Chapter 58
Despite Turner's enthusiasm, he stayed behind at the stationhouse, nursing his leg, while Josie, Noah, and Gretchen headed out toward the riverbank with two ambulances just in case Rosie and Mira were injured. The police department didn't have its own Marine Unit, but the city's Emergency Services Department, well-equipped for carrying out flood rescues, had everything they needed. Within an hour, a city truck towing an inflatable rescue boat pulled onto the bank, skirting the demolished shed and tree stumps and jostling the eight-foot burnweed plants hard enough to send tufts of white flowers airborne all around them. For several minutes, it looked as if it was snowing. The clumps stuck to everyone's hair and clothes.
The emergency services crew set up on the bank, distributing life jackets to Josie, Noah and Gretchen. Josie had kept a careful eye on the island, hoping to glimpse Mira or Rosie or any movement, but there was nothing. A cold dread crept up her spine. Seth might have been an unwilling participant in some of Deirdre's crimes, but he had still shown himself capable of violence. Had he killed them and then hidden himself away at Furnished Finds?
"This won't take long," said Mitch Brownlow, tapping the side of his boat to indicate that they could get in. He was one of the city's longest-tenured and most experienced swiftwater rescue experts. His personality left something to be desired, but there was nowhere safer on the river than with him.
Josie didn't know the other guy working with Mitch, but he helped each one of them on board, starting with Noah. Josie went next, followed by Gretchen. Mitch smirked at her. "You're the one who turns green, aren't you?"
Gretchen tightened the straps of her life jacket as she settled in. "I promise to vomit over the side."
Moments later, the motor revved to life and Josie's body bounced against the side of the boat as Mitch steered them toward the small island. There was no time for Gretchen to get sick. The island was close enough that they probably could have swum across, if not for the current and the fact that they had to rescue two people whose conditions were unknown.
"We'll wait here," Mitch said as they hopped out.
They left their life jackets with him and picked their way across the rock-strewn ground. When they reached the tree line, Josie turned and looked at the riverbank. Now she had a wider view of it. There were their police vehicles; the Emergency Services Department vehicle; and the two ambulances. The remnants of the shed. The grove of tree stumps. Then a wall of burnweed and beyond that a cluster of tall, healthy trees, undisturbed by the clear-cutting and demolition. Among them, Josie spotted something metallic and blue. A car.
Gretchen walked past her and stumbled, the rocks under her feet shifting. Josie's hand shot out, grabbing her arm and keeping her upright. "Wait."
Noah and Gretchen turned. Josie pointed at the car.
Shading her eyes with one hand, Gretchen said, "Is that a Chevy Cavalier?"
Noah took a few steps to the side, trying to get a better angle. "This must be the ‘auto repair shop' owned by Deirdre Velis's ‘friend.'"
"Is Deirdre's Cavalier blue?"
A prickle of unease rippled across Josie's skin. "That's what the registration said."
Gretchen said, "Maybe Mira's not a victim. Maybe she's in on all of it. Unless Seth drove it here and left it, but that's a pretty long hike from here to Furnished Finds."
"No," Josie said. "I don't think Mira…" She trailed off. Again, there was that something fighting to break through the shadows in the back of her mind. What was it?
Noah picked his way back to her. "You don't think Mira what?"
Josie couldn't make the thoughts break through. "Never mind."
"Come on," Gretchen said.
Hand on her holster, Josie turned away from the bank and followed Gretchen into the trees. Noah took up the rear. The foliage was dense but the island itself wasn't very big. Even on this side, they could see slivers of the water and riverbank on the other side.
"Rosie? Mira?" Gretchen called.
Closer to the center of the island, the treetops formed a canopy, making the area feel dark and closed in. A flash of color to Josie's left stopped her in her tracks, but it was just a small jon boat.
"There's your way on and off the island," said Noah.
Except if it was here, that meant that whoever had come on it was still here. But it couldn't be Mira. Josie's gut told her that Mira was in just as much danger as April had been in, just as much as Rosie was in now.
But how was that possible?
