“Chief,” she squeaked.
“Trust Fraley. He’s clean. I’m promoting you to chief. You’re reinstated and promoted. Don’t… don’t trust anyone else. You’ll… you’ll have to bring in… new—”
“I’ll bring in new people,” she promised.
“Watch your… watch your back.”
“I will.”
His eyelids fluttered. “Call…”
She touched his cheek gently. “Chief?”
“FBI.”
“Okay, I will.”
His eyes opened wide and he held her gaze with a penetrating intensity that made goosebumps erupt over her entire body. “Get them,” he said. “Get them all.”
Then he exhaled for the very last time.
Chapter Sixty-One
She covered the chief with a sheet from the bed as reverently as she could in the godforsaken hellhole they were in. Nick’s body had gone completely still amongst the wide and extensive blood and bone spatter all around him. She let herself sob for several minutes beside her mentor, holding her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth like a child. She wailed and keened and let herself feel the unfathomable loss she had just experienced for a few private moments. Then she wiped her tears away and hauled herself to her feet. She found her pants and put them back on. Then she surveyed the room. She had to think. She had to be smart about this.
First things first. She had to open the doors. Dread was a heavy brick in her stomach. She didn’t know which door Gosnell had taken her out of so she would have to check each one. She started with the closest one and worked her way down. Much to her relief, the first cell was empty, although it looked as though it had been recently vacated. A crumpled blanket lay on the wooden cot, and a discarded fast food bag lay on the floor. When she opened the second door, she saw Ray’s boots and closed it again. She couldn’t bear to see him. Not like that. Not yet.
She sucked in a breath and opened the third door. Empty. Behind the fourth door a thin, waifish form curled cowering in the corner of the cell. She balled herself up tighter when Josie stepped through the door. “Hello?” Josie called. The woman shot upright and scurried away from her, one pale thin arm covering her eyes. “No more,” she said, her voice hoarse. Josie didn’t think it possible but the rage she felt toward Gosnell for all the horror he had inflicted on so many innocent young women burned even hotter.
“It’s okay,” Josie said. “You’re safe now. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Josie waited several moments. Finally, the woman lowered her arm and blinked, taking Josie in. It wasn’t Isabelle Coleman. This woman was likely in her mid-twenties, with short dark hair and a pointy chin. “Who are you?” the woman asked, the question sounding like an accusation.
“My name is Josie Quinn. I am a detect—” she stopped, tears rolling unbidden down her cheeks. She glanced back to where the chief’s body lay. Then she continued, straightening her posture and raising her chin proudly. “I’m the new chief of police in this town, and I’ve come to get you out of here.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
The woman stood on shaky legs, skeletal in an ill-fitting lace bra and underwear. “Wait here,” Josie told her and quickly retrieved a blanket she had found in the empty cell. She held it out to the woman. “Here.”
Still eyeing Josie with suspicion, the woman slowly wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. “What’s your name?” Josie asked.
“Rena,” the woman said, voice cracking with a sudden burst of emotion. “Rena Garry.”
Josie held out a hand to her. “Rena, we have to get out of here. Now.”
The woman’s eyes flashed with understanding. She gripped Josie’s hand and followed her out of the cell.
“It’s not a pretty sight out here,” Josie said. “Look straight ahead toward the door. Don’t look down.”
Josie tried to rush her past Nick Gosnell’s ravaged body, but Rena stopped, pulling insistently on Josie’s hand. Josie tugged back. “Please,” she said. “We have to go.”
Rena stood over him, staring. “This is him,” she said. “He was here every day.”
“This was his place,” Josie confirmed. “Listen, we really have to—”
Josie’s eyes were drawn to the chief’s body. Struck by a thought, she dropped Rena’s hand. “Just a second,” she told her, but the woman’s eyes were fixed on Gosnell’s body with fierce intensity.
Josie left her there long enough to search out the chief’s cell phone, which she found in his back pocket. As she strode back toward Rena, she realized that she couldn’t exactly call 911. Who would she call? The chief had told her not to trust anyone. Not that there was even a cell phone signal on the mountain, she thought, looking at the screen. She’d have to go to Gosnell’s house and use their landline.
She grasped Rena’s hand once more. “Please,” she said. “We need to get out of here.”
“Did you do this?” Rena asked.
Josie looked down, really seeing what she had done as if for the first time. Through someone else’s eyes. Gosnell’s eyes pulpy caved-in messes, blood streaking his face. The front of his jeans shredded, blood pooling all around him. The jagged edges of bone sticking out from his left knee. The space where his right knee used to be. Bone splinters, tissue, sinew, and blood all around him. Close-range shots and devastating damage.
“Yes,” she said. “I did.”
She watched as Rena spit on Gosnell’s body. Then she said, “Let’s go.”
Josie nodded, pocketing the chief’s cell phone and pulling Rena toward the door, only stopping to snatch up the chief’s gun in the corner. She put it in the waistband of her jeans, and pushed the mangled door aside. Daylight flooded around them, nearly blinding them. Rena threw an arm up over her eyes again and Josie looked down at her feet. “You have no shoes,” she said.
“I don’t care.”
Josie laced her fingers through Rena’s, and together they plunged into the light.
Chapter Sixty-Three
The Gosnell house was small and sparsely furnished. The back door led into a kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the seventies. Josie left Rena sitting with a glass of water in front of her at the yellowed formica table that took up most of the room. The rest of the house was empty. She breathed a sigh of relief. They were safe for the moment, but it was only a matter of time before someone came by. They couldn’t stay long.
From the living room window, the chief’s Jeep was visible. She hadn’t found any keys in his pockets, which meant he had probably left them in the vehicle. She could always load Rena into the Jeep and leave with her. But she needed to preserve the scene. Protect it. The last thing she needed was one of Gosnell’s sick customers coming by and destroying evidence.
The chief had said to call the FBI, but she didn’t know anyone from the FBI. Luke might, but he couldn’t help her right now—at the very least she hoped he was still alive. Denise Poole probably knew someone, but she was likely in custody by now. That left only one person—one person who had a unique ability to help Josie protect and preserve the scene, even though calling her went against every fiber of Josie’s being.
She returned to the kitchen and found the landline. It took three tries to get the number right—she was going by memory. Finally, her call was answered.
“Hello?” the woman on the other line said.
“Trinity?” Josie said. “I need your help.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Josie Quinn.”
There was a sharp intake of breath. “Where the hell are you? No one has seen you for two days. Or Ray. And someone at the station said the chief took off and no one can reach him either.”
Two days. She had been in that cell with Ray for two days. She wondered if Luke was still alive. She couldn’t bear to ask. She couldn’t lose him too. She would never survive it. She squeezed her eyes shut. “I’ll tell you where I am—where we all are—but I need your help. Do you know anyone in the FBI?”