The Drowning Girls (Detective Josie Quinn #13)
Lisa Regan
For Christine Brock, for being the glue that held us together when our whole world shattered.
One
Cold air stings her cheeks like a thousand tiny needles pricking at her skin. Dried leaves and twigs crunch under her feet. Several times, her feet slip in patches of snow that still linger on the ground. A heavy hand presses down on her shoulder, steering her through the darkness. The barrel of a gun knocks against the base of her skull and her scalp still burns from where he grabbed her hair, pulling until it started to tear from the roots. The rest of her body is numb with the cold. She wishes she had her coat.
“I’m freezing,” she says, wishing her voice didn’t sound so much like a whimper.
“Shut up,” he says. His fingers dig into the flesh just below her collarbone. The cold metal of the gun bites into her skin.
“Please,” she says. “I need a coat or something.”
“Don’t need a coat where you’re going,” he says brusquely.
Where is she going? A shallow grave in the woods? The thought—no, the stark reality—that she is on her final march to death sends a juddering breath through her. Her teeth begin to chatter, from the cold or the panic building inside her with every step, she doesn’t know. How can he even tell where they are going? Everything around them is inky black. The moon is a smudge behind translucent clouds.
“You don’t have to do this,” she says, and this time she makes no attempt to hide the pleading in her tone.
“You made your choice,” he growls.
“P-p-please,” she stammers.
“Shut up.”
He pushes her violently and her legs go out from under her. Blackness rushes at her face, and her hands shoot out to break her fall. The sharp edge of a rock slices into the palm of her left hand. Before she can react, his hand tangles in her hair again, lifting her. The gun is at her temple now, digging into her skin.
“Now,” comes the gravelly voice. “You’re going to give me what I want.”
Two
The smell of burnt popcorn invaded Josie’s nostrils. Muted popping could still be heard from the microwave, but black smoke pressed against the inside of the door’s glass pane. It didn’t take a culinary genius to know that that wasn’t a good sign. Josie took a step toward the entrance to the kitchen, straining to hear if her family and friends in the living room had noticed the smoke. Nothing.
Yet.
Her Boston Terrier, Trout, yipped and ran circles around her. His soulful brown eyes stared up at her, worried. She muttered a curse under her breath and pulled the microwave door open, unleashing the dark, eye-stinging cloud. This time, a long string of profanities issued from her mouth as she waved her hands in the air, trying to disperse the billows before her smoke alarm went crazy. The charred remains of the popcorn bag sat in a sad heap inside the now-grimy hull of her microwave. Behind her, she heard her friend Misty Derossi’s voice a second before her smoke alarm began bleating overhead.
“What is burning in here?” said Misty.
Josie winced and coughed, looking around, realizing now that there was a lot more smoke than she first realized. The shrieks of the alarm hurt her ears. Trout barked in time with the alarm, positioning himself in front of Josie, as if to protect her from a threat. Misty stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, eyes squinted and already watering. Josie couldn’t hear her words over the alarm, but she could read Misty’s lips. “Popcorn? Really, Josie?”
Shaking her head, Misty crossed the room in three strides, slid open one of Josie’s kitchen drawers, and pulled out two large potholders. She threw one to Josie who waved it in the air. Misty held onto the other, flapping it in front of her face as she threw open the back door and then dragged a chair into the corner of the room, beneath the smoke alarm. Josie moved to the door, ushering the smoky air out into the wintry December night with her potholder. Trout ran back and forth between Josie and the door, still barking, confused as to what he was supposed to do: remain by Josie’s side and defend her against the smoke alarm, or go out back and relieve himself on the crepe myrtle tree in the corner of the yard. Misty climbed on top of the chair. Expertly, she popped the face of the smoke alarm off and snapped the battery out of it.
Silence never sounded so good.
Josie kept waving the smoke out into the darkness. Trout froze and watched her. In the kitchen doorway stood Misty’s six-year-old son, Harris. He took in the tableau before him and slowly shook his head.
“It wasn’t my faul—” Josie started to say, but his little feet were already tapping against the hardwood floors in the hall as he ran back to the living room. Josie could hear him yelling, “Aunt Shannon! Aunt Trinity! Uncle Christian! Uncle Pat! Miss Brenna! Aunt JoJo burned down the kitchen again!”
Josie frowned. “Could you explain to him that this doesn’t constitute burning down the kitchen?”
Misty chuckled. “No. No, I cannot. Well, I could, but I don’t really want to.”
Josie threw the potholder at Misty’s face, but her friend caught it in the air, nearly doubling over in laughter this time.
Pushing the back door closed, Josie mumbled, “House full of people and you asked me to make the popcorn? I don’t know what any of you were thinking.”
“That’s a fair point,” Misty agreed, straightening up. She used both potholders to rescue the remains of the popcorn bag and dispose of it. “Go,” she told Josie. “I’ll handle this.”
Relieved, Josie started toward the living room, Trout padding along beside her. At the doorway, she stopped and turned back to Misty. “I really did follow the instructions on the bag.”