Chapter 30

The moment Josie stopped moving, pain flooded her system, aches erupting in almost every single part of her body. The fingers and knuckles of her right hand, her forehead, her cheek, her back, her shoulder. The scrapes along her forearms burned. The skin of her throat was tender and bruised and every time she spoke or swallowed, an unpleasant stinging sensation assailed her. Everything hurt. It had been hours. Every available resource on Denton's police force had been called in to search for Seth Lee. Officers had canvassed blocks and blocks of residences, interviewing people and requesting their surveillance footage. Patrol units prowled the streets. After being safely escorted out of the yard she and Turner had landed in during their escape from Kiki the menace, they'd apologized to the owners and joined the search.

Seth Lee was gone, and Josie was thoroughly exhausted.

She'd made her way back to her vehicle, which was parked in front of Mira's house. A couple of members of the ERT were still inside, documenting where Josie had been attacked. She noted that Turner's vehicle was still there although she had no idea where he'd gone. As usual.

"I've been looking for you." She was so tired, she hadn't even heard Noah pull up behind her car. He walked over, brows furrowed. She didn't realize just how tense she was until he gently lifted her chin to study the bruising on her cheek and then her neck. The moment he touched her, the tightness in her jaw, neck, and shoulders started to drain away.

"Heard you got banged up pretty good," he said.

On her scale of having her ass kicked, this night was fairly low. "I'm sore, but I'll survive. I know I have to go to the hospital later to document these injuries and make sure there's no permanent damage to my vocal cords, but tell me, did you get anything? Anything at all?"

He dropped his hand and reached into a pocket for his phone. "We found Mira Summers on camera several times. At the end of this street a neighbor has a security camera. It shows her headed toward her home in the afternoon while Bobbi Thomas was at work. On foot, walking slowly. About two hours later, she appears on a residential camera moving in the other direction, about two blocks from here."

Josie ran her tongue along the shredded portion of the inside of her cheek. "She came home. She was here for two hours." She'd come home and had coffee with someone in her living room. "There were flowers in her kitchen. What was left of the note said, ‘sorry.' I don't know when she received them, but?—"

"Roses?" Noah asked.

The coppery taste of blood still clung faintly to the inside of her mouth. She kept her voice at a near whisper to avoid more pain. "Yeah."

Noah pointed toward the end of the block in the direction Mira had come when she arrived at her house. "We got a guy carrying a bouquet of roses on that camera there about forty, forty-five minutes after Mira passed by. Figured he was delivering for a florist."

"What did he look like?"

"Hard to tell because the camera only caught his profile. He was wearing a hat. Possibly late teens or early twenties. The quality of the footage isn't great."

Not Seth Lee then.

"We'll get someone to start calling florists though," Noah added. "See if we can track him down and find out who sent the flowers and whether he saw anything or anyone else when he delivered them."

"I don't know that it's important," Josie said. "But it's odd."

Noah smiled. "Everything is important until we know it's not. We'll run it down."

Josie rubbed her shoulder. She was going to need a very hot, very long bath when she finally got home. "Were you able to follow Mira on cameras from here?"

Noah took out his phone. His index finger flew across the screen. "Yes. About five blocks west of here. Not sure where she was headed but she kept looking around like she thought someone might be following her and then…" He turned the screen toward her where black and white footage showed a large front yard with a picket fence. Beyond that, cars whizzed by along the street. On the opposite sidewalk, a tall, loping figure appeared. It was difficult to make out but there were white wraps around her forearms. Mira Summers. She kept looking behind her. Then a white box truck entered the frame, only its cab and half of the cargo area visible. From the distance of the camera, it was impossible to make out the driver. The truck jolted to a stop, eclipsing the view of Mira. Josie watched the timestamp at the bottom right of the screen as the seconds ticked by. Fifteen seconds. Sixteen, seventeen. The truck pulled away. Mira was gone.

"He took her," Josie said, stomach churning. "He could have thrown her into the back of the truck. You can't see it from this angle. Any witnesses?"

"Unfortunately, no. We pulled footage from as many cameras as we could—residential and commercial—trying to follow the truck, maybe get a plate number from it. He avoided all the traffic cams. We caught him on a couple of other residential cameras but with the shitty angles and the distance, we were only able to capture a single number from the license plate—a 7. That's it. We lost him somewhere near North Denton."

"Even fewer cameras up there." Josie pointed at the screen. "But this was fairly early in the afternoon. He took her but then he came back."

"Yeah," Noah said, putting his phone away. "Our canvasses of this area didn't turn up any mention or footage of a white box truck in the hours before or after you encountered Seth Lee in Mira's home, so he must have parked it pretty far from here and then walked. But, with WYEP all over this now, I don't think he can drive a white box truck anywhere in the city without someone calling 911."

