Breathe Your Last: An addictive and nail-biting crime thriller (Detective Josie Quinn Book 10)

by Lisa Regan

“Do the students have your cell phone number?”

  “Well, yeah. All the kids on the team have it. They rarely use it unless they’re going to be late or miss practice.”

  This was getting her nowhere.

  “Do you live in Denton?” Josie asked, changing course.

  “Yeah, a couple of miles from campus,” he offered.

  “Alone?”

  “Does my dog count?” he laughed. “I’m divorced. No kids.”

  “What kind of dog?” Josie asked.

  “Labradoodle.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Last night?” he repeated. “I was—wait, why do you need to know?”

  “We’re asking everyone, Coach Pace.” She gave him a big smile. “Standard procedure.”

  He didn’t look convinced but said, “Last night I was at home.”

  “With your dog.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Right,” Josie said. “After nine thirty. Still at home?”

  “I was home all night,” he replied. He slipped back into his overly friendly mode. “Mondays come quicker the older you get, know what I mean?”

  Josie looked down at her pink shirt. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

  Fourteen

  My first time killing came a bit later. It wasn’t something I had planned initially, but living with other people can be difficult. They always disappoint, both in big ways and in small ones. He had disappointed me in a big way, but it was the constant wheezing that set my teeth on edge. You wouldn’t believe the noises your lungs make when they fill up with fluid. At first, I was glad to see him in such discomfort. If anyone had ever deserved to die a slow death, robbed of air in increments each day while fever burned through them, it was him. It was divine luck that he got so sick in the first place. Then all I had to do was switch his antibiotics with something else. He almost caught on a few times, made some noises about how he wasn’t “sure if these are the right pills,” but by the fourth day he was so weak, and he had so little breath left to use on speech, he shut up. Of course, he went back for more antibiotics, and I had to switch those out, too. I had already decided by that time that if he wasn’t gone within another week, I’d have to take drastic measures. The wheezing was driving me mad, but I didn’t want him to get better. Not after what he’d done. He had lied and not just to me. He was a lot like Nysa in that way.

  In the end, I didn’t even get to see him die. I left him gasping for air and when I returned, there was only silence. I was giddy with delight—not just because he was dead but because he’d gotten what he deserved—until one of the doctors at the hospital mentioned an autopsy. Would it show that he didn’t have any of the antibiotics he was supposed to have taken in his system? To my relief, they declined to perform one. Still, I waited for someone to figure out what I had done.

  No one ever did.

  Fifteen

  Josie followed Coach Pace into the hallway and watched him walk back to the lobby. She heard the campus officer at the reception desk say, “See you later, Coach.” The smell of pizza wafted toward her from the other end of the hall, and her stomach growled loudly in response. Mettner poked his head out of the CCTV room. “Food’s in here,” he said. As Josie devoured two slices of pizza in short order, they exchanged notes on their most recent interviews, which had led nowhere.

  Mettner said, “Hudson Tinning is the last interview. He’s in my room. You want to talk to him together?”

  Josie used a napkin to wipe pizza sauce from her mouth. “Yeah.”

  As they entered the interview room, Hudson Tinning stood from one of the chairs surrounding the small table. A black T-shirt hung on his tall, wiry frame. White letters proclaimed: School Kills My Vibe. The cuffs of his torn jeans brushed over the tops of his flip-flop-clad feet. He towered over Josie and even had a few inches on Mettner, who was almost six feet tall.

  “You’re the police?” he said, looking from Mettner to Josie and back. His pale blue eyes were wide. Stringy locks of blond hair hung down the sides of his face giving him a surfer look. “I mean, the real police,” he clarified. “Not just the campus police.”

  “Yes,” Josie said. She introduced herself and Mettner and they showed him their credentials. “Have a seat, Mr. Tinning.”

  He returned to his seat. Mettner sat across from him and took out his phone, pulling up his note-taking app. Josie remained standing. Hudson pushed a hand through his hair. “Is it true? Nysa’s dead?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Tinning,” said Josie. “Nysa Somers passed away this morning.”

