Find Her Alive (Detective Josie Quinn #8) - Lisa Regan Page 0,79
frozen in profile, the comb tucked neatly into her hair. “Wait here,” she told Gretchen.
She went to the bottom of the stairs and called for Patrick—which ended up drawing everyone else in the house. He jogged down the steps, pushing his brown hair out of his face. “What’s up?”
Josie said, “Can you come into the kitchen and look at something for me?”
He followed her, as did Lisette, Christian, and Shannon. Even Trout trotted in, curious as to what all the humans were studying on the kitchen table. Gretchen played the Codie Lash segment, pausing it at the best angle for them to see the comb. Josie said, “Patrick, is this why the comb looked familiar to you? You’d seen it on television before?”
All eyes turned to him. He stared at the frozen screen for a long moment.
Christian said, “Patrick—” but before he could go on, Shannon grabbed his arm, silencing him.
Suddenly, Patrick’s entire face went taut and pale with horror. “Oh my God,” he gasped.
“What is it?” Josie asked.
He pointed to the screen. “No, no. That’s not where I saw it.”
“Then where?” Josie asked.
He took his phone out of his pocket, tapped and scrolled a few times.
“Son,” Christian said but Shannon silenced him again.
When Patrick found what he was looking for, he turned the screen toward them. “It’s Trinity’s Facebook page,” he explained. “She did this video for the network when she first got here six weeks ago. She was staying here at the time. The crew was still in town.”
They crowded around the tiny screen. Trinity stood in front of the Denton PD headquarters, holding a microphone in hand. Her expression was all business. “It all started in this small town five years ago with the disappearance of seventeen-year-old Isabelle Coleman…”
Josie stopped listening, instead staring open-mouthed as she saw the reason Patrick had suddenly become so overwrought. In Trinity’s hair was a comb just like the one Codie Lash had worn on-air six years earlier and just like the one Hummel had found tucked away in Trinity’s suitcase after she was taken.
“When did you say this was recorded?” Gretchen asked.
“Six weeks ago,” Patrick said. “A few days after she got into town. The network wanted her to do a story about the five-year anniversary of the missing girls’ case and how it impacted the town. You guys didn’t watch it?”
Josie stared at him. Quietly, she said, “Patrick, I lived through it. It was one of the most horrific experiences of my life. I know it’s Trinity’s job to revisit these things, but I can’t do it. I’m sorry, I didn’t watch it.”
Gretchen said, “This was when she first got here to Denton. Before she moved out to the cabin. Josie, this was before she received the comb we found in her suitcase.”
“So where did she get that one?” Shannon asked, pointing to Patrick’s phone.
“From Codie Lash’s things,” Josie said. She walked back to the table and picked up her own phone, firing off a text to Jaime Pestrak.
Do you remember if there was a white French-style hair comb in Codie Lash’s things when you sent them to Trinity?
A few minutes later, Jaime replied,
I think so. There was some pretty ugly stuff in that box.
Josie looked around, “Trinity’s assistant believes there was a hair comb like that in Codie Lash’s box of things.”
Gretchen said, “Come on, boss. Let’s go see the team.”
Forty-Three
Two hours later, Josie sat at her own desk at the station house, thumbing through the Gregg shorthand dictionary that the Paynes had secured for her, trying to find the symbol she’d seen on the Bone Artist’s truck. Page after page was lined with words in one column and squiggly lines in the column across from them. Swirls, dips, circles, lines… Josie didn’t know how anyone could possibly make sense of this. All the shorthand words looked the same to her. She’d have to have Lisette give her a crash course when she got home. In the meantime, she used a pencil to make a light mark next to any symbols that seemed familiar.
“Any luck?” Noah asked as he came into the room.
“I think it might have started with an F. My grandmother said what I was drawing looked like it began with an F. I’ll keep looking.”
A moment later, Drake, Gretchen, and Mettner trailed in. Under Drake’s arm was a laptop. “There is video of the attack on Codie Lash and her husband. It was captured from an ATM vestibule across the street from where it happened.”