Page 19 of Husband Missing

“There was more than one guy,” Turner said. “Had to be.”

That might explain why Noah had missed or only been able to fire a single bullet. She was also fairly certain it took more than one person to cause the unholy mess inside her house. But why had they taken him? It didn’t make sense. Assuming he was still alive, holding onto him for any length of time would be dangerous for them. There was no point in that. It wasn’t as if they’d try to get a ransom for him. Doing so would be reckless and just plain stupid. Law enforcement didn’t make enough money to be targeted for ransom. The most logical explanation was that they’d killed him, in which case the smartest thing would be to remove his body and bury it somewhere no one would ever find him.

No. Josie didn’t accept that. She couldn’t. Maybe that made her naive since she’d been on the job long enough to know just how slim the odds were that Noah was still alive, but she refused to entertain the thought. Until she knew otherwise, she was going to operate under the assumption—no, the certainty—that her husband was still alive.

“What do you think this was, Quinn?” asked Turner. “A robbery?”

“They didn’t take any electronics.” She flashed to their bedroom again. Her jewelry box had been looted. “But I had some jewelry. They took all of that. Most of it wasn’t valuable but there were some rings and a necklace that were worth a lot.”

There was the engagement ring from her first husband, Ray, with its matching wedding band, the diamond pendant he had bought for her, the ring from her failed engagement with Luke Creighton, and the ring Noah had proposed with, which she didn’t wear on duty. Those items alone were worth thousands.

“Okay, okay,” Turner said, starting to pace before her. One hand continued beating rapidly against his leg while the other tore at his beard. “The string of armed robberies. There was one in Bellewood where they managed to knock out the Wi-Fi. That’s what I heard, anyway. The ones here, well, they made a mess, took the jewelry but they also took the electronics.”

Josie scratched between Trout’s ears. He sighed in his sleep. “Turner,” she said softly.

Something about the tone of her voice made him stop pacing, stop moving altogether. It was the weakness. She just knew it. The vulnerability in her tone. She hated it. Turner took a step toward her, hands slack at his sides, and leaned in, bringing his face level with hers. His blue eyes were void of mischief, impatience, of everything. This was him listening. Truly listening.

Josie tried to make her voice stronger, but it still came out a little raspy. “They were looking for something.”

Turner glanced at the front lawn where Hummel still waited for his state police counterpart. When he brought his focus back to her, she knew he believed her. Still, he had to ask, “Looking for what? What do you two have, besides your jewelry, that someone wants badly enough to break in, trash everything, andkidnap a grown man? A cop, no less. What do you have that’s worth that kind of risk?”

“Nothing,” Josie replied. “Absolutely nothing.”

THIRTEEN

Josie sat at Gretchen’s kitchen table, an untouched cup of chamomile tea in front of her. Trout lay at her feet, his head up, ears pointed, whining softly as he watched her. He’d always been attuned to her moods, keying in on any small shift in her emotional landscape. For the dozenth time, she reached down and scratched between his ears. She wanted to reassure him—in the silly baby-talk voice that she and Noah always used with him—that everything was okay, but he already knew that nothing was right in their world.

Where was Noah?

A glance at the digital clock on the microwave told her it was nearly three thirty in the morning and yet, the house hummed with activity as though it were the middle of the afternoon. In the dining and living rooms, Josie heard the low murmur of voices, the chirps and buzzes of cell phone notifications, and from the foyer, the creak of the front door opening and closing, the soft footfalls of people walking around.

She didn’t even remember coming here. One minute she was in front of her house, sitting in the back seat of Gretchen’s SUV, and the next, she was here, watching as Gretchen’s adult daughter, Paula, made her tea. She kept up a steady stream ofone-sided conversation, voice calm and even as she explained everything that was happening. She reminded Josie of a dentist she’d had once who chose to narrate everything he did as he worked so there were no surprises.You’re just going to feel a little pinch here and then some numbness.Except Paula told her things like, “You and Trout will stay as long as you need. The guest bedroom is already made up. We’ll keep the cat in Mom’s room while you’re here. You probably won’t be able to go back inside your house again until sometime tomorrow, but we’ll get you anything you need. Mom sent someone to the twenty-four-hour Walmart to get Trout a leash and some food. You can use my phone charger.”

On and on she went. The only indication that she wasn’t feeling as calm as she sounded was the way she repeatedly twirled a lock of her long, brown hair around her index finger. Josie tried to ignore the tic and only focus on Paula’s voice, which was surprisingly soothing.

Trout whimpered and stood up, licking at her fingertips. Absently, she scratched his head again. From the other room there was a shift in the tone of the inaudible conversations. A ripple of some sort, news traveling. Then silence and finally, a slow return to the earlier noise level. Gretchen appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Keep them out there until I say,” she told her daughter. “All of them.”

Paula crossed her arms over her chest and nodded resolutely. Though taller than her mother, the resemblance between the two was striking.

Gretchen pushed a hand through her short, spiked brown and gray hair and pulled out a kitchen chair. She sat down and then inched her way as close to Josie as humanly possible, until their knees touched. Trout cried, jumping up and digging his claws into Gretchen’s thigh. He was trying to tell herthat something was horribly wrong, and she needed to fix it. Someone needed to fix it.

“Hey,” Gretchen said, patting his head until he got down. “I called your sister. She’s on her way from New York. In the meantime, she got in touch with your parents and your brother. They’ll be here soon. Who else do I need to call?”

Josie hadn’t let her mind wander that far. The law enforcement officer in her told her that within hours, Noah’s face would be plastered all over social media and the news—not just locally but perhaps even nationally. Calls needed to be made. Not just to gather people for moral support but to make sure their loved ones heard the news about Noah’s abduction from Josie and not from anywhere else.

“I—” Josie began but her thoughts were too jumbled. How many people did she need to call? There was Noah’s older sister and brother. They’d want to know. Should she call his father? They’d been estranged since Noah turned eighteen. Who else needed to know?

“Josie,” said Gretchen, “I’ll make the calls if you give me the names.”

Paula had put her phone on the table next to her untouched tea, plugged into a charger with a cord that reached halfway across the room. Josie brought the screen to life and then tried to log in using her thumbprint but it didn’t work. There were still flakes of primer caked and dried on the screen. Instead, she tapped in her passcode, saying it out loud for Gretchen’s benefit. Noah’s birthday or their anniversary date would have been too obvious, too easy for a hacker or anyone, really, to guess so she’d used the date they’d first had sex. It was silly and a little embarrassing although only she and Noah knew what her passcode referenced. The day was permanently marked in her mind because they’d dated for over six months before becoming physical. Josie had wanted to take things slow, to make sure shewas present for Noah and not using his body as a way to blunt feelings she didn’t want to face. When it finally happened, it had been transcendent.

Worth the wait. He’d always been worth the wait.

Josie pushed the phone toward Gretchen, rattling off the names of his siblings. She left out his father. She doubted he would care.

“How about Misty?” Gretchen said.

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