Page 21 of Remember Her Name

She hung up just as Noah approached. “That was Luke. He said they can be here in twenty minutes.”

“Great.”

Josie could tell by his pinched expression that nothing he’d learned so far was good news. “What is it?”

“No one saw anything. There are no cameras across the street. Canvasses turned up nothing.”

“We’ll still have the geofence,” Josie said. “Turner’s working on it now. Anything in the car?”

Noah used his forearm to wipe sweat from his brow. “If you mean blood, signs of a struggle, no. They’ll impound it and process it to see if they can pull prints but that’s going to take time.”

Beyond the Hampton car were piles of dirt, now covered with brush, some as high as a house. The rest of the acreage appeared to be forested. Josie tried to put herself in the abductor’s place. He’d successfully kidnapped Cleo Tate and immediately brought her here. He’d managed to do it before her photo or the information about the car went out to the press. He could have lingered here for an hour, maybe two. Josie hated to think what he might have been doing to Cleo during that time. If he’d ultimately decided to kill her, the most logical next step would be to walk her out into the middle of the nearby woods, potentially sexually assault her—if that was his intent—take her life, leave her body, and exit on foot.

Noah, who had an uncanny ability to read her mind, said, “I’ve already got units out to canvass the streets surrounding the property in case he left on foot. Josie, we’re at a standstill. I think you should go home. You’ve been at this all day. Gretchen and I have it from here. I’ll send Turner home, too, once he finishes the warrants.”

“Noah.”

She didn’t need to say it. They both knew that there was a very high probability that Cleo Tate was already dead. It was just a matter of how quickly they found her and whether the killer had left behind enough evidence for them to make him pay for his crime. With or without Josie’s presence, the outcome would be the same. As usual, she didn’t want to go home. She wanted to see this through, sleep and nourishment be damned. But she knew she’d only hurt the investigation and the entire team if she pushed herself too hard.

“If you find something?—”

“I’ll call you,” he promised. “I’ll keep you updated. Your sister and Drake are at the house. Your parents are coming over as well. You should go home and see them.”

At some point, she’d have to tell him Drake’s news. “I’ll see you at home.”

THIRTEEN

He dozed in the driver’s seat of the car while the air conditioning labored to cool the interior. In the nowhere land between waking and sleeping, his mind drifted to her. She was always there, just beneath the surface of his consciousness. Dark hair, soft lips, perky breasts. First came the fantasies of what he’d wanted to do to her, all the ways he had planned to use her body and make her pretty mouth scream. Then those beautiful thoughts were crushed. His brain replayed the look of disgust on her face when he tried to take what she’d been subtly offering him for weeks. She was nothing but a bitch and a tease. It was okay though because what came next gave him a release like he’d never known. In those frenzied moments, he was a god.

Her god.

Even now, the thought made his dick hard. Sweat beaded along his upper lip. He reached for the nearest AC vent, spinning the dial to try to increase the air flow. Reddish flakes broke away from his nails and fluttered around the interior of the car. There hadn’t been time to wash his hands. Now he had to get back or he’d be in trouble. Closing his eyes, he called up her face once more. Those final moments. The way she’d been utterly his, powerless, at his mercy.

An involuntary grunt passed through his lips. His body spasmed. The memory was so potent, he didn’t even have to touch himself to get off.

Maybe the whole business with the woman today was a sign. Maybe it was time to stop denying himself, to stop caging what was inside him. He could find someone new. Make her his. Be her god.

FOURTEEN

Josie’s driveway was crowded with vehicles. Every first-floor window of her home glowed with welcoming, golden light. Her mind was still with Cleo Tate, but as she trudged up the front steps and heard the muffled sounds of her family’s laughter, some of the tension in her body drained away. Once inside, it became clear that everyone had gathered in the kitchen. No one heard her come in. Even their Boston terrier, Trout, didn’t come racing into the foyer the way he usually did. That could only mean one thing. Food was at stake. Josie and Noah did their best not to feed him table food, but he always held out hope that someone would drop a delicious morsel on the floor.

Trout gave her a cursory look and a momentary butt-wiggle of excitement when she reached the kitchen doorway and then went right back to staring up at Trinity while she cut vegetables at the counter. Every so often she dropped a slice of carrot which he gobbled right up. Even dressed in jeans and one of Drake’s oversized FBI T-shirts, Trinity looked like she’d just stepped from the pages of a magazine. Her black hair had a glossy sheen to it and the light makeup she wore made her look camera-ready.

Over her shoulder, Trinity said, “Mom, show Drake the house you guys just made an offer on. It’s not far from here.”

Their parents, Shannon and Christian Payne, sat with Drake at the kitchen table. Josie leaned against the doorframe and watched them all. The normalcy of the scene, the happy presence of her true family still struck her as incredibly surreal. When she and Trinity were three weeks old, Lila Jensen, a woman employed by Shannon and Christian’s housecleaning service, had snuck into their home while a nanny cared for them. She set the house on fire and abducted Josie. The nanny managed to get Trinity to safety but the authorities in that town—two hours away—believed that Josie perished in the fire.

Shannon rifled through the purse hanging on the back of her chair. “Let me find it on my phone. I’ve got that real estate app.”

Lila had brought Josie back to Denton and used her as a ploy to get back together with her ex-boyfriend, Eli Matson. Back then there weren’t mail-in DNA tests. Eli didn’t even question Lila when she told him she’d given birth to his daughter in the year they’d been apart. He’d taken her back and embraced his role as a father, loving Josie with his whole heart until the day he died. Josie had only been six years old at the time. Left alone with Lila, she had faced the most horrific years of her life. Eli’s mother, Lisette—the only grandmother Josie had ever known—had fought like hell to get custody of Josie and save her from Lila’s abuse. Eventually, she did.

Christian slid on a pair of reading glasses and took out his own phone. “I’ve got it here, Shan.”

Once Lisette had full custody of Josie, Lila disappeared and then, when Josie was thirty years old, came back to wreak havoc on Josie’s life once more. In the process, the complicated web of lies Lila had weaved over so many years unraveled. That was when Josie and Trinity learned they were sisters. Josie had an instant family: a twin sister, parents, and even a youngerbrother, Patrick. It had been a big adjustment for Josie, learning that everything she thought she knew about her life was wrong, and taking her place as part of the Payne family, but they were one of the best things that had ever happened to her.

Christian handed Drake his phone. “It’s a lot smaller than the place we’ve got now, but we really haven’t needed that kind of space since Patrick left for college.”

Shannon laughed. “We didn’t need that much space even before he left for college.”

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