Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn #6)- Lisa Regan Page 0,82
heading out the back door. “What’s up?” she answered.
Trinity gave a dramatic sigh. “Tessa Lendhardt does not exist. Not in Buffalo. Not anywhere.”
“Yeah, I know,” Josie said. “But thanks for trying.”
Trinity’s laughter filtered through the line, skittering across the silence of the backyard. “You think I stopped there?”
Josie felt a small thrill of excitement, hoping her sister had found something useful. “What did you find?”
“I checked on all Lendhardts in Buffalo,” Trinity said. “I found six, all men. Two of them are dead. One of those dead Lendhardts is survived by his eighty-seven-year-old widow, Betty.”
“How old was the other man who passed away?”
She heard the rustle of papers and then Trinity said, “He was sixty-six when he died which was two years ago.”
“Too old,” Josie said. “I’m assuming that the Lendhardt that Amy Ross was married to—assuming she was married and not just dating—would be around her age. She told me today that her actual age is forty. Anyone on that list close to forty?”
Trinity went silent for a minute before she read off the ages of the other four Lendhardts. “Twenty-six, seventy-three, fifty-seven, and eighty.”
“Not even close,” Josie said, trying to hide the disappointment in her voice. “I’ve got to talk to her again.”
“Well, first thing tomorrow I’m going to talk to the Lendhardts that I can locate and the neighbors of the ones who have passed away.”
“You think they’ll talk to you?”
“I’m famous, dear sister. Everyone talks to me. Listen, I had this idea. Can you get me a photograph of Amy Ross? A current photo?”
Josie thought about it. Holding the phone to her ear, she made her way back into the house, through the kitchen and into the living room where several framed photos of the Ross family hung. “Yes,” she said. “I can.”
“Great, send it right away, would you?”
“Okay.”
Josie hung up and studied the various photos until she found a good, crisp image. She used her phone to snap a picture of Amy’s smiling face and texted it to Trinity. Pocketing her phone, she went in search of Amy.
She was still curled into herself on a dining room chair. Josie caught her eye from the doorway and nodded toward the living room. With great effort, Amy stood and trudged after Josie.
“Where’s Colin?” Josie asked her.
“He went up to bed. I doubt he’ll sleep, but he said he needed to be alone.”
“Sit,” Josie told her, motioning toward the couch. “We need to talk.”
Amy plopped onto the couch. “Are you going to arrest me?”
“No. Should I?”
Amy stared sightlessly ahead, shaking her head. “No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me your name was Tessa Lendhardt?”
Amy’s gaze snapped toward Josie. “How did you find out?”
“How do you think?”
Amy looked away again. Her fingers moved to the collar of her sweater, tugging at it and then rolling it in her fingers. “Bryce,” she said. “The FBI agents said he was okay. Unharmed.”
“Yes,” Josie said. “He’s in protective custody.”
“I didn’t tell you because it doesn’t matter,” Amy explained.
“You say that, but Bryce could have been killed today. We could have caught the kidnapper today if you’d told us about Bryce. We could have had units at his house, waiting for the kidnapper.”
Amy’s nervous fingers moved from her collar to her forehead. She leaned forward, sobs rocking her frame. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—I didn’t know. I would never put Bryce—or anyone—in danger.” She looked back up at Josie. “I swear to you that I haven’t been Tessa Lendhardt in twenty-two years. She doesn’t matter. She never did. She was no one, and she had no one. God, I was just a kid.”
“Who was Tessa Lendhardt?”
“I told you before. A fiction. A ghost.”
“Amy, we don’t have time for these cryptic answers. The drop is tomorrow. The kidnapper is going to call you again. That means he’s going to find someone you know, probably someone you care about, and he’s going to kill them. Both so he can use their phone without being traced and so he can hurt you. If you tell me who he’s going to target, I can stop that from happening. We may even be able to recover Lucy before the drop happens. Head this whole thing off at the pass.”
Amy sat forward and extended her hands toward Josie, capturing one of Josie’s hands. Tears streaked her face. “I am telling you, I don’t know. There is no one else. I swear.”
“You said that last time and then we got a phone call from your therapist’s house.”