Josie said, “She had to have assumed some other identity. Alice. Unless that was just a name she gave us.”
Noah said, “The landlord told you two that all of hers and Beverly’s personal things were gone from the house on Hempstead, right? She had to have taken them with her. She wanted it to look like they simply moved away. She’s known all along who killed her daughter. The question now is, who has she been hiding from?”
Gretchen snaked a hand out from under her blanket and pushed it through her spiked hair. “The same person who killed Vera this morning.”
The Chief said, “Who would want to kill Beverly? What would make Vera go into hiding instead of reporting her own daughter’s murder?”
An image of Vera’s face flashed across Josie’s mind—her mouth trying to make words as she bled out behind the concrete barrier on the empty interstate—begging Josie to save her. She’d been trying to say the word “please.” Josie hadn’t been able to save her. Hadn’t even been able to help her. What was she hiding? What did she know? Who would kill her to keep it a secret?
“I don’t know,” Josie said. “But I think the first thing we should do is try and track Vera’s movements.”
“How do we do that?” Mettner asked.
“She had to come from somewhere,” Josie said. “No one has seen her for sixteen years. Beverly’s body is found and a couple of days later, she’s here in town?”
Noah said, “Right. She wouldn’t have been living in Denton for the past sixteen years.
But she’s been off the grid, for lack of a better expression, for all this time. Or rather, living under an assumed identity: Alice. Somehow, Alice got here, and she obviously spent the night here, based on her calls to Josie.”
Gretchen nodded. “If she was trying to keep a low profile, she wouldn’t want a hotel with security cameras.”
Josie said, “Maybe she was staying at the Patio Motel. It’s the seediest place in town and it happens to be between the two places she chose to meet us—the Stop-N-Go and the abandoned bowling alley.”
Mettner said, “I’ll have someone go by the parking lot and run all the plates there.”
Josie said, “I want to talk to the manager. She must have left some things in her room.”
The Chief raised a brow. “You almost got killed today, Quinn. Twice. You’re taking the day off.”
“Chief—” Josie protested but he held up a hand to silence her.
“We’ll get a warrant written up for you to take to the Patio first thing in the morning. I’ve already got two patrol cars sitting out there, ’cause the flooding is damn near in the Patio’s parking lot now. It’ll keep. I can’t spare Fraley or Mettner right now anyway. I need all bodies over at the command post.”
Relieved, Josie let her head sink into the pillow. Noah gave her hand a warm squeeze.
The Chief added, “Fraley, get these two some damn pants so they can go home and rest.”
Twenty-Eight
Rest didn’t come easy. Each time Josie moved, her leg throbbed. Whenever she began to drift off, she saw Vera’s face—her last attempt at words—and heard the gunshots, then the wail of the emergency siren. The only other thought in her head as she lay on her couch and tried to sleep, was of Wild Turkey. She thirsted for it in a way she hadn’t in a very long time. She could practically taste it, feel it burn its way down her gullet into her stomach where it would sit all warm and tingly and help blot out her heart-sick thoughts for a while.
Except she didn’t have Wild Turkey in her home anymore. They had no alcohol. Only coffee, some green tea concoction that Misty made, and apple juice for Harris. She wished Misty and Harris were there, but Misty was at work and Harris was with Ray’s mom for the day. Noah was at work. She thought about calling her sister, Trinity, in New York City, but her phone had been destroyed. She’d need a new one. Beside her, Trout whined, as if sensing her inner turmoil. Pepper sat across the room on the armchair, unperturbed. Josie stood and looked out front where her vehicle sat in the driveway. Someone on the team had retrieved it from Lockwood for her. The keys were on a table in the foyer. She could just run over to the nearest liquor store. It was late afternoon, the store would still