Her Mother’s Grave_Absolutely gripping crime fiction with unputdownable mystery and suspense

by Lisa Regan

  “Do you have his name?” Gretchen asked.

  “I don’t—I don’t remember,” Josie lied.

  Gretchen gave her a penetrating look. Then she said, “Try to remember. People you date usually keep photos. Could be worth paying him a visit. In the meantime, we’ll get to work tracking down the Lindas, Lillys, and Lauras of the foster care system.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  JOSIE – THIRTEEN YEARS OLD

  There was a man in her mother’s bed. This wasn’t at all unusual, except that it was the same man who had been in her mother’s bed every morning for the last two weeks. The noise of their vigorous nighttime activities was hard to sleep through in the tiny trailer, but she made sure to be up, showered, dressed, and out the door every morning before either of them got up, taking the shortcut through the woods to wait for Ray on his back porch. Josie’s mother and the new guy weren’t around in the afternoons, usually returning to the trailer after dinner, by which time Josie was firmly barricaded in her room. Josie didn’t like it when men stayed over, but she loved it when her mother had a reason to ignore her.

  When she finally met him, it was by accident. A stomach virus had kept her up most of the night, and as she was stumbling from the bathroom to the kitchen to get a glass of water, she stumbled smack into his bare chest. The impact sent Josie flying backward, her ass hitting hard against the kitchen tiles. The lights switched on, and Josie threw up a forearm to avoid the sudden glare. Standing over her, looking impossibly tall, was a guy who had to be closer to Josie’s age than her mother’s. Shaggy brown hair fell across his face. He wore only boxer shorts, and the muscles of his long torso rippled when he reached down to help her up.

  “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

  She nodded, suddenly very aware that she must smell like vomit.

  “You don’t look so good,” he told her. “I’m Dex, by the way. Your mom said she’d introduce me, but you’re never here.”

  Oh, I’m here, Josie thought. All her mother had to do was knock on her bedroom door, but now Josie saw why her mother wouldn’t want them to meet. She couldn’t take her eyes off his flat stomach and the trail of hair that dipped into the front of his boxers. She’d seen Ray shirtless a dozen times, but Ray didn’t look like this. “How—how old are you?” Josie asked.

  Dex laughed. “I’m twenty. I know, I know, there’s a bit of an age difference, but your mom, you know, she’s really cool.”

  Josie didn’t bother responding to that. Dex didn’t seem like he was there as the result of a drug-and-alcohol-fueled bender like most of them. He actually wanted to be there, which made him either really stupid or every bit as cold-hearted as Josie’s mother. Josie’s money was on stupid; she’d seen her mother manipulate men before. She pushed past him and got a glass from the overhead cabinet, filling it with water and gulping it down. Immediately she regretted it as nausea roiled in her stomach.

  “You sick?” Dex asked.

  Yeah, he definitely wasn’t the brightest.

  Ignoring him, Josie tried to push past him, but before she could get through the living room, the nausea overcame her and vomit exploded across the carpet in front of her. Holding her stomach, she swayed on her feet. It was only the water she’d just had, but the smell was rank. Her mother was really going to make her pay for this.

  Then Dex was at her feet, blotting the carpet with paper towels. He left and came back with cleaner he’d found under the kitchen sink. “You should go lie down,” he said. “I got this.”

  Josie knew she should thank him, but she was afraid if she didn’t get into her bed that instant, she might not make it. She ran to her room and clambered into her bed, pulling the covers up to her neck, letting the illness pull her under its choppy waves.

  She didn’t even remember falling asleep, but when she woke up, on her nightstand were four cans of ginger ale and two sleeves of saltine crackers. She sat up, confused and sure she must be dreaming. Reaching over to examine one of the cans, her feet bumped into something hard and plastic beside her bed. A bucket. For her to throw up in. For a moment, Josie wondered if her grandmother had been there in the night, but she knew better. Her mother never allowed Lisette inside the trailer. There was no chance it was her mother, so it had to be… Dex?