"Rosie? Mira?" Gretchen called again. "Denton Police. We've come to get you out of here."
Over the rush of the current all around the island, Josie thought she heard a high-pitched sound, almost like a squeal, but it was muffled. The three of them froze, trying to figure out from which direction it had come. There was nothing around them but tall, narrow tree trunks and leafy branches.
Noah gave a signal for them to spread apart so they could cover more ground and have a better chance of spotting any potential threats.
"Rosie?" Josie called. "Mira? You're safe now. We're going to take you home."
The squeal came again and then a figure came crashing through the trees from Gretchen's side. Before she could think rationally, Josie's hand unsnapped her holster and drew her weapon. She swung it toward the sound of labored breath and pounding feet just as a girl flew into the open and right into Gretchen's arms. Staggering backward, Gretchen nearly fell. The rocks beneath her feet shifted as she worked to get her balance with Rosie Summers wrapped around her body. Noah quickly moved past Josie, tapping lightly against her elbow, indicating she should holster her weapon. Gretchen was still flailing with Rosie clinging to her like a barnacle. Noah gripped Gretchen's shoulders and held on until she had her footing.
The girl was taller than Josie had expected and, thank God, at a healthy weight. Her brown curls hung down her back, tangled and dotted with leaves and sticks. Purple leggings, striped with dirt, hugged her legs, and the back of her gray T-shirt showed a few small holes near the bottom.
Josie holstered her pistol but the relief she expected to overwhelm her didn't come. Something was off. What was she missing? Her mind worked backward through the case: the long days, the endless dead ends and leads, the small details that her brain had logged even though they seemed completely meaningless.
Noah took a few steps in the direction that Rosie had come, peering through the trees. Gretchen gripped Rosie's shoulders and pushed gently, making space between them so that they could see her face. Her skin was cleaner than her clothes, but her eyes were wide with wonderment and fear. "You came!" she whispered.
Something about the sales desk at Furnished Finds. The initials on the drawings in the freaky romper room—R.L. Josie went back further. Mira's house. The roses. SORRY. The two coffee mugs. Mira had had coffee with someone and then left, only to be abducted by Seth in the white truck moments later. But then he had come back.
But had he come back?
Gretchen smiled down at Rosie. "Yes, we came. I'm Detective Gretchen Palmer, that's Lieutenant Fraley, and this is Detective Josie Quinn. We're going to get you out of here."
Josie's mind went back to the roses. SORRY. The two coffee mugs. A napkin next to one of them with a spoon tucked inside it. The napkin. The spoon. The roses. The sales desk at Furnished Finds. R.L.
Rosie looked over her shoulder, where Noah was about to disappear between two tree trunks. "Don't go that way!" she said. "Take me the way you came from. We have to hurry. It's not safe."
Josie's eyes searched all around them but saw nothing. Her mind was still working at breakneck speed. There had been an empty coffee mug along the back portion of the sales desk at Furnished Finds and next to it, a napkin with a spoon folded inside of it. All those drawings in the creepy room signed R.L. Some of them old and faded, the skill level much more advanced than Rosie. No drawings of roses. Josie hadn't given it any thought at the time.
Noah stopped walking and turned back toward them, smiling. "You're safe now, Rosie. It's okay."
Gretchen gave her shoulders a light squeeze. "You and your mom are both safe. We're here to take her back, too. Can you take us to her?"
A teenage boy had brought Mira roses. They hadn't found the florist he worked for because he didn't work for a florist. You could buy a dozen roses at a supermarket. He had delivered them and stayed for coffee. He was driving the truck. That was how Seth was able to abduct Mira and then return so quickly to search her house. Because Seth hadn't been there earlier.
It was the boy.
Rosie's bottom lip quivered. She dropped into a whisper again. "I can't. It's not safe. She told me to save myself."
Noah's brow furrowed. He took a couple of steps back toward Gretchen and Rosie. "You don't need to save yourself. We're here for both of you."
It was the boy.
That's how the truck ended up behind the boardinghouse with the room never used by Seth but stocked with prepackaged food. So uncharacteristic of Seth. Because it was the boy. In the office of the boardinghouse, Ryan Tramel had stirred his drink with a spoon and then placed it between the folds of a napkin.
