Page 39 of Husband Missing

His head reared back. “Don’t what?”

“She doesn’t like pity,” Trinity said.

Turner focused his attention on her. The two of them smiled at one another. Genuine smiles. Maybe this was worse than Turner’s pity. Josie was going to be sick.

“Miss Payne,” he said.

“Kyle, thank you for coming.”

There was something between them, for sure. It wasn’t flirting or even attraction, but it was something. Mutual respect. That was it. Her sister commanded respect in everything she did, but Turner? Josie still didn’t see it and with Noah missing, she didn’t have the inclination to interrogate the two of them about their prior connection or whatever the hell they weren’t telling her.

He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out one of his canned energy drinks. The pop of the tab seemed unusually loud. After guzzling what must have been half of it down, he used the back of his hand to wipe errant piss-yellow drops from his upper lip. “Quinn,” he said. “I’m not supposed to feel bad for you?”

“It’s a cardinal sin,” Trinity explained.

Josie stared straight ahead at her untouched blonde latte. “Pity isn’t going to bring Noah back.”

Turner sighed. “No, it’s not, but you know how much I love to piss you off, and a pissed-off Josie Quinn might be exactly the thing to bring Noah home. So yeah, I feel really fucking bad for you.”

That sounded suspiciously like a compliment. Sort of. Maybe. But for the sake of having some normalcy, she said, “Screw you, douchebag.”

“Josie!” Trinity admonished.

“You’re not getting a dollar for that,” Josie added.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll take it out of your jar back at the stationhouse. Now, are you ready to hear what I have to say?”

“Please,” said Trinity.

“For the record, I was already pissed off before you walked in here.”

Ignoring her, Turner started talking. “Wait’ll you hear this crazy shit. The prints on the mug from your guy in Fairfield match the prints found in your house, prints found in two of the armed robberies, and…” He paused, blue eyes sparkling, as if listening to a silent drumroll.

“What?” Josie asked irritably.

“They match prints found on the knife that killed Gina Phelan.”

Josie’s spine snapped straight. “What?”

Her voice was loud enough to draw the attention of the college students. Turner smiled at them and they went back to their laptops.

“That’s right,” said Turner smugly. “This Dylan, or whoever the hell he is, was involved in at least two of the armed robberies—the ones over in Bellewood, not in our jurisdiction—then he went to your friend’s house last week and yesterday, he stabbedGina Phelan around two in the afternoon before he hit your house in the evening.”

“Were there other prints on the knife used to stab Gina Phelan?” Josie asked.

“One unidentified partial,” Turner answered. “Which may or may not belong to blondie.”

Josie pictured the blonde woman running away, plunging into the crowd, not looking back. Covered in blood. Gina’s or hers? Or both? “When Hummel typed the blood on the blade, how many types did he come up with?”

“Just one,” Turner said. “Same blood type as Gina Phelan’s. Hummel was able to pull DNA from the knife handle but if this guy isn’t in CODIS, that won’t help. And before you ask, I’ve been over everything we’ve got on the Phelan case twenty times trying to shake something loose now that I know it’s connected to the LT. We even managed to grab a couple more videos from some businesses across the street that weren’t cooperating the first time they were canvassed. Unfortunately, they don’t show us anything more than what we’ve already got.”

Josie’s mind labored to slot all of this information into a puzzle that was exponentially bigger than she’d initially thought. From what they knew about the string of armed robberies, there were at least three men involved. The two unlucky residents who had been home when the burglars struck gave statements to that effect. Unfortunately, the perpetrators had worn hoodies and gaiters, making it impossible for those witnesses to give a description that might help locate them. If Dylan was part of the armed robbery crew, that tracked with the theory that more than one person had broken into her home and subdued Noah.

Heather would definitely be focusing more heavily on the armed robbery angle now.

Josie would be taken off the Gina Phelan case. Burglary would be one of the charges filed against the perpetrators inNoah’s abduction case which made Josie a victim as well since she lived with him. It put her too close to Gina’s murder case and risked tainting that investigation.

Josie mumbled a curse.

---