Chapter 22

The heady smell of roses invaded Josie's senses. It was welcome after their visit to the morgue. She counted a half dozen red rose bushes along the walk to the quaint, white two-story house where Heather had asked to meet. It had Josie thinking of the flower on the child's drawing while she and Noah waited on the sidewalk. Was it a rose? What was the significance of it?

"This place is so quiet," Noah muttered, looking up and down the street. He was right. The only noise was the sound of birds chattering in the branches of maple trees that lined the street. Josie hadn't been to Newsham many times but to her, it always looked like one of those cute, sleepy towns from a rom-com where the heroine retreats after a big breakup to put her life back together.

Is that what April Carlson was doing here? According to what Josie gleaned from various sources on the way here, while Noah drove, she'd spent her entire life in a small town called Hillcrest which was in Bucks County. It wasn't lost on Josie that Mira Summers also hailed from Bucks County, and Seth Lee's last known address was in Doylestown—the county seat. It was a loose connection among the three of them, but it was worth looking into if other leads didn't pan out. Seth's brother lived in Denton but what had brought Mira and April out here?

"This is April's last known address," Noah said, interrupting Josie's thoughts. "That's why Heather wanted to meet here."

She took another look at the large porch with its black roof, white pillars, and painted green decking. There was no outdoor furniture but a security camera had been installed over the door. Someone was definitely maintaining the rose garden. Was it a coincidence that this place had a rose garden and that a red flower had been in the drawing?

"We really must stop meeting this way." Detective Heather Loughlin strode down the pavement toward them, a grim smile on her face.

"I wish we could," Josie said.

Heather's eyes were drawn to the roses. "They're beautiful, aren't they? I only like the other colors now, though. The red reminds me too much of blood. Dr. Feist told me April was a match for her Jane Doe and that it was a homicide, but didn't say much else. I knew the outcome wouldn't be good, but I hoped that April might still be alive."

It was the outcome they all wished for—every time—but it rarely happened.

Heather let out a long breath, lifting her face to the sky. Her blonde ponytail swished along her upper back. "Sometimes I really hate this job."

Noah jammed his hands into his pants pockets. "Same."

The sound of a doorbell had Josie looking toward the house.

"That's me." Heather took her phone from her back pocket and replied to a text. "Funny, right? I always know it's my phone though. Anyway, Dr. Feist will call the Bucks County coroner and they'll give April's parents the death notification. You mind telling me what she found on the autopsy?"

Although Heather had been working April Carlson's disappearance, since her body was found in their jurisdiction, the homicide case was theirs. "You'll wish we hadn't," Noah grumbled. "But of course."

A woman walking a corgi approached. Instead of crossing the street to avoid them, she walked right into their path, her curious gaze sweeping over the insignias on their shirts and the firearms on their waists. Josie made a point not to smile. She didn't want to invite conversation. The dog, at least, was too busy chasing a scent to even notice them.

Once she was out of earshot, Heather said, "Just give me the highlights."

Josie took her through everything Anya had told them earlier that day, drawing uncharacteristic gasps from Heather. "Now," Josie said. "We need to know everything you know."

"Come on. No one is living here right now. Landlord gave me the keys so we can have a look around." Heather started up the walk, waving for them to follow her. "Quinn, remember when you and I met at the truck stop last year?"

Josie said, "About the Woodsman case? Yes. You were looking for a woman. That was April Carlson?"

Heather nodded as they took the steps onto the porch. "Yes. April was an elementary school teacher at a school a few blocks from here. Single, no kids. Her parents and siblings live in Hillcrest in Bucks County, which is where she took her first teaching job. They were pretty sad when she moved here but understood that she was after better pay—except that when I was digging up everything I could about her, I found out that she actually took a pay cut to teach in Newsham."

Even up on the porch, the smell of roses was overwhelming. Josie still didn't mind. "Why would she lie to her family about that?"

Heather fished a set of keys from one of her pockets. "I don't know, but that wasn't the only thing that she didn't tell them. She had only been living here for about a year before she went missing. She hadn't made any connections. Had some drinks with a couple of coworkers now and then but no new friends. However, she was being stalked by someone."

Noah held open the screen door while Heather fit the key into the lock on the front entry door. "After she moved here? Or in Bucks County as well?"

After a brief struggle, the lock gave way and Heather pushed the door open. "It started after she moved. I talked with Hillcrest PD. They had no record of any harassment or stalking so it started here. She rented this house and about a month after she moved in, she started having issues. First, it was break-ins. Nothing would be taken but something would always be destroyed."

Josie followed Heather across the threshold with Noah in tow. A musty smell greeted them. "Like what?"

Heather shrugged, glancing around the empty living room. "I'll send you the file but from what I remember, her couch was slashed. Her dishes were destroyed. Her mattress was knifed. Her clothing was shredded. Her, uh, feminine hygiene products were jammed down her toilet, causing a clog that cost the landlord thousands of dollars."

Noah walked the perimeter of the room, testing the windows. "All this went on and nobody saw anything?"

Heather led them deeper into the house, into another empty room that, given the chandelier in the center of the ceiling, was probably a dining room. "April and her closest neighbors worked days and that's when these things happened. Eventually she decided to put cameras out front and back and then the stalker just came in the side windows." She pointed to the two windows along the wall. Josie joined Noah, noting that they overlooked a sizable side yard with a high privacy fence that would have prevented the next-door neighbor from seeing someone break in.

Noah said, "I don't see any pry marks outside. These locks are intact."

"Right," Heather said. "He tore the screens and broke the glass every time. The landlord gave her additional cameras for all angles on the exterior of her building. They did catch a man climbing in here, but they had no luck identifying him."

"Fingerprints?" Noah suggested.

"Too smart for that. In the video we have, he wore gloves. He was covered head to toe. Hoodie, jeans, even a gaiter up to his eyes. No way to identify him. The local PD wasn't equipped to pull DNA, not that there would have been any, I'm sure."

"They didn't call you guys in? Sounds like it was escalating," Noah said.

Heather led them into the kitchen. This room, at least, had a table and chairs. From the back windows, Josie saw a yard with more roses and behind that, an empty driveway. A dirt path, rutted by tire tracks, separated the row of houses on April's street from the backs of houses on the next street over. It was secluded.

"It was escalating," Heather answered, leaning her hip against the countertop. "And no, local PD didn't ask us for assistance. It only got worse. April's tires were destroyed so many times that she could no longer afford to replace them. She started using a rideshare. The guy was caught twice on surveillance slashing her tires out back. Once while she was at work, he walked right onto the faculty lot and did it, and once while she was at Walmart. Problem was that he kept covered up. He knew where the cameras were, never looked toward them, but we think he was a white male, about five foot ten to six foot. Maybe one hundred eighty pounds. Couldn't tell much other than that, unfortunately. Followed the cameras but were never able to link him to a vehicle."

"Geofence?" asked Josie.

Before Heather could answer, Noah said, "Let me guess: local PD didn't do it."

"You'd think so—they're small and not used to crimes that go beyond a stolen car or shoplifting—but no, they did the geofences. Nothing came of them."

The description, vague as it was, matched Seth Lee, and the fact that the vandal either hadn't been carrying a device of any kind or that he'd turned off any devices on his person sounded like the type of behavior Rebecca Lee had described when talking about her brother-in-law. Josie said, "Anything else?"

Heather motioned for them to follow her. "He left her a message."