Chapter 8

Leaving Hummel and Dr. Feist to their work, Josie went back to her car. She texted Noah to let him know that she'd be a lot longer than expected. Even though the attack on Mira Summers and the murder of Jane Doe—as well as the probability that a child was in danger—horrified her, it felt good to work on what was potentially a complex case again. For the first time in a month, she wasn't consumed with anxiety about the home study or their adoption journey. She'd often been accused by her colleagues and her therapist of hiding behind her work—throwing herself into it so she didn't have to deal with her emotions—but her job was always where things made sense. It was the one place she could always be of use, where there was always a clear path forward. Procedure could sometimes seem limiting, but in fact it was a guide that always helped her know what to do next, especially in more serious and challenging cases. Her phone chirped, drawing her out of her thoughts.

No worries. Trout and I have everything under control. We've officially got a sauceless kitchen. All smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are in working order. We're going to be a hit with the case manager. I love you.

He'd followed it with several heart emojis. Josie couldn't help but smile.

She put her phone away. From where she was parked, she could see the other set of EMTs rolling their gurney toward the car in order to remove the passenger. Hummel and Dr. Feist stood nearby. In her rearview mirror, a flatbed tow truck lumbered into view. About a minute later, Labenberg, the officer from the Fatal Accident Reconstruction Team pulled up behind it. There were still hours of work to be done at the scene, but Josie had gathered what information she could for her own purposes for now. Still, it was going to be a long afternoon, followed by a very long evening. The sight of the passenger's gaunt, sallow face was burned into Josie's mind. It was one of the things on the job you could never unsee. The more she turned things over in her head, the more she thought that the woman hadn't been sick at all. Although neither she nor Anya would say it out loud until they had concrete evidence, Josie's instincts told her the woman had been tortured for some length of time before she was stabbed.

HELP

Josie's gut also told her that this case was going to be a lot bigger than it appeared. She would need help. Voices sailed through the air, reaching her inside her car. The Fatal Accident Reconstruction officer and the tow truck driver were arguing over when the sedan could be removed from the scene. Josie put her window up and took out her phone again, searching until she found Douchebag in her contacts.

Kyle Turner didn't answer.

She tried again. He still didn't answer. She sent him the same text he had sent her earlier: PICK UP.

She waited a minute and then called him again. He sounded out of breath. "Sweetheart, what's got your panties in a knot?"

"Are you finished with the bank robbery or what?"

"No. Why? What's up?"

"The fatality is a homicide," she told him. "The driver was also stabbed. Several times. There appears to be a child involved somehow. They may be in danger."

"No shit." She couldn't tell if he was faking his surprise or not.

A thought occurred to her. It didn't really matter but she asked anyway. "Did you know this involved a homicide when you called me?"

There was a beat of silence. Then he said, "No, no. Dispatch just said MVA. One fatality."

"When will you be finished at the bank?" she asked.

His tone remained unbothered, half joking, but he said, "Why are you so far up my ass?"

"Because this case just got a lot more complicated than a simple motor vehicle accident, and I have a ho—" She stopped short of telling him why she needed to be home in the morning. Her Chief knew and so did Gretchen, but she didn't want to tell Turner about the home study or the fact that she and Noah were trying to adopt a child. He hadn't earned access to her personal life, and she didn't owe him an explanation at all.

"You have a what?" Turner said.

"Listen," she said. "I don't want to lose any steam on this case. If there is a child in danger, then we need to move as quickly as possible. But I have an appointment in the morning that I have to keep."

"No one's stopping you."

She suppressed a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. He was right. There was no reason that she would miss the home study in the morning except that she didn't trust him to take up the slack. She had a sinking feeling that somehow—even with Gretchen on—Turner would be missing in action the next morning. A new thought made her stomach acids roil. What if the child was in the same shape as Jane Doe? Automatically, Josie dropped into her box breathing.

Turner said, "Are you doing that weird breathing shit you learned at that fucked-up retreat last year?"

"I'm— Turner, I'm going to the hospital to see what I can find out from this driver. Hopefully she's lucid. I could use your help with this. We're going to need warrants for the vehicle, the vehicle's GPS system, and depending on the state of the driver and if she is not yet alert enough to give us any information, we may need warrants to search her phone as well. Then, depending on where she traveled today or what she tells us, if she's able, we'll need to look at property records or possibly retrace her route to find out where she's been."

Turner chuckled. "You're really catching on to how this procedure thing works, aren't you?"

Josie bit back a stinging reply. "Never mind. I'll call Gretchen."

She hung up. Maybe it was a blessing that she wouldn't have to deal with him. She missed Mettner. When he was alive, the team worked like a well-oiled machine. Everyone pitched in. They all got along. They prioritized their cases and took care of one another. Josie felt a momentary stab of grief in the center of her chest and quickly squashed it. There was no time to sit with her feelings now.