Page 30 of Husband Missing

The thieves had torn the entire house apart. It wasn’t surprising that they’d unearthed Lila’s creepy cache of souvenirs from all the lives she’d destroyed. They’d taken the jewelry, just like they’d taken it from Josie’s bedroom. Yet, they hadn’t taken any devices. None of the laptops, tablets, televisions or the gaming system Noah and Harris often used.

Only Lila’s old photos.

“Shit.” Trinity looked down to see what had nearly sent her on her ass and smiled ruefully. “A cookbook. Why do you guys even have a cookbook? Let me guess. It belonged to Lisette or Noah’s mom and since you two culinary geniuses can barely boil water, you thought it belonged out here in storage.”

Trinity laughed at her own joke, but the high note in her voice told Josie it was forced. Suddenly, she snatched her hands away from the shelf. “Double shit.”

There were those bloody handprints again. They were spread across the shelves. This was the only place in the house they’d been found. Josie mentally replayed arriving home last night and her path as she’d cleared each room. Blood was smeared along the laundry room wall like an arrow pointing to the garage.

The blood, the handprints.

Josie shook her head hard, as if doing so could shake loose the thoughts hidden in the recesses of her brain.

The blood. The handprints. The missing photos.

“Josie?”

She could feel Trinity’s gaze on her, but her attention was on the handprints. Thetrailof handprints.

The heavy thud of her heartbeat pounded through her entire body. Without disturbing Lila’s things, she inched closer to the shelves. Each print was from a left hand. Finding the most complete print, Josie fit her hand on top of it. Her wedding band gleamed in the sunlight that slanted into the garage.

“Josie, what are you doing?” Trinity’s voice was filled with concern.

The print was the right size. She pulled her hand away and leaned in closer. There—two smudges, blurred lines—at the base of the ring finger. The barely visible, indistinct imprint of a wedding band. Her husband’s wedding band.

“Josie,” said Trinity, drawing closer. “You’re kind of freaking me out.”

A jolt of awareness hit Josie like an electric shock. A connection made. “These prints belong to Noah. I’m not sure whether he led the intruders in here or they forced him but he left these for me. The wall in the laundry room—these. It’s a message. He was trying to tell me something.”

Trinity’s fingers touched Josie’s elbow. “Josie, I think you need more sleep. We can do this later. Or leave it to Mom and Dad.”

“I don’t need sleep.” Josie laid her palm against the print again. “I know my husband, Trin.”

And Noah knew how Josie’s mind worked.

They were silent. Josie heard the muffled voices of her father and brother from the kitchen. Outside, birds chirped. A car door slammed. The single mom four doors down called for her son to come inside.

Finally, Trinity said, “What’s the message?”

“This is about Lila. Whoever did this was looking for something. If all they wanted were things they could sell for a quick buck, they would have taken the most valuable things from the most obvious places. They wouldn’t need to destroy the entire house.”

“If this was about Lila, why did they take your personal jewelry?” Trinity asked.

Josie shrugged. “They’re still criminals. If they’re tearing the entire place apart and find something small enough to fit in theirpockets that they’ll be able to sell, why not take it? But that’s not why they were here. They were searching for something. Trin, look at this place. They dumped our holiday decorations, tore everything apart! Why do that unless you were looking for something? Noah knew where to find the box. He could have told them where it was but instead he came out here with them. Maybe they forced him but regardless, he saw a chance to leave me a clue, and he took it. There’s blood in the living room—where the initial injury likely happened. Drops in the other rooms. But nothing like this. I’m telling you, he did this on purpose. He wanted me to know that this has to do with Lila.”

“But why?” said Trinity. “She’s been dead for years. You scattered her ashes.”

Josie fished her phone from her back pocket and crouched down next to the box again, snapping pictures, documenting everything before she called Heather. The state police would take all of it into evidence.

“Lila had accomplices. All the shit she did? The crimes she committed? She used to call them her ‘projects.’ She never did much dirty work herself.” Unconsciously, the fingers of Josie’s free hand traced her scar. “I mean, some things she took into her own hands but for the most part, she was a master manipulator. When she came for me last time—before she was caught—she had her accomplices help with all the things she did to me. I offered to make her prison stay more comfortable if she gave me their names.”

Trinity’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Josie, that’s?—”

“She didn’t accept the offer. Probably because it was more fun for her to know how freaked out I was that her little criminal entourage was still out there and I’d never know who they were.”

“You think the photos in this box were of her accomplices?” Trinity said.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. None of the photos were very recent. By the time I inherited that box, no one printed photos anymore. Everything had already gone digital.”

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