Cold Heart Creek: A nail-biting and gripping mystery suspense thriller (Detective Josie Quinn Book 7)

by Lisa Regan

  “Did she ever confide in you?” Josie asked. “About anything going on here at the Sanctuary?”

  “Like what?” Tru asked. He sat in an old, brown wing-backed chair. Josie pulled the matching ottoman close to him so that she was positioned almost between his legs while Noah stood at the door to make sure no one lurked in the hallway to eavesdrop.

  “Someone making her uncomfortable? Maybe making her do things she didn’t want to do?”

  “No. She didn’t say anything like that,” he insisted.

  “Who else was she friends with?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably whoever she worked with.”

  “What did the two of you talk about?”

  “Actually, we mostly talked about life outside of here. We were missing it, I guess. I mean, a little.”

  From his position by the doorway, Noah said, “She had scars on her wrists, Tru. Old and new. Someone was doing something to her.”

  True looked nonplussed. “Doing something to her? Like what?”

  “Tying her up,” Noah answered.

  “For what? Why?”

  Josie leaned in until her face was only inches from his and touched his arm. Her voice was soft, intimate. “What do you think men do to women when they tie them up against their will, Tru?”

  “What?” he said, his voice quavering. “No. Who would do that to her? Renee was a good person.”

  “You never saw her scars?” Noah said. “I thought you were friends.”

  Tru gave a vigorous shake of his head. “No, no. She always wore long sleeves and long pants. I never saw her, like, undressed or anything.”

  “It’s over ninety degrees,” Noah said. “Has been for weeks. You didn’t think it strange that she dressed like that?”

  “Well, sure, but I figured she had her reasons and I didn’t want to pry and, like, make her uncomfortable.”

  A loud crack of thunder sounded from outside, causing all three of them to jump. Josie sighed. “Guess the K-9 unit will be on hold till tomorrow.”

  Lightning flashed outside, followed by more thunder. Noah met her eyes, silently communicating that they weren’t getting anywhere here. “It’s late,” he said. Noah pointed at Tru. “We’ll be back,” he promised.

  Noah drove back to the police station so Josie could get her vehicle. Rain thundered against the windshield. “What do you think?” he asked as the green wooded hills of Lenore County gave way to Denton’s southernmost edge.

  “I think Charlotte is lying.”

  “You think she knew Renee was murdered?”

  “No. I don’t think any of them knew, but I still think they’re hiding something.”

  “Any idea what?”

  Josie reached up and squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. Sleep deprivation, fatigue, and stress were conspiring to give her the headache of a lifetime. She reached into Noah’s glove compartment, looking for the ibuprofen she knew he kept inside. “I don’t know,” she told him. “I still think we’re missing something. Something big.”

  The pills rattled as her hand closed around the bottle. Her phone rang. Dread was a lump in her throat as she took it out of her pocket, expecting to see the words SCI Muncy. She was relieved when she saw it was Dr. Feist. Until she remembered why the doctor would be calling her. She swiped to answer.

  “Josie,” Dr. Feist said. “Your girl, Renee? I was right. She died from manual strangulation. Crushed hyoid bone. On internal exam we did find evidence that she had had intercourse with someone anywhere between just before her death to two days ago. I can give you that range with certainty based on what I found during the internal exam, but I can’t narrow it any more than that.”

  “Intercourse?” Josie said. She squeezed the phone between her ear and shoulder as she twisted the pill bottle open and tapped three ibuprofen into her palm. “She wasn’t assaulted?”

  “Well, I can’t say for sure, but there’s no evidence that she was assaulted. No bruising, no abrasions, tears, or lacerations. Basically, nothing to suggest that the sex was not consensual.”

  “She let someone tie her up and have sex with her?”

  Josie didn’t miss the look Noah shot her as he listened in on her half of the conversation.

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Feist said. “I’m not sure the two are related. Given her scars and the fresh ligature marks, it appears as though she did try to escape from her bindings. If she hadn’t, her wrists wouldn’t have been so damaged. But I can’t say she was sexually assaulted, and I can’t make any connection based on the evidence between intercourse and her being bound at the wrists on several occasions in the past few months. The good news is that we’ve got DNA. I’ve sent it off to the lab and asked that it be expedited.”

