Find Her Alive
Page 1
Find Her Alive
A gripping crime thriller packed with mystery and suspense
Lisa Regan
Books by Lisa Regan
Detective Josie Quinn Series
Vanishing Girls
The Girl With No Name
Her Mother’s Grave
Her Final Confession
The Bones She Buried
Her Silent Cry
Cold Heart Creek
Find Her Alive
Available in Audio
Vanishing Girls (Available in the UK and the US)
The Girl With No Name (Available in the UK and the US)
Her Mother’s Grave (Available in the UK and the US)
Her Final Confession (Available in the UK and the US)
The Bones She Buried (Available in the UK and the US)
Her Silent Cry (Available in the UK and the US)
Cold Heart Creek (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Hear More From Lisa
Books by Lisa Regan
A Letter from Lisa
Vanishing Girls
The Girl With No Name
Her Mother’s Grave
Her Final Confession
The Bones She Buried
Her Silent Cry
Cold Heart Creek
Acknowledgements
In Loving Memory of Jennifer Jaynes
I will miss your words.
One
Before the incidents started, Alex’s father used to take him out into the woods on adventures. That’s what he called them, but Alex soon discovered that his father’s idea of adventure was sitting on a log or laying in the brush all day, staring through a pair of binoculars at birds. Still, his father, Frances, wasn’t nice to Alex very often, so whenever he took him out into the woods, Alex made sure to pay attention. He made sure to act interested and to do everything that his father said as soon as he said it and exactly the way he said to do it. After one adventure during which Alex had worked very hard to be very good, he was rewarded with his own pair of binoculars. They weren’t as big or as nice as the ones his father carried, but Alex enjoyed mimicking his movements, staring through them at hawks and falcons and owls. Those were the birds his father was most interested in. Raptors, he called them.
“They’re birds of prey,” his father told him. “Hunters. They have amazing eyesight. They can spot their target from way up high in the sky. They wait for just the right moment, and then they strike! They’re very intelligent birds.”
Alex wasn’t sure what made them intelligent, but he knew that intelligence was important to his father. It was a word he used a lot. He didn’t like people who weren’t intelligent, and Alex lived in fear of being deemed not intelligent by his father. That was why he carried around a notebook and pencil just like his father did. At six, he had just learned to read and write, so he couldn’t write lots of words in his notebook like his father did, but he drew pictures of the birds they watched.
One day they were out in the woods, standing beside a clearing, and his father spotted a large raptor in the sky. It was so high up, Alex couldn’t tell what kind of bird it was, but his dad assured him it was a hawk. “Watch this, son,” he told him.
He reached into a satchel he’d brought with him from their house and brought out a snake. Alex recoiled, falling backward over a branch on the ground. His head knocked against a nearby tree. “Ow,” he cried.
His father stood several feet away, frozen, with the wriggling snake in his hand, and glared at his son. “Get. Up!” he snarled.
Alex scrambled to his feet. He reached behind his head and felt something damp. His fingers came away bloodied. He dared not point this out to his father, who was waiting for him to get back into position, his face getting more and more red with fury with each second that passed.
“Sorry Dad,” Alex muttered, stepping up beside his father again. He looked out into the clearing, then up at the sky even though the movement sent a white-hot streak of pain down his neck. The hawk flew closer to the treetops.
“Watch,” his father said. He tossed the snake into the middle of the clearing. Immediately, it began writhing and wriggling away in the opposite direction. Suddenly the hawk was there, only a few feet away, its thick talons pointed downward like spears, its gloriously large wings spread wide. It snatched the squirming snake from the grass and flew effortlessly back into the sky.
Alex’s father watched with wonder as the bird receded from view.
Alex felt a warm stickiness slide down the back of his neck. “Dad,” he said quietly. “I think I need a bandage.”
He touched the back of his head again and this time, when he brought it forward to show his father, his entire palm was covered in blood. His father looked down at him, his look of awe transforming into one of disgust. For a long moment, he stared down at Alex, his lip curled in a sneer. Then he shook his head, huffed, and walked away. Momentarily dumbfounded, Alex watched him go. He had already covered quite a bit of ground when he turned and spat the words back at his son, but Alex heard them as clearly as if he’d shouted them into his ear.
“Stupid boy.”
