Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn #6)- Lisa Regan Page 0,45

is personal,” Josie said. “Whoever this guy is, he’s targeting you and Colin for personal reasons. Colin seems like the obvious target—he’s already got death threats from his work with Quarmark. Can you think of anyone who might want to target him? Maybe someone you wouldn’t want to mention in front of Colin?”

Amy raised a brow. “What do you mean? You think… you think he was having an affair?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Josie said. “But I’ve been in this business long enough to know that people keep all kinds of secrets.”

“Not Colin,” Amy said. “He’s an honorable man—in spite of what you saw downstairs. He has nothing to hide.”

“What about you?” Josie asked carefully.

Amy pointed to her own chest. “Me? You think I have something to hide?”

“You understand that I have to ask. If there’s anything you haven’t told us, anything that you maybe didn’t want to say in front of your husband, you should tell me now. If you have even the slightest suspicion at all that someone you know might have targeted Lucy to get to you, it’s important that you tell me now. Before this goes any further.”

“I wish I knew which direction to send you. Do you think I would keep any secret from you if it meant saving my daughter’s life? I don’t know anyone who would want to do this to Lucy or to me.”

Josie didn’t push. They sat in silence for a moment. Then Amy said, “Do you think she’s still alive?”

“I don’t know,” Josie answered honestly.

“I just wish he would tell us what he wants. We have money. This could all be over quickly.”

Kidnapping Lucy for money was the most logical scenario, but Josie didn’t think this was about money. If it was as simple as that, the kidnapper wouldn’t have murdered Jaclyn so he could call Lucy’s parents, only to goad them. He wouldn’t waste his time or resources—he would make a ransom demand right away. This was about more than money, Josie was sure of it, but she didn’t say that to Amy. It would do her no good. She had already told Josie that she couldn’t think of anyone who would target her. Either she was lying—and if she was still willing to lie after Jaclyn’s murder, Josie couldn’t imagine her ever willingly coming clean—or the kidnapper was targeting the Ross parents for some other reason—a reason that neither Colin nor Amy knew about.

Again, Josie thought of the death threats Colin had received at work because of the cancer drug. How many people had died because they couldn’t afford Quarmark’s miracle drug? Certainly seventy-four people blamed him for their loved ones’ suffering, even deaths. Perhaps one of them believed the best way to take revenge on Colin would be to take the person he loved most away and then make the next most important person in his life suffer by taunting her. In the current scenario, Colin was almost a bystander. Forced to watch powerlessly while his daughter’s life hung in the balance and his wife became increasingly hysterical and unstable. Was it, as Josie and Oaks had discussed earlier, somehow symbolic of the way family members had to stand by and watch their loved one fight cancer—all the while knowing there was a drug that could stop the disease in its tracks, or at least slow it down, but unable to afford access to it? If that was the case, there would be no ransom demand and the endgame would be Lucy’s death.

A shiver ran the length of Josie’s body.

Beside her, Amy had picked up a stuffed unicorn. She hugged it to her. “They all smell like her,” she told Josie.

Josie looked behind them at the row of colorful stuffed animals all neatly seated along the wall. She reached out and touched a teddy bear with a red bowtie around its neck. How she would have loved to have a room like this when she was a child. She hoped they could bring Lucy home to this room so she could sleep in her beautiful princess bed again.

“Oh, careful,” Amy said.

Josie pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry. I should go.”

“Oh no,” Amy said. “I didn’t mean—that bear is one of those stuffed animals you can record messages on. Colin leaves a standing message on it for Lucy when he travels, but it’s really sensitive. Once, he was on a trip and I was cleaning up and moved the bear and somehow erased his message. Lucy cried