Page 21 of Husband Missing

Josie had thought about that for the last few hours but come up empty. “No. None.”

Heather didn’t bother to sugarcoat the next question or to preface it by saying something about her just having to do her job, how these were standard questions she was required to ask. “Is there any chance Noah was having an affair?”

“No,” Josie said with certainty.

“Does he have any drug or gambling problems?”

Josie knew these were the correct questions to ask in this scenario. They were exactly the ones she would have asked and yet, it rankled. But wasn’t it like that for all spouses in her position? You thought you knew your partner. You were so certain. Then one day you came home to an empty, trashed house, blood everywhere, and the person you thought you knew better than yourself was gone.

Could Noah have been having an affair? Could he have a well-hidden gambling problem? Or a drug problem? They didn’t spend every moment together. But wouldn’t she have noticed? Suspected? Or, in some sick twist of irony, would she have beenthe last to suspect? Had she grown too complacent? Given Noah too much trust?

“Josie?”

Or had there been something deeper going on? Something more personal to Noah? His parents had married as teenagers after an unplanned pregnancy. They’d stayed together and had two more children. Noah was the youngest. His childhood had been ideal. A stable home. Two loving parents. Caring older siblings. Youth sports leagues. Holidays filled with fun traditions. Family vacations. Everything Josie always desperately wished her own childhood had held—would have held if she hadn’t been abducted at three weeks old by a psychopath, not to be reunited with her biological family until the age of thirty. Then after Noah turned eighteen, his father left to start a new family. He’d been counting down to his youngest child’s eighteenth birthday like a man waiting to be released from prison. Noah had been left behind with his devastated mother to pick up the pieces. Everything they thought they knew about their lives felt like a lie.

Trout’s head lifted. A small keening noise came from his little body.

Noah had promised Josie he was nothing like his father and that he would never act like his father, but what if it wasn’t something he’d been able to control? What if he’d grown tired of their life? What if he didn’t want this anymore? Always having to deal with her trauma-informed responses and now the responsibility of adopting a child? What if he had started an affair or developed a drug or gambling problem to avoid facing the fact that he no longer wanted a life with her?

“Josie?”

No. Sheknewhim. He wasn’t a coward. In fact, his wedding vow to her had been that he’d always run toward the danger with her. If he’d been unhappy, he would have talked with herabout it. Not turned to drugs or gambling or the arms of another woman only to have it blow up in his face.

Heather touched Josie’s forearm. Trout jumped up, yipping, and swatted his paw at where their skin met. Startled, Heather withdrew her hand. “It’s okay, little buddy,” she said soothingly. Trout gave her a wary look before dropping back down. With a huff, he flopped across Josie’s feet again.

“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “What was the question?”

“Does Noah have a drug or gambling problem?”

“No,” Josie said. “He doesn’t.”

“Do you have any idea who might have broken into your house?”

“No.”

Heather adjusted her reading glasses. “We found Noah’s service pistol in your living room. There was also a bullet lodged in the baseboard of the foyer wall. Same type found in the magazine of his gun. We’ll run ballistics, but we’re fairly certain it came from Noah’s gun since the mag is only missing one round and there’s a spent casing near where his weapon was found.”

Just as Josie had suspected, he’d fired on someone inside their home and missed.

“How many firearms do the two of you have at your residence?” asked Heather.

“We each have a service pistol, and I have a personal one. A Smith and Wesson M&P, nine-millimeter. It should be in my nightstand vault—if it wasn’t taken.”

“The lockbox was there,” Heather said. “If you give us the code to get into it, we’ll make sure your firearm wasn’t taken.”

Josie told her.

“I know the house was a mess and you weren’t in there very long, but did it look like anything was missing?”

“My jewelry. Other than that, I’m not sure. The place was trashed, and I was trying to clear it.”

Heather turned to a blank page in her notebook and pushed it, along with her pen, toward Josie. “Make me a list of what was taken. If you’ve got photos, send those along to me later. Your laptops, televisions, tablets, all that sort of stuff, those were all still there, weren’t they?”

Josie nodded as she quickly jotted down the items she could remember.

“I’ll need access to Noah’s phone. I’ll get a warrant, but?—”

“I’ll sign a consent form.” Josie wrote his passcode at the bottom of her list and pushed the notepad back to Heather. It was the date of their first kiss.

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