If what Rebecca Lee had told them was true, then Seth Lee wouldn't have known about the warrant or the press coverage. Living outdoors didn't give him much access to a television. Unless he heard about it on the radio in the truck.

Josie glanced at the house. "He was looking for something."

But what? There was hardly anything in the place. He already had Mira. What could possibly be inside her home that was worth the risk of returning to a populated area? Or was he operating under some sort of delusion? Did he think there were cameras inside? Was he the person Mira had coffee with after leaving Bobbi's house? Josie frowned. That was a pretty civilized thing to do with someone who had stabbed you only a day ago. Or had Mira been so frightened of him that she'd tried to placate him? Had she convinced him that she wouldn't turn him in so he would leave? Then, when she tried to return to Bobbi's house, he'd followed her and abducted her? Maybe he thought she'd had cameras installed in her house. Based on what Rebecca had told them, it seemed like something he might suspect. He hadn't destroyed the place. Barely anything was out of place. Only the cabinet with the cat food in it, which was being guarded by said cat.

But how had Seth known when and where to find her in the first place? Had he been following her from the hospital?

Noah interrupted her thoughts. "We've already got Mira's name and photo out to every law enforcement agency and press outlet. Amber's working on blasting it across social media."

It should have made Josie feel better, but instead her stomach felt like someone had lit it on fire. Obviously, Mira had already had some kind of connection with Seth if they'd been meeting at the produce stand for at least a year. Josie entertained the idea that they might even have been dating but only seeing a guy at a produce stand, in secret, a handful of times out of the year, when he deigned to appear, didn't seem like an ideal relationship for any person. He had kept April Carlson for over a year. Josie shuddered thinking about whether or not he was going to do that to Mira Summers. Or would he just kill her? Whatever had happened at the produce stand on Sunday, Josie knew one thing: Mira had put herself between Seth and April, risking her own life to save a woman who had little chance of survival to begin with and receiving horrific wounds for her trouble. Would Seth want to punish her for that, or would he just want to quickly tie up a loose end?

Noah touched her back again. "You okay?"

"Look at this! The lovebirds, reunited." Turner appeared from down the street, swinging a cat carrier in his hand.

Neither Josie nor Noah bothered to respond to his comment, but Josie must have scowled because Turner laughed and said, "What's the matter, sweetheart? You don't have a smile for me? I saved your life tonight, remember?"

If he'd been in the house with her when she encountered Lee, there would have been no chase and no need to save her life. But she didn't feel like arguing with him. "I'm tired, Turner."

He stopped in front of them, peering down at her. "You look like hell. Sound like it, too. You should get checked out and then go home. Get some rest. Maybe brush your hair."

"Turner," Noah snapped.

Ignoring him, Turner held out the cat carrier to Josie. "After you get Mira's cat. Bobbi said she'll keep it until we find Mira. Assuming Mira is still alive. But I didn't mention that. She's already pretty upset."

That's where he was—flirting with a witness, again. Josie didn't take the carrier. "What's wrong with you? You can't get the cat and take it back to her?"

"She's coming on a little strong. Not sure I should be the one to take the cat back there."

Anger sent a flush from Josie's collar to the roots of her hair. "Are you kidding me? You were the one flirting with her earlier while Seth Lee tried to kill me!"

Turner put the carrier on the ground between them. His fingers drummed against his thigh. His phone appeared in his other hand, and he used his thumb to enter a passcode. Whatever was on the screen was far more important than the conversation they were having. As usual. Josie edged closer, trying to see what it was, but Turner kept the phone out of their view. "That's not how it went down," he said. "I was interviewing a witness, on the premises, I might add, while you checked the house. It was a welfare check on a woman who lives alone and had just sustained a head injury. There weren't any lights on. Pretty low-risk. Neither one of us could have reasonably predicted that a murder suspect was hiding inside."

Josie opened her mouth to argue but Turner kept talking. "Besides, I saved you from getting mauled without shooting the dog, so I'd say we're even. You get the cat, okay?"

Noah's hand against her lower back kept her from saying anything else. "We've got an animal control officer for that sort of thing."

Turner shrugged. "Then call them."

"No," Noah said through clenched teeth. "You call them."

"What's the number?" Turner asked. "And the name? Also, you mind waiting here for them? The Chief wants to talk to me."

Josie didn't want to wait for their animal control officer to arrive—not when she and Noah were right here. This day had already been long enough. "Forget it," she said. "I'll do it. This time. Then Noah can take the cat to Bobbi while I go to the hospital."

Noah looked as though he might object but one look at Josie and he kept quiet. "I can meet you at the hospital after."

