Page 67 of Husband Missing

This wasn’t happening now.

Josie’s body collided with something, sending her staggering backward. Not something, someone. Hands gripped her upper arms and spun her. “In,” said a voice that sounded like Gretchen’s. Josie couldn’t be sure. Blood rushed in her ears, distorting everything. Cold tiles touched her bare feet. Light exploded around her. A door clicked closed. Her ass landed on the cool, flimsy plastic lid of a toilet.

She was in Gretchen’s bathroom, sobbing.

It was coming out. All of it—the panic, the rage, the pain, the despair, the pressure, the unbearable missing of her other half, and now the death of their shared dream—spilling from her in violent bursts she could no longer contain. Heat stung her wet cheeks. A spasm rocked her abdomen, forcing her to fold over and dip her head between her knees. Snot poured unceremoniously from her face, mixing with saliva, pooling near her feet. Her body always made too much saliva when she cried. It was embarrassing and annoying. Josiehatedcrying.

Noises broke through the roar in her ears. A rustling. The soft tearing of something. Then a hand gently gathered all the fluids leaking from her face onto a wad of toilet paper. Gretchen said, “I promise you, it will lessen. Stop fighting it, Josie.”

Her chest constricted. She tried to speak, to tell Gretchen that she couldn’tnotfight it but the sheer strength of the feelings forcing their way out of her body took up too much of her energy, too much of her internal coordination. What did she even have if she couldn’t fight? She’d had to fight for her very survival from such a young age, she didn’t know anything else. That was what she had, what she did best.

Gretchen knew it. Raised by a mother with Munchausen syndrome by proxy, she still bore the scars of her childhood. They were the same that way. They needed the fight almost as much as they needed oxygen to survive.

Another wad of toilet paper swiped at Josie’s face. “This is not a battle you need to win,” Gretchen told her matter-of-factly. Josie appreciated her tone and the way she didn’t try to soothe. No rubbing of Josie’s back, or hugs, or soft, encouraging words. This pain was too raw, too deep and elemental for all that.

The only person who could touch her when she got like this was Noah.

Another dam broke and this time, Josie let it disintegrate. She surrendered, letting her body do what it needed to do until she was completely spent. Lifting her heavy head, she blinked her swollen eyes until Gretchen came into focus, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her. She was wearing a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that said,I Like My Cat and Maybe Three People.

Unexpectedly, Josie laughed. It sounded unhinged and ended in a hiccup.

Gretchen looked down at the shirt and grinned. “Funny, right? ’Cause it’s so true. Paula got it for me.”

Josie nodded.

“You’re one of the three, by the way.”

“I know,” said Josie, her voice throaty and thick.

FORTY-SIX

Gretchen didn’t press, didn’t ask her to talk about her feelings. Maybe that was why Josie blurted out, “The adoption agency called. Our approval has been revoked. We can’t take care of a baby when one of us has been abducted. This is the second time in the last few months that our home was broken into. I don’t think—” A breath lodged in her chest, causing a strange, high-pitched noise to erupt from her throat, her body fighting more sobs. Once she could speak again, she finished, “I don’t think we’ll get approved again.”

Gretchen watched her intently. Josie braced herself for the “I’m so sorry” that she knew would hit like a nail in a goddamn coffin. Instead, Gretchen said, “There’s more than one way to expand your family.”

She didn’t elaborate and Josie didn’t ask her to because Gretchen had already given her what she needed. A potential life raft, far off in the distance. Maybe she’d reach it, maybe she wouldn’t, but all she needed to get through this moment was that little smudge on the horizon that could be hope. There wasn’t the slightest insinuation that they might not get Noah back, that she and Noah wouldn’t move toward that horizon together.

“I know you’ve been asking that jackass for updates on the Gina Phelan case,” Gretchen said. “Even though you’re off the case.”

This was exactly the distraction and the kind of normalcy Josie needed after the meltdown she’d just had. “Don’t worry. He’s ignoring me.”

Gretchen tore more toilet paper from the roll and handed it to Josie. “He’s been busy. Lots of other cases. The rest of Denton’s criminal element carries on as usual. Also, I think his ass is chapped.”

Josie wiped at her nose. “How come?”

Gretchen laughed. “Besides the fact that Tilly Phelan can barely tolerate him and keeps asking for you?”

Josie said nothing.

“You made him look like the jackass he is—he said you spotted a rideshare in one of the videos.”

“I did,” Josie said.

“Tomorrow on the news there’s going to be an update on the Gina Phelan case.”

Josie’s heart raced. She stayed silent, letting Gretchen continue.

“There was a rideshare that drove down the street around the time Gina Phelan was stabbed. The driver had just dropped someone off. He got another request. He was fiddling with his GPS, trying to find a pickup location, so he didn’t see anything, but as his vehicle passed by, the dash camera picked up a male in a brown hoodie and jeans locked in some kind of struggle with Gina Phelan.”

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