from what I’ve gathered, with the raids and processing and all.”