Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn #6)- Lisa Regan Page 0,68

whispered in her ear before rushing off.

“What’s scary is knowing how much work it must have taken for him to gain her trust and have her this well-trained without any adult in her life knowing about it,” Josie said. Without even realizing it, her hand went to her stomach.

On the screen, Amy walked toward the Dance Off game, no longer on the phone but now searching through her purse for something. She never even saw the man.

“Pause it,” Josie said. “What did he give her?”

Noah took a moment to turn the footage back and try to get the best view of the object before zooming in. It was grainy but Josie was fairly certain by the size and red color that it was the ladybug keychain that Lucy had in her butterfly backpack when she went missing.

“That’s the keychain,” Noah said, as if reading her mind.

“Yes. Keep going.”

He zoomed back out and pressed play once more. Lucy watched as her mother walked toward her, clutching the small object to her chest. As Amy came within a few steps of the Dance Off game, Lucy turned away from her and thrust the keychain into her pants pocket. Amy reached her and held out a hand, which Lucy took, skip-walking beside her mother as they walked out of the frame.

“Jesus,” Josie said.

Noah pulled up the rest of the footage, searching for the man. They found him arriving shortly after Amy and Lucy, lingering at one of the change machines without using it, following Lucy until she started playing Dance Off, and then leaving immediately after the interaction.

“He doesn’t appear on camera at any angle where you can see his face well—especially with that hat,” Noah said.

“Of course he doesn’t. He knew what he was doing. Pull as many stills as you can get,” Josie said. “Then let’s look at the other footage.”

“This is unbelievable,” Noah said. He gestured toward the screen where he had paused the video just as the man walked up to Lucy at the Dance Off game. “Amy is right there. Right there and she doesn’t see this guy.”

“She doesn’t register him,” Josie clarified. “Because he blends in. He’s not a threat. She never actually sees him talking to Lucy, and her mind is elsewhere. Just like at the playground on the day that Lucy disappeared. She was in clear view of everyone. No one registered her presence. Every one of us goes through our days looking straight at people and things but not really taking them in.”

“How many times do you think he did this?”

“A lot. Enough that she saw him as a friend. Someone she wanted to run to; someone she was excited to see.”

“Most of the time had to be at the park, don’t you think? While she was with the nanny?”

“Yes, and one of the other mothers said that Jaclyn was often on her phone.”

“And there are no cameras at the park,” Noah said. “And the carousel is there. This guy got to her without anyone ever knowing.”

Josie thought about it, about all the planning that went into it. “The nanny had a mystery guest—a woman—staying with her at some point. That mystery woman’s prints were found in Lucy’s room.”

“So we know she was involved,” Noah said. “By the way, Oaks’s team did manage to track down one of Jaclyn’s friends who said she thought someone was staying with her for a while but never met the girl. That friend had asked Jaclyn about it, and Jaclyn said she was just helping someone out that she had met on campus. Said the girl was between apartments. That was five or six months ago.”

“So the mystery woman befriended Jaclyn, manipulated her, got Jaclyn to let her stay there for a while and managed to avoid meeting any of Jaclyn friends. Whoever she is, she’s good,” Josie remarked.

“Yeah,” Noah agreed. “Her job was to gain insight into Lucy and her family.”

“Right—their routines and dynamics, their schedule. Lucy’s likes and dislikes.”

“The mystery woman reports back to this guy. Tells him, among other things, that Lucy is obsessed with butterflies,” Noah said, picking up her line of thought.

“He sees an opportunity to make contact with her at her school by impersonating the bug expert.”

“How did he know Bausch was going to Denton West in the first place?” Noah asked.

“It was on the school website,” Josie said. “The school schedule, including all visitors and special events, is posted there. The public one, not the private one. All he had to