  “Oh Jesus.” His head dipped as he took several deep breaths. When he looked back up at them, tears glistened in his eyes. “Are you guys serious? I mean, really? She’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Mettner said.

  “Oh God.” He put his elbows on the table and lowered his face into his palms. A sob filled the room. Josie and Mettner gave him a moment. Then Mettner said, “Mr. Tinning, I know this is upsetting, but we really need to ask you some questions.”

  Lifting his face, Hudson wiped tears from his cheeks and nodded. “I’m sorry. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. I just—what happened to her?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” Josie told him. “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Someone said she was in the pool. Like, dead. That makes no sense. You know she’s the best swimmer we’ve got, right?”

  “We’re aware,” Josie told him.

  “Then how could she drown?”

  Mettner said, “As Detective Quinn said, we’re really not sure what happened at this point. We’ll know more when our investigation concludes.”

  Hudson said, “When will that be?”

  Josie said, “It could take a couple of months, unfortunately, because the medical examiner is doing routine toxicology screening and that can take up to eight weeks.”

  “Eight weeks!” he exclaimed. “Why so long?”

  Josie answered, “Not enough labs to do all the processing. The labs that are available are severely backlogged. Some of the tests require multiple steps and take time to process.”

  “But her family,” Hudson said. “They’ll want to know what happened. Her friends—all of us want to know what happened.”

  “I’m sorry, Hudson,” said Josie.

  “Her parents were just in town. Did anyone talk to them?”

  “Our colleague was with them this morning,” Mettner said. “They made a positive identification. We’ll be speaking to them again later.”

  “Can you tell them I’m sorry? For their loss?”

  “Of course,” said Josie.

  “’Cause I guess they’ll have her funeral at home and not here.”

  Josie said, “New Jersey isn’t a long drive from here.”

  Hudson nodded.

  Mettner said, “I take it that you two were close?”

  Hudson placed his palms down on the table. “Yeah. We’ve been training a lot together since school started. We were already friends but just spent a lot more time together since we came back to school this year. We’re both on the swim team, both sophomores. We’ve had a few classes together.”

  “Were you having any kind of romantic relationship with Ms. Somers?” Josie asked him.

  “No. We weren’t. I wanted to. I liked her. She was cool, you know? Not like most girls here. But she was too focused on her schoolwork and the team to date anyone.”

  “Did Nysa know that you were interested in her in a sexual way?” Mettner asked.

  He shrugged, his gaze on his hands. “I don’t know. I guess. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Josie pressed.

  Eyes still downcast, he mumbled, “Sure, I guess she knew I liked her. Everyone did.”

  Josie said, “Did you ever ask her out? Make any advances?”

  “We kissed once at a party. Last year. We were both drunk. But after that she told me she wasn’t interested in seeing anyone.”

  “Anyone?” Josie said. “Or just you?”

&
nbsp; Several seconds ticked past. Hudson’s fingers drummed against his thighs. “I don’t know. That’s what she told me. That she wasn’t interested in seeing anyone.”

  “How were things over the weekend when WYEP taped their piece on the two of you?” Josie said.

  “That,” Hudson said, giving a slow shake of his head. “I didn’t even want to be in it, but it turned out okay. We all went out to lunch after they shot the interviews—me, my mom, Nysa, and her parents. Everything was cool. WYEP shot the interviews and stuff Saturday morning ’cause that’s when Nysa’s parents could come. The other stuff was footage from the team archive from last year. I guess they edited all that day ’cause it was on the eleven o’clock news.”

  “So there were no issues between you and Nysa over the news story?” Mettner asked.

  “No. Of course not. Everything was cool.”

  “Even though you’re normally very competitive?” Mettner went on.

  “No, everything was fine. I mean, yeah, my mom really wanted me to be included in the piece since I was born and raised here in Denton, but Nysa didn’t care about sharing the spotlight. We had a good time.”

