“You’ve been chasing it ever since,” Noah told her, still looking at the tablet screen, swiping and scrolling.
Josie cleared her throat again. “Chasing what?”
“Power,” he said matter-of-factly. “Agency. You’ve had it for a while now, though. Ever since Lisette got custody of you at fourteen. It’s just that when you lose someone—” He met her eyes, “—through no fault of your own, you feel guilty because you were powerless to stop it.”
“Have you been talking to my therapist?” Josie said, trying to force a smile. Her hand trembled when she brought the coffee cup to her lips again.
Noah smiled. He picked up the tablet and came around to her side of the desks. Kneeling beside her, he put the tablet on her desk. “No, of course not. But you should talk to Dr. Rosetti about this stuff. You can’t fix everything, Josie. Some stuff you just have to live with. Uncomfortably. Here. Tech support finally helped me reset her password and access the tablet.” He pointed to the glowing screen. Josie leaned forward to see what he had pulled up. It was an email, sent to Amber’s work account a week before they found Eden. It was from [email protected]. The subject line was blank. The body of the email said: I received this in the mail today. Do we need to talk?
“Is there an attachment?” Josie asked.
“There are two.” Noah clicked on the first jpeg and a photograph of a postcard on a shiny wooden table popped up on screen. The photograph showed an overhead view of Russell Haven Dam. Noah clicked on the other jpeg and the back of the postcard filled the screen. There was nothing on the back of the postcard except for Lydia Norris’s name and address, which had been typed and printed on an adhesive label. The postmark was dated the same day as the email and read: Harrisburg, which wasn’t helpful as all the mail in Central Pennsylvania passed through the central postal hub in Harrisburg.
“Russell Haven again,” Noah muttered. “What’s the connection?”
“I don’t know,” said Josie. She pointed to the email address. “Lydwanor? Lydia Watts Norris. Lydia sent Amber this email. But why?”
“Lydia Norris didn’t mention this when you and Gretchen spoke with her, right?” Noah asked.
“Right,” said Josie. “She was very vague about the last time they’d been in touch. Also, she claimed that Russell Haven meant nothing to her.”
“She lied.”
“Definitely.”
“No one knows what the significance of this dam is,” Noah said. “Grace Power had no idea. Mett didn’t even know it was a dam. But look at this email. What does she mean when she asks, ‘Do we need to talk?’”
“We’ll have to ask Mrs. Norris,” Josie said. “Did Amber respond?”
Noah’s face lit up. “She did, and it’s even more cryptic than the first email.” He clicked a few more times and then the email from Amber to Lydia took up the screen. It had been sent moments after Amber received Lydia’s email with the photo attachment. It simply said: We don’t need to talk. Don’t talk to anyone at all. No matter what happens, don’t say a word. Don’t contact me again.
“No matter what happens,” Josie muttered.
“Sounds ominous, right?” Noah said.
Josie squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, feeling a headache pulsing at the edges of her consciousness. “If Amber didn’t want her to contact her again, why would Lydia insist on going to Amber’s house after we left the hospital? What was she hoping to find there?”
“We’ll have to ask her the next time we speak with her,” Noah said.
“Is there anything else on the tablet?”
His eyes were focused on the tablet screen as his fingers moved across the mouse pad. “I don’t see anything that raises any red flags.”
“Search history?” Josie asked.
Noah’s eyes tracked across the screen. “A lot of work stuff. Also, she perused some real estate listings on a realty website, but none of the properties are located here in Denton. Philadelphia, Coatesville, Harrisburg, Doylestown, Ardmore, Collegeville, Pittsburgh, Villanova, Edgeworth, New Hope, State College, Pocono Springs, Newtown. The list goes on. She visited this real estate site weeks ago.”
“Maybe she was thinking about taking off?” Josie suggested.
He shook his head. “Not on her salary. All of these homes are over a million dollars.”
“Really?” said Josie. “Were any owned by Nadine Fiore?”
More swiping and clicking on the mouse pad. “Some of these places are located in counties that put their property record listings online. Of those, I don’t see any that are currently owned by Nadine Fiore. The rest of them are located in counties that do not make their records searchable online. For those, I’d have to check with the records department of each and every county to find out.”
Josie sighed. “Let’s hold off on that for now. I’m not sure it’s relevant, especially if she visited the site weeks ago.”
Noah turned off the tablet and met her eyes.
“What if she’s dead, Noah?” Josie whispered. “Whatever she was involved in, she was one of us. Mett’s in love with her.”
His eyes darkened with concern. He was doing the same thing Josie and Gretchen were doing, which was pushing all of those questions and all of their own emotions away so they could solve the case and find Amber. But for Josie, the reality kept creeping back in.
“What if we can’t figure this out?” she said quietly, her fingers brushing against the pink diary on her desk.
Noah leaned over and cupped the back of her head with one hand. He planted a kiss on her lips. “We will,” he told her. “Because we always do, and whatever happens, we’ll deal with it. Come on. We’ll go talk to Lydia Norris about those emails and why she decided to go to Amber’s house. Then if we have time, we’ll take a ride over to Gabriel Watts’ house and see if we have better luck than Deputy Tiercar.”
Josie looked at Mettner’s phone and house key on the corner of her desk. “We still need to check out Mett’s place. He gave me the passcode to his phone as well.”
“Add it to the list. I’ll drive,” said Noah. “You can go through his phone in the car. Let’s head over to Amber’s house.”
Twenty-Four
Lydia Norris was not at Amber’s house. The place was dark, and Lydia’s car was no longer there. Instead, an empty Denton PD patrol car sat in its place. Josie knew this was the officer that Gretchen had assigned to canvass the street. He’d clearly been there the better part of the day since it was early evening now. Josie could just make out the shepherd’s hook in Amber’s front yard. Its ribbon display had fallen on its side, scattering holiday bows across the lawn. While Noah walked around the house peering into windows, using a flashlight he’d retrieved from their car, Josie tried to call Lydia at the number she had given them, but it went straight to voicemail. The outgoing message was a robotic voice that told her she had reached the number she had just dialed and encouraged her to leave a message, which she did.