Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn #6)- Lisa Regan Page 0,112
to bones—I don’t know. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t afford the stupid drug anyway. But in that newsletter was a story about the team at Quarmark. They’d had some big, fancy, expensive celebration in New York City, and one of the guys on the pricing team was in the photos.”
“And your father recognized your mother in the photo with him,” Josie filled in.
“Yeah. There she was, looking like some kind of supermodel while my dad was dying in the same shithole she’d left him in—and he was so broke at the end that the bank took everything. There wasn’t even anything left for me.”
“So you decided to go after her,” Josie said.
“I just wanted to mess with her, but then I found out she had a kid. Then I knew what I had to do.”
“Natalie helped you.”
“Yeah but then she lost it, said I wasn’t going along with the plan like we said. All she cared about was the money. I never cared about that. I wanted Tessa to suffer. Nat said I was ruining everything. Said I was too obsessed with Tessa, decided to take her out.”
“So you shot Natalie,” Josie said.
He didn’t answer.
Josie changed tactics. “Was that the only thing you disagreed about?”
“She got pissed when I changed the drop location. We had other places in mind—down by the river—but I changed it at the last minute. She didn’t like that.”
So the disagreement on the day they took Violet Young hadn’t been to do with Lucy. Still, that didn’t mean the little girl was still alive.
Josie felt the familiar roil of nausea in her stomach. “Gideon,” she said. “What did you do with Lucy?”
Sixty-Nine
Gideon leaned forward in his seat, his cuffed hands extended across the table toward her. The smile that spread across his face made Josie’s skin crawl. “Guess,” he said.
Josie said, “You know you’re in a lot of trouble, right? If there is even a chance that Lucy is still alive, now is not the time for you to play games. Give us Lucy, and I’ll talk to the district attorney about some sort of deal—like keeping the death penalty off the table.”
The smile died on his lips.
“Oh,” Josie said. “You didn’t account for that, did you? New York doesn’t have the death penalty anymore, does it? Well, here in Pennsylvania, we do.”
He said nothing, his face hardening. Josie caught a glimpse of what he must have looked like to his victims, up close and personal. Terrifying. She said, “Your one and only chance of avoiding the death penalty is delivering Lucy. What did you do with her?”
A long moment stretched out between them. Josie made sure not to break eye contact first. Finally, she sighed as if she were bored and stood to leave. Her palm was on the door handle when Gideon said, “If you were me, what would you have done with her?”
Again, the sick feeling overcame Josie. She tried not to sway on her feet. Looking back at him, she kept her voice calm, unemotional. “Where’s her body?”
A flush crept into his cheeks. He banged his hands against the table. “Fuck you,” he said. “You think I’d kill a kid?”
Josie walked back to the table, placed both hands on its surface and leaned in toward him. “Yes,” she said. “I do. You are your father’s son.”
He leaped up from his chair, lunging toward her, but Josie held her ground, despite the fact that her heart hammered so hard in her chest, she felt like it was going to crash through her breastbone. His face was inches from hers. She smelled cigarettes and something foul on his breath.
“I am not like him.”
“If you didn’t kill her, then where is she?”
“Don’t try to trick me,” he spat.
Josie shook her head. “You think I have time for tricks? Games? I have one job, Gideon. One. Finding Lucy Ross. That’s it. That’s all. So if you’re not going to help me—and maybe save your own life in the process—then I don’t have time for you.”
She turned away from him. He shouted after her. “Oh, so you’re going to walk away. Just like her. You bitches are all the same. You want to know where that little brat is? Figure it out. What would you do with her if you were me? If you really give a shit about Lucy Ross, you’ll know. Hey, hey bitch, don’t you walk away from me. Don’t you—”