Chapter 41

"You're telling me these two broads are sisters?" Turner used his feet to push his chair back from his desk before launching his tiny basketball toward the tiny net. It missed, as usual.

"No one says ‘broad' anymore, jackass," Gretchen complained, shooting him a look of disgust.

Josie leaned her hip against her own desk and watched the morning news play out on WYEP. Almost the entire half hour was now devoted to the scandalous Carlson–Summers–Lee case. It was press gold, always delivering more. Now little Rosie Summers's six-year-old school photo joined the carousel of faces connected to the case. Josie had called Amber late the previous evening while Gretchen drove them back to Denton to make sure they could get Rosie's face on the eleven o'clock news. Rosie was still the top story this morning. As soon as they'd arrived back at the station the night before, Gretchen had contacted the state police to make sure an Amber Alert went out right away.

Josie had gotten little sleep, spending most of the night studying Rosie's map and trying to make sense of it. She still couldn't figure it out. Noah had tried to help, without success. When Josie arrived at work in the morning, Gretchen stood in front of the corkboard, also attempting to pinpoint the location before giving up. Turner had taken one glance at it after hearing Josie's theory that it was a map and dismissed it. "That's a shitty-ass map," he had told her. "Work some real leads."

Real leads. Now Josie lifted her latte to her lips and watched him toss his ball again. This time, it missed and bounced onto the floor. "Don't be so sensitive, Parker."

"It's Palmer," Josie said flatly. She was in less pain today, still with the aid of ibuprofen, and her voice was a little stronger.

Turner disappeared beneath his desk in search of the ball.

Gretchen shook her head and waved her hand at Josie, as if to say it's not even worth correcting him anymore. Josie shrugged in response. Keeping her voice low enough for Gretchen's ears only, she said, "At least Parker is close. All I get is ‘honey' and ‘sweetheart.'"

There was a bang and then a muffled "ouch".

"Serves you right," Gretchen groused.

"I heard that. Also, stay on topic, would you? Carlson and Summers are half-sisters and Summers has a secret kid with this lunatic?"

Gretchen said, "Seth Lee has a legitimate mental illness, but yeah. We got a copy of Rosie's birth certificate this morning confirming that he's her father."

Turner's voice still sounded like it was coming from far away. "Dude is still looney toons, Parker. I mean, a secret kid! What in the hell was this Summers chick thinking? Her mom didn't know about this kid? There's not one goddamn thing in her house about this kid. Nothing on her phone. Her email. Her socials. Where the hell has this kid been all this time? Camping in the woods with Murder Dad?"

Josie walked around to where she could see the soles of his loafers and his ass sticking out. "Can we have this conversation with your face and not with your ass?"

Gretchen said, "There's no difference. Just answer him."

"I heard that, Parker."

Josie shook her head. "Mira was in an abusive relationship with Seth. She told her mother she was in love. For years, she did whatever Seth told her to do. I am sure I don't need to tell you how difficult it is for women to leave their abusers, no matter how dangerous the situation becomes."

Turner's body shifted but still, the only parts of him visible were his feet and ass. His tone, however, turned serious, his words quieter. There wasn't even any vitality to his "sweetheart" when he said, "No, sweetheart, you don't have to tell me. I watched my mom go through it with my dad."

"Huh," Gretchen said. "He might be human, after all."

"Heard that, Parker. Keep going, sweetheart. I wanna hear this theory of yours."

Josie took another sip of her latte. WYEP now had photos of Seth, Mira, and Rosie laid out like a family tree. Only April's picture floated to the side, disconnected. The chyron read: Missing Child at Center of Apparent Custody Dispute that Ended in Murder. It was a little wordy. Also, Josie wasn't sure it was a custody dispute. She wasn't sure what it was—yet. "By the time Mira had Rosie, I think she was so deep into the relationship, and the dynamic between her and Seth was so firmly cemented, that it was just more of the same except now with a child."

Gretchen said, "We don't think Mira ever physically had custody of Rosie. We think that Seth was too paranoid to leave Rosie with Mira. He had to have control of her. In his mind, he was protecting her. He believed that some type of ‘authorities' were going to take her away from him. The one consistent thing that we've heard from just about every person we talked to about Seth was that he tends to disappear for long periods of time. That's probably what he did with Rosie. Every time his delusions got the best of him, he'd take Rosie and leave. He probably kept Mira in constant fear that she'd never see her daughter again."