Not Ryan Tramel.
R.L.
Not Rosie Lee.
Ryan Lee.
Rosie pulled away from Gretchen but kept hold of her hand. "Come on. Please. There's a boat. I'll show you."
Carol Summers had told them that Mira disappeared for four years after meeting Seth when she was just eighteen. More than enough time to bring a pregnancy to term and give birth. Enough time to care for a baby until he was a toddler. Then one day his father disappeared with him. The cycle began. Mira stayed with Seth long enough to have Rosie because she was already tethered to him by Ryan. Always waiting for her child's return, always searching for him, always hoping that one day she could be the mother she wanted to be, never knowing that Seth had turned that privilege over to Deirdre Velis.
Gretchen said, "Rosie, we have our own boat. We need to get your mother."
Mira had been so young. Only eighteen or nineteen. She had truly been at Seth's mercy—or rather, Deirdre's, by proxy. Ryan must have grown up largely separated from her, bonding more with Seth and Deirdre. He probably spent almost all of his time with Seth. Was he there the day of the stabbing?
Rosie pulled on Gretchen's wrist with all her might. "Please. We have to go now. He'll kill her and you!"
If Seth had removed April from the Furnished Finds cellar and brought her to the produce stand where he knew he was going to meet Mira, had he intended to free her? To turn her over to Mira? But why give her up after a year? It made no sense. Why the sudden change of heart? Why suddenly risk both Mira and April turning him in? Unless…
What had Seth said when they'd arrested him? I didn't want this for her. I didn't know.
He didn't know she was there. At least, not right away. When Seth left Hillcrest after April's call to DHS, he had wanted to get away from her and protect Rosie. He already had the death of Shane Foster to hold over April's head, to keep her in check.
Gretchen said, "Rosie, no one is going to hurt you or your mother."
I never wanted this to happen. I never wanted her to suffer. But April was still looking for him and Rosie. Seth may have thought that their assured mutual destruction status meant she wasn't a threat but Deirdre or Ryan—or both—may have felt otherwise. Mira had been ineffectual as a girlfriend to Seth and a mother to Ryan and Rosie. Neither Deirdre nor Ryan need concern themselves with her, but April could blow up all their lives.
"He's going to kill everyone!" Rosie keened.
It was Ryan who had harassed April and vandalized her home in Newsham. He was the one telling her to stay away. That's why she'd reported it to the police. She had told them it was a case of mistaken identity. Maybe Mira had never told April about Ryan.
It was Ryan who took April, whether of his own volition or at Deirdre's direction, and then Seth found out later. Mira convinced him to free her. They'd met at the produce stand.
Noah said, "Rosie, no one is going to be killed."
Josie tried to imagine Mira's distress when she saw how badly April's health had deteriorated. It wasn't a simple matter of nursing her back to health. Had Mira and Seth argued? But if Seth hadn't meant for April to be harmed and had intended to return her to Mira, why would he stab her and then Mira when she came to her defense?
Josie felt that uncomfortable ripple across her skin again. Trepidation. From the beginning she had wondered why Seth would let Mira and April drive away from the scene of the attack without finishing what he started. But there was that unknown set of fingerprints on the awl. Although the tool had certainly come from Furnished Finds, the unknown prints didn't belong to Deirdre. She had a conviction for passing bad checks. She would have shown up in AFIS.
But Ryan Lee's prints wouldn't be on record anywhere.
"Rosie, we have your father in custody now," said Noah. "He's in jail. He won't get out for a very long time. He can't hurt anyone now."
Seth let Mira drive away with April because he was more worried about getting Ryan out of there. Protecting his son. He didn't want the authorities to take his children away.
Rosie looked up at Noah as if he'd grown two heads. "Not my dad. My brother."
Josie rushed toward them, stumbling over more rocks. "It's Ryan," she said. "The teenager from the boardinghouse. Gretchen wasn't there that day but?—"
Before she could finish, a soul-rending scream ripped through the air.