  It was two weeks before their paths crossed again, and when they did, she only managed a mumbled “Thanks.” It made her nervous when men were nice to her. It always came at such a heavy price—her mother’s rage, a bargaining chip, or something worse. Occasionally Dex would invite her to join him and her mother while they ate or watched television, but she always declined. He invited her to go to the movies with them or out to eat, but again she refused. He always looked a little disappointed, but he had no idea of the way things worked in her mother’s world.

  Then he started approaching her when her mother wasn’t home. He had practically moved in by this point, and while her mother was off doing whatever she did to earn money to keep the trailer roof over their heads, Dex tried to draw Josie out, offering her rides to and from school, wanting to take her for ice cream, asking if she needed help with her homework, trying to get her to watch TV with him. One day he brought home a dozen donuts and offered her some, pointing out that he had gotten six of her favorite kind: French crullers. How he even knew that was beyond her. Had she told him?

  As if sensing her question, he said, “The last two times your mom got donuts, the French crullers mysteriously disappeared. I took a wild guess.”

  Josie stood in the middle of the tiny trailer kitchen, her stomach growling at the sight of the donuts, and put a hand on her hip. “Look,” she told him, “I’ve already got a boyfriend, I don’t need anyone’s help, and I sure as hell don’t need another one of my mom’s pervy boyfriends trying to be ‘nice’ to me. I wouldn’t touch you for a million donuts, so just cut it out. Okay?”

  For a moment, he stared at her wide-eyed, shock slackening his jaw. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face and he began to laugh. He bent at the waist, holding his belly, just laughing his ass off. Josie shot him the dirtiest look she could muster.

  Finally, he said, “You’re pretty sassy, you know that? How many ‘pervy boyfriends’ did your mom have before I moved in?”

  Josie walked away from him, taking up position on the living-room couch where her homework was spread out. “Enough,” she said.

  “I’m not being nice to you because I want something from you, and I’m certainly not a pervert.”

  “That’s what they all say,” she muttered as she picked up her pencil and tried to focus on her homework.

  A French cruller on a folded paper towel appeared next to the worksheet in front of her. “We’re living together,” he said. “I’m dating your mom. I don’t want anything from you. I’m just trying to talk to you, to maybe make you look less miserable once in a while.”

  “Well, don’t try being my dad either,” Josie snapped.

  “I’m not trying to be anyone’s dad,” Dex replied. “Your mom and I, we’re just having fun.”

  “I know,” Josie said. “I hear you every night.”

  Again, he laughed. “You’re a whip,” he said. “Anyway, have some donuts, don’t have some donuts. I’m going out. If you want a ride to school tomorrow, I can take you.”

  He flashed a smile at her, his green eyes vibrant beneath a shock of dark hair, and left the trailer. Josie listened to the sound of his car pulling away and wondered how long he would be in their lives.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Josie emerged from the pharmacy with Harris’s antibiotics in one hand and her cell phone in the other. Misty rattled on while Harris screamed in the background, the sound making Josie want to race to him and scoop him into her arms. But when he was sick, she knew all he wanted was his mother. Fetching the medication was the best way she could help. “I got some more infant Tylenol too,” Josie said. “I’m only a few minutes away.”

  “Oh great,” Misty said. “You’re a lif
esaver.”

  A man stood leaning against the driver’s-side door of Josie’s Escape as she found her vehicle in the parking lot. She hung up with Misty and stopped dead in front of him. It was dark, and the parking lot was deserted except for them and a couple of other vehicles, but Josie could see dark eyes glinting from beneath his baseball cap. He wore faded blue jeans and a blue down vest over a flannel shirt. She estimated him to be in his forties. His hands were hooked in the belt loops of his jeans, one of his feet flat against the door of her car. A smile snaked across his face as she looked him up and down.

  “Can I help you?” Josie asked.

