Vanishing Girls

by Lisa Regan

  There were also, noticeably, no calls from Luke. He would have seen her missed call from earlier and heard her angry message. Still, it wasn’t unusual for him to be late, especially if he’d caught a difficult case toward the end of his shift.

  As she eased back in the water, she let her mind slip between obsessing over Ginger Blackwell’s possible connection to June Spencer and Isabelle Coleman, and the fact that the chief had royally screwed her for no good reason. It was all too much. These were the very scenarios that wine was made for, and she wished she had some left. Maybe Luke would bring some with him, as an apology. She could drink it down fast while she railed at him for not disclosing his true relationship with Denise and their secret meeting about some painting.

  An hour later she lay in a nest of pillows on top of her bed, wearing only a T-shirt—one of Ray’s old college T-shirts that she had taken with her when she left him—perusing the Blackwell file again. She reread the DA’s report, which offered nothing other than “no substantial evidence” supporting Ginger’s claims that she’d been abducted, unlawfully imprisoned or sexually assaulted. The DA himself had signed off on it. Josie searched for the name of the investigator assigned to review the evidence against Ginger.

  “No fucking way,” she mumbled to herself. “Jimmy ‘Frisk’ Lampson?”

  James Lampson had been a Denton police officer when Josie was in high school. Back then he’d been on patrol, and kids at the high school had nicknamed him Frisk because he liked to pull over teenage girls, make them get out of their cars and frisk them for no reason. It went on for a couple of years before someone’s parents finally complained. He got a slap on the wrist at first, but once Chief Harris took command he was out on his ass looking for a new job. Last she’d heard he was doing private security at the hospital.

  Josie hadn’t known until she saw his name on the Blackwell report that he’d taken a job with the DA’s office. She had no idea how he’d ended up with the cushy investigator job there, but she could guess; his son was good friends with the DA’s son—both of whom had played for Denton East’s football team and both of whom had had reputations for sleeping with girls, dumping them and starting vicious rumors about them. She had no idea where those guys were now, but their fathers were still handling cases in Alcott County, and badly by the looks of it.

  She thought of June still sitting in a holding cell at Denton’s police department while the DA decided what to do with her. They were actively violating her due process rights. She should already be in a psych unit. Why was the DA’s office dragging its feet? She wondered if Frisk was somehow involved and meddling in June’s case the way he likely had with Ginger’s and, if so, why?

  Her cell phone startled her, sending the pages of Lampson’s report flying across her bed. The ringtone sounded like bells chiming. Not Luke. Not Lisette. Not Ray. Someone who didn’t call her often. The number was vaguely familiar, and as she answered she heard the tearful voice of Luke’s sister.

  “Carrieann?” Josie said, her heart in her mouth. There was only one reason that Luke’s sister would be calling. She felt a cotton ball lodged in her throat. “Is he alive?” she choked out.

  “Luke’s been shot,” Carrieann sobbed. “He’s been… shot.”

  She had an image of Luke lying helpless on the side of the interstate somewhere, bleeding out and unable to call for help.

  “Is he alive?” she asked again.

  There was a sound like Carrieann wiping her nose and then she said, “Barely. He’s in surgery now.”

  “Where? Where is he now?”

  “At Geisinger. He lost so much blood. They had to life-flight him there for emergency surgery. Oh God.”

  That was an hour away. Josie could make it in half that time. “I’ll meet you there,” she said, and hung up.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Carrieann Creighton was one of the sturdiest women Josie had ever met: six feet tall and muscular in all the places most women were soft and curvy. She looked like a female version of Luke. They weren’t twins. Carrieann was five years older than him and lived three hours away in a county so rural it only had one traffic light. Josie had only met her twice before. They’d gotten along well in spite of Luke’s warnings that Carrieann could be tough and stand-offish.

  Josie found her in the small family waiting room outside the surgery wing, pacing in her faded, torn jeans, muddied steel-toed men’s work boots and a denim jacket layered over a flannel shirt that had seen better days. Her blond hair, just starting to show the first strands of gray, was pulled back in a ponytail. Her face was drawn, her eyes red-rimmed. The moment she saw Josie she strode across the room, devouring her in a hard hug. Seeing Carrieann in distress made it more real.

  During the ride to the hospital Josie had kept her hysteria at bay by cataloging all the questions she had. She was Josie the police officer, not Josie the police officer’s fiancé. It was the only way to keep her foot on the gas, to keep moving forward, to keep her from pulling over and losing it completely on the side of the road.

  Before her knees could buckle, she stumbled backward and fell into the nearest chair. Carrieann dropped into the chair beside her and reached over, squeezing Josie’s hand in hers. It was odd and somewhat alarming to see her so affectionate, as though they’d been sisters-in-law for years, but she got the feeling it was more to comfort herself than to comfort Josie. Either way, she would take it. This was uncharted territory for her. The only two people Josie had ever truly cared about before Luke were her grandmother and Ray, and neither one of them had ever been in danger. Luke had come into her life like the air she needed when her shitty life threatened to suffocate her. She’d been surviving her suspension in large part because of him. She loved his good humor, his smile, his body—his body that was fighting to stay alive at that moment. She wished she hadn’t left that message earlier. It seemed so trivial now. She hoped those words wouldn’t be the last ones he ever heard from her.