Two
A cold, wet nose nudged Josie’s arm. Then came the mournful whine. When she didn’t respond to her Boston Terrier’s efforts to get her out of bed, he jumped up onto the covers and began to sniff her ears and the nape of her neck. “Trout,” she groaned, rolling over to face him. A pair of soulful brown eyes stared back.
He huffed at her and sat down, his smooshy black and white face a study in seriousness, his ears perfect steeples. Without even moving his mouth, he emitted another small whine. She rubbed beneath his chin.
“What time is it, buddy?” she asked sleepily, although she didn’t even have to look at her bedside clock to know that her alarm was due to go off in ten minutes—at least, on a work day it would be, but today she was off. In the six months since she and her live-in boyfriend, Noah Fraley, had rescued Trout, they’d developed something of a routine. The dog woke them just before their alarm went off,
Josie would let him out, feed him, and then the three of them would go for a brief jog before the humans got ready and went off to work. Even on days off, Trout was persistent about keeping to their routine.
Josie and Noah both worked for the city of Denton’s police department—she as a detective and he as a lieutenant. Denton was nestled in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, spanning approximately twenty-five square miles. In the central area of the city where the retail establishments, police headquarters, post office, and Denton University were located, the streets and buildings were grouped closely together in a predictable grid pattern except for the sprawling city park. The rest of the city was spread out over rural wooded areas, accessible by ribbons of single-lane winding roads. Although Denton was a small city, it was no stranger to crime, and the police department stayed busy.
Josie rolled over and nudged Noah’s shoulder. “Time to get up,” she told him, getting only a grunt in response.
“Come on,” she added.
“Put the coffee on, would you?” Noah mumbled.
Josie threw her legs over the side of the bed. Excitedly, Trout jumped down, his rear end wiggling as he ran toward the bedroom door. Josie turned her alarm clock off and padded out into the hallway and downstairs. Twenty minutes later, Trout was fed, both Josie and Noah had consumed one quick cup of coffee, and then dressed in their running clothes. Josie knelt on the foyer floor, trying to coax Trout’s trembling body into his harness while Noah went upstairs to get his phone.
“We do this every morning, buddy,” Josie murmured as she tried to snap the harness across Trout’s back. “You know you have to keep still while I get this on.”
Trout couldn’t contain his excitement. He jumped up to lick her face, and the harness fell half off him. Josie laughed which made him hop around, his little rear end wriggling until he bumped the foyer table. The table was small. It didn’t take much to knock it out of place. Trout knocked into it again, and it slid a few inches across the floor. Two sets of keys and a pair of sunglasses clattered to the floor.
“Shit,” Josie said, snatching up the sunglasses before Trout accidentally stepped on them, relief flooding through her.
Noah jogged down the steps. Seeing Josie with the sunglasses in her hand, he said, “Your sister still hasn’t come back for those? She’s probably got another pair by now.”
Josie placed them back on the table, along with their keys, and tried once more to wrestle Trout into his harness. “Noah, we’re talking about Trinity here. Do you have any idea how much those sunglasses cost? Do you even know what brand those are?”
He knelt on the floor and pointed to the area in front of him. Dutifully, Trout scampered over and sat down, letting Noah secure harness, leash, and collar with ease.
“Traitor,” Josie muttered.
Noah said, “Why would I know what brand Trinity’s sunglasses are?”
Josie rolled her eyes as they made their way out the front door and took off in a slow jog down the street with Trout leading the way. “They’re Gucci, and I’m guessing they cost at least three hundred dollars, maybe more.”
Noah stopped in his tracks, pulling Trout up short on his leash. The dog looked back at them curiously, his ears pointed. Noah said, “Who would pay three hundred dollars for a pair of sunglasses?”
Josie took the leash from his hand and they started moving again. He caught up with her. She replied, “A news anchor for a major network morning show, that’s who. She’s a celebrity. She can afford three hundred-dollar sunglasses.”
Noah shook his head. “Is she still co-hosting? When’s the last time you heard from her?”
Josie felt a kernel of discomfort at her core, like a jab in her stomach. “A month ago,” she said quietly.
“So you don’t even know if she’s still holed up in that cabin or if she went back to New York City?”
“I think she’s still on her self-imposed retreat,” Josie said. “She hasn’t talked with our parents or our brother in weeks.”
“She’s fighting with everyone, then?”
