Page 15 of Husband Missing

Her breath came in small, rapid bursts even as she tried to reason her way through the panic quickly rising in her chest. Maybe Noah had set the app to snooze. They did that sometimes when the other person was home so they weren’t bombarded by notifications at work. But he would have turned it back on if he left. The app was down, or the security system itself. That had to be it. Keeping her palm wrapped around the handle of her Glock, she used her free hand to fish her phone out of her pocket. With her thumb she punched in her passcode and pulled up the app. Every square that represented an individual camera was black. Nothing was working. Sometime after fivep.m., it had gone dark.

The Wi-Fi was out.

There could very well be a logical explanation for that as there likely was for the lights blazing and yet, she knew, deep down in some visceral place inside her, that something was very, very wrong.

Putting her phone away, she found her house key and inserted it into the lock only to discover the door was cracked open. Her heart thundered in her chest as she pushed her way through it, clocking the total silence within the house. No click-clack of Trout’s little claws racing through the foyer to greet her.

She stood just over the threshold, holding her Glock in her hands, tucked up by her chest with the muzzle pointed slightly downward. “Noah?” she called.

No answer.

Her head swiveled to the right, where their living room was situated. An audible gasp dropped from her lips. On autopilot, her body followed her line of sight, pistol sweeping past the mouth of the hallway that led to the kitchen, into the livingroom. It was completely trashed. The books, framed photos, and other trinkets that normally dotted their entertainment center and the small bookcase diagonal from it lay scattered across the carpet, trampled over. The coffee table was cracked and sagging. Even Trout’s toy bin was overturned. There were other details she knew she should be cataloging but her mind was racing too fast, her heart beating too hard.

“Noah?”

TEN

Josie barely heard herself over the roar of blood in her ears.

“Trout?”

Keeping one eye on the foyer, she stepped into the living room. The wooden surface of the coffee table was dark, so it was only when she got closer that she saw blood congealing along one of its edges.

“Fuck.”

Some muffled part of her brain—where the professional law enforcement officer lived—screamed for her to step outside and call dispatch to request units. Procedurally, that was the right thing to do. Wait for them to arrive and let them clear the house rather than attempting it herself, alone.

But the blood.

Noah’s blood?

The wife in her forced her body to move, Glock high and on point, clearing each room on the first level of their home. It was a minefield. Nowhere to step without disturbing or treading on something. Every cabinet, every drawer had been dumped. Every surface had been violently unburdened. The contents of each shelf had been carelessly strewn onto the floor. All themundane possessions that made up their daily lives lay at her feet, discarded, destroyed, defiled.

A window had been smashed in at the rear of the house. In the kitchen and dining room, more blood. An uneven trail of droplets. A smear on the wall of the laundry room that led to the garage. She hadn’t taken the time to snap on her latex gloves so she used the tail of her shirt to turn the knob. Garish red handprints crept along the now-clear shelving units. All the bins and boxes that they’d stored there after their basement flooded from a burst pipe last year were on their sides, lids torn off or opened, their innards disemboweled. More drops of blood dotted the items that had been cast onto the floor and tramped over.

Still no Noah, no Trout.

No answers to her calls.

After a quick scan of their basement, which was currently only home to their furnace and hot water heater—both untouched—she headed for their second floor.

“Noah! Trout!”

As her feet pounded up the steps, terror gripped her, so dizzyingly potent that her entire body felt like it was being crushed. Her mind threatened to separate from her physical being. Halfway up the stairs, she was no longer eyeing the second-floor landing but floating up on the ceiling, watching herself climb. The Glock trembled in her hands. Her mouth formed the names again.

“Noah! Trout!”

Some other distant part of her that had lived through more trauma than any human should screamed at her to get her shit together. There was no time for panic or fear. If Noah was here, injured or being held by some intruder, she needed to be one hundred percent in control. Calm, cold as ice, steady. Which meant she needed to be present in her body.

The first thing she felt when she reached the second-floor hall was a tingle along the scar that ran from below her right ear, down her jawline, and under her chin. The most savage memento from her fucked-up childhood. Externally, that was. Her body dropped into the box breathing she’d learned at a retreat for processing trauma which had—in keeping with her own personal brand of bad luck—ended in even more trauma. And murder.

Murder.

Was Noah already dead?

Her soul shoved against the confines of her body once more, demanding release.

This time, it was Trout’s muted barks that brought her back. A wave of relief crashed over her, so powerful that her knees nearly gave out. It was brief, though, because she still hadn’t laid eyes on her husband. The impulse to race past the doors lining the hall to find their dog was overwhelmingly strong but her tactical training kept her in check.

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