Chapter 20
TWENTY
Turner moved around the table and flung himself back onto the couch, hands covering his face.
In the silence, Josie could hear his harsh breaths as he tried to maintain his composure.
The only other noise was Spot’s tail thwacking the edge of the coffee table.
Sensing his human’s distress, he deposited his octopus between Turner’s legs.
“Turner,” Josie said when he didn’t respond. “Can you think of anyone you’ve pissed off enough to come after your family?”
His voice was muffled from behind his hands. “I’m thinking.”
“That many people?”
“What do you think?”
Josie sighed. “Why, Turner?”
His hands dropped and he scratched behind Spot’s ear. “Why what?”
“You know what.”
“Why am I like this? Nice of you to ask. I’m just an asshole.” The forced nastiness in his voice was betrayed by the tight lines around his mouth and the bone-deep anguish that flashed through his eyes. “A garden-variety asshole. Sweetheart.”
Josie stabbed the end recording icon on her phone app.
She stood up and collected both their phones.
Waving his in the air, she said, “I’ll get this back to you as soon as possible.
In the meantime, go buy a temporary phone and text me the number so I can reach you.
If you think of anything I need to know, I want to hear about it. Immediately.”
“Wait.”
Josie lifted a brow but didn’t sit back down.
“Please,” he said.
Very, very un-Turner-like.
She sat back down, pressed record on her app. Repeated their names, location, date and time. Then nodded for Turner to go on.
“I think this is likely some sicko who works somewhere in the same couple of blocks where Dani’s PT place is and got fixated on Maxine and then my wife, but if you want names of people I pissed off… I don’t know anyone I’ve pissed off badly enough to warrant abducting my family.”
“Not one person?”
Spot used his octopus to nudge Turner’s hands for more pets. “The only person I pissed off enough that he never really went away is this guy from the Arnold Ferguson case.”
“The escort killer?”
Josie had read enough news articles to know the basics about the most high-profile case of Turner’s career.
“The guy I’m thinking of wasn’t anyone related to Ferguson,” Turner said. “Not a witness or anything like that. He was one of the clients of the escort service.”
Luxe Escort Service had operated in Alden and its surrounding area for over a decade.
They billed themselves as the purveyor of dates for men in the upper echelons of society who needed a plus one to accompany them to black-tie events.
The owner had repeatedly denied that any prostitution went on.
“If the girls choose to engage in a physical relationship with their dates, that is their decision and it happens on their own time,” she had said during countless interviews which translated into: “I’m running a fancy prostitution ring under the guise of a legal business. ”
“Who is the client?” Josie asked.
“Dustin Emmer. He’d be in his late forties now.
He’s a professor at a college outside the city.
Really into literature. Not much in the way of social skills.
A lot creepy. Then again, most of those guys are.
Anyway, he was obsessed with one of the escorts, Zara.
Spent thousands of dollars to book dates with her almost weekly so she could act out some weird-ass fantasy he had. ”
Josie grimaced. She didn’t want to know, but if she was going to interview Emmer she needed all the information Turner could give her. “What was the fantasy?”
“Some kind of weird, sexy librarian thing. Emmer would book Zara and his instructions were for her to bring a stack of books to the hotel room fifteen minutes before him. He wanted her to wear her hair up a certain way, put on some lingerie, wear these thick glasses, and sit at the table reading. When he showed up, she was to completely ignore him.”
“Wait. What?”
“Yeah,” Turner sighed. “Then he’d look through the stack of books, watch her, and jerk off from across the room. Once he was finished, she was supposed to tell him to get out. That was it.”
“No physical contact?”
“Nope.”
“Wow.”
“It was easy money, right? The guy never even touched her, but it creeped Zara out every time. Well, I think it was him that creeped her out. More than her average client. Anyway, when I busted Ferguson for the murders, the company went down in flames. Turns out that Dustin had followed Zara a time or two after one of their ‘dates’ so he knew where she lived. After the trial, he approached her about resuming those ‘dates.’ He offered her double what the escort service paid. She was a single mom with a toddler, so it was tough to turn him down but—”
“But someone like that is infinitely more terrifying than a man who wants a simple transaction of sex for money,” Josie supplied.
Turner nodded. “Exactly. You don’t know what you’re getting.
How deep the delusion goes. If one day it’s going to escalate into something else.
What he’s capable of doing. He’d already crossed a ton of lines by following her from the hotels when he was booking her through the escort service, and then he showed up at her house to proposition her? Not cool.”
“I’m sure he took no for an answer,” Josie said sarcastically.
“Not even when she contacted the police. It played out exactly like you think it did. He kept showing up, trying to talk to her, even after she got us involved. Unfortunately, his behavior didn’t meet the criteria for a restraining order, not even after she called us a half-dozen times.
He became more and more persistent. Almost every time they left the house, he’d be there.
After everything Zara and her little girl had gone through, it was too much. They needed a fresh start.”
“He blames you for the escort service closing and her not wanting to participate in his creepy little role play anymore?”
Turner dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.
“No, it wasn’t any of that. I helped her relocate.
Hooked her up with some organizations that work with women who are leaving bad situations.
I made sure she found a new job, a legit one, and a place to live—a safe place—for her and her kid.
Found an attorney doing pro bono work who helped her change her name.
He got the judge to waive the public notice so Emmer couldn’t track her down so easily. ”
Josie scrutinized him. What he’d done wasn’t just un-Turner-like, it was above and beyond what anyone in his situation would do.
In their line of work, they came into contact with hundreds of people in far worse situations than Zara.
No matter how badly you wanted to help them, no matter how hard your heart broke for them, you simply couldn’t be everything to everyone.
Sure, you could direct them to organizations that offered services they needed.
Josie frequently did. Then again, there were the occasional victims or loved ones of victims that became more.
