by Lisa Regan
“Wait a minute,” Josie said. “Gretchen was married?”
Starkey laughed. “Yeah. She was just a kid. She was married to my buddy, Billy. William Benjamin Lowther. She must have changed her name when she moved back East.”
Josie started making notes on a clean page of her pad. Across from her Noah stared, a look of curiosity mixed with disbelief lining his face. “They lived in Seattle, then?”
“Well, yeah, Billy was an agent.”
“With the ATF?” Josie clarified, feeling like she couldn’t quite keep up. Starkey must think she was a grade A idiot.
“Yeah. He was a damn good one too.”
Josie hadn’t missed his use of the past tense to describe Billy Lowther, but she put those questions aside for now. “How long were they married?”
Starkey made a low noise under his breath like he was calculating. Then he said, “I don’t know. A couple of years. Not long.”
“You said Gretchen was a kid. How old was she when they met?” Josie asked.
“Eighteen,” Starkey said and laughed. “Believe me, we checked. Billy was on the East Coast for some training when they met. He brought her back to Seattle with him and said he was marrying her. They’d only known each other two weeks. She didn’t look a day over sixteen. We wanted to make sure he wasn’t getting himself into trouble.”
Josie wondered why Caroline Weber hadn’t told her about Gretchen’s marriage. Was it possible that Gretchen hadn’t told anyone? If the marriage hadn’t lasted that long, perhaps she hadn’t, or perhaps it had been so long ago that Caroline hadn’t thought it was relevant.
Starkey went on, drawing Josie out of her thoughts. “But they were in love, boy. Big time. Billy was about twelve years older than her, but that didn’t bother either one of them. They went to city hall and did the deed. Used a couple of secretaries there for witnesses.”
Josie tried to imagine Gretchen as a young woman, deeply and madly in love with a man she’d only known a couple of weeks, getting married in a municipal building with no one she actually knew present except her new husband. The last part sounded like Gretchen, but the young and crazy-in-love part was simply too hard for Josie to imagine.
“It didn’t work out?” Josie probed.
Starkey’s voice was suddenly heavy. “Billy died.”
“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “What happ—”
Starkey interjected, “So what’s going on there with Gretchen? I know she put me as a job reference, but since your messages sounded so urgent, I assume she’s in some kind of trouble.”
You don’t know the half of it, Josie thought. She gave him the bare bones of an explanation: Omar was found shot in the back in Gretchen’s driveway, and Gretchen had run off. She didn’t yet tell him that Gretchen had returned or that she had confessed to his murder. She wanted to know what he knew first.
“No connection between Gretchen and the kid?” Starkey asked.
“None other than Gretchen worked in Philadelphia and Omar was from Philadelphia,” Josie explained. “I went to Philadelphia and met with Gretchen’s old partner there, Steve Boyd. We talked about a particular case Gretchen caught a couple of years before she came here. A couple of Dirty Aces had murdered two Devil’s Blade members who were out here from the West Coast. Linc Shore and Seth Cole. Apparently, Gretchen really took the case to heart, worked her ass off to make sure the Aces members went to prison for life. I thought at first that maybe Gretchen was targeted by the Aces for having put their guys away, but I can’t find any evidence of that. I also can’t find any connection between Omar and either gang.”
Starkey said, “Did you say Gretchen was the one who worked the Linc Shore case?”
“Yeah, that’s what her partner told me.”
“Gretchen Palmer?” he asked skeptically.
“Yeah,” Josie replied. “You didn’t know about Linc Shore?”
“Well, yeah, I knew he was killed on the East Coast. We work outlaw motorcycle gangs in Seattle. He was the chapter president. Something like that doesn’t go down without us finding out. But I didn’t follow what happened after that. We just knew the Aces took him out. That’s all.”
“So Gretchen never called you about the case? To get some intel on the Devil’s Blade gang or find out more about Linc Shore or Seth Cole?”
