by Lisa Regan
“Not in the car,” she said. “Take it.”
He shrugged it on before sliding into the passenger’s seat.
Josie got in and started the car. “I’m just saying, Ray. You don’t have to pick a fight every single time. You could have let that one slide.”
He reached over and put a warm hand on her thigh. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about Carter, or any of those guys. I don’t give a shit about anyone else on this entire planet except you, Jo. Only you.”
Josie felt a flush rise in her cheeks as she turned out of the Denton East parking lot and onto a rural road bathed in night. To her left was forest, trees reaching out from the darkness with their thin branches. To her right was a wide-open field. With the moon hidden behind thick clouds, the night was blanketed in darkness. There were no streetlights or even residences with lights on inside. As they crested a small hill, blue and red police lights spun in the distance. Ahead, a Denton PD cruiser had pulled someone over.
“What’s this?” Josie wondered out loud. She slowed the vehicle as they approached.
“I recognize that car,” Ray said. “It’s some girl in our class. Oh, what the hell is her name?”
As they passed, they saw a Denton police officer standing beside the small blue sedan he’d pulled over. He opened the driver’s side door, and Josie saw a flash of blonde hair. The officer motioned for the girl to get out. His head swiveled toward them as they rolled slowly past.
“Shit,” Josie said. “That’s Frisk.”
“Go back,” Ray said, turning his head to look behind them. “Quick.”
Frisk was the nickname the kids had for Officer James Lampson. He was known for pulling over teenage girls for simple violations—or sometimes no violation at all—and making them get out of their cars so he could frisk them. Only the rumors were that the frisking was a little too familiar.
Josie pulled up on the opposite side of the road beneath a canopy of trees, stopping parallel to Frisk and the sedan. Ray said, “Lana, that’s her name.”
Josie eyed Frisk as she unbuckled her seatbelt. Both he and his prey were well-illuminated by the headlights of his cruiser. Lana stood beside him, facing away from Josie. Her legs were spread far apart, both hands up against the car. Frisk stared back at Josie. “Stay here,” she said.
Ray grabbed her wrist. “Are you kidding me? No. You stay here. I’ll go.”
“You think I can’t handle Frisk?”
“Jo, I know you can handle anyone. That’s not the issue. Frisk is a pig. He’ll take it better if I go over.”
“Ray, you’re drunk. One whiff of your breath and Frisk can take you in. He’ll ruin everything for you. No baseball. No scholarships. No college. Stay here.”
Before he could reply, Josie got out of the car. The night seemed to close in on her as she strode over to Frisk. He folded his arms across his chest, leering at her. “Well, well, what have we got here? You lost, young lady?”
Josie glanced behind him where Lana stood against her car. A barely detectable tremor shook her body. “I was supposed to be following Lana home,” Josie lied. “We’ve got a project due tomorrow. We’re supposed to be at her house right now finishing it up. But I got lost.”
“Did you now?” Frisk asked. He licked his lips and smiled, a carnivore showing its teeth. “It’s awfully late to be working on a school project, isn’t it?”
Josie stepped closer. “True,” she acknowledged. “That’s why we really need to get going.” She gestured toward Lana. Neither Frisk nor Lana moved.
Josie’s heart did a double tap. Her hands felt cold. She hadn’t thought this through. She didn’t have a plan. She just knew she didn’t want Frisk’s hands on a teenage girl, but how exactly was she supposed to accomplish that? She had no authority over him. She wasn’t even a legal adult. Absconding with Lana wasn’t really an option. What the hell could she do?
“Officer,” Josie tried, “if we promise to drive carefully, would you mind if we went home?”
“I pulled this young lady over for a busted taillight,” he told Josie. “You think I should just let her go?”
“A busted taillight?” Josie blurted. “You need to frisk her for a busted taillight?”
The instant the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Frisk’s eyes narrowed. He motioned toward the space next to Lana. “Truth be told, we’ve had a lot of kids from Denton East getting caught with illegal drugs. Your friend here seemed like she might be on something. In fact, I’m thinking you might be on something too. So if you don’t mind, step up and I’ll pat both of you down.”
