Vanishing Girls: A Totally Heart-Stopping Crime Thriller

by Lisa Regan

  A high-pitched buzzing started inside her head, her body begging her for sleep. She was suddenly aware of the dull ache along the left side of her body from the accident at the Stop and Go. She hadn’t changed the dressing on her leg in two days. That needed to be done, but fatigue hit her so hard she felt like she could just slide down onto the floor and sleep for days under her kitchen table. She had barely hit her mattress before the blackness engulfed her.

  * * *

  A loud, steady knocking woke her a few hours later, and much too soon. The sun had fallen to the other side of the sky but its rays clung on, sneaking around the blinds with much less vigor. She looked at her clock, rolled over, and tried to go back to sleep. The knocking went on. Josie pulled one of her pillows over her head, but she still heard it. Finally, after fifteen minutes of constant knocking, she stood up, stomped down her stairs, and flung her door open.

  Trinity Payne stood on her stoop in her signature coat, a tight little black skirt, and tall, taupe-colored heels. Strands of her black hair lifted gently in the wind. Josie squinted. Her hair was so shiny, you could practically see your reflection in it.

  “Nice hair,” Trinity said, as if reading her mind.

  Josie turned and checked her reflection in the glass panes of her front door. One side of her head looked like someone had teased her hair straight up in the air. She licked one of her palms and tried to smooth it down, but it only made it look worse.

  Trinity took a step toward her. “What’s that from?”

  Josie tugged harder at her hair, dragging her fingers through it. “What’s what from?”

  “That scar.”

  Josie’s fingers found the silvered skin and traced its jagged form. It started near her ear and ran down the side of her face, along her jawline. “Not that it’s any of your business, but it’s from a car accident,” she lied. “Are you always this intrusive? Like, even in your personal life?”

  Trinity thrust one hip out, her lips twisted in a look of disgust, but said nothing. Josie looked beyond her to see a small blue Honda Civic parked curbside. She pointed. “That’s what you drive? WYEP doesn’t pay very well, does it?”

  Trinity remained silent, so Josie tried again. “What do you want?”

  “You were at Rockview.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’d like you to go on the record and talk about what happened. I’m not getting anything from Rockview or Denton PD.”

  “Shocker.”

  “I’m serious. Tell me what really happened.”

  Josie folded her arms over her chest. “What makes you think something happened besides what was reported by the police?”

  Trinity rolled her eyes. “Please. Don’t treat me like an idiot. You know as well as I do the police always hold things back. You were there. Did you see the whole thing?”

  This was how she did it. Slipping questions into conversation like they were old friends. Josie opened her mouth to answer and quickly stopped herself.

  “Oh, come on. What have you got to lose? You were a witness. I’m only asking you what you saw.”

  “I could lose my job. I can’t talk about Rockview.”

  “Did you know June Spencer?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Josie shook her head and moved back toward the doorway, ready to leave Trinity Payne alone on the front steps.

  “What about Sherri Gosnell?” Trinity called after her. “You must have known her. Your grandmother is a resident at Rockview. Sherri worked there for decades.”

  Josie stopped, half her body over the threshold, and turned back to Trinity. “What are you trying to get here? June Spencer was being held prisoner by a sexual predator. She got rescued. She was messed up in the head. She had nowhere to go because her mom can’t be located, and her uncle is in a coma. Rockview took her. The next thing anyone knew, Sherri Gosnell was dead. All of that’s already been reported. I’m not sure what you’re looking for. If you want a story, the real story here is how did Donald Drummond, who is on the sex offender registry, manage to take this girl and keep her with no one figuring it out?”

  Trinity sighed. She glanced at her shoes. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said. “But that’s not a story. I mean, it is—a terrible, horrible, tragic story—but people already know that the systems in place to prevent criminals from committing more crimes are broken. Take any ten crimes and you’ll find that in eight of the cases, the perpetrator either had a lengthy criminal record or should have been in prison but got out on some kind of technicality. It’s not news.”