Turner looked up from his phone long enough to grin at Noah. "Hey, LT. Did she tell you I threw her over a fence? Like a paper airplane. She took out a shit-ton of geraniums though. For a little thing, she sure caused a lot of damage."

"That's enough, Turner," Noah said, annoyance edging into his normally even voice. "Go see the Chief."

Eyes back on his phone, Turner walked away. Josie pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Just talking to him for a few minutes made her head pound. Somehow, every word out of his mouth managed to grate on her. Noah ran his hand up and down her back. "I already talked with the Chief about the welfare check."

"He wasn't interviewing a witness," she said. "He was flirting!"

"I believe you," Noah said. "I'll conduct a thorough investigation into his conduct and discuss it with the Chief. It will get handled. Just put it out of your mind for now."

She snatched up the cat carrier. "Noah, Turner is not just a shitty coworker."

He waited for her to say more, as if sensing she wanted to unload. She hesitated. Yes, Seth Lee could have killed her while Turner stood on the front steps of Mira's house laughing at everything Bobbi Thomas said, but Josie also bore some responsibility. She, too, had let her judgment lapse when she decided to search the house herself. She could have insisted that Turner accompany her and not moved until he joined her. Yet, she shouldn't have to insist that he follow basic procedure.

Noah said, "Say what you need to say."

Josie sighed. Every word hurt coming from her tender throat, but she had to get it out. "I don't want to be a tattletale so I'm going to talk to you as my husband right now, okay? Not as my superior officer."

He smiled that smile he reserved just for her, and the mere sight of it eased her headache a bit. "I don't think you've ever called me that."

She arched a brow. "I'm your wife right now, remember?"

"Right. Okay. Go on."

"Tonight was bad. Yes, Turner did save me from being attacked by a German shepherd but most of the time, he isn't even around. He rarely even answers his phone when he's on shift—despite the fact that he's glued to it ninety percent of the time—and don't get me started on his paperwork. He's messy and disorganized and I don't know how the hell he even keeps track of anything."

Noah's voice dropped, his tone gentler. "If he wants to keep this job, he'll make sure he doesn't put a fellow officer at risk the way he did tonight. As your husband? I want to kick his ass, but we all have jobs to do and as long as the Chief intends to keep Turner around, we have to live with it. Also, not everyone works the way Mett did with his desk organized to within an inch of its life and his reports so thorough and timely that it made the rest of us look lazy."

Josie couldn't help but laugh.

He brushed an errant lock of hair from her face, his knuckles gently grazing her jaw in one of the few places she didn't hurt. "We just need to be more careful when working with Turner, and as long as he's here, we have to get used to him because we have no other choice."

She didn't point out that it had already been nearly five months, and that the only person in Denton who had gotten used to him was the kid at the corner store near the stationhouse that sold him energy drinks. And she was pretty sure even that guy didn't like him.

"Now can I be your superior officer again?" Noah grinned.

Josie laughed again, ignoring the way it made her throat burn. "Are you trying to make that sexy? Don't try to make that sexy."

He looked around. "Well, not here."

"Good choice."

"We'll talk later at home."

Barely able to conceal her smile, she swung the cat carrier. "Come on, help me catch this cat. I want it to be in good hands when we find Mira and bring her back."

She hoped saying it would make it true.

Noah followed her inside. The two ERT officers dispatched to Mira's home were working in the upstairs hall, likely taking photos of the damaged drywall and the blood Josie had gotten on the carpet after Seth punched her. In the kitchen, the table and chairs remained on their sides. They edged around the scattered roses, avoiding the shards of broken glass from the vase and the water that had splashed everywhere when it broke. The lower cabinet door was still open but now the cat stretched out across the space, lazily licking one of its paws. Josie set the carrier down nearby and opened its door. Then she knelt in front of the cabinet. Noah waited behind her, ready to pounce if the cat decided to dart. It stopped licking when Josie reached for it. As her hands brushed its fur, it hissed and sprang up, batting at her with its paws. After a brief struggle that resulted in several slashes across her hands and wrists, she got it into the carrier. Noah latched the door closed.

"Should I try to salvage some of this food?" Josie asked, grabbing the torn food bag.

As she pulled it toward her, something fluttered from the bottom of the drawer over the top of the cabinet. An envelope. As it fell, its contents tumbled out, landing on the food scattered across the cabinet floor. Josie blinked to make sure she wasn't imagining things.

"Josie?" said Noah.

Mira's name was handwritten across the front of the envelope. Tape surrounded its edges. A shiny, colorful brochure for Tranquil Trails Equestrian Academy had come partially unfolded, one flap standing straight. Inside the brochure, affixed to a photo of the rolling hills and horse trails, was a Post-it note.

"Get one of the ERT officers," Josie said.