Josie’s body began to tremble. She wished she could hide it. Hugging herself, she glared at him. “No,” she said.
Shadows warped his face as he tipped his chin back and laughed. Josie glanced up and down the road, wishing someone else would drive by, another adult, another cop, maybe. But they wouldn’t stop, would they? All they’d see was a police officer dealing with some sort of traffic violation. Nothing to see here.
Frisk said, “I’m sorry, what’s that? Did you say no to an officer of the law?”
Before Josie could respond, a car door slammed, and Ray jogged across the road. He smiled at Frisk. “Officer Lampson, is everything okay over here?”
Frisk studied him. “I’m not sure that’s any of your business, son.”
“Oh, sure,” Ray said. “I meant no disrespect, sir. In fact, we don’t mean to trouble you at all. We were just looking for our friend, Lana. Here she is. Thought we’d lost her. You saved us a lot of searching by pulling her over, actually. Right, Jo?”
He looked at Josie, his eyes imploring her to go along. All she could manage was a nod. Her mouth was full of saliva. Frisk stared at Ray, taking in his easy smile and then his jacket.
“Hey,” Frisk said. “You’re that pitcher, aren’t you? Denton East Blue Jays.”
Ray held out a hand for Frisk to shake. “Yes, sir, Ray Quinn.”
Frisk took his hand, holding onto it a moment longer than necessary. “You boys are gonna win the championship,” he said.
“Hope so,” Ray agreed as Frisk relinquished his hand. “Sir, if you wouldn’t mind, I really need to get these ladies home.”
There was a long, silent moment. Crickets chirped in the darkness beyond the vehicles. A moth fluttered in front of Frisk’s cruiser, causing a strange, momentary strobe effect. Frisk looked from Ray to Josie, then to Lana and back to Ray, as if he were trying to decide something. Finally, he said, “You ladies shouldn’t keep our star pitcher out so late.” He waved them toward Ray. “Get out of here, and go right home.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ray said, maneuvering himself between the two girls and Frisk.
Josie grasped Lana’s upper arm and dragged her toward her grandmother’s car. Opening the back door, Josie pushed her inside. “Get in.”
Ray got into the passenger’s seat. Josie’s hands shook as she put the car in drive. Ray said, “Go, go, go.”
Lana said, “My car.”
“I’ll bring you back for it tomorrow,” Ray told her. “Right now, we need to get out of here before that shithead changes his mind and decides to screw with all three of us.”
Once Frisk’s car receded from view and they were back in town, Josie let out a sigh of relief. From the backseat, Lana said, “Thank you.”
Ray said, “No problem.”
“How did you know?” Lana asked. “About him?”
Josie answered, “I have a list.”
Ray laughed.
“A list of what?” Lana asked.
“Pervy guys to avoid,” Ray supplied.
“Like Mr. Rand?” Lana asked.
“Eighth period chemistry?” Josie said. “Yeah. Exactly. Anyway, that guy back there? He’s on the list. We call him Frisk.”
In the rearview, Josie watched Lana’s eyes widen. “That’s Frisk? I’ve heard of him but didn’t know what he looked like.” She reached forward and tapped Ray’s shoulder. “Thanks for getting involved. You took a big
risk.”
Josie glanced at Ray. “She’s right. You did. He could have taken you in for underage drinking. Really, he could have made up anything and taken you in. Bye-bye championship game. Hello criminal charges. You think your mom could afford a lawyer right now?”
Ray looked behind them but there were no flashing police lights pursuing them. “We got lucky.”
“Lucky you were there,” Lana said. “We’ll put you on the list of good guys.”