  He kept smiling at her in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. One of her hands slipped inside her jacket and rested on the handle of her service weapon.

  “Now that’s not very nice, is it, Chief?” he said.

  “Do I know you?” Josie asked.

  “No,” he said, “but you want to.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so,” Josie said. “Out of my way. There’s someplace I need to be.”

  He stepped aside slightly and put a hand on the door handle, as if to open it, but Josie hadn’t disengaged the locks yet. She didn’t want to get any closer to him, much less cross his path to get into her vehicle. “Allow me,” he said with fake politeness.

  “I can take it from here,” Josie told him.

  The hand on her gun was reassuring, but she knew she had to be careful—the mayor would have her ass if the chief of police was caught pulling a gun on a guy who was simply trying to open her door for her.

  The man didn’t move, so Josie said, “What do you want?”

  “Just trying to have a conversation with you, sweet thing.”

  Josie kept her voice clear and firm. “My name’s not sweet thing, and I really don’t have time for this. I told you, there’s somewhere I need to go. Someone is waiting for me.”

  “You know, you could be nicer to a gentleman just trying to be polite,” he told her, his sickening smile holding firm.

  She’d had enough already. “Get out of my way,” Josie told him.

  The punch came fast and hard, whizzing past the left side of her head as she ducked under it just in time, barreling into him with the full weight of her body and slamming him against her Escape. Josie heard him gasp the word, “Bitch.” Then everything else happened at once—she took a step back, her hand emerging from her jacket with the Glock, but before she could take a shooter’s stance, his fist swung out wildly, catching her on the side of her face. She felt the skin of her cheek swell. Stumbling to the side, she tried to keep her balance, lifting the Glock toward him once more. Lightning-fast, his other arm lashed out at her wrist. The Glock clattered to the ground and the man’s hands closed around Josie’s throat. He swung her around, and her body crashed into the side of the vehicle. Pain shot across the back of her skull.

  The man held her there, squeezing her throat until her vision started to gray as she clawed at his fingers. “You said you wanted it,” he breathed into her face. “I’m gonna give it to you, Chief.”

  Josie’s heart froze in her chest and then kicked into overdrive, jackhammering against her sternum. One of his hands left her throat and reached between her legs, tearing at her jeans, pulling them downward. It was all the opening Josie needed. She brought one elbow up and sliced downward onto the man’s forearm, breaking his hold. Her other elbow came up fast, smashing into his nose. He staggered backward, muttering the word “bitch” once more and holding his hands to his face. They came away bloody. He stared at them and then looked back at her. “Oh, so you really want this to be real, then. Well, now I’m taking what I came for.”

  He lunged toward her, and she stepped out of the way, snagging one of his wrists and twisting his arm high behind his back. She kicked between his feet, spreading his legs and putting him off balance. Her forearm knocked his face into the window of the Escape once, and then again for good measure. Josie didn’t have cuffs, but she took his other wrist and twisted that behind his back as well. “Get on your knees,” she commanded.

  She felt him struggle against her hold, and she twisted his wrists until he cried out in pain and his knees buckled. Pushing him onto the ground, she readjusted her grip on his wrists, both now bent at unnatural angles. Josie knew the pain was the only thing keeping him from coming after her again. Once his face was against the asphalt, she put one knee on his back and one on his neck. “You’re under arrest,” she said, and read him his rights.

  “What the fuck is this?” he cried.

  Josie took one hand away long enough to fish her phone out of her pocket and dial 911, dropping the phone onto the pavement so she could keep him pinned as she shouted into it. She rattled off the address. “Officer needs immediate assistance. Send nearest units. Contact Lieutenant Fraley.”

  The man squirmed beneath her. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he spat. “This was not what we agreed on. This wasn’t part of the deal.”

  Josie leaned closer to his face. “What?”

  “You promised not to arrest me,” he cried.

  “Promised not to arrest you? I don’t even know you.”

  “It’s me,” he said. “Keith. I answered your ad.”