Josie still kept in touch with a girl she’d met on the case that had ruined her and Noah’s wedding and resulted in her grandmother’s murder. They were friends.
From between his hands, he added, “That’s, um, what I talked to your sister about when we’d meet in New York. She had all kinds of contacts from stories she’d done over the years.”
Josie wasn’t sure what she’d expected the connection between Turner and Trinity to be, but she’d never imagined this.
No wonder her sister hadn’t told her the truth.
It would have meant exposing the woman Turner was trying to keep safe—and her child.
Each time Josie had asked Turner about his relationship with her sister, he’d deflected, implying the story was Trinity’s to tell, knowing that she would never betray his confidence.
Tapping Trinity for help so that he could help Zara start over, free from her stalker, reinforced the lengths he’d been willing to go to for the woman.
“Do you still keep in touch with Zara?” Josie asked carefully.
His eyes snapped to hers. A sneer curled his lips. “What are you really asking me, Quinn?”
“I’m asking you if you still keep in touch with this woman.”
“You asked me who I pissed off. I told you. Dustin Emmer.”
“Turner, are you still in contact with Zara?”
“What do you think?”
“You do realize that I do this shit for a living, too, right? I know these techniques. Instead of answering my question, you ask your own. It buys time and deflects. We don’t have time, so whatever it is you’re getting defensive about, you need to put it aside and tell me what I need to know.”
“Fine,” he huffed. “Yeah, I check on her twice a year, okay?”
“I’ll need her full name and address so we can do a welfare check on her and her daughter.”
“No.”
She raised a brow. “A mother and a daughter were just killed at the Balloons and Tunes Festival. A mother and a daughter were just abducted. Tell me you see the pattern here.”
“You don’t need a welfare check. I can just call her right now.”
“I’d still like to get eyes on her, Turner.”
“If Emmer has my family, he doesn’t have Zara.”
“When is the last time you spoke to or saw her?”
“Check the call log. A month, maybe, but she doesn’t live in Denton and if I can’t get hold of her and you call the PD where she lives for them to go to her house, she’s going to get scared.
I don’t really like the idea of anyone else knowing her real identity, even local police.
If Emmer’s not behind what’s happening here, then he’ll still be a threat to her. ”
“What’s her address?”
“Quinn, do you hear what I’m saying?”
She handed him his phone. “Call her.”
With shaking hands, he found her contact and punched the call icon.
“Speaker,” Josie instructed.
Shooting her a murderous look, he put the phone on speaker and rested it on his leg.
With each ring, Turner’s hands trembled a little more. Finally, a woman’s sleepy voice answered. “Kyle? Is everything okay?”
“Hey, Z,” he said. “Uh, yeah, everything’s fine.”
“You’re calling so late. That means everything is not fine.” Her tone was sharper now, more alert. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He met Josie’s eyes briefly. “How’s Penny? She okay?”
“She’s fine. Kyle, you’re freaking me out. Is it him?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I don’t—I mean—”
Zara’s voice softened. “Whatever it is, just say it.”
“Dani and Cassidy have been abducted,” he said, his voice far calmer than his shaking hands. “You’ll probably see it on the news. I wanted to tell you first and make sure you and Penny were good.”
“Oh God,” Zara gasped. “That’s terrible. Oh God. Kyle, I’m sorry. What—what—”
“I don’t know anything,” he replied quickly. “My colleagues are working on it. If you call back, you’ll probably get one of them. Josie Quinn. You can trust her. Just be careful, okay? Be vigilant.”
“You think he’s behind this?”
Turner sighed. “I don’t know, Z. My colleagues will be questioning him in a matter of hours. He doesn’t know where you are. There’s no way he could possibly know. Just be safe, okay? I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up and tossed the phone back onto the table. When he finally looked at her, there was a defiant thrust to his chin. “Come on, Quinn. You gonna ask me or what?”
She knew exactly what he was talking about. “Did you have an affair with this woman?”
“What do you think?”
There was a softness to Zara’s tone—was it gratitude, or something else? Did it matter?
“Jesus, Turner. What’s your angle here? You want me to say I think you had an affair? It doesn’t matter what I think. It may not even be relevant.”
“I want you to— You know what? Never mind. No, I didn’t have an affair with Zara.”
He wanted a fight. That much was obvious. He was a master at riling people up, Josie in particular, but he was off tonight. His facade was crumbling. Regardless, she wasn’t playing his game. He could distract himself from his terror some other way. Her sole focus was Dani and Cassidy.
“Is Zara her new name?” Josie asked. “When we talk to Emmer, I don’t want to give it away.”
“No. Not new. Emmer knows her as Zara.”
He gave her Zara’s new name and address.
“Did Dani know about Emmer and his vendetta against you?” Josie asked.
“Yes, of course,” Turner said. “I wouldn’t leave my wife in the dark like that.”
“When is the last time you had contact with Dustin Emmer?” Josie asked.
Turner gestured toward his phone. “A couple days ago. He calls me at least once a week, sometimes more, to try to convince me to tell him where Zara and her daughter are and when I don’t, he gets angry and rants about how I had no right to take her from him.
I let him call because as long as he’s calling me, he hasn’t found her.
You’ll see the calls on my log. He’s got some colorful names for me.
Way more creative than you and Palmer. Maybe you two could get some pointers from him. ”
More deflection. She was on to him. He acted like an asshole so he didn’t have to think about how horrible his reality was in the moment. Then he said whatever he had to in order to piss people off so they didn’t look closely enough to see his pain.
“Shut up, Turner.”
She gave Spot one last pet, charmed by his sweet temperament. It wasn’t until she reached the door that Turner called after her. “That’s it?”
“No, that’s not it, Douchebag. Now I’m going to find your family.”