Starkey erupted into a fit of laughter. He laughed so hard, he started to cough. Josie held the phone away from her ear as she and Noah exchanged a puzzled look. “Agent Starkey?” Josie said, trying to break through his laughing-coughing fit.
“The only way Gretchen Palmer would call me to get intel on Devil’s Blade and Linc Shore would be if she fell and hit her head and got amnesia. Or if someone gave her a lobotomy.”
Frustration bubbled up inside Josie’s stomach, but she pushed it down. “What are you talking about?”
“Detective Quinn, Linc Shore and the Devil’s Blade kidnapped Gretchen when she was just twenty. They held her for over a year. No one could find her. We thought she was dead. Then one day they dumped her off in front of a federal building, beaten, sliced up, and loaded with drugs.”
Chapter Forty-One
The air around her seemed to freeze, a bubble of perfect stillness descending over Josie. “I’m sorry,” she said into the phone after clearing her throat. “What?”
Starkey said, “She didn’t tell you? Well, I guess she didn’t. She didn’t much want to talk about it when she recovered. In fact, she wouldn’t tell anyone anything.”
That sounded familiar. “How do you know it was the Devil’s Blade that took her?” Josie asked.
“They took her because of Billy. They found out he was an undercover agent. Gretchen was kidnapped not long after his death. We had a couple of informants who traveled in Devil’s Blade circles. We worked them hard to try to find out where she was being held. No one saw her, but they knew Linc had her.”
Josie couldn’t even imagine what had happened to Gretchen during that year. It was interesting that even after her mother had tortured her by convincing doctors to perform unnecessary medical procedures on her, Gretchen had still been open to love—falling for an older ATF agent and running all the way across the country with him. But from what Josie could tell, once Gretchen returned to Pennsylvania after the death of her husband and her ordeal with Devil’s Blade, she hadn’t had any lasting relationships. Even her partner in Philadelphia’s homicide department hadn’t known her sexual orientation—because she had no relationships. Was it the year in the clutches of the Devil’s Blade gang that had closed Gretchen off? Was that why she had booby-trapped her own windows? Were the Devil’s Blade members what she feared?
But if that was true, why had she taken Linc Shore’s murder so personally? Why had she helped get justice for Shore and Cole? Had she felt threatened by the gang in some way? But surely the type of justice the Devil’s Blade’s own members could have meted out would trump anything that Gretchen could do via the justice system. None of it was making sense.
“What did Gretchen say once she was found?” Josie asked.
“Nothing. Not a damn thing. She wouldn’t talk. I told her we’d protect her, but she kept saying, ‘No one can protect me.’ She spent some time in the hospital, and after she got out, she decided to move back East. I always told her if there was anything I could do, all she had to do was call. I guess it was five or six years later she called me and said she wanted to go into law enforcement. She asked if she could throw my name around if she needed to, and I told her sure.” He laughed. “I sure as shit didn’t think that little gal would become a police officer, but I guess she did.”
“She’s a great officer,” Josie said. “A fantastic detective.”
“I guess she is if she could put aside her personal feelings and put Linc Shore’s murderer away. That’s some heavy shit right there.”
“Do you have any idea why she would take the case?” Josie asked. “I’m trying to make sense of this. She could have passed it off to someone else eas
ily.”
“Don’t know. I mean, what they did to her was horrible. A year. I don’t know how she survived it. Especially after—”
He stopped. Josie waited for him to go on, but the line remained silent.
“After what?” Josie prompted.
There was a moment of hesitation. Then Starkey said, “Billy was murdered.”
“I gathered that,” Josie said. “You said the Devil’s Blade found out he was an undercover ATF agent. I assume once they found that out, they weren’t too happy about it.”
“They didn’t find out until after he was murdered.”
“So the Devil’s Blade didn’t kill him?”
“No, wasn’t them.”
“Oh. Well, what happened?”
