were the headlights turned on?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
So it had been daylight when Trinity got into the car three weeks earlier. Even in daylight, the kidnapper would have clearly seen her head bent to the screen had she attempted to use her phone. She could have drawn the letters on the door panel without ever looking away from him.
What was she trying to tell Josie by evoking that name?
Before Josie had a chance to consider it, Hummel said, “There’s one more thing I want you to see. Come into the other room.”
Thirteen
Josie and Gretchen followed Hummel back into the room beside the garage. Hummel walked over to a set of shelves and changed his gloves, snapping on a fresh pair and tossing the old ones into a garbage bin. At the stainless-steel table, he flipped open Trinity’s suitcase and spoke as he riffled through it. “I’ll have Chan catalogue the items. It’s mostly clothes, shoes, purses, toiletries, make-up, hair care products, and then we’ve got a laptop and charger.” One gloved hand reached inside the mesh pocket on the inside of the flap and came up with a small box wrapped in brown paper.
Josie said, “That came for Trinity the day she left our house. Noah found it in our mailbox and brought it in.”
Again, she saw the neat, block print in black marker spelling out Trinity’s name and Josie and Noah’s address. No return address. No postage. At one end, the wrapping had been torn where Trinity had looked inside. Gingerly, Hummel reached inside and pulled out a small black box, like the kind jewelry came in.
“Where was that?” Josie asked.
“Just where you saw it—in her suitcase.”
“What’s inside it?” Gretchen asked.
Hummel set aside the larger box with its torn wrapping and then pried open the smaller one, revealing a bed of black velvet with a single French-style hair comb resting in it. Gretchen immediately took out her phone and snapped a few photos of it while Josie stared. It was a strange color between tan and cream, delicate, smooth, and shiny. Another image of the strange array of bones behind Trinity’s rented cabin flashed in her mind. “Oh good God,” she said. “Do you think that’s—do you… ?” Her throat seized. She sucked in several deep breaths, trying to get her vocal cords to work again. Hummel and Gretchen waited patiently. Finally, she managed, “Is that made of bone?”
Hummel set it down on the table and peered at it. “I don’t know. We can send it to the lab. You think this is from whoever left those remains? You think he was stalking her or something?”
“It’s unusual,” Josie pointed out.
Gretchen said, “People do make jewelry and hair accessories from bone, although it’s usually from tortoise shells or antlers.”
Hummel said, “This may be animal bone. Like I said, we’ll ask the lab to test it.”
“There was only one?” Josie asked.
“Yeah, that’s all that was in this box. I mean if there was another one, it’s not here or in Trinity’s car or in the cabin.”
Gretchen said, “Have them analyze the packaging as well.” She turned to Josie. “Did she mention anything about a stalker to you? Did she get any other unusual packages?”
Josie sighed. Her mind felt clouded. She needed another coffee. “She never said anything about a stalker. The only other package that I know of that she received at our house was from her assistant. She’s on her way here but Mett already confirmed with her that she mailed Trinity a package to our house prior to this one arriving. This one, however, didn’t come by mail. It had no postage. Someone had to have dropped it off. Also, right after she looked inside it, she took off.”
“I thought you said she had an argument with Noah.”
“She did,” Josie answered. “Sort of. But she really didn’t start arguing with him until she had looked inside the package. She was already worked up before that because we were discussing her problems with her network. I thought when she freaked out on Noah she was just overreacting. I didn’t think the box had anything to do with it. But now… I don’t know.”
Gretchen nodded. “You said Noah found it in your mailbox. You’ve got one of those cameras, don’t you? Those Ring cameras?”
Josie felt a jolt. “I do!” A few years earlier she had had surveillance cameras installed around her house after a robbery. It was an old system that she could only access using her laptop. When Noah