“I don’t know,” Josie said. “Buckley made it sound so simple. Lorelei has a teenage son she’s kept from people for years because he has violent outbursts. This time things went too far.”
“If that’s what happened, why wouldn’t Emily just tell us that she has a brother, and he killed their mother and sister?”
“I don’t think that Emily actually saw the murders. I think that Holly told her to hide before anything happened.”
“Still, she knew about Rory and didn’t tell us. Why couldn’t she just tell us she had a brother?” Noah asked.
Josie thought about Emily’s reasoning for not telling secrets. It would make the bad things happen. That was her OCD. The irrational worry and the voice whispering in her ear, “Are you sure the bad things won’t happen if you tell these secrets?” Josie had explained to her repeatedly the need to tell the police whatever she knew, and yet, she could not bring herself to do it. Doing so would provoke her fight or flight response. Panic. Josie had seen and heard her in the throes of it the night before. Feeling all her feelings until they went away. No wonder she didn’t want to go through that again. There was also the issue of bad things happening in her household on a regular basis if Rory was as aggressive and uncontrollable as Buckley made him out to be. Rory’s outbursts would certainly reinforce the distorted thinking and the need for secrecy. “I think that’s her OCD,” Josie told Noah. “Remember what I told you about my conversation with Paige?”
“Yeah. That makes sense. But what about Pax? Why wouldn’t he just tell us about Rory? He has no stake in any of this, especially with Lorelei gone. It’s one less thing for his dad to be angry about.”
“I don’t know,” Josie answered. “But if Pax is riding his dirt bike through the woods on that mountain, there’s a chance he could run into Rory—who now has a gun.”
“All the more reason for Pax to tell us about Rory. Unless Pax is hiding something.”
“It seems like everyone we talk to is hiding something,” Josie groused. An image of Pax fitting his index finger between the boxes of produce on the loading dock flitted through her mind. “It might be worth trying to talk to Reed again, but right now, Rory is our main suspect and the only member of Lorelei’s household not accounted for.”
Noah pulled up beside Josie’s vehicle in the hospital parking lot. Before she got out, he leaned across the center console and kissed her deeply. Then he pressed his forehead against hers. “I’ll get the team on this right away, and when this is over, I’ll make you my wife.”
Twenty-One
Crime scene tape fluttered around the perimeter of Lorelei Mitchell’s house. Josie parked in front of the porch steps and got out. Gone was the creepy pinecone doll. Chan had taken it in for processing. A light breeze sailed through the trees surrounding the house. Birds sang. The sun shone down overhead. Josie paused to take it all in. It was so peaceful here, and so secluded. There were no neighbors. The property went for acres in every direction and where it ended, the land owned by Harper’s Peak Industries picked up. Even so, the house was still miles from the main buildings on the resort. There was no chance of anyone accidentally pulling into her driveway, as even that was well hidden. This was a well-loved sanctuary that had been turned into a small pocket of hell.
Josie walked up the steps and let herself inside. The house was silent. She moved through the living room to the dining room, noticing that the basement door was open. Had they left it open? In the kitchen, Lorelei’s blood had dried on the floor and the side of the island countertop. Someone had closed the back door. The shattered glass on the other side of the island had been pushed aside, almost as if to make room to get to the sink. Josie’s heartbeat ticked up as she approached the sink. Inside was an empty mason jar turned on its side, the lid a few inches away. Had this been in the sink yesterday, or had someone been here?
She turned back and went to the stairs, now wanting to get out of the house as quickly as she could. All she needed was some item that she could reasonably conclude belonged to Rory. Something for the dog to scent. It also wouldn’t hurt if she found some other evidence of his existence—like a photograph of some kind. She started in the last bedroom—the one with the bare twin mattress, poster, and the drawing of the angry face. Josie wondered if Rory had drawn it. Was it a representation of the rage he sometimes felt? She stood in the middle of the room and turned in a circle. How could a fifteen-year-old boy live here without any personal possessions? Josie could understand wanting to keep any objects from him that could be used to injure others, but surely he had had clothes. She made a mental note to check the closets downstairs to see if there were winter coats stored away somewhere. She was beginning to get the creeping sense that he didn’t really exist. If Vincent Buckley hadn’t seen the boy, Josie might be inclined to believe that Lorelei had made him up completely and that the drugs in her medicine cabinet really belonged to her.
On the other hand, all of Lorelei’s documents and photographs had been destroyed. Had Rory done it? Did Lorelei’s attempts to keep his existence from being known to anyone but her daughters and Buckley extend even to Rory’s own mind? Had he felt the need to destroy all traces of himself once he’d killed his mother and sister? Surely, he would have known that eventually Emily, Dr. Buckley or even Pax would tell the police of his existence. Did that mean that
