It was nearly dark when she got home. She went straight upstairs without turning on any lights and thought about her water bill as she poured herself a hot bath. The accident at the Stop and Go seemed like it had happened years ago, but it had been less than a week and all the driving still made her back hurt. Before she lowered her aching body into the water, she checked her phone for a call from Lisette. Nothing, and straight to voicemail when she tried again. She’d have to head over to Rockview first thing in the morning.
There were also, noticeably, no calls from Luke. He would have seen her missed call from earlier and heard her angry message. Still, it wasn’t unusual for him to be late, especially if he’d caught a difficult case toward the end of his shift.
As she eased back in the water, she let her mind slip between obsessing over Ginger Blackwell’s possible connection to June Spencer and Isabelle Coleman, and the fact that the chief had royally screwed her for no good reason. It was all too much. These were the very scenarios that wine was made for, and she wished she had some left. Maybe Luke would bring some with him, as an apology. She could drink it down fast while she railed at him for not disclosing his true relationship with Denise and their secret meeting about some painting.
An hour later she lay in a nest of pillows on top of her bed, wearing only a T-shirt—one of Ray’s old college T-shirts that she had taken with her when she left him—perusing the Blackwell file again. She reread the DA’s report, which offered nothing other than “no substantial evidence” supporting Ginger’s claims that she’d been abducted, unlawfully imprisoned or sexually assaulted. The DA himself had signed off on it. Josie searched for the name of the investigator assigned to review the evidence against Ginger.
“No fucking way,” she mumbled to herself. “Jimmy ‘Frisk’ Lampson?”
James Lampson had been a Denton police officer when Josie was in high school. Back then he’d been on patrol, and kids at the high school had nicknamed him Frisk because he liked to pull over teenage girls, make them get out of their cars and frisk them for no reason. It went on for a couple of years before someone’s parents finally complained. He got a slap on the wrist at first, but once Chief Harris took command he was out on his ass looking for a new job. Last she’d heard he was doing private security at the hospital.
Josie hadn’t known until she saw his name on the Blackwell report that he’d taken a job with the DA’s office. She had no idea how he’d ended up with the cushy investigator job there, but she could guess; his son was good friends with the DA’s son—both of whom had played for Denton East’s football team and both of whom had had reputations for sleeping with girls, dumping them and starting vicious rumors about them. She had no idea where those guys were now, but their fathers were still handling cases in Alcott County, and badly by the looks of it.
She thought of June still sitting in a holding cell at Denton’s police department while the DA decided what to do with her. They were actively violating her due process rights. She should already be in a psych unit. Why was the DA’s office dragging its feet? She wondered if Frisk was somehow involved and meddling in June’s case the way he likely had with Ginger’s and, if so, why?
Her cell phone startled her, sending the pages of Lampson’s report flying across her bed. The ringtone sounded like bells chiming. Not Luke. Not Lisette. Not Ray. Someone who didn’t call her often. The number was vaguely familiar, and as she answered she heard the tearful voice of Luke’s sister.
“Carrieann?” Josie said, her heart in her mouth. There was only one reason that Luke’s sister would be calling. She felt a cotton ball lodged in her throat. “Is he alive?” she choked out.
“Luke’s been shot,” Carrieann sobbed. “He’s been… shot.”
She had an image of Luke lying helpless on the side of the interstate somewhere, bleeding out and unable to call for help.
“Is he alive?” she asked again.
There was a sound like Carrieann wiping her nose and then she said, “Barely. He’s in surgery now.”
“Where? Where is he now?”
“At Geisinger. He lost so much blood. They had to life-flight him there for emergency surgery. Oh God.”
That was an hour away. Josie could make it in half that time. “I’ll meet you there,” she said, and hung up.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Carrieann Creighton was one of the sturdiest women Josie had ever met: six feet tall and muscular in all the places most women were soft and curvy. She looked like a female version of Luke. They weren’t twins. Carrieann was five years older than him and lived three hours away in a county so rural it only had one traffic light. Josie had only met her twice before. They’d gotten along well in spite of Luke’s warnings that Carrieann could be tough and stand-offish.
Josie found her in the small family waiting room outside the surgery wing, pacing in her faded, torn jeans, muddied steel-toed men’s work boots and a denim jacket layered over a flannel shirt that had seen better days. Her blond hair, just starting to show the first strands of gray, was pulled back in a ponytail. Her face was drawn, her eyes red-rimmed. The moment she saw Josie she strode across the room, devouring her in a hard hug. Seeing Carrieann in distress made it more real.
During the ride to the hospital Josie had kept her hysteria at bay by cataloging all the questions she had. She was Josie the police officer, not Josie the police officer’s fiancé. It was the only way to keep her foot on the gas, to keep moving forward, to keep her from pulling over and losing it completely on the side of the road.
Before her knees could buckle, she stumbled backward and fell into the nearest chair. Carrieann dropped into the chair beside her and reached over, squeezing Josie’s hand in hers. It was odd and somewhat alarming to see her so affectionate, as though they’d been sisters-in-law for years, but she got the feeling it was more to comfort herself than to comfort Josie. Either way, she would take it. This was uncharted territory for her. The only two people Josie had ever truly cared about before Luke were her grandmother and Ray, and neither one of them had ever been in danger. Luke had come into her life like the air she needed when her shitty life threatened to suffocate her. She’d been surviving her suspension in large part because of him. She loved his good humor, his smile, his body—his body that was fighting to stay alive at that moment. She wished she hadn’t left that message earlier. It seemed so trivial now. She hoped those words wouldn’t be the last ones he ever heard from her.
“What happened?” she asked Carrieann.
Luke’s sister looked around the room as though she had just realized they were there, alone among the vinyl upholstered chairs and old, discarded magazines. In one hand rested a balled-up tissue. She squeezed it. “They said he was in the parking lot at the barracks. He had just finished his shift. He was ambushed. Someone shot him twice. In the chest.”
Josie closed her eyes. All she could think of was his heart. It was a kill shot. How was he still alive? Tears streamed down her cheeks in hot, salty streaks.
“Oh, hon,” Carrieann said huskily as she slung an arm around Josie’s shoulders and pulled her into an awkward side hug. “He’s strong. He’s going to survive this.”
But Carrieann didn’t believe that any more than Josie did. It was just something you told yourself while you waited for an outcome that no one had any control over. “What caliber?”
“What?” Carrieann said.
“What caliber were the bullets?”
Most people would never think to ask, but Carrieann and Luke had been shooting targets and hunting game since they were old enough to hold a gun, which was younger than most people were when they first held a gun. “30-30,” Carrieann said.
“A hunting round.”