Page 59 of Husband Missing

“I’ve just come from speaking with Eva Owens.”

A flicker of recognition flashed through her eyes. Her entire face brightened. Eva was right. They definitely had a connection. She was probably the only person Roe had ever encountered who had shown her, if not kindness, civility.

Josie took a deep breath, wondering where to start. She hadn’t thought this through. She’d been too focused on driving forward, plowing through the day, doing anything at all to keep her heart from breaking out of its protective shell while she combed through Lila’s past in the hopes that something would lead her to Noah. She’d spent the drive to the prison calling Turner and getting his voicemail instead of thinking about what she’d say when she got here.

Thirty-nine hours.

Evidently, Roe grew bored with her silence. The metal of her handcuffs clinked as she awkwardly simulated rocking an infant in her arms, just like Eva described. She dipped her head toward the empty space. Josie wasn’t sure if she was lost in memory or if this was some kind of self-soothing behavior. Either way, the creepiness of the tableau brought the fine hairs at the nape ofher neck to standing. A stinging sensation sliced down the side of her face, tracing her scar.

She wished Trinity was here but there was no way to make that happen. Besides, Josie knew this was a demon she had to face alone. She was finished running. Finished stuffing the echoes of Lila’s imprint on her life into bins and ignoring them. Finished being at the mercy of those old traumas. She would never be completely free of them, but she refused to be cowed by them. Not now. She had a husband to find. No amount of emotional baggage was going to stand in her way. She’d sit across from a thousand murderers while her skin crawled if that’s what it took to get to Noah.

“Roe,” Josie said. “I knew your little girl. The one—” She broke off, considering how to phrase it. The one you didn’t kill? The one who survived?

But she didn’t need to finish. Roe’s eyes grew wide and filled with tears. Her hands slid across the table, the right one shaking badly, causing the handcuffs to clank against the surface. The guard said, “No touching, Roe. You know that.”

Roe froze. Her lips opened and closed. It took Josie a moment to realize she was trying to form a word. It was difficult to watch her struggle. The way her lips almost puckered, flapping against each other, made Josie think whatever she was trying to say began with a P.

“Please?” Josie said. “Are you trying to say please?”

Roe nodded her head vigorously. Her blue eyes filled with something that made Josie’s heart pinch. Hope. Had she really waited decades for news of her one surviving child? Did she care? It seemed strange that she did, given what she’d done. Then again, she’d let Lila live.

It seemed Lila hadn’t revealed her identity when she met with Roe.

Josie grimaced. She’d told Eva that she intended to see Roe and asked her just how much to tell her about Lila—if anything at all. Without hesitation, Eva insisted Josie tell her everything.

So she did.

Other than the uncontrollable movements of her right hand, Roe hardly moved while Josie matter-of-factly told her everything that she knew about Lila. All her crimes. All her acts of savagery. Josie recited the details without emotion, like a clinician in a research lab presenting her findings without assigning any meaning to them. Tears rolled slowly down Roe’s face. Josie watched the storm raging in her eyes. Were they more expressive because she couldn’t speak, or was she imagining that? When Josie told her that Lila was dead, they filled with something she had never seen in the depths of Lila’s eyes. It was so jarring, a gasp nearly escaped Josie’s lips.

Sorrow. Deep sorrow.

Then Roe’s mouth worked again, trying to form another word. This time, her lips rolled together before popping open. “Buh.” A puff of air. No, a word starting with B.

“Baby?” Josie said.

Roe shook her head and dragged her hands to her chest, beating against it. Each time she tried to say the word, her brows furrowed, face crumpling just a little, like she was in pain. “Buh. Roe, buh.”

Josie’s stomach felt strange, weightless. “You’re trying to say bad.”

An energetic nod.

“Bad like you.”

Her nod became more subdued.

The next question flew out of Josie’s mouth before she could stop it. “Are you sorry?”

Shit. She wasn’t here for this. It didn’t matter. Nothing could be undone. The damage was irrevocable. The scars permanent.

Roe nodded solemnly, pressing her clenched fists to her chest.

Josie felt her control slipping. Fury slithering through the cracks of her mental shell, tendrils spreading, looking for vulnerable places to root. “Sorry for what she did?” Her voice vibrated with anger. She was aware of the guard’s curious eyes on her, but she was beyond caring.

Roe nodded.

“Or are you sorry that you let her live?”

FORTY-ONE

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