  “DNA from the person she had sex with,” Josie said. “We don’t know if that’s the same person who killed her.”

  “No,” Dr. Feist admitted. “We don’t. But if you get a hit on the DNA it’s one more avenue of investigation.”

  Unless it was a Sanctuary member. They could just say that they’d had an intimate relationship with Renee but hadn’t killed her. Josie would have no way to prove them wrong.

  Josie didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know, in her heart, but knew she had to ask. “How about her throat? Did you find anything?”

  Dr. Feist’s silence spoke volumes. Josie felt sick even before she answered. She tossed the pills into her mouth and swallowed them dry while Dr. Feist told her exactly what she didn’t want to hear. “Yes. There was a thin leather strap looped through half of a black walnut pushed deep into her throat. Just like Valerie Yates.”

  Thirty-Four

  By the time they arrived at the station, Dr. Feist had texted Josie a picture of the necklace found in Renee’s throat. It was nearly identical to the one found inside Valerie. No clasps, the leather was tied together at the ends. The inside of the black walnut was an imperfect heart shape. The outer hull was dark, ridged, and rough. Josie stared at it for several seconds until Chief Chitwood called them both into his office for a briefing.

  He didn’t like anything they had to say.

  He sent them home to rest, against Josie’s protests. She was exhausted but the thought of another night filled with bad dreams was enough to set her teeth on edge. Noah left the light on for her in the bedroom. He was asleep within minutes. Josie spent the night sitting up in bed, shaking herself awake each time she started to doze. Her eyes burned with fatigue by the time they drove into work for the day. Besides the two cups of coffee she’d already had, the only thing that perked Josie up was a text from Gretchen saying the forecast called for no rain in the morning and that the K-9 unit was ready to go.

  I’ll meet you there, Josie texted back.

  Back at their desks, Noah printed out the consent forms for Maya Bestler to allow them to take a DNA sample from her son. “I’ll grab Hummel and run this over to the hospital while you meet Gretchen.”

  Josie watched him go, trying to ignore the knot forming in her stomach. All she wanted to do was go home, crack open the bottle of Wild Turkey in her cabinet, and drink for days. Until oblivion took over. No more dead bodies. No more calls from Muncy prison. No more serial killers lurking in the woods. No more nightmares.

  But she had work to do. She checked her phone and saw a text from Gretchen:

  Meet us at the Yates car.

  Josie weaved through the rural roads that stretched like thin black ribbons through the forest back to Route 9227 passing a large orange flag along the side of the road, which Hummel had positioned, marking the place where officers had entered the forest to walk to the campsite. She found the parking lot a few minutes later and pulled in. Gretchen’s unmarked vehicle was parked next to a large truck with a spacious cover over its bed. A large Aluminet tarp was draped over the truck. Its hatch was open and inside it, Josie saw the large, brown face of a German Shepherd, its tongue lolling and its bright eyes flitting all around.

  Between
the two vehicles stood Gretchen with the Alcott County sheriff’s deputy K-9 handler. They both wore raincoats even though the rain had now receded to a light but persistent mist. As Josie stepped out of her own vehicle, the heat hit her like a wall. The heavy rain had done nothing to relieve the humidity. If anything, it had made it worse. As she got closer to the other two women, she saw drops of sweat slide from the deputy’s hairline down the sides of her face and to the tip of her nose. Her gray-brown hair was slick, the wisps that had escaped from her ponytail clinging to her face and neck. Josie estimated her to be in her fifties. On their last case working with the Alcott County sheriff’s K-9 unit, they’d been assigned a male handler.

  The deputy smiled, wiped her hand on her slacks, and extended it for Josie to shake. “Deputy Maureen Sandoval,” she said. She pointed to the back of her truck. “You probably saw Rini in there.”

  Josie said, “We appreciate both of you working out here in this heat. Do you mind if I speak with Detective Palmer privately for a moment before we start?”

  “No problem,” Sandoval said.