  Josie narrowed her eyes. “You mean it’s not the kind of news that’s going to get you back on a big network show.”

  For a split second Trinity’s face registered indignant shock. Then it was replaced by a more pragmatic look. Her brow crinkled and her lips pressed into a thin line. Then she said, “We’re off the record here.”

  Josie rolled her eyes. “There is no record, Trinity.”

  “What’s wrong with being ambitious?” Trinity said. “I mean, you’re the youngest female lieutenant in Denton PD history.”

  “I’m a detective, which is an appointed position in our department. I was the only female lieutenant in Denton PD history and now I’m the only female detective in Denton PD history. I love my job, and I’m good at it.”

  “I love my job too, and I’m good at it.”

  Josie held up an index finger. “But you have to manipulate and harass people to be good at your job.”

  Trinity’s eyebrows drew closer together. Her stomach growled loudly, and she covered it with one hand, as though that would silence it. She said, “The public has a right to know about what’s going on in their communities. That is a fact. The press can be a powerful tool. Maybe the way I get the job done offends your delicate sensibilities, but what I do is important.”

  “Do you care about the public or do you care about being on television?”

  “Both,” Trinity said honestly, the word almost a shout in a feeble attempt to cover up the sound of her stomach protesting again.

  Before she could stop herself, Josie laughed. The answer was so instant and brutally honest. Trinity had no illusions about the world or even herself. Josie couldn’t admire the woman’s thirst for celebrity or personal gain, but she certainly respected her truthfulness. She pointed toward Trinity’s stomach. “When’s the last time you ate?”

  Trinity eyed her suspiciously. “That’s not important right now,” she said.

  Josie pushed her door all the way open and gestured toward the foyer. “I won’t talk to you about Rockview,” she said. “But if you’re going to harass me, why don’t you eat some of my leftover lasagna while you do it.”

  Trinity’s blue eyes narrowed. “You want something.”

  Josie didn’t deny it.

  “No one is ever nice to me. What do you want?”

  “Just come inside,” Josie told her.

  Trinity’s heels clacked as she walked slowly past Josie, eyes fixed on her as though she might attack at any moment. Chuckling, Josie stepped past her and led her into the kitchen. “Relax,” she said. “It’s just a little piece of information.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  An hour later, Josie was armed with Ginger Blackwell’s current address and Trinity had a nearly full stomach and a promise from Josie that if there was a connection between the Blackwell and Coleman cases she would be the first to know. Josie had warmed up Luke’s creamy lasagna and made a pot of coffee while sharing her theory that Ginger Blackwell’s case was not a hoax and that she had been set free, in large part, because of the intensive national coverage her case had garnered.

  “She was raped,” Trinity said around a mouthful of lasagna. “By multiple men, she thinks.”

  “You met her?”

  “No. She only did press at the very beginning and wouldn’t be seen on camera. Too traumatized. By the time I got the assignment she had stopped doing interviews. But her husband did a lot of press. Nice guy. Devoted
to her. I felt badly for them. Especially when the police started to say it was a hoax.”

  “There are disappearances all over this country all the time,” Josie said. “Why did her case get so much attention?”

  “Her husband had a relative—a cousin, I think—who went to college with a producer at a major network. It was one of those ‘I have a friend of a friend’ situations, you know? Anyway, the cousin got in touch with his old college buddy, asked him to do a piece on her disappearance at the national level. It wasn’t a hard sell. She was a gorgeous, small-town housewife who disappeared into thin air. People ate it up. The segment went viral and the other networks picked it up.”

  “If there is the slightest chance that her case is connected with Isabelle Coleman’s, and if Coleman’s case were to get national attention, do you think they’d let her go?”

  Trinity shrugged. She swallowed her food and her face turned serious. “Or they could kill her and dump her body. If Ginger was telling the truth, and let’s say it’s some kind of trafficking ring, I think they only let her go because she couldn’t remember anything. At least, that’s what her husband said. He said they drugged her.”