Six
A half hour later, after a shower, change of clothes, and a quick lunch, Josie pulled into the parking lot at police headquarters. The rain still poured down steadily, but that hadn’t stopped a handful of reporters from gathering at the entrance to the building. They wore raincoats and huddled beneath umbrellas. A lone cameraman sagged beneath the weight of a large camera wrapped in clear plastic. The last several days they’d been out and about in town, trying to capture footage of the destructive flooding and the water rescues. If they were waiting here in the rain, that meant they were still trying to get information about the body Josie had recovered on Hempstead. With a sigh, she reached across to the passenger’s seat and grabbed up her high school yearbook—which she had retrieved from her garage—as well as the basket of baked goods Misty had given her to distribute to her colleagues. She’d paged through the yearbook in her bedroom before taking a shower, but no one had caught her eye or jarred anything loose in her memory. She would have remembered if someone had gone missing from Denton East while she was a student there. Even if she hadn’t, all missing-persons cases in the county had been reopened and reevaluated five years ago during the vanishing girls case.
She emerged from her vehicle and hurried toward the door, keeping her gaze focused straight ahead as the reporters converged on her, shouting the same questions they’d lobbed at her at the command post. She barked out a few “no comments” and then she was safely inside. Trudging up the stairs to the second floor, Josie entered the great room. It was a large, open area filled with desks and filing cabinets. A television was affixed to one wall. Today it streamed coverage of the flooding. Josie ignored it and walked over to the four desks pushed together in the center of the room. They were reserved for the detectives on the force: herself, Detective Gretchen Palmer, Lieutenant Noah Fraley, and Detective Finn Mettner.
Josie and Noah had started their careers in Denton, moving up the ranks to the investigative team after several years on patrol. Gretchen had come to them from Philadelphia where she had worked for fifteen years on their homicide squad. In fact, Josie had been the one to hire her when Josie was serving as interim chief of police. Eventually, that position was filled by their current chief, Bob Chitwood. He had promoted Finn Mettner from patrol to detective from within the department. Mettner was the youngest of the four of them, but he was dedicated and thorough and had already worked as the lead on some major cases in his new position.
Josie set the basket in the center of the desks and looked around. The room was empty save for one patrol officer doing paperwork at one of the shared desks. Bob Chitwood’s voice boomed from behind his closed office door. Josie wasn’t surprised. As the detectives liked to joke, Chitwood had two volumes: loud and louder. Josie took a few steps toward his office, catching some of his words: “… I don’t give a rat’s ass if the Mayor lives in that development. Or you, Dutton. You’re just a candidate. That doesn’t mean anything to me. City council? I don’t care if you’re on the damn UN. I don’t care if the goddamn queen of England and the pope have houses in Quail Hollow. You can’t divert public resources away from areas that need them…”
Josie rolled her eyes. The “Quail Hollow Estates Scandal”, as a local reporter had dubbed it, had been the bane of the Chief’s existence since the flooding began. Quail Hollow was a section of the city where more wealthy residents lived, including the Mayor, Tara Charleston, and her surgeon husband as well as her mayoral opponent, Kurt Dutton, and his wife. In the last few years, Dutton had built the area up, adding more luxury homes for the city’s rich to flock to and a small creek around the development. The Quail Hollow Estates’ surrounding neighbors called it “the moat” even though Quail Hollow’s residents took great pride in it. It was lovely, Josie supposed, and its banks were beautifully landscaped. What the builders had not foreseen was the issue of flooding. One particular section of the moat had been badly affected by the recent rainstorms, spilling over into the yard of an unfinished luxury home at the back of the development. City engineers had deemed that the lot was too dangerous to continue work on in its present condition. There was also concern about a possible landslide, which would be catastrophic to the Quail Hollow residents not to mention the neighborhood adjacent to Quail Hollow.
It had recently come to the authorities’ attention that the residents of Quail Hollow had been stealing resources from the city stores such as barriers, portable pumps, and other equipment. When one of the WYEP reporters exposed what they were doing, the Mayor had stepped in. She had changed the word stealing to “diverting,” as if that were any better. The rest of the city’s residents were enraged, but that hadn’t stopped Quail Hollow residents from “diverting” more and more resources to keep their homes from being flooded.
Chief Chitwood’s voice blared even louder from behind his door. “Those are public resources! They’re not for you rich assholes to take at your discretion. That’s right. They do belong to the city, and the city gets to say where they go and when. Who? The head of Emergency Services, that’s who. Oversight? I’m giving you the oversight right now. I’m telling you to return those barriers and the pumps and the rest of the supplies by the end of this week or I’m going to drag my people out of rescue boats to come and arrest the lot of you!”
