AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They were at an impasse.
When Gretchen came back in for the night shift, Josie, Noah and Mettner briefed her, and went home. On autopilot, Josie showered and changed, microwaved herself and Noah something for dinner, and fed, walked, and played with Trout. Once the three of them were nestled in bed together, Josie’s mind went into overdrive.
Was Archie Gamble the killer? Had he gleaned all the personal information the killer seemed to know about the Collinses from stalking Claudia? Was he the person Claudia believed had been following her? Had she somehow caught onto him and figured out his name? Written it down on a piece of junk mail that had somehow ended up in Eve’s possession? Kathy had said that she’d overheard Claudia telling Eve she thought she was being followed. Had Claudia given Eve the envelope with Gamble’s name on it so that Eve could look into him? If that was the case, why hadn’t Eve mentioned it the night of Claudia’s murder?
Then there was Gamble. If he was the killer, where was he hiding Claudia’s phone? Had he destroyed evidence from her murder in his burn barrel? But if that was the case, why wouldn’t he destroy all of it? Why leave the notebook laying around? Or had he simply forgotten about it? Lost track of it in the mess that was his home? If he had been careful enough to burn physical evidence, why take other risks? Like drawing attention to himself by ditching Eve’s car so close to his property? Unless he hadn’t ever thought that it would lead to him. He had no idea that Eve had written his name down until they told him.
The killer’s text to Beau Collins kept coming back to her:
Play my game and no one else has to die. Go on air today. Tell them the answer to this question: what is my wife’s greatest failure? Get it right or pay the price. If you don’t go on air at all, there will be consequences.
Beau had done as the killer asked. Did that mean he was finished killing? Would there be more messages? Josie had difficulty believing this killer would be able to stop. She looked over at Noah. He lay on his back, bare-chested, one hand folded behind his head, the other pointing the remote control at the television. Josie looked at the screen, but he was flipping through the guide so quickly, she could barely make out any of the names of shows. He wouldn’t pick something. He hardly ever did. It had driven her crazy for years until she figured out that he wasn’t looking for a show that would help him unwind. It was the act of searching that helped him relax.
For her, any show about restaurants or cooking or anything even remotely related to food would put her to sleep in seconds.
When he reached the limit of the channels available to them, he started over. Josie climbed over a snoring Trout and stretched out beside Noah, laying her head against his chest.
“You’re doing all the thinking, aren’t you?” he whispered into her hair.
Josie put a hand over his heart, its steady beat reassuring. “Do you think Beau Collins answered the killer’s question correctly?”
“I don’t know,” said Noah. “But I don’t think this guy is done. He says it’s a game but as vicious as this guy is? I don’t see him letting Beau win it. Although if Gamble’s our guy, we’ve just made it a hell of a lot harder for him to continue playing.”
“True,” Josie said. “The Chief put a unit outside his house.”
“I don’t know. He could easily sneak out the back, disappear on those twenty acres he’s got, and come out somewhere no one would know to look for him. Where do we even go from here?”
“I think we need to consider former patients, people like the Abbotts,” Josie said.
“But we can’t do that if no one will tell us who these patients are,” Noah reminded her. “Beau Collins is definitely not going to give up the names of any patients—not for anything.”
“But Trudy might,” Josie said. “I know it’s a long shot, but I think we need to talk to her again. Confront her with what we know about the Abbotts and the review. She knows something she’s not telling us.”
“Then tomorrow we go talk to her again.” Noah brought his arm down from behind his head and wrapped it around her. “How were things with Luke today?”
She hoped he didn’t feel her stiffen. “Fine,” she said. “I just—I think it’s going to take him a while to adjust to being back out in the field.”
“I guess we know what his greatest failure was,” Noah muttered.
“Hey,” said Josie, again seized by the compulsion to defend Luke.
“I’m sorry,” Noah said, brushing his lips over her forehead. “I’m being mean. You were right about what you said earlier, about him facing the consequences of his actions and serving his time. He didn’t have to come back out into the world and start working alongside law enforcement again. He’s got to know people hate him, but he’s trying to do a good thing and that should mean something.”
Josie thought of Luke on his knees, his mutilated hands in hers, the panic running through him like a current of electricity. She didn’t want to talk about him anymore. “How do you think you and I would do on a Familiar Five quiz?” she blurted.
Noah laughed. “I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”
“I don’t,” she said, tracing her fingers over the muscles of his abdomen. “But there’s a big difference between not knowing how your partner takes their coffee and not knowing what they think their greatest failure is.”
He squeezed her. “It’s the same for us both. The failure thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You think your greatest failure is not saving your grandmother.”
Josie’s breath caught. She had failed at a lot of things in life. Stopping the woman posing as her mother from hurting people, herself included; being married; being engaged; saving her late husband; saving people she had sworn to protect and serve; solving cases. But if she had to choose her greatest failure of all, then yes, it was not being able to save her grandmother’s life. She felt the uncharacteristic sting of tears behind her eyes. Her therapist had been working with her on trying to “emote” but Josie still hated it, and always resisted crying at all costs.
Swallowing over the lump in her throat, she said, “And you think your greatest failure is not getting to your mom’s house ten minutes earlier.”
