Chapter 7
SEVEN
“He didn’t say anything when you caught up with him outside of the tent?” asked Noah.
From over the screen of her laptop, Josie watched her husband make a late dinner.
He put melted butter and minced garlic into a skillet along with vegetables he’d chopped up earlier and pushed them around with a wooden spoon.
A delicious smell filled the room, making her stomach rumble.
She hadn’t seen Noah in over twenty-four hours.
With the recent overtime and the shift in their schedules that allowed one of them to be home for Wren as much as possible, time together was harder and harder to come by.
For a moment, she just enjoyed the sight of him, freshly showered, his thick dark hair damp and tousled.
He looked relaxed in a pair of athletic shorts and an old T-shirt that clung to his muscular torso.
The tension that had been ever present in his body since his abduction almost a year ago was gone, at least for tonight.
He had started seeing a new therapist for his PTSD.
Josie hoped he’d have more days like this.
“Did you hear me?” Noah waved the wooden spoon in her direction.
Josie blinked. “Yeah. No, he didn’t say anything, but he was extra twitchy the rest of the afternoon and he was way less of a douche than normal.”
Noah chuckled before turning back to the stove and dumping some olive oil into a large pan and turning the heat to medium. “You almost sound disappointed.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “It’s just I’m not used to seeing him so subdued. I think that girl and her mother really got to him. What if it was the husband? Turner tried repeatedly to help the mother leave him.”
“It’s not his fault,” Noah said.
“Of course it’s not,” Josie agreed. “But you know how that goes. We feel guilty sometimes even when we know we shouldn’t.”
“True. It’s not always the husband, though. There’s not enough evidence to make that determination yet.” Noah used tongs to place chicken cutlets in the pan. “It could have been random, or someone obsessed with the daughter.”
“She was in much worse shape,” Josie conceded. “Whether that’s because she woke up and fought back or the killer was rougher with her because she was the intended target is something we’ll have to figure out.”
As Noah moved toward one of the overhead cabinets to search for something, Josie saw his hazel eyes darken momentarily.
They flitted toward the doorway that led out into their foyer.
Wren had taken their Boston terrier, Trout, for a walk.
Josie knew that Noah was having the same thoughts she’d had earlier.
Now, every case involving a teenage girl whose life was cut short by violence was a reminder of what they, too, had to lose.
A reminder of the gravity of the task they’d been entrusted with.
“The app on her phone is turned on, right?” Noah said, hand closing around a box of rice.
Josie nodded. “I checked before she left with Trout.”
One of their non-negotiable rules was that Wren install a locator app on her phone.
She hadn’t objected but she’d also been shell-shocked after her dad’s death.
Recently, she’d started turning it off. Josie suspected this would become an issue as time went on but for now, she just reminded Wren of it whenever they parted.
They’d never had to be so careful about discussing work in their own home.
Ensuring that the ugliness that came with their jobs didn’t terrify Wren was just another adjustment in their new reality.
While she was well-acquainted with death and loss, they didn’t want her to overhear them talking about the murder of a girl close to her age.
Noah shot another glance at the doorway before filling a pot with water and turning the heat up on that as well.
“She’ll probably be another twenty minutes, at least,” Josie told him.
“It’s different now,” he said quietly. “No one tells you about the fear. All the times I imagined having a kid, I guess I never really thought about how scary it would be.”
Josie stood and walked over to him, wrapping her arms around him from behind and pressing her cheek against his back. “I know. Me either.”
They’d only been Wren’s guardians for seven short months, and most of it had been painful.
She’d barely spoken to them for the first six of those months but the commitment they’d made to the girl was not something either of them took lightly.
Besides, even at her most grief-stricken, sullen, and shut down, she was easy to like.
One of their best friends, Misty Derossi, had an eight-year-old son, Harris, who considered Josie and Noah his aunt and uncle.
They were very close to him. From the day Wren met him, she’d treated him like her little brother, doting on him, indulging every request to play endless games—games Wren was too old for but played with zeal.
