Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,35

all check out?”

Mettner said, “Well, two of them are families and they all alibied each other. The other two cabins are occupied by single men here for fishing season. They don’t have alibis, but they let our officers look around inside and out of the cabins and nothing turned up.”

“Let’s do background checks on all of them,” Josie said. “Even the families.”

“You got it, boss.” Mettner said, making another note in his app.

Gretchen asked, “Did someone canvass Josie and Noah’s neighborhood to see if anyone remembers seeing someone putting something in their mailbox last month or lingering in the area?”

Mettner nodded. “I had a couple of guys out to do that. No one remembers seeing anyone or anything suspicious or out of place.”

Josie frowned. “I’m not surprised. That was a month ago.”

“We’ve still got a lot of leads to run down,” Mettner reminded her. “I want to have a look at the contents of Trinity’s laptop. You think you could figure out the password to her phone?”

“I can try,” Josie said. “But our mom might have a better idea.”

Mettner asked, “You think your family could shed some light on why she wrote Vanessa inside the car?”

“Maybe,” Josie said.

Noah stood and came around the desk, gently touching Josie’s arm. “They’re here. Your parents and brother. They’ve been downstairs waiting a long time. Sergeant Lamay put them in the conference room. I sat with them for as long as I could, until Mett needed me. They’ll want to see you.”

Twenty

She let Noah lead her toward the stairwell. She had questions for Shannon, but the thought of seeing her family filled her with dread. They still didn’t feel like her family. Not exactly. Josie knew the Paynes loved her, and like her, they longed to have back the thirty years they’d lost. They had tried very hard to become a part of Josie’s life over the last three years, and Josie had tried to be as open to them as she possibly could. They’d spent a great deal of time together. Shannon made weekly trips to see Josie, driving the two hours back and forth to accommodate Josie’s busy work schedule. Still, when Josie heard the words “your family” there was only one person she instantly thought of.

“Noah,” Josie said quietly. “I need my grandmother.”

She was grateful he didn’t ask questions. Instead, as they emerged from the stairwell onto the first floor and walked toward the conference room, he said, “I’ll call her and ask her to be ready in fifteen minutes. Then I’ll run over to Rockview and pick her up.”

She gave his arm a squeeze before stepping through the conference room door. Her brother, Patrick, who was now college-age and attending nearby Denton University, slouched in a chair, scrolling on his phone. His shaggy brown hair fell across his face, obscuring his eyes as his head bent to the screen. Christian, tall and thin with salt-and-pepper hair, paced back and forth along one wall. Shannon sat in a chair at the center of the long table, her elbows resting on its glass top, her head resting in her palms. She looked up when Josie entered, then sprang from her seat and raced over, pulling Josie into a hard embrace. Josie hugged her back, trying to push down the emotions that rose to the surface while in Shannon’s arms.

Pulling back, Shannon studied Josie’s face. It still gave Josie a shock sometimes to see her mother. The resemblance between them was strongest with Shannon. They had the same porcelain skin, blue eyes beneath long lashes, and long black hair that sometimes looked brown after a summer spent in the sun, only Shannon’s was now streaked with gray. Josie and Trinity were twins, but Trinity had always looked different from Josie. As a television news reporter, Trinity always radiated glamour with her heavy make-up and her shiny, perfect hair that never seemed to suffer no matter the weather. The resemblance had always been there, of course, but Josie had just thought it was a coincidence. Meeting Shannon for the first time, however, had been extremely jarring. Just like Josie, Shannon looked like a stripped-down version of Trinity.

Christian walked over and gave Josie a brief hug. Patrick watched intently from the other end of the room. Shannon said, “Have you heard anything?”

Josie swallowed over the lump in her throat. “No, I’m sorry. Nothing. It seems that you were the last one to hear from her and that was three weeks ago. There’s something I need