Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,25

moved in, they switched over to Ring cameras which they could set to alert their phones if there was any motion detected. Josie didn’t remember getting any unusual notifications the morning Trinity took off. Then again, it might not have picked up any movement at the mailbox since it was at the end of their driveway and the motion detection range didn’t extend that far. She took her phone out and opened the app, pulling up the Event History and going back a month. Gretchen watched over Josie’s shoulder. On the screen, the app showed fourteen events on that date. Most of them were of Josie and Noah leaving and arriving throughout the day as well as Trinity going in and out of the house to retrieve her things and then leaving.

“There’s nothing else here,” Josie said.

“Doesn’t it have footage of the entire day?”

“Not going back thirty days,” Josie said. “It only keeps history of the events, which is whenever the motion sensors picked something up.”

“Your motion sensor doesn’t go off when someone accesses your mailbox?”

“No,” Josie said, pulling up the motion settings on the app. She pointed to the screen which showed her front stoop, driveway, front yard, and then the street beyond. A blue haze hung over the area in front of the stoop, just barely reaching the fenders of hers and Noah’s vehicles. “See this? That hazy area is where the motion detection starts. You have to walk all the way up to it in order to set off the camera. When we first installed the camera, we had it set to pick up motion all the way out to the street but then every time a car drove past, or one of our neighbors walked their dog, our phones were going off. It was all day long.”

Gretchen said. “It’s a long shot, but I can have some units canvass your neighbors to see if they saw anyone suspicious lingering around the last six weeks.”

“Thank you,” Josie said.

Gretchen made a quick call while Josie continued to stare at the comb. Had Trinity known the person who left it for her? Why hadn’t she said anything? Would she have had any idea that it might be made of bone? Even if she hadn’t, Josie couldn’t remember ever seeing Trinity wear a French hair comb before. This one wasn’t Trinity’s style at all. It was simple—Trinity preferred simplicity in her clothing and even in her home décor—but it lacked the elegance that Josie usually associated with her sister. Maybe Josie didn’t know as much as she should about Trinity, but she knew the comb was not something Trinity would ever purchase for herself—or wear even if she’d received it as a gift.

Was Josie right in saying that it was the package, and not Noah’s ill-timed joke, that sent Trinity spiraling out of control and storming from the house? But if that was the case, why would she feel the need to leave? What did the package mean?

“We need to take a serious look at the stalker angle,” Josie said. “We should talk with people she worked with at the network to find out if she mentioned or reported anything or anyone unusual or menacing.”

Gretchen looked over at Josie and nodded. Hummel said, “A stalker would make a lot of sense. Maybe there will be something on her phone or laptop. Chan already did a dump on the laptop. She’ll give you the drive with all of its contents when you leave. Take her phone as well. Dr. Feist has the remains over at the morgue.”

“Thanks,” Josie said. She turned to Gretchen. “Let’s stop over there now.”

Fourteen

Denton’s city morgue consisted of a large windowless exam room and one small office presided over by Dr. Feist. It was housed in the basement of Denton Memorial Hospital, an ancient brick building on top of a hill that overlooked most of the city. The smell hit them before they even entered the exam room—a putrid combination of chemicals and decay. Inside the room, Dr. Feist stood next to a stainless-steel autopsy table, arranging the bones from the cabin into a loose facsimile of a skeleton. A large, movable light shined down on them. The skull’s empty eyes stared at Josie once more, somehow less creepy here in Dr. Feist’s clinical domain, but still disturbing. She felt a pang thinking about how a human being could be reduced to just a pile of off-white jigsaw pieces like this. A table full of bones; incomplete,