  Gretchen, looking every bit as hot and bothered as Deputy Sandoval, followed Josie a few feet away so that Josie could bring her up to speed on the many developments of the day before. Gretchen scribbled furiously in her notebook while Josie talked, muttering things like, “good lord” and “sweet Jesus” on occasion. When Josie was finished, she used her pen to point at the circular purple bruise in the center of Josie’s forehead. “How’s your head?”

  “I’m not concussed if that’s what you’re worried about,” Josie answered.

  Gretchen tucked her notebook back into her pocket. “Fair enough.”

  They returned to Deputy Sandoval, and Gretchen pointed to a Jeep Grand Cherokee on the opposite side of the parking lot. “That’s Tyler and Valerie Yates’ car. Lenore County didn’t have a chance to move it.”

  “That’s better for us,” Sandoval said. “I prefer to start at the vehicle, especially in cases like this.”

  “Why’s that?” Josie asked.

  “Most of the time, we know for sure that the missing person was in their car at some point before they went into the woods. That’s a good place to start. I had a case once—a hunter who got lost, and we started at his tree stand. Couldn’t find him. Came back to the car, scented Rini on the vehicle, and she found him within an hour.”

  “He never made it to the tree stand,” Josie said.

  Sandoval smiled. “Right. He got lost before he even got out there. If we hadn’t started at the car, we might not have found him. So even though I know you have a scene that looks as though the woman was there, I’d still prefer to start down here at the car. Detective Palmer has the sleeping bag in her vehicle. We’ll use that to put her onto Ms. Gresham’s scent.”

  “Of course,” Josie agreed.

  Gretchen asked. “Mind if we follow along?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Sandoval reached into her truck cab and pulled out a long black leash and a harness. From the truck, Rini began to whine. Her body wriggled with excitement. “She likes to work,” Sandoval explained. While she took Rini out of the truck and hooked the leash onto her collar, Gretchen went to her vehicle and took out a large plastic bag containing what they believed to be Emilia Gresham’s sleeping bag.

  “Down,” Sandoval commanded Rini. Dutifully, she lay on the hard-packed dirt, but continued to make high-pitched noises, as though complaining to Sandoval that the preparation for the search was taking too long.

  Once Sandoval gave the command, Rini stood and went to the bag that Gretchen held up, sniffing aggressively. “Good, that’s good,” Sandoval murmured. She slipped the harness onto the dog. “Now it’s time to work, Rini.”

  Rini loped in the direction of the Yates vehicle. Gretchen tossed the sleeping bag into the back of her car, and she and Josie jogged after the handler and her dog. Rini sniffed around a bit more and then took off into the woods. Josie and Gretchen had to run to keep up.

  “She’s in-scent,” Sandoval called over her shoulder. “Try and stay with us.”

  Sandoval kept Rini on an extremely long lead which trailed behind the two of them. Josie and Gretchen stumbled several times in their attempts not to step on it or trip over it. Eventually, they let handler and dog work several yards ahead of them so that they weren’t in the way.

  Rini worked without cease, laser-focused on her task, her nose sometimes in the air and sometimes near the ground as she weaved and zig-zagged through the forest. Both Josie and Gretchen were soaked in sweat and gasping for air by the time they reached the Yates campsite, which was just over three miles from the car. They didn’t even have time to discuss the fact that Emilia had obviously been at the campsite, because Rini was already plunging deep into the forest beyond, with Sandoval at a brisk walk behind her, offering encouragement as they worked together.

  Rini turned south from the campsite, moving through the thick undergrowth of the forest with speed and assurance until she came to Cold Heart Creek where she lingered, pacing back and forth, tongue lolling as she panted. “Hang on, girl,” Sandoval said as Josie and Gretchen caught up. Gretchen bent at the waist, bracing her palms on her legs, just above the knees, breathing heavily.

  “What’s wrong?” Josie asked Sandoval, wiping sweat from her eyes.

  “We have to cross this,” Sandoval told them.

  Gretchen straightened up. She ran a hand through her short, brown spiked hair. “You think this woman crossed the creek? Wouldn’t water destroy the scent?” Gretchen asked.

