“Like the kind a gang can offer?”
“Dirk went to school with this Hispanic kid—Esteban Aguilar. He’s in charge of this gang now around my neighborhood. I didn’t even know Dirk still talked to the guy or knew where to find him. I told him don’t mess with no gangs. It’s not a good idea. I said, call the police. Just call the police. He said he couldn’t. So he goes to see Esteban. I don’t know what they talked about. I just know that a few weeks later he calls me up and tells me that Esteban is going to send some guys to help him get June.”
Another set of words appeared at the bottom of the television screen, beneath another photo of Isabelle grinning: “New Cell Phone Footage from the Day of Abduction Released.” Next came a video of Isabelle and another teenage girl in what looked like a bedroom. Josie recognized the other teen as Isabelle’s best friend. She’d talked on camera to Trinity many times since Isabelle’s abduction. Josie knew that the girl had stayed overnight at Isabelle’s house the night before Isabelle went missing. She’d left that morning while Isabelle’s parents were still home. The camera was tight on the girls’ faces, blocking out much of the background. They were giggling and talking and making faces at the camera.
“I said, get her from where,” Lara went on. “He said he couldn’t tell me. He said he couldn’t tell me anything. He just said that I would know if something went wrong because it would be on the news. He said if something went wrong, I should hide, and then he said ‘under no circumstances’ was I to call the police. He said the police were crooked.”
Josie was listening to Lara’s words, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the television screen. In the video, as she mugged for the camera, Isabelle made a face like she smelled something rotten. She lifted her hand to wave it back and forth in front of her nose. Her nails were long—acrylic nails like the kind you got in a nail salon. They were pink with yellow stripes. Suddenly Josie couldn’t breathe.
Lara said, “He said the police were mixed up in it.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The stall door clanged open and Josie rushed toward the toilet, falling to her knees and vomiting up everything that her precious five dollars had bought her. Her body rebelled against her. Once everything was up, she dry-heaved until her abdomen contracted painfully. A woman who had been in the restroom two stalls over stood anxiously behind her. Josie could see her white sneakers beneath her dark blue scrubs.
“Honey, are you okay?” she asked.
Josie had no idea where Lara had gone; hopefully she was still at the table. She nodded her forehead against the toilet seat. “Something I ate,” she breathed. “I’m fine.”
The woman’s feet left and returned again, closer this time. A paper towel appeared next to Josie’s face. “Take this.”
Josie thanked her and stumbled to her feet. The woman was young and blond and smiling sympathetically at Josie. Maybe it was the blond hair or her perfect skin, but she fleetingly reminded Josie of Misty.
“I’m sorry,” she told the nurse. “I’m going to be sick again.”
She turned back toward the toilet, leaning over it while her body convulsed, wishing she was alone to process what she had just seen and heard.
Ray. The man she had known and loved her entire life. He had lied about the acrylic nail. Why? There was no way he was involved in Isabelle Coleman’s abduction, but was he covering for someone? Dusty? The chief? Were they all covering for someone, or multiple someones? How far did it go? Her head spun.
The nurse laid a palm on Josie’s back, between her shoulder blades. “Do you need me to call someone, hon?”
The FBI, Josie thought.
“No, no,” she told the nurse. “I’m fine, really.”
She straightened, turned and headed for the sink where she splashed water on her face. In the mirror she could see the nurse hovering, still looking concerned. Josie forced a tight smile. “Really, I’m okay now. You don’t have to stay with me.”
The nurse pulled a cell phone from one of her scrubs pockets and looked at the display. “I really have to get back to work,” she said.
“Go ahead,” Josie told her. “I just need a few moments to compose myself. I’m fine now. Thank you.”
With one last anxious glance in Josie’s direction, she left the restroom. Josie splashed cold water on her face a few more times, rinsed her mouth with water from the faucet, and smoothed her hair down. The door swung open and Josie tensed, watching the mirror. But it was just Lara.
“What the hell was that?” she asked. She held out the granola and protein bars that Josie had bought with her credit card. “You sick or something?”
Josie took the bars from her and stuffed them into her jacket pockets. “Or something,” she said ruefully. “Listen, do you have somewhere safe you can go, for today? Can you stay out of sight?”
Lara leaned against the sink next to Josie, her fingers fidgeting with the zipper on her hoodie. “Sure,” she said. “What are you going to do now?”
Josie tore a paper towel from the dispenser beside the sinks and dried her hands. “I’m going to talk to my husband.”
Chapter Forty-Six
She found an area outside near the entrance, but far enough away from it that no one would overhear her. Immediately after Luke’s shooting, the press had descended on the hospital, hungry for news of his condition, but now only two news vans sat across from the hospital’s entrance, their occupants nowhere to be found.
Pacing back and forth, she dialed Ray. The call went to voicemail and she hung up without leaving a message. From the other side of the entrance, Lara stared at her. Josie had no idea where she’d found a cigarette, but she lifted one to her lips and inhaled. Josie waited three long, tortuous minutes and dialed again. This time, he picked up on the fourth ring.
“Jo?”
The moment she heard his voice—so familiar, a voice that had been a source of comfort to her since she was nine years old—a sob rose in the back of her throat. She tried to keep it down, but her voice cracked when she said his name.
Ray’s voice was filled with concern and a tinge of urgency. “Jo?” he said again. “Are you okay? What’s going on? Where are you?”
She took in a long, shuddering breath. “I’m with Luke,” she said, her voice shaking. “But I guess you know that, don’t you?”
He completely missed the accusatory note in her voice. “I’m sorry, Jo,” he said. “I saw it on the news. How is he?”
So he was going to act stupid, normal, like he hadn’t lied to her face. “He’s clinging to his life, you asshole.”
He sounded genuinely confused. “What?”
“You and your… cronies know exactly how he’s doing. Tell me, Ray. Did the shooter mean to kill him or just to wound him? Who did you send? Because whoever it was—they’re not a very good shot.”
His tone got slightly colder. It had none of the indignation she would have expected had he known nothing at all about who was behind Luke’s shooting. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Josie.”
He never called her Josie.
“How many of you are involved, Ray?” she asked. “How far does this go?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Who is Ramona?”
There was a beat of silence followed by a long sigh. “There is no Ramona.”
“I know that’s not her real name. Who is she?”
“I wish you would stop with this,” he said. “I’m getting concerned about you. You’re starting to sound crazy, Jo. You’re not handling this suspension very well. Making up people with fake names, harassing the department when we’re in the middle of an investigation. Even that stunt you pulled with Misty the other night. What did you say to her?”
“What?”