"I doubt that Mira even knew where he went when he left," Josie said. "She just had to wait for him to return—and hope that he would. Rebecca said there was never a way to reach Seth. They just had to wait for him to show up. Mira was probably so afraid that she'd never see Rosie again or that he would hurt her that she didn't want to take the chance of suing him for custody and opening that can of worms."

"Yeah," came Turner's mumble. "Can't close that can once it's opened. I've seen cases where the parents take the kids and poof! they're never seen again. Or you find them living in some other state twenty years later, all grown up."

Josie looked back at the television. WYEP flashed Rosie's photo again. By now it was nearly four years old. She'd be ten. How much had she changed? With a sigh, Josie turned her attention back to Turner's ass. "Mira probably hoped that getting Rosie enrolled into a school where she was employed would give Seth a reason to keep her in one place. Settle down. Mira must have used her connection to April—as sisters—to try to put Seth at ease with the whole thing."

"Until April turned on him," Gretchen added.

"You mean until she realized what a certifiable nutcase he really was and decided to report him to DHS for starving his fucking kid?" Turner called. "Where in the hell is this ball? It's like a dimensional vortex under here. I think I just saw the back entrance to Narnia, for godssake."

Suddenly, Gretchen startled. Her chair creaked as she leaned forward, plucking something from the floor. With a triumphant grin, she held up the tiny foam basketball.

Turner's desk jerked as he banged his head. "Son of a bitch. That hurt. Hold on, I think I see it." His feet extended back, toward Josie, as he lowered himself to his stomach. "Okay so the sister—April—reports this guy and then he takes little Rosie and rolls. Did DHS even do any investigating?'

"I talked with someone in their office this morning," Gretchen said. "They claim they couldn't find Seth or Mira at the time the call was made."

"Convenient," Turner said in a strained voice. "We're assuming he brought her up this way since his brother's here. Next thing anyone knows, Mira Summers is living here too, and going to his brother's stables every week. If she didn't know where he was taking Rosie, how'd she know to go to Tranquil Trails?"

He's here. We have to tell.

"April told her. She figured it out somehow. It wouldn't have taken much. A background check on Seth using a paid service probably would have shown Jon Lee as his brother."

Gretchen squeezed the ball tightly in her hand, crushing it until it was the size of a marble. Then she opened her palm and let it expand again. "I can't quite figure out the sequence of events, but I don't think that April moving to Newsham a year after Seth disappeared with Rosie, and Mira moved to Denton, is a coincidence."

"You think April was looking for the kid?" Turner said, voice muffled again. "On her own?"

"Rosie was April's niece," Josie said. "During the argument that Teryn Bailey overheard between April and Mira, April used the phrase, ‘my family too.' Rosie wasn't just some student, she was April's family."

"Somehow, Seth figured out that April tried to follow him," Gretchen said. "I have no idea how but he found out she was in Newsham. He started vandalizing her house. The ‘stay away' message was from him. He wanted her to stay away from Rosie, specifically."

Why hadn't April gone to the police once she had some idea where he might be? Josie could see why Mira might not have gone to the authorities to report that Seth had taken their daughter to parts unknown and might be starving her. After decades of being indoctrinated by Seth and trained to shape her life around his delusions, turning Seth in to the authorities was the last thing that Mira would do.

But why wouldn't April? In addition, why had she bothered to report him breaking into her Newsham home and vandalizing it but not told the police that Seth was behind it?

They were still missing something.

"So then what?" Turner said, drawing up onto his knees again. "This guy just decides he's going to kidnap April and keep her for a year? What in the hell does that accomplish? I'm telling you: looney tunes."

WYEP cut to their new star reporter, Dallas Jones, standing in front of Mira's town house, interviewing neighbors. Josie was surprised he hadn't set up shop in front of Tranquil Trails. Then again, there wasn't anyone to interview all the way out there, and Josie knew neither Rebecca nor Jon was going to speak with the press. As it was, the revelation that Seth and Mira had a child had rendered Rebecca speechless for almost a full five minutes. As a courtesy, and to stay on their good side in case she needed their help later, Josie had called the Lees late the night before to give them a heads-up before Rosie's face got splashed all over the internet.

Josie took another long sip of her latte. Gretchen was still peering at the basketball as if trying to decide what to do with it.