“Detective,” Starkey said, “there are some things I’d rather discuss in person, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t think my chief will pay for a flight to Seattle, Agent Starkey. This is pretty pressing. If there’s anything you can tell me about Gretchen’s past, I need to know sooner rather than later.”
“Well, Detective, I’m not in Seattle right now. I’m in New York City. If you can make your way up to me, I’ll be happy to tell you everything I know. But I can’t do it over the phone.”
Chapter Forty-Two
JANUARY 1995
Seattle, Washington
* * *
The room smelled of sweat and stale cigarettes. Paint chipped away from the yellowed walls. A single light bulb hung from a kinked wire in the center of the ceiling. A stained mattress covered half of the hardwood floor. Exhausted though she was, Gretchen couldn’t bring herself to lie on it. She didn’t even want to think about what it smelled like up close. The only other option was a scuffed wooden chair. A smattering of dried, rust-colored spots fell across the wooden slats in its back. She tried not to think about what—or who—had left them there. As she settled into it, she couldn’t help but notice that the arms were worn right where her wrists rested. With a shudder, she placed her hands in her lap.
There was no way to tell how long she was there. No clocks adorned the ugly walls. The single window had been boarded up. No daylight seeped through. By the time Linc came for her, she had fallen asleep, her chin resting on her chest. He shook her shoulder to wake her, and she blinked up at him, eyes bleary.
“Hey,” he said, leaning down into her face.
Up close, he smelled like the outdoors, like he had brought a crisp breeze with him. Under that was the faint smell of motor oil and something earthy that Gretchen had never quite put her finger on. His jeans were torn and muddy. His Devil’s Blade knife hung from his left hip. A bandana capped his scraggly blond hair. She didn’t need to see the top of his head to know what was on the bandana: a white skull with bloody eyes over two crossed knives. Blade colors: black and red. His worn leather jacket made him seem much bigger than he really was.
“I’m awake,” Gretchen said.
Linc stepped back, giving her some space. “You ready?”
She nodded even though every fiber of her being screamed against what she knew was to come. Linc must have seen it in her face. His eyes narrowed. “You sure about this?”
“Yes,” she said weakly. Tears flowed from the corners of her eyes. She hated herself for crying, but she had learned in the last few months that she had very little control over her own body.
“You have choices,” Linc said.
A strangled laugh bubbled up from her throat. “No good ones,” she said.
“I could make things easier on you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve made my decision.”
He sighed and pulled his knife from its sheath. Gretchen’s body shook, making one of the chair’s uneven legs tap a ragged beat against the floor.
Linc said, “You gonna cry the whole time?”
Biting her bottom lip, she did her best to suck back the emotion crashing over her, to stem the tide of tears overwhelming her. Breathe in, breathe out, she told herself. She lifted her chin and met Linc’s eyes. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Chapter Forty-Three
PRESENT DAY
Denton, Pennsylvania
* * *
As Josie jotted down Agent Starkey’s hotel information, Noah came around to her side of the desk and stood behind her, looking over her shoulder. He had been paying attention to the entire call.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said when she hung up. “He wants a meeting?”
Josie sighed. “He wants me to come to New York. Says what he has to tell me he can’t get into over the phone.”
“That’s a crock,” Noah said. “What could he possibly have to tell you that he can’t say over the phone?”
Josie shrugged. She pulled up the internet browser on her desktop computer and googled hotels in New York City.
“You cannot be serious,” Noah said.
“Oh right,” Josie mumbled. “Why am I looking for a hotel when my sister lives in New York City?”
She took out her cell phone and started tapping out a text until the heat of Noah’s gaze stopped her movements. She looked up at him. His face was fixed in an expression of frustration and disbelief.
“What?” Josie said.
“You’re going to drive to New York City to meet with this guy. A complete stranger.”
Josie raised a brow at him. “Lieutenant Boyd, Gretchen’s old partner in Philly’s homicide unit was a complete stranger. So was Dr. Larson, Omar’s mentor. I managed.” Her last words were sarcastic, but she couldn’t help it. Noah had never patronized her or treated her like some helpless female. She wasn’t about to let him start now.
