any negative impact her emotional connection may have to the case.”
It was complete bullshit, but Hayden sold it well.
“Do the police believe that Ms. Payne is still alive?” the reporter asked.
“That was not discussed,” Hayden answered. “But we all hope and pray that she is. Regardless, you heard Detective Quinn. She will not rest until this killer is in custody.”
The coverage went on. Noah flipped channels only to find that Hayden was on most of them. “How many interviews do you think he’s given in the last couple of hours?” Josie asked.
“At least a dozen. At least he’s towing the line. You think this will work?”
“I don’t know, but it’s our best chance.”
Trout’s head popped up when Lisette came shuffling into the room, pushing her walker. He jumped down and ran over to her, sniffing her feet excitedly. She gave him some attention and settled herself onto the couch on the other side of Josie. From the pocket slung over the front of her walker, she pulled the shorthand dictionary that Shannon and Christian had taken out of the library. Yellow Post-it notes stuck out of its pages. “I think I figured out what you were trying to draw, dear,” Lisette said.
She opened the book in her lap and flipped to the Fs, paging through until she came to page eighty-three. The first word in the first column was ‘formaldehyde’. Lisette ran a finger across to the third column and down to the word ‘free’. “Here,” she said. “Maybe she was trying to write some variation of the word ‘free’? ‘Freedom’? ‘Free her’?”
Josie studied the shorthand, studying each word in the column. “No,” she said. “Not ‘free’.”
“Are you sure?” Lisette asked. “What you drew looks like the word ‘freedom’.”
Josie studied it. Indeed it did, but she’d only seen the symbol for a second and then been concussed in a car accident and nearly abducted by a serial killer. Her brain had been understandably clouded when she’d tried to recreate the word. Besides that, why would Trinity write the word ‘freedom’? She would have known that Josie would come after her and try to free her. There was no need to telegraph that to Josie. Trinity must have had only seconds to trace that one symbol onto the passenger’s side door of the truck. How she had done it was easy to figure out. All she would have had to do was feign falling and trying to claw her way back up when the killer dragged her out of the truck. Why she did it at all still baffled Josie. How could she have known that Josie would see it?
Because she knew he was coming after Josie. She knew about the mirror killings. She knew more about the Bone Artist than any other person ever had. Josie had no idea if Trinity was still alive, but she knew her sister would have used everything she knew about the killer to convince him not to kill her. She would have talked to him—at him—relentlessly. She would have done everything possible to draw him out, engage him, get him talking.
“She knew he was coming for me,” Josie said. “Whether it was because I was her mirror or whether it was because he told her he was going to come for me, she knew. Either he moved her from one location to another and gave her an opportunity to draw this symbol on the truck or she talked him into getting her back into the truck for some reason.”
“What she wrote was a warning, then?” Lisette asked.
“I don’t know,” Josie said.
Noah looked over and pointed to the next word below the variations of ‘free’. “Freight?” he asked. “Bobbi said she was held in a shipping container. Maybe that’s what she was trying to tell you? To look for a freight container?”
Josie shook her head. “No, that’s not it.”
The next three words were ‘frequent’, ‘frequency’, and ‘frequently’.
Josie’s heart thundered against her sternum as the meaning sunk in. “Oh my God,” she said. “That’s it.”
She jumped up from the couch. “Shannon,” she yelled.
Lisette and Noah stared at her. “Josie?” Lisette said.
Josie ran to the foyer. “Mom!” she hollered. “Dad!”
Shannon came sprinting from the kitchen and Christian came running down the steps. He said, “Josie, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“I know where the diary is,” she said. “We need to go back to your house. Back to Callowhill. I need to get into the attic.”
“Right now?” Shannon said. “It’s five o’clock. I was going to make everyone