There was a moment of silence. Then Chitwood hollered, “Don’t threaten me, son. I’ve been doing this job since you were in diapers. You can’t intimidate me. I’ve got a job to do!”
She heard his receiver slam down, and she scurried over to her desk. Gretchen had appeared, sitting at her own desk, riffling through the baked goods. “Chief’s at it again, is he? With the Quail Hollow folks?”
“Yeah,” Josie said. “I think that was Dutton. He broke out his ‘I’ve been doing this since you were in diapers’ line on him.”
Both women laughed. It was one of Chief Chitwood’s signature lines, one he used when he was most incensed. He was in his sixties, past retirement age, and well past caring about the politics that went with his job. Josie hadn’t agreed with his heavy-handed approach at first but now that she and her team had earned his respect, he backed them up consistently and they’d grown to accept him.
Josie handed Gretchen the yearbook. “I’ve been through this. Nothing jumped out at me. No missing girls.”
Gretchen popped a cookie in her mouth and paged through the book until she found Ray’s photo. “What about anyone Ray was friends with during that time?”
“You mean other girls? He wasn’t friends with many girls at that time. The two of us had a few friends, and I can flag them for you in the yearbook, but as far as I know, they’re all still alive and accounted for.”
Gretchen said, “Okay, we can do that. I think we should also look at the previous residents of the house. See if there’s anything there.”
Josie booted up her computer and brought up the database for property searches in the county. A few minutes later, she had a history of the house on Hempstead. “Looks like Calvin Plummer has owned this for decades.” She pulled up the search feature again and this time searched by his name. “He’s got six rental properties in Denton, plus his office and what looks like his permanent residence, which is—get this—in Quail Hollow Estates.”
Gretchen leaned back in her seat and raised a brow. “No kidding.”
Josie pulled up the house on Google maps and clicked on street view. “Yeah, but his is one of the original homes, not the newer ones. He was living there long before they turned it into Quail Hollow.”
“Wonder if he’s going to represent Quail Hollow Estates when Chitwood arrests them all,” Gretchen remarked.
Josie pulled up Plummer’s website. “I don’t think so. Looks like he does tax law.”
“Excuse me?” came an unfamiliar female voice from the stairwell.
Josie and Gretchen swiveled in their seats to see a young woman with long, auburn hair and pale skin standing in the doorway. She was dressed in a form-fitting skirt that rose high above her waistline; a white blouse tucked into it, accentuating her figure. The top few buttons of the blouse were open, revealing an expanse of pale skin. A long necklace sporting an amber-colored stone hung from her neck. In one hand, she carried a briefcase. She took a few tentative steps toward them, heels clicking on the tile, and looked at Josie. She smiled, and up close, Josie saw that she was strikingly beautiful, her eyes a blue so vivid they almost looked turquoise.
“You’re Josie Quinn,” she said.
Josie offered her a smile. “Can I help you?”
She offered her hand. Josie shook it. “Amber Watts,” she said. “I’m the new press liaison.”
Josie looked at Gretchen. For a moment, both of them went blank. Then Gretchen said, “Press liaison?”
“Yes,” Amber answered. “I’m here to facilitate and maintain communication between the police department and the public. I’ll also be working to enhance communication between the police department and the Mayor’s office.”
Gretchen said, “You give press conferences so we don’t have to.”
Amber gave a small laugh. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Who hired you?” Josie said.
Innocently, Amber said, “Mayor Charleston.”
Josie suppressed a groan. Gretchen mumbled, “The Chief’s gonna love this.”
“What was that?” Amber asked, her expression uncertain.
“Nothing, nothing,” Josie said. “We just had no idea that a press liaison was being hired. You really need to talk to the Chief. Come on, I’ll show you to his office.”
Before Josie could lead her over, Bob Chitwood’s door swung open. He stepped out into the great room, wisps of his white hair floating over his scalp. His brown eyes darted around, taking in the three women.