  “What happened?” she asked Carrieann.

  Luke’s sister looked around the room as though she had just realized they were there, alone among the vinyl upholstered chairs and old, discarded magazines. In one hand rested a balled-up tissue. She squeezed it. “They said he was in the parking lot at the barracks. He had just finished his shift. He was ambushed. Someone shot him twice. In the chest.”

  Josie closed her eyes. All she could think of was his heart. It was a kill shot. How was he still alive? Tears streamed down her cheeks in hot, salty streaks.

  “Oh, hon,” Carrieann said huskily as she slung an arm around Josie’s shoulders and pulled her into an awkward side hug. “He’s strong. He’s going to survive this.”

  But Carrieann didn’t believe that any more than Josie did. It was just something you told yourself while you waited for an outcome that no one had any control over. “What caliber?”

  “What?” Carrieann said.

  “What caliber were the bullets?”

  Most people would never think to ask, but Carrieann and Luke had been shooting targets and hunting game since they were old enough to hold a gun, which was younger than most people were when they first held a gun. “30-30,” Carrieann said.

  “A hunting round.”

  Carrieann nodded.

  Nearly every household in rural Pennsylvania had a hunting rifle that took 30-30 ammunition. A hunter would know the immense damage the round could do to a human being; depending on the type of round, it could shoot straight through a person or it could fragment inside and destroy everything in its path. Luke was lucky to be alive. For now.

  Carrieann said, “They said the shots came from the woods.”

  “Oh God.”

  It must have been close to the place they’d hooked up the other day. The barracks was surrounded on three sides by forest. Someone had intentionally hidden in the trees and waited for him to finish his shift. Him? Or any trooper, she wondered. She thought of the manila envelope on her kitchen table. The Ginger Blackwell file w
ith all of its missing information. The other envelope in her car showing that Ginger had been raped, just as she had said. Had Luke been targeted because he’d been nosing around in the matter? It sure felt like it. Or was she reading too much into it again? No. She was sure that she wasn’t. He had been picked off in the parking lot at the end of his shift. It was intentional.

  Who could have known that he was nosing around in the Blackwell file? Obviously, Denise had some idea that he’d been looking into it, but she seemed much more interested in him personally. Since he had accessed the physical file, it had to be someone in his barracks. They might not even know he’d passed it on to Josie or that he’d called Denise about the rape kit.

  But if someone did know that he’d given it to Josie and that she was looking into the Ginger Blackwell case, was she next?

  She looked around. She’d seen two state troopers at the entrance to the hospital and one outside the doors to the surgical wing, but that was it. Usually when a member of law enforcement was shot, their brothers in arms were everywhere. Standing guard. Keeping vigil. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “Scouring the woods,” Carrieann answered. “Trying to find the person who shot Luke.”

  But they wouldn’t find him. Because it was one of them. He would know how to cover his tracks. He was probably out there with them right now, searching for himself. Everyone would be fooled. No one would expect that one of their own would turn on them. Unless the killer had help? Unless it was more than one person? She thought of the DA and Jimmy Lampson and their shady report on the Blackwell case. Then there were the four state troopers who were transferred soon after working on the Blackwell file. So they wouldn’t ask questions? So the men responsible for Ginger’s abduction would never be called to account for their crimes?

  None of the Denton PD officers who had worked on the Blackwell case had been banished, and there were three law enforcement agencies involved in the Blackwell case. The state police, Denton PD, and the district attorney’s office. Which meant that if law enforcement was either complicit or involved in Ginger Blackwell’s abduction, there was no way of knowing exactly who was involved or how deeply it went.

  “Josie?”

  “Huh?”

  “You okay?” Carrieann asked. “You look really pale.”

  Josie waved a dismissive hand, her mind running on overdrive. “Fine, I’m fine.”

  What if Blackwell’s case was connected to the Coleman case, as Josie suspected? She thought about Ray repeatedly telling her to leave the Coleman case alone. Was Denton PD involved? What about the chief? Did he know who was behind the missing girls? Was that why he hadn’t called in the FBI in the Coleman case? Was that why he had changed Josie’s status from paid suspension to unpaid suspension right after she had brought him the lead connecting Coleman to June Spencer?

  Carrieann clamped a sweat-damp palm onto Josie’s forearm and whispered urgently, interrupting her thoughts. “It’s the surgeon.”

  Josie looked up and, sure enough, a tall, burly man in blue scrubs and matching blue surgical cap was coming through the door. With a grim, fixed expression, he walked toward them. Carrieann’s fingers tightened on Josie’s arm. Together, they stood to greet him.

  “You’re here for Luke Creighton?” he asked.

  Josie opened her mouth to speak, but her lips were so dry she could barely part them. Carrieann pulled Josie closer to her and spoke for both of them. “Yes,” she said. “I’m his sister and this is his fiancée.”

