Page 74 of Husband Missing

Josie repeated the question.

He laughed humorlessly and gestured toward the building with his cigarette. Ash broke off and fluttered to the ground. “I work at this dump almost seventy hours a week and when I’mnot here, I’m trying to earn a little extra designing websites, like I said. What do you think?”

Trinity glanced at Josie briefly. Their eyes met for a heartbeat but it was enough to activate their twin telepathy. Her sister didn’t know where Josie was going with her questions, but she played along anyway. “Are you telling me you don’t scroll social media when you’re on the toilet like a normal person?” she asked Alec.

This time his laughter was deep and genuine. “Not since the trial. Reading all the negative comments about myself put me off social media for life.”

Josie pointed toward his hand. “Is that a tattoo?”

Alec took one final exhale before discarding his cigarette butt. Turning his hand over, he rubbed at the tattoo. “Oh yeah. Manly, right?”

Trinity stepped closer, peering at it. “It looks like one of those sticky hand toys.”

“I guess it does.”

Her sister was right. Except it still only had four fingers. Four points. Round. Sticky. Josie was convinced it was an animal print though, just not a paw. She thought about driving into Williamsport today on Route 15, passing Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland. She and Noah had taken little Harris there three times. He loved it.

“It’s a frog footprint,” Josie blurted out. “A tree frog.”

Harris had wanted a tree frog for a pet after the first time they went. Misty was making him wait until he was a little older although Josie suspected she just didn’t want live crickets in her house.

Alec stared down at the tattoo, eyes going hazy. “That’s right. When we first adopted Erica, she was in bad shape emotionally. I started taking her to Clyde Peeling’s, just the two of us. Sheloved it. Over and over we went until she started talking to me. Really talking. Being herself. Smiling, laughing.”

“That’s lovely,” Trinity whispered.

“The frogs were her favorite. The first time she called me dad—” his voice broke, “we were watching the orange-eyed tree frogs, and she said it. I almost cried right then and there. Later, when she got older, she told me that was the first time she felt like she had a real dad. Then for her eighteenth birthday, she wanted…”

The words got stuck in his throat. He pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to compose himself, and knocking his red paper hat off in the process. It fluttered to the ground.

“You got matching tattoos.” Josie’s heart galloped. She felt its heavy beats all the way to her fingertips. “Hers is behind her ear. Her left ear.”

Trinity’s eyes snapped toward Josie.

Alec dropped his hands, glassy eyes staring at her in shock.

Josie forged ahead, barely able to hear her own words over the blood roaring in her ears. “Was that Erica you were talking on the phone with when we got here?”

His shock turned to suspicion, lines creasing his forehead. “Yeah. Why?”

Josie decided to test out whether she’d heard him right when he muttered under his breath. “She’s at the Patio Motel, isn’t she? In Denton?”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Erica might be in danger.”

He turned away from her and shouted a curse as he stomped his feet on the ground. Josie took that as a yes.

“You didn’t want to know our names, but I have to advise you that I’m a detective for the Denton Police Department.”

“Shit,” he said, keeping his back to her. “Is this about Bethany Rounds—I mean, Lila Jensen?”

“No,” Josie said. “It’s something else.”

Facing them once more, he said, “I don’t understand.”

“I’m here as a private citizen. This is my sister, Trinity Payne. She’s a television journalist.”

The stream of expletives that poured from Alec’s mouth was lengthy and impressive, even by a police officer’s standards.

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