Josie said, “That’s a good point. She knew to hide when Rory got violent. That was part of the safety plan.”
“But she didn’t actually see the murders,” Gretchen said. “That’s the theory we’re operating on. Things got violent and she hid.”
“Still, the safety plan applied to Rory,” Josie insisted.
Chitwood said, “Maybe the Pax kid was there that morning. Maybe things got heated and Emily just went to her hiding place because that’s what she’d been conditioned to do.”
“Then why wouldn’t she just tell us Paxton was there?” said Gretchen.
“She didn’t even tell us she had a brother,” Chitwood pointed out. “But she did mention Paxton. She told the social worker about him, didn’t she?”
Josie nodded.
Noah said, “Paxton Bryan has an alibi for the time Lorelei and Holly were killed.”
“His dad,” Josie said. “Reed Bryan isn’t going to win any awards for father of the year, but I believe he’d lie to protect his son. Still, something about all of this doesn’t fit.”
“Then we don’t have all the pieces yet,” Chitwood said. “We’ll bring Reed in for questioning. We also need to find all three of these kids: Pax, Rory, and Emily. We need to do it now before anyone else gets hurt. I’ll send patrol over to the Bryan farm and the market right away.”
Noah said, “If Pax isn’t there and he’s driving around in one of his dad’s vans, we need to put a BOLO out on whatever vehicle he’s using. We’ve still got the issue of Rory Mitchell, who may or may not be homicidal, wandering around in the woods.” He turned to Gretchen. “What happened with the searches?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened. All we found were the spent shotgun shells near where Lisette went down. As you know, we can’t get prints from them once they’ve been shot from the gun, so they’re useless.”
Noah said, “What about the dogs? They didn’t find anything?”
Gretchen shook her head. “We’ve had three dozen people and two K-9 units out working all night long. They’ve got nothing. We had clothes for Emily’s scent, and we found a coat at Lorelei’s house that we believe belongs to Rory that we used for his scent. Those dogs ran for miles through the woods, until they were almost falling over from exhaustion. They lost both scents.”
“Dogs don’t lose scents very often,” Josie said. “Unless there are certain weather conditions—of which there were none—or the person is carried off in a vehicle.”
Noah said, “Whose vehicle would they get into?”
“As far as we know right now, Paxton is the only person in this entire scenario with access to a vehicle,” Josie said.
Chitwood said, “Which is another reason why we’re going to find that kid as soon as possible.”
Josie asked, “Did anyone find out whether Celeste was lying or not about what time Emily disappeared?”
Noah said, “I found the employee Lisette spoke with. He called Celeste a full two hours before Adam called us. I asked her about it, but she would only say that she lost track of time.”
“Bullshit,” Josie muttered.
Gretchen said, “Both Rory’s and Emily’s scents were found at Harper’s Peak.”
Chitwood said, “We know why Emily’s was there. But why would Rory be up the mountain that far? He wouldn’t have known that’s where she was.”
Josie said, “Neither would Pax. No one told him where Emily was going. Even if he’d driven up there to deliver something for his father, Emily was at the private residence. He couldn’t have seen her.”
Gretchen said, “Unless he overheard someone on the staff talking about it.”
Chitwood said, “All right. What we’ve got here is the following scenario: the girl was at the private residence at Harper’s Peak yesterday. Rory Mitchell was out in the woods. We know that because he beat the hell out of Quinn, and she chased him. Pax was at the stationhouse giving a statement for some of yesterday and then Mettner dropped him back off at the produce market. Shortly after that, Emily walked out of the residence and into the woods. Lisette saw her. It appeared as though she was alone. When Lisette took Quinn to check out the spot where the girl went into the woods, someone shot at them. Searchers trawled the mountain from the Mitchell house to Harper’s Peak looking for Rory and Emily and found nothing. Next thing we know, Pax shows up here and leaves the creepy doll on Quinn’s car.”
“Yep,” Gretchen said. “That’s where we are.”
Josie’s phone buzzed in her scrubs pocket. She took it out to see a text message from Trinity. “We can see my grandmother now.”
Twenty-Nine
Lisette was still sleeping. She looked tiny and frail in the hospital bed, dwarfed by all the equipment attached to her. For the first time, she looked old, Josie realized. In her seventies and eighties, even with a walker and terrible arthritis, Lisette had always seemed so vital to Josie. In Josie’s mind, she had never aged. She was always the woman who took Josie roller skating and to the beach for the first time. Full of energy. A mischievous sparkle in her eye. Josie wished she would open her eyes, but the medical staff had told them it could be hours before she woke.
Her right arm was in a thick cast and propped on a pillow. At least someone had taken the time to clean her up. Gone was all the blood, although Josie could still see some wounds starting to scab over where Dr. Nashat had removed the buckshot on her good arm and on her chest where the hospital gown had drooped. The ICU nurse only let two of them in at a time and only for ten minutes each. Noah stood behind Josie as she stared down at Lisette. Her tears came hot and fast. They were unstoppable. Compartmentalizing was one of Josie’s special skills, but looking down at her grandmother—easily the most formidable woman Josie had ever known—she felt like her heart was splintering into a million pieces. She would never be