  The man introduced himself. “I’m the attending trauma surgeon. My team is closing Mr. Creighton up as we speak. He is stable, for now, but there was a lot of internal damage. Two bullets to his chest.” He pointed toward his right side, in the area just below the collarbone. “The first one missed his heart, but it fragmented once inside—both bullets did—and caused a lot of damage to the surrounding structures.” He pointed lower and more toward the center. “The second bullet lacerated his spleen, so we had to remove it. We were able to remove most of the fragments and stitch up what we could. He is very lucky to be alive. We’re going to move him to the ICU and keep him there in a medically induced coma until his body begins to recover from the trauma. I have to warn you though, his injuries are extensive and severe. He—”

  “What are his odds?” Josie blurted. She couldn’t take any more of the doctor’s words. Severe. Trauma. Extensive. Fragmented. It was too much. All she wanted to know were his chances of survival.

  The doctor grimaced. “I can’t really give you odds.”

  “Guess. Your best guess. A percentage. Something. Anything. We won’t hold you to it. We already know that he is in very bad shape. We knew that the moment he was shot. The only reason he’s alive is because of you and your team. We understand that the rest is out of your control. But please. What are his chances?”

  He stared at the two of them for a long moment, clearly uncomfortable with the scenario. Then he said, “Fifty-fifty.”

  Chapter Forty

  They got to see him for ten minutes each, but no more, and that was about all Josie could take. Luke’s large frame was dwarfed by the sheer amount of machinery needed to keep him alive. Tubes and wires seemed to extend from every part of him, IVs snaking from both arms, his hands and the crooks of his elbows. A large tube was jammed into his mouth and taped there. His blue hospital gown was haphazardly thrown across him and, from beneath it, zigzagging across his chest, were wire leads connecting to various machines. Multicolored numbers flashed across the monitors that surrounded them. On his head was a large blue shower cap. He didn’t look like Luke at all.

  She approached the bed slowly, afraid she might dislodge something important. It was freezing in the room, and she wondered if he was warm enough. But he was always warm. He’d often wake to open one of the windows in her bedroom in the middle of the night, only to have her get up to close it later. “Leave it open,” he would whisper sleepily from the bed. “I’ll warm you up.”

  The memory hit her hard like a baseball bat across her shoulders. An involuntary cry escaped her lips. Tears blurred her vision. She took a stumbling step toward the bed and tried to find a place on his arm where her hand would fit. She needed to touch him, to feel his body warm beneath her palm. She needed him to know she was there. The wiry hairs of his forearm were springy beneath her hand. His skin was cool and dry. She squeezed gently. More tears spilled from her eyes as she realized there was no way he could feel her touch. Not with all the artificial life-saving, vital-monitoring equipment attached to him and the remnants of the anesthesia from his surgery. She couldn’t even imagine what they were pumping him full of to keep him under.

  “Luke,” she choked. “I’m here. I’m right here. I’m so—” Her voice broke, and she had to gather herself. “I’m so sorry that this happened. Please don’t—please don’t—”

  She couldn’t finish. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t angry about Denise Poole and her stupid painting or about the closet door he had bought. She just wanted him to be okay.

  But then the nurse was there, softly ushering her out of the room and out of the ICU altogether. The closing of the swinging door behind her sounded like her heart cracking in two. Wiping tears away with the sleeve of her jacket, she found her way to the small waiting room where Carrieann enveloped her in a long hug that crushed the breath out of her. She was glad when it was over.

  People around them scrolled on their phones, slept on the chairs, or stared sightlessly at the television mounted in the corner of the room playing a late-night show on mute. Several state troopers stood along the far wall, near the windows. Josie eyed them warily as she found two chairs pushed together where she might be able to curl up on her side and get some sleep. She didn’t recognize any of them, although she didn’t really know Luke’s coworkers.

  She used her jacket for a pillow and curled on her right side. Carrieann sat beside her at first, but after a few minutes she stood up and paced the room. Josie closed her eyes a
nd listened to the rhythmic sound of her boots on the linoleum, until it lulled her to sleep.

  * * *

  She woke to daylight and a vibration beneath her head. Blinking awake, she sat up and spent several seconds trying to extricate her cell phone from her jacket pocket. It still had a charge, but there wasn’t much left. She recognized Ginger Blackwell’s number immediately, having memorized it because she didn’t want to save it as a contact in her phone. Looking around, she didn’t see Carrieann anywhere. A new group of state troopers lined the far wall. A new shift. Josie whispered a hello into the phone as she exited the waiting room.

  “Miss Quinn?” Ginger’s voice held none of the fatigue that Josie’s did. She was clear and sharp, her words like spikes in Josie’s temples.

  “Yes,” Josie said. She slinked down the hallway like she’d just stolen something, searching for a ladies’ room.

  “This is Gin— Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

  Josie cleared her throat. She spotted the sign with the tiny stick figure in a dress down the hall and picked up her pace. “I’m fine,” she said, trying to sound more alert and awake. “What’s going on?”

  “I had something to tell you. I remembered something. At least, I think I remember. I had a dream about it. Did you get my file?”

  Inside the ladies’ room, Josie bent to look beneath the stalls. Miraculously, she was alone, but she didn’t know how long that would last. “I did. I have to tell you, Ginger, there’s a lot of stuff missing.”