Page 71 of Husband Missing

“You gave the money to Lila, didn’t you?” Josie said. “But you never named her or turned her in which means you were either having an affair with her or she had something on you. Something so bad that you’d rather lose your job and your family and maybe even go to prison than rat her out.”

The cigarette burned down to its nub, and he flicked it onto the ground. Still no meaningful response.

Trinity said, “We’re not interested in making your life harder than it already is. Anything you tell us will be held in the strictest confidence.”

He glanced at her, brow furrowed. Josie wondered if he recognized Trinity from television. “Who are you?”

“Her victims,” Trinity answered.

A smile ghosted over his face. “Right. Was there a news article about you in this lady’s personal effects?”

“A couple, actually,” Josie said. “Some souvenirs, too. She burned our family home to the ground when we were infants. The nanny eventually died from smoke inhalation. Lila Jensen kidnapped me, passed me off as her own. Killed the man I thought was my father. Kept me in the closet for days on end with no food. Year after year. Tried to cut my face off when I was six years old.”

Josie turned her head and ran a finger along her scar. The color drained from Alec’s face.

“When I was fourteen, she burned our trailer down and disfigured her boyfriend at the time, one of the few people in my childhood who gave a shit about me.”

“She came back when we were almost thirty,” Trinity said. “Tried to kill us both.”

“Where is she?” This time, when Alec took out another cigarette, his hands shook. The mark Josie had seen earlier in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger was visible again. Small, black. A tattoo. She wasn’t close enough to see its precise shape but something about it sent up a flare in the recesses of her brain.

“Lila Jensen is dead,” Trinity said.

“But she had associates,” said Josie. “She kept things that she took from people. I’ve had them in storage for years.”

Weakly, Alec joked, “You happen to find two hundred grand in her things?”

Josie shook her head. “No, but there are people out there after something she had. We’re not sure what yet.”

“So what is this? Some kind of treasure hunt?”

“My husband is missing,” Josie said.

The lighter trembled in Alec’s hand as he lit his next smoke. “What’s that got to do with this Jensen person?”

“We’re not sure,” Trinity said.

“Whoever took my husband was looking for something in her personal effects. We think maybe that person was in trouble with someone. The kind of trouble that might get him killed. He was desperate, hoping to find the answer to his problems among the things Lila left behind, and my husband got caught up in a bad situation.”

“So we’re doing the only thing we can think to do,” Trinity added. “Which is to talk to Lila’s other victims and try to trace her movements and crimes in the years before her death.”

“It’s a long shot,” Josie admitted. “But I’ll turn over every rock on this planet if it means finding him.”

Alec held Josie’s gaze for a long moment. “Your husband. He a good guy?”

A swift and unexpected surge of emotion clogged Josie’s throat. She swallowed it. “The best.”

Alec nodded, seeming to consider something.

Josie coughed. “You should know who we are—our names and?—”

He raised a palm to silence her. “No. I don’t want to know. The less I know, the better. I’ve spent the last eight years paying for what happened, not just with my job and my family and my financial security. With my soul. You understand that?”

Josie nodded.

“When you leave here, if anyone comes to me asking about things I told you, I will deny this conversation happened. Deny we ever spoke. You got that?”

“Yes.”

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