  “That’s a myth, Detective,” Sandoval answered. “Humans carry their scent all around them all the time. Imagine an invisible cloud around you, almost like an aura. That’s your scent. We all have it. That scent is falling from you wherever you go. Even in water, Rini will still be able to scent her. In fact, scent needs moisture to survive. Now the wind—that’s another matter.”

  There was barely even a breeze, Josie thought. Or maybe it just seemed that way because every square inch of her body was soaked with perspiration, and the air around them was thick with humidity.

  From the pocket of her vest, Sandoval pulled out a small bottle of baby powder. She twisted it open and squeezed it so that a bit of powder puffed out. Josie and Gretchen watched as the white powder floated along on the air, all the tiny particles drifting in the same direction—across the creek. Sandoval met Josie’s eyes. “The water’s not very deep, is it?”

  Josie said, “No. I crossed it yesterday. It only came up to my waist. Might be deeper today with all the rain, but we could definitely cross it.”

  Sandoval urged Rini forward. “Let’s go girl.”

  Rini splashed through the water and Sandoval followed her, keeping the lead long. When it got too deep for Rini to stand, she paddled until she came to the other side. Josie and Gretchen splashed behind them. Once Rini was on the opposite shore, she took off in her frantic trot, nose searching the air, the scent of Emilia Gresham leading her ever forward. Although Josie had her GPS unit with her, there was no time to take it out and study it. She wasn’t sure how much ground they had covered by the time Rini led them to the break in the fence that separated the state gameland from Charlotte Fadden’s Sanctuary.

  Sandoval pulled the dog up short before she leaped over the bend in the fence. “Private property,” she said.

  Breathless, Josie shook her head. “We have their permission to search on their land.”

  Several feet behind her, Gretchen huffed. “I’ll go back to the car and drive around, let them know we’re bringing the dog onto the property.”

  “You gonna make it?” Sandoval asked Gretchen, giving her a raised brow.

  Gretchen waved a hand in the air. “I’ll be fine. You go ahead.”

  Sandoval gave a command, and Rini hopped gracefully through the bend in the fence. Sandoval followed with Josie trailing behind her. Josie knew they were far from the main house and barn. In her mind, she tried to orient herself, bu
t the dog moved too quickly. Josie’s breath came in gasps as she jogged after dog and handler through one of the many wooded areas of the Sanctuary. Everything looked the same. Josie was grateful to have her GPS tucked away in her pocket. No matter how deeply they went, she was sure they’d find their way out. After what felt like an eternity, they emerged into a clearing. Ahead, Josie saw the cabins that Noah had told her about. Noah had been right about their state of disrepair. Josie counted five of them, faded brown, leaning against one another as though they might fall down if one was knocked out of place. One had a collapsed roof. The others had rotted and sagging steps. They were oddly shaped, and Josie had a feeling that they’d been built by former members of the Sanctuary with whatever materials they could find at hand. Rini ran up the steps to one of them, nudged the door open with her long nose, and went inside. Josie’s heartbeat sped up. They had checked the cabins. They hadn’t found anyone. She knew Noah would not have missed something so major.

  But then Rini emerged and was back on the ground, running the length of the front of the cabins and plunging back into the woods. Josie had only a moment to look inside the cabin. There was no furniture, only wooden plank floors and crude wooden bunk beds without mattresses. Something beneath the lower bunk caught her eye—she took another step inside, squatted and peered at it. It was a thick piece of rope, about two inches long. Taking out her phone, she quickly swiped the flashlight app and shone it on the object. What looked like some kind of dried brown substance crusted along the fibers. Josie’s heart did a double tap. She snapped a few photos and then searched her pockets. She had gloves and, luckily, deep in one of the pockets of her rain jacket, a single crumpled evidence bag. With a sigh of relief, she dropped the rope into the bag and raced back outside. Could this be part of the rope used to bind Renee Kelly? Had someone been taking her to this cabin, tying her up and doing God-knows-what to her? Rini had specifically entered that cabin. That had to mean that Emilia had been inside at some point.