“What if Pax knows where Emily is?” Josie heard herself say.
Chitwood threw his chips back into the bag and rolled it up, putting it into his suit jacket pocket. Josie expected him to say something like, “You’re not on the clock right now, Quinn,” or “Absolutely not,” but he was silent.
Noah turned to her. “You don’t have to do this. It doesn’t always have to be you.”
Josie said, “In this case, though, it does. If we knew where Emily was, I wouldn’t even consider it. But if there’s even a chance that we can find her… I won’t even be able to see Gram for another two hours. I’ll be back before that.”
“Josie,” Noah said.
“There is a scared little girl out there who has just lost her entire family and probably witnessed her father’s murder—although she doesn’t know Reed was her father—my point is that she’s lost everyone. She’s deeply traumatized, and we don’t know where she is right now. She has no one, Noah. No one. Even I had my—”
Josie broke off, finding it suddenly hard to force air into her lungs. She looked away from them, focusing on her breath, trying to stay calm. She felt Noah’s hand slip into hers. “Your grandmother,” he finished for her. “I get it.”
Chitwood said, “I would not allow this if a girl’s life wasn’t at stake, but I can stay here while you go talk to Paxton Bryan. But you have to keep yourself together. For all we know, this kid is the one who’s been running around the woods shooting at people. If you go in there, the focus has to be on Emily, not on your grandmother. You got that? If this kid ever has to go to court to be tried for what he’s done, we can’t have any confessions he might make thrown out because you were the one taking them.”
Josie looked back at him and nodded.
Chitwood lifted his chin toward Gretchen. “Palmer, you handle this. Take Quinn over to the stationhouse. Bring her back as soon as you can. If anything happens here—if there is even a hint of a change in Mrs. Matson’s condition, I’ll be on the horn before you can snap your fingers. Now go.”
Thirty-Two
Neither Josie nor Gretchen spoke on the drive to the stationhouse. As the large building came into view, Josie felt a release of some of the tension building inside her. Here was the place where the world made sense. Here was the place where she knew what to do and what to say. She had purpose. There were always puzzles for her mind to labor over. Always distractions from anything that her heart didn’t want to dwell on. Today, most of all, she needed that feeling, if only for an hour.
Josie waited at her desk while Gretchen had Pax moved from the holding cells in the basement to one of the interrogation rooms on the second floor. Once he was in a room, Josie waited in the adjacent CCTV monitoring area while Gretchen got him a water and some crackers, which he left untouched in front of him. She read him his rights again and waited for him to request a lawyer. All he would say was, “I want to talk to Josie Quinn.”
Gretchen left him at the table in the small room and met Josie in the hallway. “He’s all yours.”
While Gretchen disappeared into the CCTV room to monitor the interview, Josie stood in front of the door, shoring herself up. Emily. She just had to find Emily. If one good thing came out of this horrific situation, it would be locating Emily safe and alive. With a deep breath, she pushed through the door. Pax, who had been hunched over, his elbows leaning on the table, sat up. His eyes grew wide and Josie felt his palpable relief. There was a chair opposite him. Josie dragged it around to his side of the table, pushing it as close to him as she possibly could before sitting down.
He turned slightly to face her. Josie pushed her face into his personal space and said, “Where’s Emily?”
His lower lip quivered. “I—I don’t know.”
“Pax. Someone I love is dying a mile away in the hospital. I do not have to be here. Even though you asked for me, I did not have to come. I’m here because I want to find your sister. Now where is she?”
His voice was barely audible. “I don’t know. I swear to you, I don’t know.”
“Then why am I here, Pax?”
A single tear slid down his cheek. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. His left shoulder shrugged. It was a tic, Josie realized.
“Rory killed my dad.”
Josie sat back in her chair. “I’m sorry to hear that, Pax,” she said. “Can you tell me about it?”
“We were in the barn. Me, Rory, Emily—”
“How did Rory and Emily end up in your barn?”
“I brought them there.”
“Half the county has been looking for them for the last two days, Pax. How did you find them?”
His shoulder shrugged twice in quick succession. “When that other officer dropped me off the other day—after I was here—my dad was busy, so I grabbed my bike and I rode back up into the woods. Look, I knew Rory was in the woods, okay? I saw him that day you found me out riding around.”
“Did you talk to him that day?”
“No, he was running away.”
“That’s a lot of woods back there,” Josie said. “How could you find him when no one else could?”
“When I would come over to Miss Lorelei’s house, sometimes he and I would go exploring. He said it helped him with his… creature.”
“You mean his rage,” Josie
