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He lifted his mangled hands to touch Blue’s face, but they were quivering too badly for him to pet the dog.
“Luke,” Josie said.
He curled into himself, head on his knees. Blue whined again and nuzzled the back of Luke’s neck.
Josie had seen him like this once before. He’d helped her locate a witness but when they found the guy, he had been murdered. The crime scene had brought back a great deal of trauma for Luke. His voice was muffled. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Josie got onto her knees next to him and slung an arm across his back. She brought her face to his ear. He smelled like bloodhound and aftershave. “Luke, look at me.”
He shook his head. Blue yelped. Patting the dog’s head, she assured him, “Everything’s okay, boy.”
She riffled through Luke’s backpack until she found a bottle of water. “Luke, sit up and drink this.”
Slowly, he lifted his head. His face was ashen. He reached for the bottle, but his hands were still too shaky. Josie put the bottle down and grabbed his hands with hers. “Look at me,” she told him. “You’re fine. You’re safe.”
In her grip, his hands felt odd, not like hands at all, but like two badly restructured mounds of gnarled bone, metal plates, and lumpy flesh. How did it not bother him? Resisting the urge to look at each one up close, Josie held his gaze until the panic fled his blue eyes and was replaced by something close to relief. He was coming back to himself. Next to them, Blue’s tail wagged. He snuffled at Luke’s shoulder.
Luke pulled his hands away and swiped them down the front of his jacket. “You should call about that warrant,” he mumbled.
Josie didn’t move. “Luke—”
He stood up, inhaling a shaky breath, and turned away from her. “I’m okay,” he said. “I— You should get your warrant. Do what you need to do.”
He wouldn’t look at her, but he seemed to be functioning a hell of a lot better than he had been moments ago. Leaning over, he rubbed Blue’s sides and was rewarded with slobbery kisses to his face.
Josie took her cell phone from her pocket and called the team.
THIRTY-SIX
DIARY ENTRY, UNDATED
There was an accident. That’s what he tells me. He says he’s my husband, but I don’t remember him. I don’t remember this house. My life. This man is cruel. It doesn’t seem like I would be married to someone like him. Then again, I didn’t know who I was before until I found this diary. Now I know that I betrayed my husband in the most terrible way. Now I understand why he treats me so badly. I try hard every day to bring back the past. It won’t come. There are only flashes from the accident. I can’t make sense of them yet. Mostly, I am just plagued with the feeling that there is something crucially important I’m supposed to recall, and I simply can’t.
I wish I could remember the man I fell in love with, the object of my betrayal. If he loved me so much, where has he gone?
THIRTY-SEVEN
Josie felt the force of Archie Gamble’s glare as he walked from the cruiser parked in his driveway to the road where Josie, Noah, and Mettner stood, waiting to enter the property. Two uniformed officers flanked him. They’d amassed enough police cruisers along the road, with headlights on, to fight off the darkness falling all around them. It was dinner time but no one was interested in eating. Because Gamble was not exactly thrilled about them being there, they’d decided to escort him to a different cruiser, parked on the roadside, where he couldn’t watch and protest their every move, at least until Josie, Noah, and Mettner had completed the search. As Archie passed them on his way toward it, a deep, phlegmy noise came from his throat. He turned and spit over his shoulder, a glob of yellow-brown mucus landing on Josie’s boot. She ignored it, instead staring him down, unblinking, until he looked away first. Next to her, Noah muttered, “I’d really like to punch that guy in the face.”
“Get in line,” said Mettner. He pulled a pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket and put them on.
Josie stared down at the spit globule. “I’m going to need one of you to bag this.”
Noah said, “What?”
She looked over to see that Archie Gamble was now arguing with one of the uniformed officers, gesticulating wildly, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He would not be allowed to smoke in the cruiser. “My boot. The spit. Bag it. It’s a DNA sample.”
Mettner walked over and looked down at it as well. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not even a little bit,” Josie said. “We’re not on his property. This is discarded spit.”
Mettner stared at her.
Noah said, “We can get DNA from inside the house. The warrant is broad enough for us to collect DNA from the premises. This guy’s got discarded cigarette butts everywhere.”
Josie smiled. “We barely had enough probable cause to get that warrant signed in the first place. Any defense attorney worth their salt will move to suppress the DNA gathered from those cigarette butts found on his property. We can collect them, but I also want this sample.”
Mettner sighed, “I’ll get an evidence bag.”
