Page 45 of Her Dying Secret

“Find an actual botanist,” Josie suggested.

Hummel said, “Let me know what you find out. It would be good information to have for future cases. I’m out.”

After he left, Gretchen stood up and stretched her arms over her head. “Our only witness has been abducted. Our suspect is still at large. None of the clues we have so far give us any direction as to where to find them. We still have no idea who drew the picture or how Seth Lee came to have a child with him. His last known address was a bust. We know that he was meeting Mira at the produce stand pretty regularly, but we have no idea what his connection is to April Carlson, why he took her or why he held her for a year.”

Josie looked at the corkboard again. The drawings. Seth’s face. The map of Tranquil Trails Gretchen had formed using Google Maps printouts. The cryptic note. Gretchen was right. Everything about this case seemed disjointed, out of whack. They were missing something. Some glue that held all the ill-fitting pieces together. “Seriously,” she said. “Life coaching. Or maybe a motivational speaker.”

Noah didn’t look up from his computer, but he snickered.

Gretchen said, “I’m asking you where we should go from here.”

Josie spun away from the board. “Where all of this started.”

THIRTY-THREE

Two and a half hours later, Josie was in the passenger’s seat of Gretchen’s car, watching the scenery flash past as they arrived in a small town in Bucks County called Riddick. It was on the outskirts of Doylestown, which was where Seth Lee’s last known address had turned up nothing. It was also less than a half hour from April Carlson’s hometown of Hillcrest. Gretchen turned onto what looked like Riddick’s main street. Storefronts in old brick buildings lined both sides. Potted flowers, outdoor benches, and black metal lampposts appeared at regular intervals.

“This is a lot nicer than the three strip malls and the shopping center we passed on the way in,” Gretchen remarked.

“Yeah,” Josie said softly. She was trying to save her voice for the interviews to come.

From each lamppost hung the same flyers that they’d already seen taped to the windows of various businesses. The photo showed the face of a uniformed officer, his hat positioned just right, smiling stiffly for his official department photo. Josie didn’t need to read his name to know he was the officer Heather Loughlin had told them about. The one April Carlson had gone on a couple of dates with before he disappeared. Shane Foster. Above his head the word MISSING shouted in huge capital letters. Below his face was a date almost three years ago to the day with the words Never Forgotten and under that, Hillcrest PD with a contact number.

“I think this is it,” said Gretchen as she turned onto a residential street.

Five minutes later, they stood in front of a tiny, one-story home. Grime clung to its formerly white siding. The strip of grass that served as a front yard was high and unruly. Other than the single pot of colorful spring flowers on the front stoop, it looked like no one lived there. But this was the address they’d found for Mira Summers’s parents. Josie had confirmed it with Carol Summers when she’d called to set up this meeting. They’d decided to start here and then work their way over to Hillcrest to speak with April’s parents. Josie wasn’t even sure what they hoped to find out besides anything that connected Mira, April and Seth Lee. Something that might lead them to the identity of the child whose plea for help had ended up in the hand of a dead woman.

Josie wiped at the sweat dampening the back of her neck and then knocked on the door. She heard movement inside and then the door swung open, revealing a small woman in her seventies. Brittle white hair framed her weathered face. “You the police that called earlier?”

“Yes,” said Gretchen.

They presented their credentials. Carol gave them a cursory look and then waved them both inside. The odor of stale cigarettes hit Josie like a slap. On the coffee table sat a blue ceramic ashtray filled with butts. A single lit cigarette still burned, the smoke curling upward. Carol shuffled over to the sagging gray couch and picked it up, taking a long drag. “Sit. Wherever.”

The only other furniture in the cramped living room was a brown armchair that looked even older than the couch. Its seat was crooked. Josie wasn’t sure it was sturdy enough to hold a human being. Gretchen seemed to have the same idea, standing on the other side of the coffee table, but leaving Carol with a view of the television across the room currently playing a game show. Josie maintained her position a few feet away from Gretchen.

Carol sighed. “Fine. Don’t sit. Whatever. So, you’re here about Mira?”

“Yes,” said Josie. She looked around the space. Only a half-wall separated the living room from the kitchen. It was empty. “You might have seen on the news?—”

“Don’t watch the news,” Carol interrupted. “Too depressing. Haven’t watched the news in ten years.”

“Then you might have seen on social media—” Gretchen began.

Carol cut her off again. “Don’t spend much time on there either.”

Josie was going to suggest that she might have gotten wind of Mira’s abduction from friends, assuming the coverage had reached Bucks County, but Carol Summers didn’t strike her as the kind of person who had a lot of friends. “Is Mr. Summers here?”

Carol gave a harsh laugh. “Mr. Summers is dead. May God deliver his soul to the gates of hell.” Using the two fingers cradling her cigarette, she made the sign of the cross. Then she laughed again.

Josie didn’t need to look at Gretchen to know that she, too, had no idea how to respond to that. But Gretchen made an attempt. “I’m…sorry for your loss?” It came out as a question more than a condolence.

Carol waved the cigarette, sending the smoke trail into a zigzag. “Don’t be. Gordon was a bastard. A mean old bastard. Mira probably told you he used to beat the shit out of me. Never laid a hand on her. Still can’t figure out why but that bitch stood by and watched him hit me till I was black and blue and never lifted a damn finger.”

Josie couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy for Mira. No wonder she didn’t speak to her parents. The dysfunction in the household was distressing. Had Carol really expected Mira to try to stop her father’s violent assaults as a child? Or did she mean when Mira was an adult?

“When did your husband die?” Josie tugged the collar of her polo shirt up, making sure it covered the bruises Seth Lee had left behind.

“Five years ago. May he rot in eternal hell.”

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