Chapter 34

THIRTY-FOUR

A tiny bud of panic bloomed in Josie’s stomach. Her entire family had been texting like crazy the last few days, trying to work out all the details of Drake’s plan. It had been so chaotic that at one point, Josie had inadvertently sent Gretchen a text meant for Patrick. Had someone done the same thing with Trinity? Josie hoped the surprise wasn’t ruined.

Trinity kept swiping, a frown on her cherry-red lips. “Frisk Lampson’s granddaughter was murdered? That’s the case you guys have been working on?”

Josie snatched Trinity’s phone from her hands. “No shop, remember? That means you can’t scroll news apps while we’re here—or look at the notifications.”

Trinity put a hand on her hip. “Look who’s talking. You can’t go five seconds without talking shop.”

“I haven’t talked shop all afternoon.”

Trinity rolled her eyes and stalked past Josie toward the building. “You were thinking about it, which is pretty much the same thing.”

As Josie caught up to her, she heard Trinity mumble something. “What did you say?”

Trinity stopped and turned toward Josie. “I said, ‘Poor Stella.’ I promise that’s all I’ll say about it tonight. You’re right, no shop talk.”

“Wait. You knew Stella Townsend?”

“Josie!”

“No shop talk once we get inside.” Josie held out Trinity’s phone.

Taking it, Trinity huffed. “I didn’t know her well, but she approached me a couple of years ago when I was here for the Jana Melburn case. She worked at WYEP. She was trying to put together a story about her grandfather.”

“Why?”

Trinity glanced at the door to the Atrium. The heat was starting to overwhelm them both. “I’m really not sure, to be honest. I think she was trying to reconcile the fact that she came from someone like him. Frisk Lampson’s entire family was basically run out of town after he was arrested. Stella’s mom hated him and hated Denton—too many bad memories. She didn’t want Stella coming back here but Stella was drawn back. She pitched me this idea for a story about her grandfather, like an exposé of all of his crimes, even ones he hadn’t been convicted of, but it was too much, too extensive. Fragmented. There was no hook, you know?”

Josie thought about the text exchange between Stella and her friend, Abbie. Was Trinity the “big gun” that she’d hoped to have in her corner?

Trinity went on, “She talked about doing a book, like the kind the children of serial killers write. You know, all about how their dad was so sweet and loving and no one had any idea he was savagely murdering people in his spare time?”

“Yeah,” said Josie. “I know the type.”

“She wanted to talk with people who knew Frisk and worked with him to figure out how he managed to get away with so much for so long. People who protected him and people who knew he was a creep but couldn’t stop him. No one wanted to talk about Frisk Lampson, as I’m sure you can imagine. She asked me for tips on how to get people to talk to her. I didn’t know what to say. I don’t know if she ever got the book off the ground, but I told her if she wanted to do a story, to come back when she had a hook. She never did.”

No wonder Stella hadn’t told Vicky Platt the topic of her story. Kicking over those rocks was downright dangerous. While most of the men who protected Lampson throughout his career had also gone to prison for their part in the human trafficking case, Josie was certain that others were still out there. They wouldn’t take kindly to the press, even Lampson’s own granddaughter, knocking on their doors to confront them about their misdeeds—all of which were probably illegal. On the other hand, if she chose to go the opposite way and do a story on his victims, that might have provided her with a better, and less dangerous hook.

Regardless, Vicky Platt didn’t seem like the type to shy away from a big story, but if Stella had already met with a lot of resistance from other journalists, including someone as influential as Trinity, then maybe she had thought it wise to be discreet until she had everything she needed. If Vicky had been willing to entertain the story, then maybe Stella had wanted to make sure it was cohesive and thorough before presenting it. Josie wondered what specifically she’d been hoping to find in sealed court records though. Or was it possible that Stella had no idea what she was looking for and the records search was a fishing expedition? Unless, over the years, she’d managed to gather bits and pieces of her grandfather’s offenses and hoped that the records would put them into context.

Before Josie could give it any more thought, Noah emerged from the Atrium with Trout on a leash. Her breath hitched. He looked so gorgeous in his black slacks and his button-down dress shirt—blue to match her dress, an unintentional choice but adorable, nonetheless. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing muscular forearms.

Trinity shrieked with delight. “Trout is part of the proposal?”

Trout relieved himself on a shrub outside the entrance and then stood waiting for them to get closer, his little butt wiggling furiously. Someone had gotten him a bow tie. Trinity reached him first, kneeling to scratch behind his ears. “How did Patrick get permission to bring him inside?”

Josie and Noah exchanged a look.

“I don’t know,” Josie told her sister. “But you know Patrick’s best friend runs this place, so he probably got special permission or something.”

That was somewhat true. They’d been given permission to bring Trout inside after Drake and Noah had brought him to the atrium at least three times to reassure Patrick’s friend that he was well-behaved, well-trained, and that they were efficient handlers. Noah had told her that if Trout disturbed anything or even so much as peed inside, Drake would be making a very sizable donation to the university.

Trinity stood up. “You know, I wanted to make Trout part of Noah’s proposal. But then this one had to go and throw himself off a cliff. So dramatic, by the way.”

“I didn’t throw myself off a cliff,” Noah said.

“Okay, sure, but you still went over a cliff. What’s more memorable than that?”

Josie bent to give Trout some pets before they went inside. As they approached the doors, Trinity said, “I don’t love that our little brother is getting married before me but maybe after this, he could give Drake some pointers on proposing.”

Josie and Noah let Trinity go through the doors first and grinned at one another behind her back.