Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn #6)- Lisa Regan Page 0,44
back. Next to the desk was a large circular net enclosure filled with small plants. On closer inspection, Josie thought she saw actual cocoons hanging from a small plastic circle.
Amy’s voice was barely a whisper. “It’s a butterfly garden. You send away for the caterpillars.”
Josie peered inside counting six cocoons dangling from the white round piece of plastic. “There are actually caterpillars in there?”
“Yes. They should emerge as butterflies in a few days. This is the third time we’ve done it.”
“I had no idea you could even do this,” Josie said, amazed.
Amy gave a small laugh. “Colin thinks it’s gross, but Lucy just loves it. They come in a small plastic cup. You just leave them in there and in about a week, they attach themselves to the lid and form their cocoons. Then you take the lid off, stand it up inside the net using that little log and wait for them to emerge. They’re so beautiful when they come out. We set them free in the backyard.”
“Wow,” Josie said. “She really is obsessed with butterflies.”
“Obsessed is putting it mildly. She wanted us to change her name to Chrysalis.”
Now Josie laughed but it quickly died in her throat because any thought of Lucy automatically led to the questions that ran in a loop in her brain: where was she, and was she still alive?
“That was after we visited the butterfly room. We did a weekend in Philadelphia. The Academy of Natural Sciences has one. It’s lovely. They keep it at eighty-five degrees. You just walk around in there. Butterflies are everywhere. Lucy was wearing a bright red shirt, and they kept landing on her. She said—” Amy broke off, her lower lip trembling. Then she took in a deep breath and continued, “She said it was the best day of her life. She likes ladybugs, too. She knows all kinds of weird facts about them. She knows that they hibernate over the winter, and that they look for the west-facing walls of light-colored houses to burrow into the siding. She used to say to me that if she ever got lost, she would fly back to me like a ladybug. Go west and look for our house. She was so glad it was light-colored. Fly home to me. I wish she would.”
Josie walked over and sat next to Amy on the bed. Amy said, “I’m sorry about downstairs.”
“Don’t be,” Josie said. “You know that Jaclyn’s murder is not your fault, right?”
Amy’s voice squeaked. “Isn’t it? He’s right, you know. I don’t need a nanny. I should be able to do this myself. If it weren’t for me—”
“If it weren’t for you, Jaclyn would have been working a lot harder at a job she loved a lot less for practically no money at all. The only person who put her in harm’s way was the person who killed her. No one else is to blame. No one.”
“I’d like to believe that.”
“When you and Colin were… arguing, you said he promised not to be cruel. Has he been cruel to you in the past?”
Amy waved a hand. “Oh no. Not him. I would never have given in to him. He chased me, you know. He was so persistent. I didn’t want a man at all. He wore me down in the best possible way. But before I said yes to marriage, I made him promise he would never treat me cruelly. The man I was with before him, a long, long time ago, was very cruel. I didn’t ever want to be in that position again.”
“That man—” Josie started.
“He’s dead,” Amy interrupted. “He passed years ago, or so I heard. It wasn’t serious anyway. Kid stuff. Like I said, a long, long time ago. It was barely a relationship at all. It’s just that that was my only experience and it was bad, so I wasn’t looking for a man. That’s all.”
“You left him?”
“Yes. He didn’t try to come after me, if that’s what you’re getting at. Ultimately, he didn’t care enough to come after me. Ancient history.”
“Amy, I have to ask. Is there anyone who would do this? Take Lucy, kill Jaclyn?”
“That would be so easy, wouldn’t it?” Amy said. “It would lead us right to him. But no, I can’t think of anyone.”
Josie measured her next words carefully. “We all have secrets, Amy. I have some whoppers. Google me. You’ll see. There’s no shame in having a past.”
“I don’t have a past,” Amy insisted. “I barely have a present.”