  “Maybe they’ve drugged Isabelle too.”

  “Why do you think the cases are connected?”

  “I don’t. I mean, no reason. It’s just weird that three women would be abducted around here, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t peg you for a conspiracy theorist,” Trinity said.

  “I’m not,” said Josie. “I’m just saying it’s worth checking out. What if Blackwell tells me something that does connect to the Coleman case?”

  Trinity’s eyes narrowed. “Does the chief know you’re running your own investigation now? Why are you talking to me about this and not Denton PD?”

  “They’re pretty much at the limit of what they can handle right now,” she told Trinity. “Besides, I’d like to have some actual leads before I take this to the chief.”

  “I don’t believe you, but I also don’t think the cases are connected. You know the deal: if you find a connection, I’m the first to know.”

  Reluctantly, Josie said, “Yes, that’s what we agreed on. I didn’t forget in the last hour. But why don’t you think there will be a connection?”

  Trinity shrugged. “Look at June Spencer. Everyone thought she ran away, but she was in Donald Drummond’s house. We have no way of knowing anything.”

  “Jesus. There are perverts everywhere. What if I’m right about the news coverage thing? Can you get national coverage for the Coleman case?”

  Trinity leaned back in her chair and twisted a lock of hair around one of her index fingers. She stared at her empty plate thoughtfully. Josie had never seen a woman eat as much as Trinity Payne did, and she couldn’t weigh more than one hundred twenty pounds. “I can try. I still have some contacts in New York. Coleman’s perfect for the national news—a gorgeous, blond teenager with her whole life ahead of her—I’ll see what I can do.”

  Josie was keying the Blackwells’ new address into Google Maps when Trinity asked her, “Come on, tell me. Is it true that June Spencer killed Sherri Gosnell with a fork?”

  Josie froze and shot Trinity a cutting look. “Trinity, please.”

  “Just tell me. When’s the last time you heard of someone being killed with a fork? It must have been brutal.”

  Josie went back to Google Maps. “There was a lot of blood,” she conceded.

  “What do you think drove her over the edge?”

  Josie shrugged. “I have no idea. I wasn’t in the room when it happened. She was already in bad shape when she got to Rockview. Are you sure the Blackwells still live in this place?”

  She had pulled up the street view of the address Trinity gave her. Trinity leaned over to glance at the computer screen. “I’m sure they’re still there,” she told Josie. “It took them forever to sell their house in Bowersville. I can’t imagine them having moved again already. Good luck getting her to talk to you though.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The Blackwells had changed their name and moved to Phillipsburg, New Jersey. That was why Josie had been unable to locate them. Luckily for her, when Trinity covered Ginger’s case she had promised Mr. Blackwell to continue trying to uncover evidence that Ginger’s case was not a hoax, in exchange for knowing where they were going and what their new names would be. It was always a quid pro quo with Trinity.

  Josie left early in the morning and drove straight eastward, fifteen miles over the speed limit, turning a four-hour trip into a three-hour trip. Trinity had given her a cell phone number for Ginger’s husband, but Josie was afraid if she called ahead, the man would shut her down before she even had a chance to go to New Jersey. The element of surprise was best. She just hoped that the Blackwells—or the Gilmores as they were now known—were in.

  Phillipsburg was just about the quaintest town Josie had ever seen. It reminded her a lot of Denton. Most of its buildings were grouped densely along the Delaware River directly across from Easton, Pennsylvania, but as Josie drove deeper into New Jersey, Phillipsburg’s clean, quaint streets gave way to long, rural roads and farmland. It had a distinct country feel to it. The Blackwells had moved to the outskirts. Their large, two-story Cape Cod with its gray siding and black shutters lay along a rural road between two farms. Josie estimated a good quarter-mile between the road and the house, all grass cut to golf green standards. A long gravel driveway led to the side of the house where the attached garage sat, its doors like two eyes tightly shut. The area around the house had been meticulously landscaped and lovingly decorated. It looked like the perfect suburban family paradise.