  Josie felt her stomach sink. “My ad? What ad?”

  He continued to struggle, bucking against her, grunting. “Your ad on craigslist, you crazy bitch.”

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Noah arrived just behind two marked units, jumping out of his car and racing toward her before the patrol officers were even out of their seatbelts. Blue and red lights pulsed in the darkness. Dropping to his knees, Noah grabbed the man’s wrists, securing them with two plastic zip ties he pulled from his pocket.

  “I’ve already read him his rights,” Josie told Noah as they lifted Keith from the ground and handed him over to the patrol officers to put in the back of a cruiser. Josie stalked around the perimeter of the Escape, locating her gun and holstering it before going in search of the pharmacy bag she’d discarded during the attack. Luckily it hadn’t been crushed. She held it up as Noah approached. “I need to get this to Misty,” she said.

  Noah studied her, and she saw the change in his face—the hardened professionalism giving way to shock. Even under the whirring red and blue lights, she could see his pallor. Looking down, she saw that the zipper on her jeans was torn open to reveal the waistband of her black panties beneath.

  “Josie,” Noah said.

  She held out her free hand. “Give me your jacket, Fraley.”

  Slowly he took it off and handed it to her. Trading him the pharmacy bag for his jacket, she tied the jacket around her waist, knotting the sleeves at the small of her back. “Misty needs that, do you understand?”

  He stepped closer to her. The patrol officers waited several feet away, standing by their cruiser. “I don’t care about Misty right now,” Noah said.

  Josie looked away from him. “Well, you should. If you want to help me right now, you can get that to her and meet me at the station.” She signaled for one of the officers, and he jogged over. “The store probably has footage of what just happened. Go in and see if they’ve got cameras out here in the parking lot. I want whatever they have.”

  “You got it, Boss,” he said, and headed off to the store.

  Noah’s face was set with frustration. Josie raised a brow at him. “Do we have a problem, Fraley?”

  He shook his head, but a muscle ticked in his jaw.

  “Good,” Josie said. She panned the ground again. “I need you to get to work. That guy was answering an ad, and I’m pretty sure this time it was for much more than ‘kinky fun.’”

  Noah swallowed. “What are you saying?”

  “I think the ad that was posted was for a rape fantasy.”

  Chapter Fifty

  “His name is Keith Gibbs,” Noah said. “He’s forty-four, a resident of Denton. Single, no kids. Works at the potato-chip factory. He says he found your ad a few days ago, th
at the two of you exchanged emails and set up the scenario. That was all I could get out of him before he asked for an attorney.”

  Josie followed Noah into the closed-circuit viewing room, smoothing down the T-shirt and jeans she had changed into in her office. Unfortunately, these extra clothes had been stuffed inside one of her desk drawers for so long, they were plagued with wrinkles. But they would have to do. “Did you get the emails?” Josie asked.

  “He sent them to Gretchen from his phone. She’s printing them now.”

  They watched the large television screen that provided them with a view into their interrogation room, where Keith Gibbs paced.

  “Did you find the ad?” Josie asked.

  She glanced at him just long enough to notice the flush creeping from his throat to the roots of his hair. He handed her a sheet of paper. On it, the subject line of the ad read:

  Fulfill My Fantasy… Looking for a Forced Connection.

  Beneath that, the text went on,

  Thirty-something hot female cop looking for a big, strong stud to fulfill rape fantasy. Don’t reply unless you’re willing to come at me hard and you like a good fight. If you want something fun and taboo, hit me up.

  Nausea stirred the dinner Josie had eaten an hour earlier in the conference room. “My God,” she said.

  Noah took the page from her hand and placed it facedown on the table. “I read the emails. There are only four of them. Basically, whoever is posing as you gives your name and address, says you’re the chief of police. Lays out this scenario where he follows you for a day or two and approaches you in a public place and rapes you. You will fight back, but he is not to stop, and you promise not to arrest him.”

  “The email address?” Josie asked.