  Josie said, “Hudson, when is the last time you saw Nysa?”

  He turned his gaze to her. “At, um, a party. Saturday night. It was in that student housing complex on the upper campus. Not Hollister, one of the other ones. A guy on the swim team—he’s a senior—he and his roommate threw a party. I was there most of the night. Nysa stopped in but didn’t stay.”

  “Was she drinking?” asked Mettner.

  Hudson shook his head. “She didn’t drink much. Hardly at all, really. She always came to parties, like, just to show face, or whatever, but she didn’t like to drink so she’d hang for a while and then leave. I mean, sometimes she’d get drunk, like last year, but that was pretty rare.”

  Josie said, “Were there drugs at the party?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I didn’t really notice.”

  Mettner asked, “Do you ever use drugs?”

  Hudson looked from Mettner to Josie and back, eyes wide.

  Josie said, “It’s okay if you do. You won’t be in trouble. We’re not here for that.”

  “Oh, well, I might have smoked some pot last year.”

  “But not this year?” Mettner asked.

  “Well, no. I, uh, I lost a scholarship last year because one of the swimming coaches found a joint in my swim bag. I’m also on academic probation. I can’t afford to mess around this year, and you know they do random drug testing.”

  Mettner tapped into his phone. “Fair enough.”

  Hudson leaned forward until his chest brushed the edge of the table. “Look, if you could not mention that to anyone else on the team… It’s kind of embarrassing. Obviously, the coaching staff know, but…”

  Josie said, “There’s no reason for it to leave this room, Hudson. Where did you get that joint?”

  He shrugged. “Some kid in my English class.”

  “Do you remember his name?” Mettner asked.

  Hudson raised a brow, his expression wavering on a smile, as though Mettner was about to drop a punchline. When he didn’t, Hudson said, “I don’t remember.”

  Josie said, “Tell me, have you seen this image before?” She took out her phone and showed him a photo of the sticker.

  He stared at it for a beat and shook his head slowly. “No. What is it?”

  “We’re not sure,” Mettner said.

  “What does it have to do with Nysa?”

  “We’re not sure,” Mettner repeated.

  Josie moved on. “When you saw Nysa on Saturday at the party, was anyone with her?”

  “Her roommate, Christine.”

  Josie said, “How did Nysa seem to you on Saturday?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Mettner said, “Was she upset at all? Distracted?”

  “No, no. She was normal.”

  Josie asked, “Do you know if there was anything going on in her life that was causing her stress?”

  “Nah,” Hudson said. “She was pretty chill. Then again, it’s so early in the semester, there’s not much to stress over yet.”

  “Did Nysa have any problems with depression or anxiety that you know of?” Josie said.

  His eyes moistened again, and his shoulders began to quake. “What? No. She was a happy person. Are you, like, saying she killed herself or something? ’Cause there’s no way she did that. She was really ambitious. There was so much she wanted to do. She had plans for her life.”

  “Okay,” Josie said, holding up a hand to silence him before he got hysterical. “I understand.”

  What she didn’t tell him was that sometimes even the most driven and determined people had inner demons they couldn’t escape. Sometimes people who were successful at most things in life weren’t able to overcome those demons. Sometimes those demons led people to do things they might not otherwise do—like eat drug-laced brownies.

  “Hudson,” Mettner said. “Is there someone we can call for you? Your mom, maybe?”

  “God no,” Hudson said. “Please. Not now, anyway. I’ll call her later today.”

  “Okay. We just have a few more questions,” Josie said. “Where were you last night?”

  “Home,” he answered.

  “Where’s home?” Mettner asked.

  “Oh, Hollister. Same as Nysa and her roommate. I live a couple of blocks away from them.”

  “Do you have a roommate?” Josie asked.

  “Yeah. He was there.”

  Josie took down the name of the roommate and fired off a text to Noah to make sure he tracked the guy down to confirm Hudson’s alibi.