Noah’s face relaxed slightly. “You know I know you can handle yourself. That’s not what I was implying. I just don’t trust this guy. There’s no reason to request a face-to-face meeting. There is literally nothing this guy could possibly have to tell you that he needs to do face to face.”
Josie had to agree. Starkey seemed borderline paranoid to her. Either that, or he just liked the idea of inconveniencing her, or maybe he was a manipulative type. There was no way to tell from a single phone call. He had certainly been forthcoming about everything else.
“I agree,” Josie said. “But I have to know what he knows. Even if it turns out to be nothing. Noah, Gretchen’s life could depend on this.”
“On what? You finding out what she did in Seattle when she was in her early twenties? How is anything you find out going to keep her out of prison? Josie, she confessed.”
How could she explain it to him in a way that would get through? She knew Gretchen was lying. She didn’t know why, but she knew there was much more to the story of James Omar’s murder than the paltry confession Gretchen had offered. Josie wasn’t the kind of person who could leave stones unturned. She had to gather all the information out there. She could decide later what was and wasn’t useful. Maybe nothing she uncovered would be of use, but she didn’t have it in her to close the book on Gretchen without exhausting every last avenue available. If there was even the slimmest chance of Josie exonerating Gretchen, she had to act.
“I’m going,” she told Noah in a tone that left no room for argument.
He spun on his heel and walked out of the bullpen.
Josie looked at the time on her phone. She could be in New York City by dinnertime. She fired off a text to Trinity.
Hey, remember how you wanted me to visit you in NYC?
Chapter Forty-Four
Josie stood in the center of bustling Penn Station, disoriented by the sheer number of people swarming the train station. Trinity had told her not to drive. Josie had only ever been to New York City on a class trip as a teenager. She vaguely remembered crowded sidewalks and congested streets. “If you drive, you’ll spend hours stuck in traffic,” Trinity told her. “Drive the two hours to Philadelphia’s Thirtieth Street Station and take a train from there.” Josie had followed her instructions, finding Philadelphia easy to navigate and the train ride sh
ort and uneventful. It wasn’t until she got off the train in New York City and found herself swept up in the throngs of people that she began to feel a bit overwhelmed. Her late husband Ray had booked a trip for them to Disneyworld for their first wedding anniversary, and she’d thought that place was crowded. This made Disneyworld look like a ghost town.
She took out her cell phone long enough to text Trinity and let her know she had arrived. Then she wheeled her small suitcase along behind her, trying to maneuver through the swarms out to the sidewalk where she planned to catch a cab. Forty minutes later she was finally in the back of a taxi on her way to Trinity’s midtown Manhattan apartment building. She checked her phone once more. Nothing from Noah. The cab pulled to an abrupt stop in front of a silvered glass building that stretched far into the sky. Just gazing up at its face made Josie a little dizzy. The driver was gone before she had even pulled her little bag onto the pavement. Trinity appeared before her as a pair of automatic doors flashed behind her.
“Hey, sis,” she said, giving Josie a quick squeeze and taking control of her bag. A frown formed on her face. “What happened to your cheek?” she asked, pointing to the cut Gretchen had given Josie.
Gingerly, Josie touched the butterfly closure over it. “Long story that I don’t care to discuss.”
Trinity raised a brow but left it alone. “Fair enough,” she said, spinning on her heel and striding toward the building.
Josie followed as Trinity wheeled the bag into the opulent lobby decorated in white and beige tones. Marble tiled floors dotted with straight-backed white leather chairs led to a set of glass elevators. They had to pass by a semicircular white security desk manned by two burly men in uniforms to reach the elevators. Trinity introduced Josie proudly, her megawatt television smile reaching ear to ear. As they stepped inside the elevator, Trinity gushed, “I can’t wait for you to see my place. I just moved in a few months ago. My old place was a dump compared to this building.”