Josie sighed. “No, just me.”
“You ready to tell me what happened?”
Josie jogged a few strides ahead of him. “Not particularly.”
Trout stopped to sniff a telephone pole, and Josie paused as well. She felt Noah’s gaze boring into her before she looked up at him. His hazel eyes were serious. “Josie, I know this rift between you and Trinity has been bothering you. Just tell me what happened. You might feel better if we talk about it.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Besides, you were there for most of it.”
Noah raised a brow. “Yeah, I came in from working an overnight shift. I said a few words to her, and she freaked out. Then I took Trout for a walk. I have no idea what went down between the two of you, but when I came home Trinity was gone. You’ve been miserable ever since.”
“I haven’t been—”
Noah held up a hand to silence her. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but you’ve been off. Not yourself. I can see you’re trying to wait her out, and that’s fine, but while you’re doing that, let’s just talk about it. Maybe I can help.”
Finished with the telephone pole, Trout pulled at his leash and they followed, on the move once more. “You can’t help,” Josie said. Her cheeks burned as she thought of the last time she’d spoken with Trinity. “I’m not waiting her out. She hasn’t responded to any of my calls or texts. She’s freezing me out.”
“Then maybe you should just take her sunglasses to her. Show up at her cabin and make her talk to you again.”
“I can’t do that.”
“So what, then? You’re just going to keep wallowing, leaving her overpriced sunglasses on the foyer table so you can be reminded of your misery indefinitely, and not even try to patch things up with her?”
That was my plan, she wanted to say, but remained silent, edging ahead of him as they rounded the block.
“Josie.”
She slowed and met his eyes. “You really want to know what happened?”
Three
One Month Ago
Josie woke before Trout for once, turning to find the dog fast asleep on Noah’s side of the bed. Any time Noah worked the night shift without Josie, Trout slept next to her. She knew Noah didn’t want them to get into the habit of letting the dog sleep in their bed, but Josie enjoyed being able to reach over and stroke his soft, warm fur. Sunlight streamed through the bedroom windows. She scratched between Trout’s ears. “Time to get up, buddy.”
Downstairs in the kitchen, Josie’s twin sister, Trinity Payne sat at the table, her laptop open before her. Without giving Trinity a second glance, Trout ran to the back door to be let out as Josie turned the coffeemaker on, taking a moment to study her sister.
Rarely had Josie seen her anything less than camera-ready. Usually, even when she was just out of bed, she had a sort of glamorous television glow about her. But now she wore sweatpants and mismatched socks. Her lithe frame was dwarfed by an NYU sweatshirt. Josie had often joked that Trinity’s black hair was so shiny, a person could see their reflection in it. Now it was greasy and thrown up into a ponytail that looked like Trinity had started and forgotten to finish. No make-up on her face, she wore bright red earbuds and chewed her lower lip as her fingers pushed around the laptop mouse.
Josie poured two cups of coffee and fixed them—both she and Trinity took their coffee the same way—and walked around the table to stand beside her. She set Trinity’s coffee next to the laptop and then tugged an earbud from her sister’s ear.
“Ow,” Trinity said, shooting Josie a look of annoyance. She moved to take the earbud back, but Josie whipped the other one from Trinity’s head and then pulled them completely from the laptop.
Trinity’s voice got high and squeaky. “What are you doing?”
Josie motioned to the laptop screen. “You’re watching that again? Trinity, this has to stop.”
On the screen, the clip played. Now
that Josie had removed the earbuds, the sound filled the kitchen. It was the end of a segment that the network had run on a young woman in Arkansas who had made the news for getting twenty-two scholarships to the best schools in the country. As the piece wrapped up, the screen cut back to Trinity and her co-anchor, Hayden Keating. They sat side by side at a round table, smiles plastered across their faces. “What a remarkable young lady,” Hayden commented. “With a very bright future ahead of her.”
“The sky is the limit for her,” Trinity agreed. “She obviously has her pick of any school in the country. It’s kind of ridiculous that she applied to twenty-two schools, don’t you think?”
The first time Josie had seen the clip she hadn’t noticed the tension that froze Hayden’s face, but now she’d seen it so many times that the slight stiffening of Hayden’s jaw, his gritted teeth and forced smile were painfully obvious. “Ridiculous?” he scoffed. “I think it’s wonderful.”