She watched his favorite shows and had even gone with Misty to cheer him on at some of his baseball games.
When she accidentally left a lip gloss in the dryer and inadvertently ruined several of Josie’s work shirts, she’d sold drawings to her classmates at school until she had enough to pay for Josie’s shirts.
It wasn’t something Josie or Noah had expected or even thought about, especially since the Lip Gloss Massacre had been an accident.
That Wren had taken it upon herself anyway spoke to her character.
Not surprising, given what Josie knew about Wren’s late father, Dexter McMann.
Noah’s arms moved as he continued cooking. His voice grew quiet. Josie barely heard it over the hiss of the pans. “Dex must have been terrified of what would happen to her when he realized he was going to die.”
“Yes,” Josie said, throat suddenly thick with emotion.
“That’s why he gave her to you,” Noah said. “He came into your life when you were the same age as Wren. He saw some of the things you endured.”
When Josie was three weeks old, she’d been kidnapped by a woman named Lila Jensen who had set the house on fire and escaped with Josie, using her as a way to get her ex-boyfriend, Eli Matson, back.
The authorities believed Josie had perished in the fire.
Eli had had no idea of the depths of Lila’s evil.
He had been a wonderful, fiercely loving father, until Lila killed him.
Once he was no longer there to protect her, Josie suffered years of horrific abuse, despite Eli’s mother Lisette’s valiant efforts to get custody of Josie.
“What Dex saw didn’t even scratch the surface,” Josie murmured into his back.
“He saw enough,” Noah said, laying the utensil down so he could cover her hands where they tightened around his waist.
Eventually, Lila met Dex, who was blinded by Lila’s beauty and fooled by the saccharine act she put on.
Dex had proved to have a heart of gold. He’d shown up for Josie.
Parented her more than Lila ever had. He’d taken care of her when she was sick, helped her with school assignments, made sure that she was never hungry, taken her to the emergency room when she needed medical attention, bought her books he thought she might like.
Josie shuddered. “I always felt so conflicted. I wished so hard that he’d never laid eyes on Lila and yet, if he hadn’t, I’m not sure I would have survived.”
Unfortunately, nothing provoked Lila’s rage like someone treating Josie kindly, especially when that kindness came from a man whose focus was supposed to be solely on her.
In an effort to punish Dex, Lila had set his pillow on fire.
Josie had gotten him out of their home quickly but not quickly enough.
He’d been left disfigured, his face and head horrifically scarred.
“He didn’t regret it,” Noah reminded her.
“I know.”
Josie had only seen him twice after the day the trailer burned down.
The last time had been three months before his death.
It was then she found out he had a daughter.
Josie would never forget the way he’d lit up when he told her about Wren.
What he hadn’t told her was that he had pancreatic cancer and not long to live.
It had been a shock to find Wren on their doorstep hours after his death, declaring that he’d left custody of her to Josie and Noah and, as difficult as things had been so far, Josie considered it a gift and a privilege to be tasked with guardianship of the daughter of one of the best men she’d ever known.
“I’m glad it was us,” Noah remarked. “This isn’t what I expected but it’s… it feels… meaningful. Like being here for Wren is one of the most important things we’ll ever do.”
Josie smiled into his shirt. “Yes.”
She felt him returning his attention to making their meal. He made no move to shrug out of her embrace, continuing as if he cooked this way all the time, with her wrapped around him. “I had a concerning conversation with Wren on the way back from her therapy appointment,” she said.
He stilled. “Concerning how?”
Josie related the encounter in the car. By the time she concluded, the tension in Noah’s muscles had dissipated. “You’re overthinking it,” he told her. “Before you say anything, I’m not dismissing your concerns. I just…”
“She said she ‘can’t’ talk about it,” Josie reminded him.
Noah patted her hands where they joined just below his navel. “Just consider that you’re viewing this through the lens of someone who sees evil and violence on a daily basis, and…”
When he didn’t continue, Josie said softly, “It’s okay. Say it.”
“Josie, your childhood wasn’t exactly normal.”