  Mettner said, “So you were home last night? Say, after nine, nine thirty?”

  “Yeah. I had a chem test this morning, so I was studying.”

  Coming from someone wearing a shirt that said School Kills My Vibe, Josie found it hard to believe Hudson was studying on a Sunday night, but she didn’t say that. Instead, she asked, “How’d you do on the test?”

  “Oh, I won’t know till later this week.”

  “Just one last question before we let you go,” Josie said. “Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Nysa?”

  Hudson put his face back in his hands. “No, man. I don’t. I don’t know why anyone would want to hurt her. She was amazing.”

  Sixteen

  Before they left the campus, Josie checked with Chief Hahlbeck about the sticker. She’d been searching their database but hadn’t found anything. She promised to keep looking and make some inquiries around campus. With nothing left to do on campus, Josie and Mettner returned to their own headquarters. Josie felt relief to see her beloved stationhouse after the intense chaos and sadness of the morning. It was a massive three-story stone building with an old, unused bell tower at one corner. When it was first built, it had been the town hall. Sixty-five years ago, it had been converted to the police station. Imposing, stately, and a study in gray, it had character. Josie loved the old building.

  Mettner arrived at the same time as she did, parking next to her in the municipal lot at the rear of the building. Together, they trudged through the back door and walked up two flights of stairs to the great room where the detectives’ permanent desks sat all pushed together in the middle of the room. Surrounding them were other desks used by various patrol officers needing to complete paperwork. There was now a new permanent desk for their press liaison, Amber Watts, to the right of the collective desks. Amber had decorated it in a teal and white theme—matching penholder, pens, stapler, and scissors. She had also put up a teal and white framed cork board on the wall beside her desk. It looked very un-corporate and cheery. It was a little out of place in the police station, but Amber’s ever-present exuberance and her need to coordinate everything was growing on Josie.

  Amber looked up from her laptop and pushed a long lock of her auburn hair off her shoulder. She grinned at Mettner, and Josie detected two rosy pink circles in his ch
eeks as he said, “Miss Watts, nice to see you.”

  Amber nodded, flashing Mettner a megawatt smile, and stabbed her teal and white striped pen in the air. “The desk sergeant said to call him when you got here. He has something for you.”

  Josie went to her desk and dialed the front lobby where Sergeant Dan Lamay had been stationed now for almost five years. Dan had been with Denton PD longer than anyone currently on the force. He’d survived scandals and multiple chiefs. He was past retirement age, but when Josie was interim chief, she’d made him desk sergeant so he could continue to serve on the force. His family needed his income and his benefits. She’d been rewarded with his friendship, which had saved her hide on more than one occasion. “You’re here,” he said when he answered. “I’ll be right up.”

  Josie was going to tell him that she would come to him, but he’d already hung up. Dan had bad arthritis in one of his knees that seemed to get worse each year. A minute later, he came huffing through the stairwell door, a paper evidence bag in his hands. Dan lumbered over to Josie’s desk and handed it to her. “Hummel left that phone and charger. He said it’s ready for you to examine. He already dusted it for prints. He said there was only one set, belonging to the owner of the phone.”

  “Did he say anything about a baggie?” Josie asked him. “I asked him to get prints from that, too.”

  Dan scratched his chin. “He said same prints on the baggie as on the phone. He’ll have a report for you by the end of the day, but he wanted you to know that right away. Oh, and Gretchen called and got permission from the parents for you to examine Nysa Somers’ phone.”

  “Where is Gretchen?” Mettner asked.

  “She went over to Hollister Way to help Lieutenant Fraley canvass,” Dan said. “She also told me about your shirts, boss. I ordered some for you. They’ll be here in two days.”

  “Dan,” Josie said. “You’re a godsend. Thank you.”

  He waved a hand in a gesture that said it was no big deal. Turning to head back downstairs, he said over his shoulder, “This way you can spend your time on more important things.”