Page 20 of Husband Missing

Misty Derossi was one of their best friends. Noah and Josie were so involved in her eight-year-old son Harris’s life, that he referred to them as his aunt and uncle. Pain seized her abdomen at the thought of little Harris. He adored Noah. In fact, Noah was the closest thing Harris had to a father. He was going to be so confused and upset. Terrified. It would be up to his mother whether to tell him and if so, how much to divulge. These were the kinds of things parents had to do that Josie hadn’t taken into account in their quest to have children. They only ever talked about the fun, positive things. The snuggling, the playing, watching their future baby stand or walk for the first time.

“I’ll call Misty,” Gretchen said, taking the phone. There were a few beats of silence, Gretchen studying her. “You’re really checked out right now, which I get. Believe me, I understand. Better than most people.”

It was true. Gretchen was one of the few people in Josie’s life who could match her trauma for trauma, starting in childhood. Like Josie, she’d endured unspeakable things. Abuse, tragedy, loss so big that it defied reality. Like Josie, she’d survived most of her life by constructing an impenetrable fortress deep inside her psyche that held all of her feelings so her heart wouldn’t have to—even the good ones. Emotions were messy and unpredictable. When you’d lived on the razor’s edge of trauma and tragedy for so long, messy and unpredictable becametantamount to death. Better to stay comfortably anesthetized. They’d grown good at it.

“Josie,” Gretchen said, “I need you to listen to me right now.”

Eight years ago, Josie had become the interim Chief of Police in Denton after she’d exposed a human trafficking ring that left the department with vacancies to fill. She’d hired Gretchen because she had fifteen years of experience as a homicide detective with Philly PD but what she’d brought into Josie’s life was a mirror. She understood Josie in ways no other human being ever could.

“Wherever you are right now,” Gretchen went on, “you need to come back.”

For the first time since returning home from her shift, there was a tiny crack in Josie’s mental armor. Emotion, hot and thick, poured through it, filling her body. Saliva clogged her throat. A burning, aching sensation started behind her eyes. The precursor to tears. “I can’t,” she whispered.

Both she and Gretchen had done a lot of work to process all their trauma, to learn how to feel and manage their emotions, how to communicate and move through crises in healthy ways. Years of therapy, of practicing their newfound skills with those closest to them, had helped butdead insidewas still a default setting. Any alternative was too damn scary.

Gretchen knew it.

“Then forget about being Noah’s wife right now,” she said. “Be the investigator who cleared that house tonight. Can you do that?”

Slowly, Josie nodded. She touched her cheek. No tears had escaped.

“Heather Loughlin is here. She caught the case. I’m going to send her in.”

Josie gave another mute nod. Heather was a detective with the state police Criminal Investigation Division. She workedwith the Denton PD often on cases in which jurisdiction, evidence, or witnesses overlapped. Josie knew her to be thorough, fair, and persistent. As Noah’s wife, she was glad Heather was taking point on this.

Trout bumped against Josie’s legs, still whining. He didn’t even acknowledge Heather when she took Gretchen’s place.

“Never thought we’d be meeting like this,” Heather sighed. Her trademark blonde ponytail was messier than usual. The skin around her eyes was puffy. She’d been wakened in the middle of the night, like everyone else. A notepad and pen appeared in her hands, along with a pair of reading glasses, which she perched on her nose. “I read your initial statement, but I want you to walk me through what happened tonight anyway.”

Josie blinked, willing her brain to come back online. She couldn’t work this case herself. Couldn’t do anything, really. She’d be on the sidelines, which meant the only thing she could do to help her husband was to answer all of Heather’s questions. Her mind needed to be quick and alert. Trout gave a little cry of protest that the second human to appear in the kitchen in the last ten minutes also hadn’t fixed Josie, and then he flopped down across her feet. Josie’s throat felt dry and scratchy. She took a sip of the tea, now cold, and told Heather everything. Then she waited for the barrage of questions she knew were coming.

The same ones she’d ask if she were in the other chair.

FOURTEEN

Heather scribbled furiously in her notebook, recording Josie’s account. Once she finished, she turned to a fresh page. Then she regarded Josie steadily, her expression unreadable. “Was Noah having issues with anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Maybe a coworker? A neighbor? A friend? Someone he arrested in the past?”

“No one,” Josie said.

“How about you two?” asked Heather. “Any problems? Marital stress?”

In other words, had their marriage deteriorated to the point that Josie had somehow set into motion a scenario that ended with Noah dead? Had she hired someone to get rid of him? Orchestrated things so that his death would look like a random home invasion? “No problems,” Josie answered.

Heather’s pen froze over her notepad. “I saw the house, Josie. It looked like you were painting one of the guest rooms. There were mobiles?—”

“We’re adopting a child,” Josie said quickly. “We’re just waiting for a match.”

Heather leaned back in her chair and tapped her pen against her lower lip. Sympathy shimmered in her amber-colored eyes. Josie tried not to wince. She much preferred Heather to keep things cold and clinical. Josie was barely keeping her own feelings in check. She didn’t have the bandwidth to contend with those of others.

“Congratulations,” Heather said. “The process of getting approved is long and tedious. That must have been stressful.”

“It was, at times, but we handled it.”

Heather turned her attention to her notebook again. “I’ve talked with your chief, but I’ll ask you as well. Are there any old cases Noah might have worked where someone he put away would want to come after him?”

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