  She parked outside of the garage and walked to the front door, ears tuned to the low, gravelly bark of what sounded like a large dog coming from inside the house. The storm door was accented with decorative steel bars. Josie tugged on its handle but it was locked. The low bark continued from inside, the sound so powerful she could almost feel its vibration from where she stood. She rang the doorbell and waited. After a few minutes, the heavier black door creaked open just wide enough to reveal the white of an eyeball. “Can I help you?”

  Josie pressed her face between the bars of the storm door and spoke into the pane of glass. “Mrs.… uh, Gilmore?”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Well, actually I’m looking for Ginger Blackwell.”

  The eye blinked. The barking, closer now, rose in intensity. “Who are you?” the woman asked, her tone strident now.

  Josie had to shout over the barking. “My name is Josie Quinn. I’m from Denton.”

  “Go away.”

  “I’m a detective with their police department—I mean, I’m off duty now, but I’m a police officer. I just need to ask you some questions.”

  The eye was so wide it looked cartoonish. “I’m calling 911. I suggest you leave immediately. Do not come back.”

  The eyeball disappeared, and the inner door slammed shut with the finality of a coffin closing.

  “Wait!” Josie cried. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted into the glass. “Mrs. Blackwell, please! Just hear me out. Please. Another girl has gone missing. I need your help.”

  But she was certain she couldn’t be heard over the barking. She waited a few minutes for the noise to die down and tried again, shouting once more into the heavy glass pane of the storm door in the gap between two of the steel bars. The barking began anew. She repeated the process several more times, waiting for a police cruiser to roll into the driveway at any moment. But it didn’t.

  After the fifth or sixth attempt to get Ginger’s attention the door cracked open again. Josie’s throat burned from trying to be heard through the doors; her voice was hoarse, her words tumbling out too fast. “Mrs. Blackwe— Please, another girl is missing, need your help, I—”

  The woman’s tone was icy. “If you think I’m going to help the Denton police department, you’re out of your mind. Go away before I call the police, for real this
time.”

  “I’m on suspension!” Josie blurted in a last-ditch effort to keep the woman at the cracked door.

  The eye stared at her warily, waiting as Josie plunged ahead. “Please. Just hear me out. I’m not here in my capacity as a police officer. I’m a private citizen. Some things have come to my attention lately, and I am just trying to figure them out. I—I read about you on the internet. You were abducted before I was a police officer. Trinity Payne—the reporter—she gave me your address. She told me you had changed your name, and she was very clear about the need to protect your privacy. She is the only one who knows I am here. I will never give anyone your address. I promise you, I will not disclose your new name or this place.”

  The door cracked open another inch and Josie could see the pale, lightly freckled skin of Ginger’s cheek. Tiny lines extended from the corner of her eye. “Why were you suspended?” she asked.

  Josie swallowed. She felt nervous, the way she had when she had to testify in court the first time. The assistant district attorney had fired off questions at her while the jury stared. She had felt like a bug trapped inside a glass. “It was a noise disturbance. Out by the old textile mill in Denton. You know, by the river, those houses that get flooded every year?”

  “I remember,” said Ginger.

  “I’d been called to investigate a robbery nearby, so I was the closest. Otherwise patrol would have responded. So, I show up there—it’s like one in the morning. One of the neighbors says he keeps hearing a kid crying, people fighting, that sort of thing. He knows none of his neighbors has kids. Tells me he has a bad feeling. So, I find the house that’s the source of all the noise. It’s a bunch of guys, maybe mid-twenties, mid-thirties—partying. They were pretty accommodating when I asked them to keep it down. I said I wanted to have a look around. I get out to the back, you know, near where the river bank is—a few people from the party were out there—and there’s this woman. Obviously a habitual drug user. She’s got—she’s got her daughter—”