Finally, Turner wiggled backward and out from under the desk. His curls tumbled down over his forehead. A cobweb wrapped across the back of his head. From his knees, he looked across the desks at Gretchen. The ball had disappeared. He brushed dust from the shoulders of his suit jacket. He always dressed like he was testifying in court, no matter what. He reached out a hand to Josie. "Help me up, sweetheart." It was a demand, not a request.

Josie put her latte down on his desk and folded her arms across her chest. "What's my name?"

He looked at her as if he'd never seen her before. "Are you kidding me? You wanna know why my knee hurts, Paper Airplane?"

He didn't get to do one thing and then be excused from his irritating behavior ever after. She still wasn't over him flirting with Bobbi Thomas while she got strangled by Seth Lee. "What's my name?"

His head swiveled in Gretchen's direction. "Is she serious with this?"

"If you ever want to see your precious basketball again, you'll answer her question," Gretchen challenged.

Turner's chin sank to his chest. Josie heard a distinct chuckle before he put one hand on the edge of his desk and hefted himself up.

Josie shook her head. "So stubborn. When will you learn, champ?"

He rose to his full height and looked down his nose at her. When she didn't blink or step back, he did, his thighs bumping against the desk. He cleared his throat. "Learn what?"

"Manners."

He smoothed his hands over his lapels. "You don't need manners when you look this good."

Behind him, Josie saw Gretchen roll her eyes. "I'm throwing this stupid ball away."

"Don't you want to hear what I've got?" Turner asked, spinning to face Gretchen.

Josie sauntered back to her seat. "So you did do some work while we were gone."

He brushed off his pants. "Hey, when I wasn't working on your warrant last night, I responded to a half dozen bogus ‘sightings' of Seth Lee. Apparently, now every time someone sees a damn food wrapper in the woods, they think he's been camping there."

From everything they'd gathered, Josie was certain that Seth Lee would never eat packaged food but that wasn't something they were going to share with the general public.

Turner went on. "We got a tip. From all the news coverage. This lady, Deirdre Velis, called. She owns an antique furniture store somewhere around here. Said she knows Seth Lee. Well."

Deirdre, like the name of the woman Seth had brought to his brother's wedding decades ago.

Turner plopped into his chair and held his hand out for Gretchen to throw him the basketball. When she didn't, he started drumming his fingers against his desk. "Said she might have information to help us find him."

"Like what?" asked Josie.

"She wouldn't tell me over the phone but as soon as we hung up, I looked her up. She's got an old conviction for passing bad checks from almost twenty years ago, but she's been on the straight and narrow ever since. I also checked into her shop. Furnished Finds. It's got two box trucks registered to it and one of them has a license plate ending in a 7. Already put out the BOLO. Oh, and ole Deirdre should be arriving downstairs in the next half hour. I drove out to her store last night right after she called so I could interview her, but the place was closed up. Dark. No sign of the truck, or anything at all, really. The place is in the middle of damn nowhere."

"Which is maybe a good place to keep certain someones you've kidnapped?" Gretchen suggested.

Turner raised both palms. "Already thought of that, Parker, but it's not like I could look inside without being invited or having a warrant."

That much was true, Josie had to concede.

"Of course, that didn't stop me from walking into the open truck bay and hollering to high heaven to see if anyone answered," he added.

"Turner!" Josie said. "That's?—"

"Against procedure. I know, sweetheart, but there's a kid missing. Also, I didn't actually cross the threshold into the showroom so technically, I was still outside."

But even if he had gone against procedure and stepped inside the building—hell, even if he'd searched the entire place—who would know? Especially since he'd gone there alone.

"Relax," Turner told them. "I promise, I didn't do anything that would fuck up this case later, and I called this Deirdre chick as soon as I got back here. She said she was at the grocery store when I stopped by."

Gretchen raised a brow. "Did you go back out there?"

"Nah. She said she'd be there if I wanted to but it was late and we got another Seth Lee ‘sighting,' so I made her an appointment for this morning and checked out the tip instead. It was another dead end, by the way. In case you didn't notice."

Josie downed the rest of her latte and glanced at the TV again where Seth Lee's photo appeared once more. The bullet point list was back, too, except this time the words ‘may have a child with him' had been replaced with, ‘has 10-year-old Rosie Summers in his custody.'"

"We noticed," Josie muttered.

Turner held out his hand to Gretchen again. This time she threw him the basketball. If Josie didn't know better, it would seem like a peace offering.